"Sweets are off ration today. When the sweet shops open this morning you can buy as many sweets as you want ... But everyone - the Food Ministry, the sweet manufacturers and the sweet retailers - hopes that you won't want too many.
"By announcing the end of sweet rationing suddenly - in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon - the Food Minister, Major Lloyd-George, hopes to avoid a repetition of the fiasco in 1949, when sweets were officially de-rationed for several months, but shopkeepers had to work their own rationing system to deal with the queues at their doors.
"'At least children haven't had several weeks' notice, so they could save up their pocket money for one giant splurge at the sweet counter,' one big manufacturer said last night.
"Before the war, average consumption of sweets was about seven ounces a head. The present ration - which ended yesterday - was six ounces."
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