Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

During and after the war, rationing meant that people were not able to buy everything they wanted. In fact, Britain became a nation of beggars and borrowers in that the war against Nazi Germany was crippling the country, so they needed to ‘beg’ and borrow from their ‘friends’, mainly the USA.  The Lend-Lease policy enacted on March 11, 1941 was a program under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom with food, oil, and material and goods⁴⁴.

This mentality was also reflected in the population. People would tend to think why buy something if you can borrow it? Why buy something if you can make it? Why buy something if you can ‘steal’ (find it)? Why pay someone to do something if you can do it yourself, or if you can get a friend to do it? 

As described below, mothers made and repaired clothes, and made their own foods. Fathers looked after gardens, repaired the house, the car, household appliances, bikes, and made toys for their children’s birthdays and Christmases, and so on. People also entertained themselves for ‘free’, going on day-trip picnics, playing card and board games in the evenings, going to the seaside for day-trips, going on camping trips, and so on.

⁴⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease Date of reading: 31 December 2021.