Royal Wedding

[John Wright]

3 hours ago, Barrie Stevens said:

The guests are flogging their "lucky bags" from the Royal Wedding? In 1953 and the Coronation I was presented with a scale model die cast metal gold coach and team..A silver medal...A book...a badge with the Queen's face on it and any number of plates, cups, mugs, spoons etc. It was lost on me and I kept none of it. The model gold coach issued in limited numbers by Essex County Council is worth some money now!

They were produced in their millions by Lesney. Most education authorities gave one to each kid.  You could also buy them. Worth between £5 for silver finish in poor condition and £60 for gold finish complete with box in mint condition.

[Barrie Stevens]

12 hours ago, John Wright said:

They were produced in their millions by Lesney. Most education authorities gave one to each kid.  You could also buy them. Worth between £5 for silver finish in poor condition and £60 for gold finish complete with box in mint condition.

I have looked at several examples on line and none of them match the one I was given in 1953. I had not then started school. So how did I get it?

I agree it is the sort of thing that Lesney Bros (Matchbox toys) made and they were indeed located not far away in East London near the old Bryant and May factory.

My gold coach was certainly after the style of Lesney but came in a celluloid box.

Further thoughts make me think that it was not from the Essex County Council but from the Rainham Coronation Committee or some such name and which issued various souvenirs and organised events and decorations. This was led by Dr Deri Stephenson a prominent local personality. I was given a copy of the book that he instigated be issued at the time and which was signed by him...Although I was not able to read it until about three or four years later or even more!

My gold coach was gold paint all over and rather thin cast. 

We still had some sort of rationing back then as I seem to recall going to the local NHS clinic on Upminster Road South (Still there) with mother with red and blue ration stamps to collect cod liver oil and orange juice concentrate (From Uncle Sam?)...I now think I was given the gold coach model by way of the clinic.

However, I am glad it is not worth much as I never did treat it with respect and it had a few adventures like later on being part of my war games with toy soldiers and Dinky toy tanks and field guns that fired match sticks.

 

[Barrie Stevens]

https://www.hallshire.com/halls/view/4148/dr-deri-stephens

Above should be Doctor Deri Stephens...I think he has descendants to this day who are doctors. Might be son or grandson

 

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, Barrie Stevens said:

https://www.hallshire.com/halls/view/4148/dr-deri-stephens

Above should be Doctor Deri Stephens...I think he has descendants to this day who are doctors. Might be son or grandson

 

I don’t think the cod liver oil or juice drink concentrate were on ration. They were still ongoing in the early 1960’s. I remember walking with my mother to the local child health clinic and handing over “stamps” for COD liver oil and vitamin C concentrate ( either orange or rosehip). And in autumn it’s where we took rosehips and got 3d per lb. The concentrate was made by a company called Delrosa. I think rosehip syrup was available from December to May and the orange all year round, but you were encouraged to choose rosehip syrup when it was availabe.

i think the stamps were issued by the district nurse to mothers shortly after a child was born. Then you were issued new ones every 6 months by the child health clinic.

Edited May 24, 2018 by John Wright

[Andy Onchan]

17 minutes ago, John Wright said:

I don’t think the cod liver oil or juice drink concentrate were on ration. They were still ongoing in the early 1960’s. I remember walking with my mother to the local child health clinic and handing over “stamps” for COD liver oil and vitamin C concentrate ( either orange or rosehip). And in autumn it’s where we took rosehips and got 3d per lb. The concentrate was made by a company called Delrosa. I think rosehip syrup was available from December to May and the orange all year round, but you were encouraged to choose rosehip syrup when it was availabe.

i think the stamps were issued by the district nurse to mothers shortly after a child was born. Then you were issued new ones every 6 months by the child health clinic.

Ahhh... Delrosa, now there's a blast from the past. Remember it well.... a teaspoon each night before bed. Now I think about it.... it was terribly sweet! The sugar tax on that would have paid for the whole the DHSS in a year! 

[John Wright]

50 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

Ahhh... Delrosa, now there's a blast from the past. Remember it well.... a teaspoon each night before bed. Now I think about it.... it was terribly sweet! The sugar tax on that would have paid for the whole the DHSS in a year! 

Odd really, sugar was on ration when it was introduced in 1941. I’m no chemist but I’d have thought that boiling the oranges or rosehips to make the syrup or cordial would have destroyed the vitamin C.

[Andy Onchan]

11 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Odd really, sugar was on ration when it was introduced in 1941. I’m no chemist but I’d have thought that boiling the oranges or rosehips to make the syrup or cordial would have destroyed the vitamin C.

There would have been a certain amount of pectin in the fruit but not so much to make it that sweet! 

[Rog]

1 hour ago, Andy Onchan said:

There would have been a certain amount of pectin in the fruit but not so much to make it that sweet! 

Pectin is not sweetening agent, and vitamin C is quite simple to synthesise.

 Vitamin C would have been added once the fruit juice had cooled.

