Since 1848, the Society has been producing a journal for the benefit of its members. Times change, but the issues surrounding the movement remain remarkably the same. Former Magazine Editor, now Local Network Co-ordinator Bronwen Humphries looks at the way we were.

Spring 1946 finds The Vegetarian Society established at Bank Square, Wilmslow, Manchester, with its magazine, The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review proudly proclaiming itself to be in its 98th year. The leading article of the March issue reminds us that we are in the aftermath of World War II as it urges people not to complain because the government has discontinued allocations of dried egg.

Now I can Just about remember rationing and dried egg, and I would not have thought its absence was something to complain about, but apparently: 'even the control of the atomic bomb did not produce the deputations protest meetings and press publicity which followed the dried egg announcement'! Members are urged to think themselves lucky as Britain fared better than many European countries where food was concerned. Even so, the shortages were having a direct effect on the Society's programme. A Summer School planned for 1946 had to be cancelled because of difficulties in obtaining sufficient supplies and staff.

The Vegan Society at that time was almost two years old, having been founded in 1944, and the April issue of The Vegetarian Messenger carries a review of its magazine The Vegan, congratulating the editor on producing an attractive magazine and pointing out that The Vegetarian Messenger has carried repeated references to 'a logical next step to the use of flesh foods'.

In 1946, there was also another magazine, The Vegetarian News, produced by the London Vegetarian Society based at 9 Adam Street, Adelphi WC2. This magazine was just celebrating it's 25th year of publication and boasted of readers in all part's of the world. The London Vegetarian Society and the original Vegetarian Society based in Manchester were to combine some 20 odd years later to form The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom as we know it today.

The London Vegetarian Society was also obviously hindered by food rationing, the magazine carried appeals for gifts of tea, dried milk, sugar, margarine and preserves to help eke out the refreshments at its Annual General Meeting in April. (This meeting was held in the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WC1 - a venue the Society still uses occasionally). But it had a couple of pages of suggestions for substitutes for dairy produce, including eggs making its own positive solution to the dried egg situation!

The May Meetings that year were held in the Adult School, East Croydon and hosted by the Croydon Vegetarian Society, who are still with us as an active group in our local network. This was the first of the May Meetings since the war and. understandably, a lot of time seemed to be spent reflecting on the lessons of war and the meaning of peace. Perhaps Mrs Josephine Ransom summed it up best in her talk 'Vegetarianism - an aspect of Peace' when she said 'We were indeed being landed in a new world, and on its threshold one must pause to determine what were to be the foundations of the new order to be established, so that in the centuries to come it would be seen that we had in us something of true vision, of pity for suffering, of strength valiantly to right wrongs, of spiritual insight to realise that Life was One; that where we injured one we injured all; where we caused one to softer, all suffered; where we gave happiness to a few, all were made happy.' We must wonder how they feel, fifty years on, to find so many of the same problems and cruelties still common, the work of the Society still desperately needed. But at the same time, We must acknowledge the vision and foundations they did indeed pass down to us.

The Vegetarian News has an article by Barbara Moore-Pataleewa on 'The bad aspects of the English Diet'. What is wrong with traditional English Cuisine? She reckons: 'I am not alone of all the foreigners who find it unhealthy and unappetising, and I am speaking more particularly of the normal vegetarian diet.' She goes on to complain of 'crunchy-munchy' types of breakfast cereal, overcooked potatoes, sloppy porridge. heavy, soggy steamed puddings, milk puddings and strong tea. Even in 1946 she's pointing out that: 'the ever increasing hypnosis of advertising magic' endows 'fancy looking cartons and boxes with amazing qualities.'

[and from the next issue... The children featured last issue were: Christopher John Piers Leigh and Vivien Pick (a third generation vegetarian).]