Life in Blighty

A Pawnbroker shop

© National Maritime Museum, London. Credit line: Newham Archives and Local Studies Library Collection

War brought poverty and hardship to those left at home. The rationing of food was brought in and women found themselves working outside the home, doing men's jobs to keep the country operating.

On this page and in Rationing , The Kitchener Indian Hospital and Prisoners of War you can explore memories of Brighton and Hove during World War One.

You can download Life in Blighty and its accompanying pages by clicking here (PDF format).

There was a large army camp at Shoreham during the First World War. There were huts, tents, field kitchens and troops by the thousands. Some of the children in Ellen Street used to be sent by their parents with a pillowcase to walk to Shoreham Camp and back again before school to collect bread, which the soldiers used to slip over the fence to them. I must admit this was something our family did not have to do, although bread was scarce.
Ernie Mason - A Working Man

The War really hit the women hardest, especially those with young children. With their husbands away in the forces they only received a small pittance as an allowance, which was not enough to live on.

They would have to wait for their husbands to return on leave to bring any extras into the home. Sometimes there simply was not enough money even to buy their children breakfast before they went to school, so they pawned their sheets and blankets (you could get 9d for a decent sheet), probably owning nothing of higher value, and then they would cross the road to the bakers and buy buns for their children.

I remember plenty of barefoot children in those days and we were told never to take childrens shoes into pawn, but then these sorts of people probably couldn't have afforded to buy their children shoes in the first place.

When the men came home on leave from the War, so the family rows would begin. He would find that his suits had been pawned and he had nothing to wear except what he returned home wearing, and that probably was his uniform.

Many men left their rings and watches at home for safety when they joined the forces and these too would have been pawned. We would have angry men with handfuls of pawn tickets using much of their pay to redeem their belongings (which of course would be back again as soon as they went away).

Many men demanded that we must not do business with their wives again and in future must not allow them into the shop.
Lillie Morgan - At the Pawnbrokers

My old Mum worked too hard and so did all Mums like her. I can remember a time when what they called a 'G.S. Waggon' would call at our house and a few others nearby. The wagon came from the local barracks and it contained dirty khaki fatigue uniforms.

Certain numbers of the uniforms were unloaded at the front door to be washed and ironed and the wagon would call again in a few days to collect. We kids loved to go through the pockets before Mum started on them. Once we found a full packet of Woodbines, five fags in a paper pack. Dad had those but we didn't find much else.

For years later I used to get a choking feeling just to think about it - on top of looking after us lot - on top of her own massive weekly wash - there was our old Mum scrubbing filthy khaki uniforms for a few extra shillings. She worked too hard - a lot of Mums worked too hard. There was nothing we could do about it but it wasn't fair was it?
Sid Manville - Our Small Corner

In the last winter of the war hardship amongst the Brighton poor led to a well organised demonstration which declared "The wives and children of our fighters shall not want for food."
Blighty Brighton