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Patricia Bridgen Farley was a Wren (Womens Royal Naval Service) stationed at Portkil, Near Kilcreggan, Scotland during World War II, living in a house affectionately known to the group of Wrens that were based there as 'The Barn'. The Wrens came to be known as the 'Barnites'.
After arriving ashore at Portkil, two Wrens, Marge and Edith, introduced themselves. They had come from the Fort to unload the rations and give me a hand but had to return quickly.
Edith proceeded to put the food rations in a kind of a dilapidated wheelbarrow and pushed it up to the little white house. A slab of liver jiggled ominously on the top of the other packages. I followed on, with the other suitcase.
My two new friends brought me into the house affectionately known to the group as 'The Barn,' and showed me the bedroom I would share with another girl presently working at the Fort.
I was much too excited to unpack right away. I wanted to look at everything. I wanted to experience the wonderful feeling of a new beginning and that something exciting would happen to me here.
I wandered into the kitchen and was shocked at the sight of an immense old-fashioned black stove. I don't really know what I was expecting, maybe a sleek modern gas range. I still hadn't realised I was going to be living in a much more primitive way than my cosy life back home with my family.
When I opened the back door, it revealed a grassy hillside and a path leading to who knows where. Beautiful scenery or not, I knew that the ominous stove was the main source of heat and food for the 'Barnites'. I would have to learn how to tackle it, how to light it, and how to curse at it when things went wrong. The thought of that stove still haunts me today.
I soon learned that our jolly Yorkshire cook, a Wren named Audrey, was entitled to one day off a week, as we all were. But, on her day off, someone else had to prepare the meals! So, it happened that about every six or seven weeks, it was my turn to tackle the rations. How I hated that job!
It entailed getting up early, no matter what month of the year, stirring from a warm bed into a freezing kitchen. If you were smart, you would prepare the paper kindling the night before. These were placed in the grate of the stove, and lit the next morning with a big wooden match. You prayed and prayed earnestly, that the paper would ignite immediately but many times all I achieved was a smoky kitchen.
After there was some spark, you found the coal bucket and started putting scraps of wood and then pieces of coal on top of the paper twists. Again, you prayed that the fire would grow and warm the oven and the top of the range.
Everyone would already be up and dressed, and stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to keep warm, longing for a hot cup of tea or cocoa to start the day. Even in the summer months, it is not so warm in Scotland that you don't need a hot drink to revive you. The cook of the day would hopefully put the big black kettle on the range and hope for the best.
Audrey did what she could with what the Navy provided for us. Our rations came over once a week from Helensburgh on the motor launch. I was always thin and became even skinnier, as I somehow couldn't eat most of the food we were given. As Lois repeatedly said after a meal of baked beans, 'I will never, ever eat another can of baked beans again when this war is over'.
It was the repetition and monotony that got us down, I think. Fresh vegetables and fruit were not prominent in our diet - except, of course, in the summer time when we could buy extra rations at the village greengrocers.
A favourite supper dish concocted by Audrey was one single sardine in the middle of a pancake. Can you imagine what it looked like? The pancake tasted fishy, and not too enjoyable. I think we doused the pancakes with ketchup in order to eat them without grimacing!
Audrey, no doubt, used powdered eggs that first had to be reconstituted with water. Once in a while, an owner of one of the cottages up the hilly path would let us have some eggs from the chickens he kept in the back yard.
Another favourite recipe from our cook was canned fruit slices with 'cream bet up'. For this desert, Audrey would use a can of evaporated milk and try to whip it up into a foamy custard. As sugar was scarce during the war, the result was not very delectable. It would have been just as edible if she had poured it directly from the can, but she was determined to give us a change.
She enjoyed getting to meet the American sailors and charmed one of the cooks from the hospital. He was not much taller than she, Audrey being full-bosomed but small. She would go to the movies at the Rosneath base with him, and always returned with goodies - decent food as we called it.
Dried milk powder was in its infancy and full of lumps. However hard we tried to process it, it never became as smooth as we wanted it. There's a saying 'Beggars can't be Choosers,' and we had to settle for a lot of marginal-tasting food in order to survive. The liver, for instance, was frequently fried and served with fried potatoes, a fat-filled meal but it probably warmed us enough to survive the raw winters. I'm sure we walked off the bad cholesterol.
Try as I can, I can't remember any other meat. We must have had the ubiquitous 'mince', and mutton for stews and, once in a while, a chicken - thanks to our neighbours.
Food rationing in Britain was a tough experience in World War II. The coupon method was fair, for the most part. Everyone - civilians and military - received the same food rations.
If you lived on or near a farm, there was always a supply of eggs, milk and chickens that could be sold or eaten in the family. A large household fared the best, their coupons would stretch further. But, on the average, it was an uninteresting diet.
I do remember before I joined the Navy that one of my favourite war-time meals was my mother's cheese and onion pie, served with lots of mashed potatoes. It consisted of a pastry shell with plenty of sliced, cooked, almost caramelised onions and our cheese ration for the week, baked until the cheese melted. A couple of precious eggs would bind the mixture together, sort of like a quiche. Delicious!
For vitamin C, scientific research discovered that black currants and rosehips could replace citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons and grapefruit that were no longer being shipped from the States or southern Europe.
Children born during 1939-45 years never saw a banana until the war ended. Sweets were rationed, and a miserable amount it was. I believe that British teeth improved, with less cavities, because of the scarcity of sweets.
The national wartime loaf of bread was scorned for its funny brown appearance but it actually was better bread, made of wholemeal, with plenty of fibre, that we now all want to eat. It did provide B vitamins that helped nourish everyone.
We didn't have any friends with farms close by, but we did have a more expanded diet when the Americans built their hospital and naval base near us. They would give us decent meat, white bread, butter, and luscious boxes of American chocolate, notably Whitman samplers.
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