Any day now the postman may arrive with your new ration book (that is if you’ve applied for it in time). Perhaps he has brought it already. Anyway, it looks rather like the old book except that it has red lettering on the front cover instead of black.

Of course, the most natural thing to do with the new ration book is to put it away in the drawer of the kitchen table or behind the clock on the mantelpiece or somewhere and forget about it.

But that’s just what we’re asked not to do. The idea is that we should take our new ration books along to the shops and re-register, right away. As soon as you like. There are sound reasons for this.

To begin with, you won’t be able to use your new ration book until you’ve registered. That’s one point. Again, the retailer can’t put in for his full share of food until he knows how many registered customers he has.

The actual registering process is quite simple. First you write the names and addresses of the shops you want to buy at inside the front cover of the new ration book. Don’t fill in the bit about cooking fats, because they’re not rationed anyway.

A little further on you’ll find separate coupon pages for the rationed foods, that is, for meat, bacon, butter and sugar. You fill in your name and address in block letters in the space in the centre of the page, and on the counterfoil at the bottom of the page you write your name, address and the name and address of the shop you want to register at.

When people registered with their first ration book, many of them expected the trader to fill the counterfoils for them. This gave the shopkeepers far too much work. It would be even more unfair if the same thing happened this time, because the shops are even more short of staff now than they were six months ago.

So please fill in the counterfoil yourself – now.

As a result of conferences between the Minister of Food and the English and Scottish Bakers and Confectioners’ Advisory Committees, there will be no increase in the price of the 2 lb. loaf for the next three months. The Minister of Food has expressed his appreciation of the voluntary contribution thus made by the bakers in the national effort.

Economies will probably be made by the trade in the wrapping of bread, and in the methods of delivery.

Also, it is forbidden, as from June 10, to exchange stale loaves for fresh. Normally the wholesale bakers used to supply bread to retailers on a sale or return basis. The retailer, knowing that he could always return stale bread without loss, often carried a larger stock than he needed. Similarly some retail bakers have been prepared to take back stale loaves from their customers and to give them fresh bread in return.

The returned stale loaves had to be sold to sausage manufacturers, pig breeders, etc. In war time this wasteful use of bred was clearly undesirable.

“There will probably be a shortage of eggs later in the year, although as many as possible are being imported,” said Lord Woolton at a Ministry of Food Press Conference.

It is unlikely, however, that eggs will be rationed. There are difficulties in the way, and they cannot be regarded as an essential food. What has been done is to prevent the price rising unduly with the shortage. Maximum prices ranging from 1s. 9d. to 2s. 6d. per dozen, according to the size of the egg, have been fixed.

The Minister of Food is now allowing you to sell produce from gardens and allotments “which are not cultivated primarily for the purpose of gaining a livelihood or making a profit.”

This covers fresh fruit, vegetables, honey, eggs, poultry and rabbits. Hitherto it has been necessary to get a licence from the district Food Control Committee in order to sell, and the Ministry felt that this might discourage people from making the most of their vegetables.

At a recent Press Conference, Professor Drummond, Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Food, denied stories that the Ministry had plans for producing tabloid food.

“I want,” he said, “to dispel entirely the idea that the scientist desires the produce, or even can produce, a tabloid food. That is not practically possible.

“The most concentrated food you can get is that used by Arctic and Antarctic explorers – pemmican. Even with this you require the best part of ¾ lb. to keep going each day, and you cannot reduce it below that amount.

“It is possible, however, to extract vitamins from natural food, or to manufacture them synthetically from chemicals, and concentrate them in tabloid form. This is a straightforward process, and could be carried out easily and quickly in this country if necessary. But it is the Ministry’s policy at present to concentrate on the natural foods which contain these vitamins.”

There is still time to sow some of the most useful salads and vegetables in our allotments and gardens. The most important of the non-perishables are carrots, onions and turnips for winter and spring use. Spinach and peas can also be sown. Everyone who has any available space must make certain of filling it.

Increased production in allotments and gardens is a national service. Vegetables can be produced intensively in our own soil. We must do all we can to grow more food at home. We want home produce to make up for what we have previously imported. No opportunity must be lost.

Some of us can grow more than we need for our own use, or the use of our friends. We should try to have this surplus in non-perishables – namely carrots, onions and turnips. Arrangements are being made by the Ministry of Food, in conjunction with the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, the National Allotments Society and Rural Community Councils, for a system of collection of non-perishable produce at a sufficient number of centres, through which the produce will be disposed of through trade channels.

