Charles G.
Reynolds wrote out his memories of childhood in 1990. (Tynyrheol School is
now called Blaenhonddan Primary)
The
first half of my nine years at Tynyrheol School were spent during the
First World War, and we children suffered many privations. Food was
desperately in short supply and what little there was available was of
very poor quality. Our basic food was boiled swedes and potatoes. Swedes
were plentiful but potatoes were very scarce, as most of them went to
France for the British Army. The bread was practically uneatable,
brownish
black in colour, and thoroughly
unpalatable. No butter was readily available, except for a few ounces, for
which one had to go to Neath and queue up at the Maypole. The allowance
would be two ounces, and often after queuing for an hour, by the time you
reached the shop door, a notice would go up SOLD OUT!
To
make the bread somewhat palatable, we had Ticklers' Jam, which we believed
was made of plum and apple, with some sawdust thrown in to appear like
raspberry seeds. Sugar was almost unobtainable, and the only sweetener
available was saccharine tablets. Awful stuff! There was no rationing in
the First World War, and those who could afford the money in the black
market were the best fed. Rationing was not introduced until 1919, after
the World War was over, and lasted for about eighteen months or so.
Our
diet consisted of porridge oats which had to be boiled for many hours in a
double saucepan, and sufficient was prepared to last a week. The porridge
would be left on the kitchen range hobs, and portions eaten every day,
usually for breakfast. Salt or treacle would be added, but mostly salt and
a little milk, as treacle was very scarce. Very little milk was drunk in
my young days, though it was only two pence per pint. Tuberculosis was
rampant in the village, and milk ‑ untreated in those days ‑
was considered to be the main cause of the disease. Cooked dinner was a
once‑a‑week meal on Sundays; for the rest of the week the fare
would be very meager indeed. Toasted bread, or fried bread, with
margarine, looking like axle grease and tasting awful. Even to get
margarine you had to queue at the Maypole in Neath for a few ounces.
Other
meals consisted of "sop" as it was called. A popular Welsh dish
which went by the name of "Shyncyn" and was on the menu very
often. Pieces of bread would be cut up and put into a basin with hot water
and some sugar, plus a spoonful of skimmed condensed milk.
Children's
ailments were very common, especially in winter time. Whooping cough was
common, mostly with younger girls. The boys would suffer from ringworm,
boils, carbuncles, , and the common head cold was a perpetual ailment in
winter time The continuous sniffing would be heard in classrooms, much to
the annoyance of the teachers
