Water Rationing in WWII England
My mother has a question for you all: Yes, even M can come up with a good one now and then. We were discussing rain, as one does, and the level of appreciation in Australia as opposed to England. M cannot get her head around the idea that an overflowing dam is a tourist attraction.
This led her to the subject of water rationing in England during WWII. Four inch baths, M says, with the emphasis of one who has endured them. M was nine when the war began, living in Leicester. Presumably England was as wet then as it is now, with no foreseeable danger of them running out of water. Food rationing made sense. But baths? I had the theory, not based on anything, that perhaps it was a "just in case." If dams were bombed; if one was taken out, others would be able to manage if the populace were already trained to ration water. M countered this by the theory that when the Americans came over, they used too much British water as well as seducing too many British women.
I'd better add the latter part of this theory was me, quoting the "Over paid, over sexed and over here" chant of the British men towards the Americans. [Apologies to my American friends. Britain appreciated the help!] "Yes," says M, "and they were too clean."
This led her to the subject of water rationing in England during WWII. Four inch baths, M says, with the emphasis of one who has endured them. M was nine when the war began, living in Leicester. Presumably England was as wet then as it is now, with no foreseeable danger of them running out of water. Food rationing made sense. But baths? I had the theory, not based on anything, that perhaps it was a "just in case." If dams were bombed; if one was taken out, others would be able to manage if the populace were already trained to ration water. M countered this by the theory that when the Americans came over, they used too much British water as well as seducing too many British women.
I'd better add the latter part of this theory was me, quoting the "Over paid, over sexed and over here" chant of the British men towards the Americans. [Apologies to my American friends. Britain appreciated the help!] "Yes," says M, "and they were too clean."