On this day in Yorkshire

February 11, 1918

The purchase of the Sunday joint was, in Leeds, a matter of some difficulty during the week-end. Long queues, regulated by police, besieged the butchers’ shops, but the available supplies soon ran out, and many housewives - after waiting hours in the rain - had to content themselves with small portions of sausage and polony from the pork butchers as a makeshift.

Happily the situation was eased on Saturday by the arrival of some fifty additional beasts and 120 sheep. These were slaughtered during the day, but the task of distributing the meat was not accomplished in time to enable the traders to retail it before closing time.

The result was that many butchers’ shops in different parts of the city were open yesterday, and there were long queues waiting for meat in most of the industrial districts - in some instances until nearly noon.

Mr P.S. Leah, the Secretary of the Leeds and District Supply Association, points out that the neglect of some butchers to affiliate themselves with the association, and to give the authorities an estimate of their requirements in good time, is having a detrimental effect on the supply to the the city, as this is based on the certificates handed in on Wednesday each week.

If retail butchers could, he says, be prevailed upon attend to these points, Mr Leah considers that many of the meat supply difficulties would vanish.