I grew up in the UK during WW2 and remember the lack of reading material for children. I think it was due to the use of printing paper being directed to the war effort. Post war we were slowly able to buy more civilian reading material. What about newspapers? National and local.
Local papers were reduced to editions of four sides apart for exceptional circumstances. I've got digitised copies of the local paper from round here from 1938 to 1945. It goes down to the four sides almost as soon as war is declared. The size of print was adjusted to get more in. The local news agent announced that it could only sell one national or major provincial title per household (ie you couldn't take say the Telegraph and the Mail you had to choose and register for one. Neighbours would sometimes arrange to take different titles and swap when they'd read their copy. The local cinema used to issue programmes twice a week this stopped in 1940. Local diaries show that the use of the local library increased greatly Collections were organised of books people had finished with - some were used for example to send to POWs or forces overseas - others were pulped. There was an annual lay a mile of books campaign to this end. There were utility standards for new books - the quality of paper dropped and bindings became very simple. Dust jackets all but vanished. .Paperbacks were encouraged
Attempts to save paper were widespread.Until 1942 the report of parliamentary proceedings was produced with a blue cover - this was replaced with a plain one saving 6.5 tons of paper a year. The Speaker agreed to the change with the proviso that the blue cover be restored "as soon as possible after the war". Seventy five years after the end of the war the plain cover is still in use. Whilst 6.5 tons may not seem large in the general scheme of things similar economies of this nature were implemented widely across both central and local government
This one might be of interest... Print for Victory: Book Publishing in Britain 1939-1945: Amazon.co.uk: Valerie Holman: 9780712350013: Books I'm sure I've seen it in The Works, yoo, so it might pay to shop around. It's instructive to look at the quality of unit/formation histories published in Germany at the war's end compared to what was being produced at home. The German war economy was not as thorough as ours.
Thanks for the replies - I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it. So what was the paper used for? Or was it that the raw materials and industries involved were cut back or closed down? Perhaps "Print for Victory" has the answers to those questions. I asked the question because on another forum there was a thread on our childhood reading material and I realised my choice had been very limited.
It wasn't made - that was the point - making paper either required large imports of wood pulp that took up shipping tonnage that could be used for other things or the use of domestically grown timber that likewise could be used for other things. Access to Baltic supplies of timber was stopped by the war but North America had already become Britain's main source of timber as early as the 1800s
As a boy,during the war I was involved in a Sunday newspaper round and as I recollect there was the odd customer who received two newspapers.I cannot see how restrictions claimed could be applied. One outstanding feature of communication was that the British public were always informed of the state of the war from the newsreels at the cinema which were included no matter what film was being shown.I remember how well the desert victories accompanied by stirring tunes were well received.....we were winning as we thought. Our local cinema,"The Empire" but known as"The Scrat" always played Souza's Washington Post March at the end of performances followed by the National Anthem... when before it started there was a rush for exits by children much to the disgust of certain adults who stood rigidly to attention. As regards paper economy.At school, exercise books were first written in by pencil on both sides,then after the book was finished,the the book was overwritten by pen(pen nib type) from the desk ink well...ink smudging, the norm and blotting paper non existent As regards books being published during the war,there must be many related to the war,obviously with some censorship.A good insight to Britain's struggle against the Third Reich was available to the public from May 1941.The Battle of Britain (reprinted three times during the summer of 1941) by J M Spaight late Principal Assistant Secretary at the Air Ministry...includes a good Foreword from Trenchard. Newspapers as I recollect were the only "utility" toilet paper available...hard to imagine those who didn't take a newspaper.The foul drainage systems also seemed to cope with the slower absorbent replacement.
The restriction on the number of papers was enforced by the newsagents who were restricted as to how many papers they were supplied with. The Sale or return system was also suspended for the duration. Like most wartime restrictions there would always be some who managed to finesse some extra copies which were supplied to favoured customers (like Corporal Jones supplying Captain Mainwaring with extra sausages)
Now you're taking me back to when one had to run ones source code through a compiler to get object code and often had to wait until the next morning to get it back. TG computers have advanced since then.
I think the paper supply restrictions to the newspaper industry would be based on raw paper supplied.The newspaper proprietors would take the option of maintaining circulation and so reduced the number of pages in each edition. I would think that that was a business decision based on their intention of possessing a healthy share of the future post war newspaper readership .Further cutbacks in paper allocated would result in pages reduced further. At times of crisis with a message to pass,this was the concept of underground newspapers in France,such as Liberation which still publishes and which started as a news sheet displaying the real gen to a wide readership of the occupied.
PAPER POSSIBILITIES [Main Title] | IWM Film (iwmcollections.org.uk) Title: PAPER POSSIBILITIES [Main Title] Film Number: NPB 14278 Other titles: SAVE PAPER PLEASE [Allocated Title] Summary: Second World War British animated cartoon newsreel trailer encouraging the public save their waste paper for the war effort. Description: The film opens with a view of a landscape strewn with sheets of paper and a wooden sign 'Save Your Waste Paper'. One of the sheets of paper jumps up from the ground, whistles and beckons. A lorry screeches to a halt and is quickly filled with the sheets of paper and drives off to the 'Waste Paper and Pulping Mill". The papers from the lorry are fed in to a large snake which swallows them in to the pulping mill. The paper is broken down with mechanical hands holding scythes and picks and pummeled by mechanical boots. The pulp is rolled, pressed and cut in to useful packaging for the Navy, Army and RAF. On a conveyor belt, some of the boxes produced from the waste paper are filled with medical supplies, food and ammunition (one of the boxes has a smiling clown face drawn on it). The boxes are stacked in piles and one pile is encased in a parachute canister (also with a smiling clown face) and lifted airborne attached to a large dragon fly style insect aircraft. The insect airplane takes off to the sound of an aircraft engine and manoeuvres in flight to avoid anti-aircraft flack before successfully releasing its canister in to the outstretched hands of cheering soldiers on the battlefront. End title "SAVE MORE AND MORE WASTE PAPER PLEASE!"
