The legend of The "Lemon Rind" Find.

    The introduction of sweet rationing during the war was a major trauma in the lives of children of my age (8) who could just remember the "good old days" of sweets, chocolate, ice-cream and Easter eggs, only to have them snatched from our grasp in the prime of our childhood. I remember our desperate attempts to make ice-cream mixing a bowl of National Dried Milk with saccharine and water mixed to a gooey paste which was then placed outside in the frost during winter in the hope it would miraculously turn into ice-cream overnight. This attempt failed miserably as it tasted like a sawdust ice-lolly!

    Attempts to make chocolate using a mixture of dried milk, saccharine and cocoa resulted in a taste of sickly flour, which stuck to our tongues and throats like glue.

     My greatest and most memorable find in my quest for a sweet substitute was during 1943 when I found in the street a piece of dried lemon rind. I had not seen a lemon for years (I remember seeing mother squeezing them on a pancake before the war) I took this home, washed and re-dried it, and carried this around in a paper bag. I found that if I broke off a small piece and sucked it long enough the flavour of lemon would eventually appear!

     What bliss! That bag of lemon rind lasted almost a week.

Mr. Terence Cartwright
Wigston