Rationing

Rationing must be a strange concept to those that have not experienced it. The hard thing for some of the younger readers to understand is that it means that you cannot have everything that you want and it is that that I would want the reader to understand - you can find a lot on the Internet about rationing which lasted in the UK between 1940 and 1954 and a good link is:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Food_rations
Food and clothes were rationed. One had to register at a shop and on presentation of the ration book, containing coupons, purchases were possible.  As a child in the 50s my main experience was that I could only have a very limited amount of chocolate or sweets. Of course, other non rationed items might well be in short supply and it is worth noting that even if one had the coupons entitling one to a particular amount of foodstuff, it did not mean that that was actually available.
As a small boy, I was in France and Switzerland in the second half of the 40s and the first couple of years of the 50s - I do not remember any rationing or shortages - would not have expected any in Switzerland and maybe I was too young to notice any in France.