VE DAY and PAPER CUTS by Penny Dolan

Among the moving stories of service and sacrifice shared during the VE Day commemorations, there was much about the rationing of food, often with samples of food ration sizes or made more cheerful by photos of children facing communal cake and sandwiches at local street parties.

Now, the idea of living with officially restricted food provokes strong reactions and memories. However, during WW2, there was one specific category of rationing that affected publishers, authors, librarians and all those involved with books and reading: THE RATIONING OF PAPER.  In 1939, when Norway was invaded, supplies of wood pulp for paper-making were severely curtailed.  

                                     

On the 4th of September, 1942, all paper manufacturing and supply came under the No 48 Paper Control Order, with all use controlled by the Ministry of Production, and directed towards the war effort. All types of paper were rationed; newspapers were limited to 25% of their pre-war consumption, but book production guidelines limited the print size, words per page and the inclusion of blank pages. While paper rationing seems a small thing compared to possible starvation, this was still a matter that affected everyone involved in the printing and publication of newspapers, magazines and books, including the working lives of all kinds of writers.

The paper restrictions affected everyone's general lives, of course. Wrapping paper was prohibited in shops so women were expected to carry bags and baskets. People were urged not to waste paper, or throw paper away or even to burn paper. In contrast to today’s novelty stationery ranges and buzzing office shredders, every piece of paper, then, was for collecting, saving and re-using, although the sheets of paper used to wrap wet fish could be excluded. Personal letters were brief and tightly spaced, with a few words often saying much while in schools, the paper restrictions must have emphasised the need for pupils to have neat handwriting, clean pages and tidy exercise books. Of course, at home,  old newspapers became a valuable asset in people’s privies, and not only for reading.

                                            
Ordinary book publishing very much felt the pinch during these years, as George Orwell pointed out strongly, in an article in Tribune in 1944. 

    A particularly interesting detail is that out of the 100,000 tons (of paper) allotted to the Stationery Office, the War Office gets no less than 25,000 tons, or more than the whole of the book trade put together. ... At the same time paper for books is so short that even the most hackneyed "classic" is liable to be out of print, many schools are short of textbooks, new writers get no chance to start and even established writers have to expect a gap of a year or two years between finishing a book and seeing it published.

Nevertheless, although these allocations placed limits on the publication of children’s books, Penguin managed to gain a paper allowance by publishing a series of picture book titles intended to help evacuated city children adjust to life in the country. One early title ‘War on Land’ proved so successful that several fiction titles followed, including a picture book 'Orlando Buys A  Farm' about the already popular Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

                                                            
Paper rationing continued until 1949, and affected children’s book publishing for several years. Nevertheless, advances in printing and colour techniques, combined with a rising birth-rate and an interest in children’s education, brought children’s books back into prominence and the growth of Puffin and other children’s book imprints. ‘Marketing’ too, had arrived: in 1967, Kaye Webb, the enormously influential children’s editor at Puffin Books, was able to promote the pleasures of reading and the sales of Puffin paperbacks to children, parents and schools through ther popular Puffin Book Club. 

Unsurprisingly, even though food and paper rationing was over, hunger remained a constant and shadowy theme in many children books, such as the insatiable yearning of illustrator Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or Judith Kerr's The Tiger who Came to Tea consuming all the food and drink in the house, or even, Lewis's The Lion, The Wtch and the Wardrobe, poor Edmund being lured into treachery by a box of Turkish Delight. There are also those constant picnics and quantities of food consumed in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five adventures – the publication of whose titles links back to a paper rationing story that, emotionally, seemed to have parallels with today. 

                                                 

 Recently, I was reading Emma J. Barnes ‘Economical With Fiction’ Substack articles. Her three excellent articles examine some false -  but subsequently repeated - rumours about Alison Uttley, the writer of The Little Grey Rabbit books, such as her wish to live close to Enid Blyton. It's all interesting stuff, with echoes of Miss Marple's gossipy neighbours, but what drew my attention was this:

Apparently, in 1939, Enid Blyton’s children’s books were so popular that her publishers put in an early reservation for 60% of the total paper stock allowed for children’s books.  

And this was during the period of intense rationing described above. Oh heaven! How must that have felt to any of the other children’s authors writing at the time? Suddenly, the pangs of injustice caused by the promotion of celebrity authors seemed to have long been part of the children’s book world.

Penny Dolan 

 

ps The illustrator of The Little Grey Rabbit series was Margaret Tempest

 pps. Reference: https://ejbarnes.substack.com/