SIX years after the guns fell silent, the spectre of the Second World War was still evident as the good folk of East Lancashire got ready to celebrate Christmas 1951.

Food rationing was still a part of daily life, and housewives’ ingenuity was again required to ensure plenty of festive fun and fare for the family. News also came through that recruiting for a Home Guard would begin once the festivities had ended, with armed men needed to guard vulnerable points, and assist the civil defence.

In 1951, housewives looked to their schoolgirl daughters to supply the traditional Christmas cake, for the pupils could buy half the margarine and sugar they needed from school, if they baked it on the premises. Unlike most households, local schools could also obtain dried egg.

Ingredients such as glazed cherries, ground almonds, and dried fruits were scarce – housewives in Nelson, for instance, could only obtain half-a-pound of raisins and currants on each ration book.

Many mums had, thus, to choose between making a cake, or a pudding, though using mincemeat, instead of dried fruit, in recipes proved their resourcefulness.

Turkeys were in very short supply in 1951, partly because of a lack of feed, and partly because of a drop in foreign imports being allowed into the country.

It meant prices in the shops were around 6s 6d a lb for English and Irish turkeys, though the butchers promised plenty of ‘tasty’ goose, duck, chicken, or fowl, instead.

An outbreak of fowl pest had also prevented the movement of turkeys, except under licence, and poachers, who annually plundered turkeys from farms in the Ribble Valley, were warned by police they would be charged with contravening the order, as well as theft, if they were caught rustling.

To be on the safe side, however, extra patrols were put on around the country lanes of Clitheroe, and the Forest of Bowland, to net any thieves.

Pork was nothing but a dream for most families, but prospects of an alternative were not rosy either; ox tongues were extra to the ration, and butchers quickly sold out allocations.

One Burnley butcher told the Northern Daily Telegraph that he had only received two tongues – enough for eight – in the last week up to December 25, when he usually got 28.

Another in Clitheroe told us: “Even if pork was available, it would not be much use. It is 3s a lb and a family of four would only be entitled to just one pork chop.”

So, instead, families in Rawtenstall and Burnley put beef and lamb at the top of their seasonal buying list.

Film star Glynis Johns, described 60 years ago as one of the busiest girls in the film world, gave our readers her own recipe for Christmas sugar nuts — blanch two cups of shelled nuts and keep warm while making a syrup with half a cup of water and a cup of sugar. Pour over the nuts, shaking vigorously and voila! dragees.

Although mill workers were forced to take an 11-day break over the 1951 festivities, because of falling trade – but only paid for two days’ official holiday – they had a bonus in their Christmas pay packets and were out in force buying presents.

On one day in the run-up to December 25, the British Railways goods yard, in Bolton Road, Blackburn, delivered 65 van loads of goods to local shopkeepers, with each vehicle stacked with four tons of Christmas fare.

In Accrington, retailers announced big sales of fancy goods, necklaces, and bracelets, while in Burnley, purses sold well.

The people of Rawtenstall were buying useful gifts, with one gents’ outfitters reporting he had sold 13 ties to one customer, while in Blackburn, it appeared that husbands and sons would find plenty of woollen socks among their presents.

Ada Rhodes, the only woman member of Bacup Town Council, went one better than the traditional Christmas boxes, she knitted festive stockings and filled them with sweets, cigarettes, fruit, nuts, and money, for her milkman, grocer, butcher, and dustmen.