Forty Years On

The debate sparked by the post on 50s food, regarding Welfare Foods – in particular, the Orange Juice – sent me scampering off around Google.

There is a fair amount of information there, not all of it is readily assimilable and much of it relies on infant memory. However, there are formal papers available that reference the juice.

It looks as though my memory of receiving orange juice when my daughter was small may well be accurate. The one particular point I recall is registering the change of shape in the bottle since I was a child. My post-natally-hormonal memory register is a wee bit foggy because I think I remember being given both the juice and the vitamin drops (though I think that I know for sure I had only the vitamin drops when my son was born.)

I found this Hansard paper from 1971 regarding the dental hazard associated with the concentrated Orange Juice and the replacement of it, and the dreaded Cod Liver Oil supplement, by vitamin drops for infants. I note that the Orange Juice was to continue for expectant and nursing mothers, so this would possibly be why I recall having both when Vicky was small. Breast is best, you know 🙂

Interestingly, there had been discussion in the House as early as 1951 on dropping supply of the Orange Juice, at least for children over the age of 2. I think its general popularity must be what kept it going until the Seventies.

I am still unclear as to the actual date when OJ supply to children was stopped.

Anyway, this is a very long-winded way of wishing a very happy 40th birthday to the child that I ushered into the world this coming week in 1973.

Happy Birthday, Vicky. That OJ clearly did you a power of good.