The British people learned to be thrifty in the two decades before the outbreak of the Second World War ijn 1939. They had been introduced to food rationing towards the end of the First World War and the 1920s, starting out in a mood of quiet post-war optimism, quickly became a time of increasing unemployment and financial instability. In 1929 the Wall Street Crash brought about the Great Depression and a slump in manufacturing which led to more unemployment.
Although Britain had begun climbing out of the slump as the 1930s progressed, the unrest in Europe indicated difficult years ahead. When the Second World War finally ended with victory for the Allies in 1945, the British people may have looked rather bedraggled, tired and dreary, but they were, on the whole, warmly clad with shoes on their feet and far from starving - in fact, nutritionists and health experts say that people enjoyed a more healthy diet during the Second World War than they do now. How they did it, and the strategies of careful planning and 'make do and mend' that everyone experienced, is the theme of THRIFTY TIPS FROM THE WAR YEARS.