We have father's day here too. It is not a widely celebrated tradition, I must say, being something invented by the gift card industry. At least that's the prevailing mood hereabouts..


The British "Dig for Victory" campaign in the war was all about encouraging self sufficiency from the land. People ate more vegetables above all else and had less of the things that we now understand to be pretty unhealthy. And since everyone was entitled to the same ration, regardless of class, the poorest had an improvement.

It was a point well made about the recent high quality BBC Dunkirk drama recreations that the privates in the reenactment were authentic in all details except that they were all tall, well fed and with good teeth. This was just not so 60 years ago in Britain. Indeed, going back a mere 80 years you could tell the officer class simply from their height. They were commonly a full foot above their subordinates.