Without soapsuds
I didn't have much to think about and had no need to hurry through my shower the other day, when the vacancy in my head filled with soapsuds that were non-existent for a long period during World War II.
A bar of white soap occupied the soap dish. My favorite Dove Body Wash accompanied various partially used bottles of shower soap, shampoo and conditioner. What would do we do without soap? This thought took a beeline to an era long passed without soapsuds, and I knew how people handled such a situation.
In the British Isles supplies of food, fabric, coal, wood, oil, petrol and toiletries dwindled during the ongoing conflict with Germany. Into the second year of the historic war many mainstays of our daily lives, such as soap, had disappeared completely from market shelves. Factories made armaments, not soap. Supply ships from countries that had kept England afloat, (so to speak) in peacetime, were sunk crossing the Atlantic and in off-shore channels.
England's dependence on its dominions and Europe for food and raw materials, meant it was up a creek without a paddle from 1939 to 1945.
The meager amount of rationed toilet and housecleaning soaps in the early months of war were used sparingly, right down to the last transparent sliver and it wasn't long before soap became a memory.
Our outer winter, wool clothing rarely came into contact with soft soapsuds. They were hung on an outside line to air and often received a sprinkling of rain. Wool underwear and socks, shantung blouses and dresses were rinsed in used bath water, more often than not without a soap bubble. Heating water was costly, so it had to be used economically.
If housewives were lucky enough to have purchased a small bundle of kindling and a shovelful of coal, the scullery copper in the corner of our kitchen was filled with cold water and a fire lit in the firebox at the base. Sheets, towels, white shirts, cotton petticoats were added to the heated water with a handful of soda crystals. We used coarse soda in the washing up water too. Soda softened our hard water and cleaned the china and cutlery. It certainly wasn't kind to our hands.
Our son David was born during this worldwide conflict, and without soap or washing machine his nappies retained bacteria, which caused blister like patches on his bottom. The only solution a doctor gave me was to add Boric Acid crystals to boiled water and soak the nappies, then hang them in the sun to dry which wasn't possible during our dismal, wet winters. I'm happy to say that the remedy cleared the infection.
Shampoo was a commodity of the past. To clean our hair we sprinkled it with corn flour (corn starch) and brushed it until the white powder disappeared, the way women cared for their long tresses during a century before me.
After Hubby transferred from the British Royal Air Force (he took his flight training in Canada with the Royal Canadian Air Force) to the American 8th Air force, luxuries such as canned peaches, canned bacon and milk came our way through his rations and that of other American's on the base. Nobody knows what a luxury these food items were after months and months of meager food rations, where such items were past memories, unless they too have been in the same situation. Knowing of our son David, they sent their rations of Hershey bars, oranges and…Camay hand soap to us.
Even today, the fragrance of Camay soap sends my mind reeling in flight back to the red brick house we lived in, located close to Bovingdon Airbase and the generous Americans who shared their "goodies" with us.
I watched a TV movie some years back about GIs stationed in England during WWII. In one scene a group of them talked about their adjustments of being in a foreign land and their impressions of the British people. One young man in the group remarked, "They smell."
Without soap, I'm sure we did.