My mother was one of the hundreds of thousands of housewives who cooked three times a day for her family.

First, there was our big cooked breakfast of egg, bacon and fried bread.

Then, there was our substantial cooked lunch of meat, veg and pud, for which we all dashed home from school or work.

Finally there was high tea around 6pm.

That may sound unhealthy, especially the fried breakfasts.

But it wasn't in those days, when we got up in the mornings to a house unheated, until a coal fire could be coaxed into life, then walked, cycled or, if a distance of more than three miles was involved, took the bus to school or work.

It was a pattern that endured for generations until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, followed by food rationing in 1940. In the general upheaval, people could no longer go home for meals as before.

Communal Feeding, an unglamorous term suggestive of pig troughs, was a concept launched by the government to enable everyone to get at least one nourishing hot meal a day, at a price they could afford.

It had an effect on factories and schools that has lasted to this day.

It's extraordinary to think that before the war, school meals and office canteens were rare. People either went home to eat, or brought sandwiches.

Prior to 1940, there were only l,500 industrial canteens in Britain. By 1944, there were 18,500. The increase in school catering was equally dramatic.

Between 1939 and 1945, the number of subsidised meals served in schools increased 12-fold, with one child in three being fed at school.

Since then, thanks to the war, school lunches and works canteens have become an integral part of life. But at the time, the communal feeding project that roused most discussion was British Restaurants.

Early in 1941, the government approached 3,000 local authorities requesting them to establish and run British Restaurants, ideally at the rate of one per 5,000 of the population.

Most were so apathetic to the idea that several months later only 144 had taken any action. The few who did move swiftly included Kingston, Richmond and the borough of Malden and Coombe.

In fact, Kingston was a leading pioneer of the civic catering that kept so many people going during the darkest days of the war.

The Royal borough's first communal feeding project was a canteen at the Coronation Baths in Denmark Road, to provide free meals for Air Raid Precaution (ARP) workers, local government personnel and people attending training courses.

The catering in this, the largest civic restaurant for miles around, was carried out by the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS), under the direction of Mrs M Moor, the wife of a Kingston councillor.

The council was also involved in two dining rooms, near the junction of London Road and Cambridge Road.

Mobile canteens were another important feature. Kingston had three of them by the start of 1941 and they, together with the Coronation Baths and London Road projects, enabled them to serve at least 7,000 people with a hot meal at short notice.

Later that year, the corporation's emergency feeding capabilities were further extended when the legendary Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, presented Kingston with two food emergency vans, designed to provide a simple meal of stew and bread for 800 people.

But to return to British Restaurants, within weeks of the government's request, Kingston Council was well under way with plans to replace the Coronation Baths canteen with a full-scale restaurant, capable of feeding 500 people at a sitting.

It opened at noon on May 26, 1941, offering soup, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and greens, a choice of two sweets and a cup of tea, all for one shilling (5p). Those of a thriftier disposition could have soup, bread, sweet and tea for sixpence (2.5p).

Meanwhile, Malden and Coombe opened six civic restaurants, including ones at the Woodfield Hotel (where was that, I wonder?) Alric House in Coombe Road, and St John's Church School in Robin Hood Lane.

Surbiton was apathetic about the whole issue. It was 1942 before the borough opened civic restaurants in Hook parish hall and Tolworth Co-operative hall.

However, the minutes show that by June 1942, 287 meals were being served each day at the Tolworth venue, and 266 at Hook.

Twickenham was roundly abused for its delay in providing civic catering.

A local resident described the plight of people "scrambling for a seat in cafs to eat vegetable cutlets", adding that "when the Luftwaffe strikes, mobile canteens have to be rushed 100miles to feed the dazed, stricken, homeless and bereaved... Twickenham has 100,000 inhabitants in the borough and is still hesitating over the provision of one civic restaurant."

Lively little Ham proved its mettle by having its first civic restaurant opened in May 1941.

"The menu was sufficiently appetising, and plentiful to satisfy any ordinary needs," reported the Comet, adding that the WVS volunteers "have no time or funds to supply the frills and fancies of cooking, nor do customers expect them.

"With a penny cup of tea to wash it down, this made as good a meal as the ordinary German would sell his Swastika to get every day".

Most corporations had no wish to continue their "communal feeding" exercises.

The councils of both Surbiton and of Malden and Coombe closed all their restaurants in March 1947, and re-requisitioned the premises involved a move that enraged local Labour groups.

Kingston, however, decided to continue its civic catering career.

A new building was put up at the junction of Penrhyn Road and Denmark Road to replace the Coronation Baths restaurant, which by then was running at a loss.

It was also planned to establish a restaurant in a purpose-built hut at the junction of the London and Queen Elizabeth Roads.

This would have replaced the British Restaurant established in Kingston Working Men's Club early in the war (much to the disgust of members).

There was a grand scheme for a third restaurant in the garden behind Kingston Central Library, and more modest schemes for the conversion of an ARP shelter on Queen's Promenade, and a chalet in Canbury Gardens, to civic refreshment bars.

Neither the London Road, nor the library garden restaurants, ever materialised, and the purpose-built hut was sold to Malden and Coombe for use as a community centre.

The Queen's Promenade caf remains to this day, as does the Canbury Gardens one albeit rebuilt on a vastly more sophisticated scale as Boaters pub and restaurant.

The wartime innovation of school catering ensured that every pupil could have a hot midday meal for 4d about l.5p in present currency.

In February 1941, Chessington Church School made headlines as one of the first in Surrey to introduce school dinners.

They included meat, two veg and a sweet for 4d, with reductions for families with more than one child at the school.

"Some children had never used a knife and fork before," said the headmistress, Miss I A Webb.

"Now they proudly tell their teacher they are allowed to use them at home during weekends."