In the next fortnight the right non-perishable vegetables to sow are carrots and turnips. You should wait till July or early August to sow onions. You should choose a stump-rooted carrot to sow; and a quick maturing variety of turnip. Go and buy your seed without delay. We must make this extra effort in our allotments and gardens, just as it is being made in the factories.

Having got your seed, prepare your seed-bed. Watch the weather, and if you see the opportunity of a wet day, use it, there and then. You want a firm seed-bed with a fine tilth. Take out drills 12 ins. apart and sow your seeds thinly. Remember that later on you will be thinning the plants to 6 ins. or 9 ins. apart. If you sow thinly, you will avoid waste.

The Ministry of Food are taking steps to see that if margarine has to be rationed, this could be done without delay.

The butter and margarine ration would be combined, and it would not be possible for customers to buy butter from one shop and margarine from another. One registration will cover both foods.

If you have not registered with a shop for butter, and are at present buying only margarine, please register with your margarine supplier when your new ration book arrives.

It is not necessary for people who have already registered their new ration books with a shop for butter to take any action as a consequence of this announcement.

Under the new milk scheme which the Ministry of Food intends to bring into operation on July 1, children and nursing and expectant mothers are assured of milk, even if they cannot afford to buy it.

Increased costs of production and distribution have made it necessary to increase the retail price of milk by 4d. a gallon, as from July 1. But the Minister of Food agreed to this only after making certain that it would cause no hardship to those to whom milk is an essential food. With this object in view a national scheme is in the course of preparation.

Expectant or nursing mothers and each child under school age will be able to get a pint of milk a day, at the much reduced price of 2d. Milk will be supplied free of charge to those households which cannot afford to buy it. Local officers under the central authority of the Ministry will run the scheme.

The new scheme will not affect the milk-in-schools scheme or the power of Local Authorities to supply additional milk under their own arrangements, on the advice of the Medical Officer of Health.

The Ministry of Food have arranged to cure the surplus of the herring catch which is not sold fresh. Since the outbreak of war the greater part of the export market for cured herrings, to which the bulk of the cure went, has been lost, and curers were unwilling to cure herrings they might not be able to sell.

The Ministry of Food has now agreed to accept responsibility for the whole of the cure this season, from June to August, so that this valuable food is not wasted and the fishermen, curers and packers who are still employed in the trade and have not been taken by the Admiralty for war service, can continue to earn a living.

Cured herrings will soon be coming on the home market, and prices will be kept at a reasonable level. They are a fine food and increase resistance to infection. With potatoes they make a nourishing meal. The better quality “matje” herring is good and appetising eaten raw.

So if there’s a big catch this season, or even a reasonable one, it will be a national duty to “Eat More Herrings” and, above all, to “Eat Cured Herrings.”

Now that ships have to make longer “hauls” round the Cape of Good Hope to bring supplies to this country, the Ministry of Food are asking for further economies, especially in tea, in order to cut down imports.

This, for the time being, is to be a voluntary affair. There is plenty of tea in the country, but the official view is “Why should we use up stores faster than we need?”

For some time officials have been campaigning against the “one tea-spoonful for the pot” with which so many people make their tea. It is unnecessary, experts say. Now, a further economy drive is to be put in hand. The plan is to ask people to make their tea weaker or more economically, to cut down their consumption by one spoonful in four.

There are various ways of doing this :

1. Using a small size of teapot when making for one or two people only; 2. Using fiercely boiling water (it is not really boiling unless the kettle puffs out a jet of steam about 18 inches long); 3. Warming the tea-pot with really hot water; 4. Using freshly boiled water. Continuous boiling drives the air out of the water so that the resulting tea tastes flat. Many people, dissatisfied with this kind of brew, try to put things right by using more tea than is necessary.

How far should a pound of tea go? When testing tea at the tea sales, buyers use a weight just about as heavy as a 6d on the scales. This amount of tea is supposed to be enough for a really strong cup. Now there are roughly ten sixpences to the ounce, so that buyers get 160 tests out of their 1 lb. But buyers can afford to be extravagant. For ordinary household use, you should be able to get more like two-hundred cups of tea to the pounds.

