Badly behaved shoppers is a favourite topic of conversation while we are stuck inside our four walls. We talk about the British knowing how to knuckle down in times of crisis. History will tell if we did, or not. But the empty shelves in our local supermarkets suggest there’s a leadership vacuum – because a significant number of shoppers are being very foolish buying up all the bread flour.

The irony is, of course, that once the panic bakers realise that plentiful stocks of bread will be soon be in the shops, their stash of flour will mould away in the cupboard.

During the war we had the Ministry of Food headed by Lord Woolton with the better-known Marguerite Patten advising on getting the best out of the available ration. Woolton, a retailer who had been brought up in working-class Liverpool, was a genius at procurement. He knew that if the British didn’t get their bacon, there would be social unrest. But he also recruited the likes of Mrs Patten to demonstrate how to extract every last bit of value from each bone, scrap of cold cut or morsel of fat.