MAKE DO AND MEND

Reusing and recycling is not a new phenomenon. For generations people have had to make do and re-use what they have around them. Circumstances can influence what is recycled and there was a great example of people’s ingenuity in the Second World War.

Rationing was widespread and things such as packaging were more or less unheard of. If you did manage to get a few eggs and a bit of ham, you took them home, wrapped in paper in a string bag. Plastics were not used for packaging and if you bought tea it usually came in a tin, which could be used time and time again to put your biscuits in before it rusted away. Another commodity that was in scarce supply was clothing. Ready made clothes were hard to come by and when they were acquired the items were looked after and worn time and time again. The rationing of clothes came about because of the shortage of material. Partly because the textile companies turned to making other goods for the war effort but mainly because most of the merchant ships bringing cloth were sunk before they got to the English coast.


MAKE DO AND MEND

In the 1940’s, children's clothing was largely made from old items that had been cut down and restyled and women even made their own underwear. Wide legged underpants called 'scanties' could be made from discarded flour bags that had been unpicked and boiled clean. Buttons and hooks made do when elastic became hard to get.

A mans suit could be turned into a two piece skirt and blouse for a woman and socks were darned time after time when the toes started to poke through the front. Silk stockings were in short supply during the war. It was considered rude for women to go around bare legged but the government had forbidden employers to make women wear stockings. Women working in factories could overcome the problem by wearing trousers but nurses found it hard to get around a demanding matron. Many a nurse walked to work in order to save enough money to buy stockings rather than deal with the wrath of the matron. Where employers were not so concerned about dress etiquette, girls painted their legs with makeup and drew a line down the back to look like a seam. This was fine until it rained!

There were times when women wanted to get dressed up and there was a light fabric that was in big demand. This was a new product called nylon and it came from old parachutes. The material was very difficult to work with but in the hands of a skilled seamstress the cloth was made into fine tops.

HANDY TIPS FROM 1942

Here are a few handy tips from a wartime publication printed in 1942, advising people how to look after what they had got.

Outdoor clothes will wear better and last much longer if you change them as soon as you get home, and if you sponge them and iron them occasionally. Keep special clothes for the house, the garden, the city etc., and wear them alternatively. All your clothes will then be fresher."

You can reproof your raincoat by rubbing beeswax over the inside and then ironing it with a hot iron.

Never dry wet shoes before a fire. Put them on shoe trees as soon as you take them off and stuff the toes with tissue paper. Leather looks like new when treated with sour milk rubbed in with a piece of cheesecloth.

Brown shoes always look well polished if rubbed each morning with the inside skin of a banana. Leave them to dry and then polish them with a piece of dry rag.

Silk Stockings will last much longer if rinsed out in warm soapsuds before being worn; do this every night when they are taken off.


Household.