A new Ministry of Food Order allows retailers to sell bacon trimmings off the ration. Bacon trimmings include any facing or trimmings, or any end or remainder of any piece of bacon. The maximum retail price is 6d a pound excluding bone. At this price, small pieces of bacon which can be used for frying, flavouring and as a source of additional fat, may now be bought by many people who are unable to afford the dearer cuts.

Housewives who usually buy soft fruit for jam making at home are not likely to be able to get the necessary sugar this season. There are two important reasons for this. The first is that sugar supplies are restricted. The second is that imports of fruit have been greatly reduced and the commercial jam makers who normally use these imports are now much more dependent on the home fruit crop. The manufacturers have got to provide jam not only for the home market but for the fighting forces too. So if you’ve got more soft fruit than you can use without sugar, please see that it gets to the jam makers. The Women’s Institutes can help you here.

The Ministry of Food is taking care that retail jam prices are kept at a reasonable level. A Price Order will soon be issued. Meanwhile the Food Ministry has bought up large quantities of sugar, and so long as no transport difficulties arise there’s a chance that there may be some extra sugar, apart from that already applied for, for domestic jam making when the plum season comes round.

For the first time since the war began a school system providing full-time education for all Rushden scholars and evacuee children in the town is expected to operate on and from next Monday.

Comments on the serious loss of tuition were made in the “Echo and Argus” a few weeks ago. Most of the children who were brought from London last September have had no more than a half-time education, sharing the school facilities with the Rushden scholars. In recent months they have been brought together as one school, using the Newton-road premises in the afternoons. Thus most of the Rushden schools have gone back to a normal routine, but the Rushden children at Newton-road have attended school only in the mornings.

According to the plan evolved at Easter the evacuees were to transfer to a fresh school each term, so that there would always be one school operating on the shift system.

Complaints from parents added weight to the criticism of these arrangements, and an Inspector visited the town to make inquiries. The result is that additional premises have been hired for the use of the evacuee children. Walthamstow scholars will be accommodated at the Park-road Baptist assembly Room and the Old Baptist Church, the L.C.C. children at the Boot and Shoe School, and the Walthamstow St. Patrick’s (Roman Catholic) School at the Catholic Guild Room.

In the event of air raids on Rushden it will be necessary for the residents to co-operate calmly and smoothly with the town Fire Brigade, and for that purpose Chief Officer A. P. Timpson has prepared some valuable hints. These should be regarded as definite instructions, to be carried out faithfully when emergency arises :-

Clear roof spaces and attics, etc., of any old “junk” and inflammable material that has collected there. Make easy access to such spaces.

Have receptacles such as buckets or even the bath filled with water so that they can be reached easily, placing a covering over them so that odds and ends do not get thrown in them.

Provide appliances – a stirrup pump, if possible; if not, a garden syringe, wet sacks or blankets to smother the fire. Look out garden hose pipes and see that fitments are in good order.

Get your household fire-minded. Instruct them what to do in an emergency. Have family drills.

Seek out the best exit so that should you be trapped in upper storey you can drop on soft ground if it is possible. If it is too high to drop, get to a room where a ladder can easily be placed in position without having to negotiate entrances and archways and the usual trellis work. Then call for help.

Get acquainted with the Fire Service arrangements for your district, so that help can be got quickly.

Inspect gas stop cocks from the gas main feed, so that the gas service can be turned off quickly.

Should a fire occur and you cannot deal with it, close all doors and windows and try to facilitate matters for the fire unit when it arrives.

When dealing with the bomb or fire attack it in a prone or lying position, if possible.

If the fire is caused by an incendiary bomb keep the surrounding material cooled by a jet of water. Do not attack the actual bomb with a jet, but use a spray, remembering that some water will be better than none at all, and all the help you can give in extinguishing the fire will ease the strain that will be thrown on the Fire Service.

Do not send for the assistance of the Fire Services if a bomb has fallen and is burning on barren ground, open spaces and other such places where it will do no damage, because the Fire Services will be needed to deal with much more serious situations should they arise.

Think quickly, act quickly, keep cool and work quietly. Do not shout about and cause panic.

Remember the Fire Service will send help as soon as possible should they receive the message to do so.

The Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade and his staff are always ready and willing to give advice to the public, and should a fire party be formed, training in bomb control and the resultant fires can always be arranged on application.

Read Public Information Leaflet No. 5 (Fire Precautions in War-time) issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office, August, 1939, and act upon it.