WITH VE Day celebrations and the introduction of food banks fresh in our minds, time to reflect.

With the ending of hostilities after the war years when the word austerity took on a whole new meaning.

Street parties were not the only venue but this also extended into every classroom at my primary school, Poppleton Road, during my childhood.

Parent/pupil participation even with rationing items of home-made produce were brought to school and distributed on communal platters.

A wide variety of sandwich fillings consisted of potted meat paste, corned beef and dripping and home-made jam made from fruits of the fields.

Luxury items, blancmange and jelly trifle, crab apple jam, home-made toffee apples, thanks to black market produce of sugar syrup, supplied by employers of Rowntree’s and the sugar beet factory gave a gloss coating.

Interactive board games, excluded lessons for the day. And without air raid sirens interrupting proceedings the lesson for today, waste not, want not and be prudent in your outlook, still applies today.

Kenneth Bowker, Vesper Walk, Huntington, York.