A Wartime Christmas

The family learns how to black out a home and build a shelter in the event of an air raid, and prepares a Woolton pie for Christmas dinner. Historians Joshua Levine, Carol Harris and Mike Brown offer an insight into the impact of rationing and evacuation on family life.

The Dekkers go on to experience some of the challenges of wartime Christmas, including the difficulties of cooking with limited rations with food historian Annie Gray. Meanwhile, social historian Carol Harris explains that though 1942 represented a turning point on the battlefield, at home austerity and rationing became even harder.