A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
All housewives who bought cakes were asked whether they stood in a queue for them.
Incidence of queueing | All who buy cakes: % |
Stood in queue | 18 |
Did not queue | 79 |
N.A. | 3 |
SAMPLE: | 1909 |
Nearly a fifth of the housewives stood in a queue for cakes.
Number of times queued | % |
Once last week | 56 |
Twice last week | 25 |
Three times or more | 17 |
Not answered | 1 |
SAMPLE: all who queued | 342 |
Nearly half the housewives who queued did so twice or more in a week.
Table 22
Days when queueing is most frequent
The question here was “On which days did you queue?” and the answer were as follow:
% | |
Every day | 1 |
Monday | 7 |
Tuesday | 22 |
Wednesday | 19 |
Thursday | 16 |
Friday | 37 |
Saturday | 56 |
N.A. | 1 |
SAMPLE: all who queued | 342 |
The peak day for queuing is Saturday; next was Friday, and during the week, Tuesday seems to be the day on which more women queue than on other days.
75% of the housewives who queue do so in the morning.
The cakes for which most housewives queue are slab cakes.
Type of cake queued for: | % of those who queued | % who queued of those who bought | Sample No. who bought |
Small | 51 | 18 | 971 |
Sponge | 26 | 27 | 335 |
Slab | 69 | 26 | 917 |
N.A. | 4 | - | - |
SAMPLE: those who queue | 342 | - | - |
All women who queued were asked whether they know of a remedy for preventing queues.
Only half of the women who queue have any sgguestions to make as to how queues could be prevented. The two main suggestions are registration for cakes, and an increase in the allowance of fat and sugar.
The housewives who did not queue, but bought cakes during the last seven days were asked how they managed to avoid queues.
Asked specifically, 47% of the housewives who bought cakes in the last week said that there were no queues, or hardly any, at the shops they dealt with.