Food for Thought

1940-07
Sound
6m

Grumpy Grandma is put in her place during wartime food demonstration

This film collaboration between Ealing Studios and the Ministry of Food offers us a 'ringside seat' at a meeting of the 'Hillside Road Food Club', whose members are gathered around a table in a front parlour room. The leader of the group has some robust exchanges with a cantankerous 'Grandma' - well-known to audiences at the time as radio character 'Grandma Buggins' played by comedienne Mabel Constanduros (Ealing regulars Muriel George and Elliot Markham also appear).

We learn that there are four different kinds of food from which you can get all the vitamins you need to stay healthy. Individual demonstrators (including two children) show labelled items of food which fall into these four categories. The food classification seems rather muddled, but it's a good humoured attempt to educate the populace on how to stay healthy despite food rationing.

Explains the nutritional values of various foods.

Life Under Fire

The horror of Luftwaffe bombs coloured daily life in Britain's cities and beyond, and war brought myriad daily hardships besides. But Britain could take it!

The Blitz receded after May 1941, but even after the Battle of Britain, the nation faced a barrage of incendiary bombs, V-1s and V-2s. While young men fought Axis powers across three continents, their families listened anxiously to the wireless, while many worried too about children far from home. But in the face of the destruction, sirens, blackouts and hours in shelters, the now-legendary 'Blitz spirit' kept despair at bay. Britain held her nerve thanks to mutual support, defiance and wit - plus a good grumble and as many cups of tea as rationing allowed.