05 Mar 1945, John Charter's wartime journal

The parcels were distributed today. The chocolate in about half of them too mouldy to eat and in quite a number of them some of the tins were blown or damaged. It really does seem a shame. Y and I were fairly lucky: we had one good packet of sugar sweets (each in cellophane wrappers), all but a crumb of the original sweets had melted and run out of the wrapping all over the rest of the parcel! Still, none of our tins was blown. A few parcels were left over after everyone had received theirs and with these it was possible to replace the damaged tins. In some cases several items were entirely missing from the parcels: Joan Armstrong had eight items out of sixteen missing and Mrs Glanville had three missing. This, I’m afraid, looks like dishonesty amongst the packers at home – or perhaps it was an error.

I had thought our ever present food worries would be settled for some time, but now we have to try and arrange a new system of rationing. One is tempted just now to eat the stuff up and trust to luck that something else will arrive. With just rice, a few vegetables, oil and a little sugar coming in from the Japs it seems imperative to eat this I.R.C. food fairly quickly in order to maintain even a fair standard of health.