Veggies at war from The Vegetarian April 1992

The second world war was obviously a grim period for people in this country. But, as Tina Courtney discovered, even during those days and under such adverse conditions vegetarianism was thriving.

You've never had it so good' really is a phrase that applies to vegetarians in this country today. We may moan that we're still misunderstood, but the fact is that practically all restaurants and pubs offer at least one suitable meal, while vegetarian food is widely available in supermarkets and corner shops. Fifty years ago there was no such choice. The majority of the population had never met a vegetarian and wouldn't have known what one was if you had asked them. Vegetarians who lived during that time really were in the vanguard of the movement and their actions and example played an enormous role in helping the number of vegetarians in the UK grow to its present numbers of more than three million. Official records put the number of vegetarians in the UK during the period of the second world war as about 100,000. Although the numbers of vegetarians then were a lot smaller than today, there were two societies to cater for them - the Vegetarian Society and the London Vegetarian Society which later joined to form the current national organisation. Wartime conditions may even have helped promote vegetarianism - with shortages of many types of food, people had to turn to meals which previously they would have looked upon as peculiar to vegetarians. In 1942 the production of cereals and vegetables in England and Wales had increased by more than 50 per cent compared to the pre-war period, while the numbers of animals raised had dropped - pigs by 51 per cent and poultry by 24 per cent. Having discovered the health benefits of the wartime diet (children who grew up during the period were later found to be especially healthy because of the low fat, low sugar and high fibre foods they had eaten), many people probably carried on being vegetarian even after the war and meat rationing were over. Although they were still a minority, vegetarians were catered for quite well under the government's nutritional provisions for the wartime population. Vegetarians had to register with their local Food Office in order to be issued a special ration book. Then, whenever they went to collect their rations at specially-allocated shops, they were given more eggs, cheese and nuts instead of meat. Tony Davies, 56, from Knutsford in Cheshire remembers what it was like to grow up as a vegetarian during the war. Although his parents were not strictly vegetarian, they were supportive when Tony decided aher a visit to a slaughterhouse at the age of ten that he didn't want to eat meat any longer. "One advantage of becoming vegetarian during the war was that there wasn't much meat around anyway," says Tony. "But I remember my mum having to get me a special ration book. I was allowed an extra egg and an additional 3oz of cheese a week. But the total amount of cheese was so small you could practically eat it in a few bites." Although Tony's parents were not vegetarian, they were interested in eating healthy foods. Tony has fond memories of riding on the bus into Manchester every Saturday to go to one of the country's few health food shops to buy the weekly shopping. "For those days, the shop sold what was considered to be 'strange food'. Even wholemeal bread was seen as something unusual. Vegetarians were definitely seen as cranky." One of Tony's favourite foods was dried whole bananas. "They were great big, chewy things. I used to buy some every Saturday morning before I went to the children's programme at the local cinema. They were great entertainment as well as being tasty; when I got tired of chewing on them, I would lob them over the balcony on to the kids sitting below." Fresh fruit during the war was obviously rare. Perhaps because of his experiences with versatile dried bananas, Tony was disappointed when he had his first taste of the real thing. "We'd queued in the market for half a day to get one banana. When we got home my parents let me eat it because it was my first real banana, but it was such an anti-climax. I wondered what all the fuss was about." One of the benefits of having lived through the early days of the vegetarian movement is the sense of optimism about the future it can give you. As Tony says: "A lot of people seem very depressed about what's happening in the world now, but I look around and I see how things have improved so much for vegetarians. So many people now are either fully vegetarian or thinking about becoming veggie. It hasn't happened overnight, but when you put it into perspective, we've really come far."
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