[quilp]

In the form of ascorbic acid. It was the first synthesised vitamin used as an additive. 

[Barrie Stevens]

1 hour ago, Andy Onchan said:

There would have been a certain amount of pectin in the fruit but not so much to make it that sweet! 

Sugar was on ration for ordinary people in the war so that the forces and such but especially industry would have preference. Sugar was available to manufacturers so the civilians had to go without a lot.

Sugar was on ration in the UK until September 1953.

Sugar is essential for war in our times. After the war I think the UK was broke so sugar was sidelined. Also the UK was supplying food to the displaced and poor people of the Continent then under its jurisdiction.

I was involved as a shipbroker in the 1973 war between Israel and the Arabs. Israel had access to Swedish managed fruit carriers to export Israeli oranges etc. Israel urgently needed sugar ie calories, soft drinks troops for the use of.

We supplied them from Tate & Lyle on the Thames but had to put the bags of refined sugar in ships designed for fruit. Rabbis came and blessed it to make it kosher and off you go! Awkward for us, the one Israeli flag ship got commandeered before loading and went to Norfolk, Virginia to pick up munitions especially missiles.

[John Wright]

10 minutes ago, Rog said:

Pectin is not sweetening agent, and vitamin C is quite simple to synthesise.

 Vitamin C would have been added once the fruit juice had cooled.

 

6 minutes ago, quilp said:

In the form of ascorbic acid. It was the first synthesised vitamin used as an additive. 

Yes, but that begs the question, why use all that sugar, power, bottles, etc, at a time of rationing and shortages, to produce the rosehip syrup and orange concentrate, when ascorbic acid vitamin C suppplementation could be got in the diet in other ways?

[Barrie Stevens]

2 hours ago, John Wright said:

I don’t think the cod liver oil or juice drink concentrate were on ration. They were still ongoing in the early 1960’s. I remember walking with my mother to the local child health clinic and handing over “stamps” for COD liver oil and vitamin C concentrate ( either orange or rosehip). And in autumn it’s where we took rosehips and got 3d per lb. The concentrate was made by a company called Delrosa. I think rosehip syrup was available from December to May and the orange all year round, but you were encouraged to choose rosehip syrup when it was availabe.

i think the stamps were issued by the district nurse to mothers shortly after a child was born. Then you were issued new ones every 6 months by the child health clinic.

JW! I am sure you are right but I write of the darker days of the 1950s.

Fresh oranges hardly made it to Britain during and after the war and certainly were not plentiful like today. Fruits like oranges in my day anyway came in specialised fruit carriers which were as fast as anti-submarine frigates and their holds created multiple changes of chilled air per hour. They were like latter day tea-clippers. Very expensive ships with perishable and valuable cargo. So we can do without oranges when times are hard and shipping space precious as well as being under attack.

The alternative was the US Lease-Lend or whatever they call it. Uncle Sam created concentrated orange juice and a lot was sent to Britain as part of the war effort. It took up less space than oranges. This juice was then rationed out.

I was under the impression that this continued post war for a while and that I was getting some on rations as a child in the 1950s. Maybe the NHS just continued buying it post-war but I recall being told it was "Courtesy of Uncle Sam"...How true by then I know not. Maybe  my rations coupons were an immediate post war hangover when rationing continued or the NHS had continued to buy US made orange concentrate.

I do recall as a toddler being able to undo the string tying down the sideboard containing my baby cereals, rusks and Farex and mixing it up on the floor. I think that was still on ration!

Coincidence or significance that all rationing ceased on July 4th 1954...Independence Day in the USA? 

 

[Barrie Stevens]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Odd really, sugar was on ration when it was introduced in 1941. I’m no chemist but I’d have thought that boiling the oranges or rosehips to make the syrup or cordial would have destroyed the vitamin C.

I have often wondered about that. Cold also affects it.

[Rog]

13 minutes ago, John Wright said:

 

Yes, but that begs the question, why use all that sugar, power, bottles, etc, at a time of rationing and shortages, to produce the rosehip syrup and orange concentrate, when ascorbic acid vitamin C suppplementation could be got in the diet in other ways?

The syrup was the fruit juice thickened by pectin, sweetened by (probably) saccharin, and fortified with ascorbic acid. 

[Barrie Stevens]

3 hours ago, John Wright said:

I don’t think the cod liver oil or juice drink concentrate were on ration. They were still ongoing in the early 1960’s. I remember walking with my mother to the local child health clinic and handing over “stamps” for COD liver oil and vitamin C concentrate ( either orange or rosehip). And in autumn it’s where we took rosehips and got 3d per lb. The concentrate was made by a company called Delrosa. I think rosehip syrup was available from December to May and the orange all year round, but you were encouraged to choose rosehip syrup when it was availabe.

i think the stamps were issued by the district nurse to mothers shortly after a child was born. Then you were issued new ones every 6 months by the child health clinic.

Rosehip syrup did not consume US Dollars