Let's pretend I am a 35 year old man with a family in London during the height of World War II when Germany was actively bombing England. How often were these bombing runs made over London? Were they mainly at night or during the day or both? How would rationing have affected me and my family? What are some lesser known things that civilians of London had to deal with during this time period?
Basically, I'm looking for a day in the life of someone who lived in London during that time and all the various things that were experienced. How common was television then? Did families gather around radios each evening to hear the latest news concerning Germany?
The height of the war for Londoners would have been the blitz, which is generally taken as having run from September 940 to around May 1941. The aim of the Germans was to demoralise the public. London was obviously a big target, but other cities were also attacked heavily during this time.
From 7th September 1940 London was bombed every night for 57 nights. During this time you'd probably be taking shelter in an underground station or maybe in an Anderson shelter in your garden, waiting for the all clear siren to sound.
You would either be in a reserved occupation or have been deemed medically unfit for service in the military. Or maybe you've already served and been discharged due to injury. Let us presume you are a government official of some kind. Aside from your job you'd likely be doing something for the war effort as well - maybe in the Home Guard, in the Auxiliary Fire Service or possibly an ARP Warden.
You mention family - they probably wouldn't be with you, least not the children. The government had decided that future generations could be at huge risk of being decimated by bombing and evacuated children from cities to rural locations all over the country. This had started in 1939, but many children returned to their family homes in early 1940 the so called "phoney war" led many to believe that the evacuation was an over reaction. Evacuations were repeated when France fell and at the start of the Blitz (for London).
Whenever you leave your house, you carry a gas mask with you. There was a real fear of gas being used on civilians as it had been on the battlefields of WW1, so everyone was issued with a gas mask. Thankfully, they were never needed.
As darkness falls an ARP warden will do their rounds - should you be emitting a light from a window you could be fined. The reason was to make it harder to find the city in the hope that bombs would be dropped in the wrong place. In the case of London this was rather futile - the shimmer of the Thames river always gave its exact location away. To the same effect all streetlights were turned off, leaving the city streets dark and unwelcoming.
Food and rationing - you were encouraged to grow as much food as you could, not always easy. Exact ration amounts changed during the war, an adult would receive something like the list below for a week:
Bread was also rationed. Rationing was implemented by the issue of books of coupons, when you went to a shop (such as a butcher) he'd remove a coupon from the book, you could only buy from the shops designated in the book (I believe you were allowed to change which shops when a new book was issued). Rationing didn't end completely until 1954.
There was the black market of course, but given your job you could probably afford it, unlike others. Many recipes were dreamt up that we'd find rather odd nowadays, lots of "mocked" dishes replaced meat with ground vegetables of some sort of another. You could go to a restaurant, but choice would be limited and it wasn't always very cheap. The alternative was a "British Restaurant" that provided very cheap, basic meals.
So day to day you'd go about your job, carrying your gas mask of course, avoiding roads that were closed due to bomb damage or unexploded bombs.
Initially the government had closed places where big numbers of people may gather (such as theatres or cinemas), this was relaxed later on but I do not recall exactly when. In any case on those dark streets you'd often prefer not to be out at night. You were encouraged to avoid non essential travel - "holiday at home" was a phrase used.
Clothing was also rationed, campaigns for "make do and mend" were based around saving what resources were available for the war effort. Lots of guides and plans were shared to help people make new garments out of old ones and so on.
You make like this site - it documents where bombs fell on London http://bombsight.org/
This is a great book if you want to know more about "the home front" as it was called: http://www.amazon.com/Wartime-Britain-1939-1945-Juliet-Gardiner/dp/0755310284/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433961734&sr=8-2&keywords=juliet+gardiner I think you will find many of the answers to your questions in that one.
I haven't read it but the author has written another book, specifically on the blitz : http://www.amazon.com/Blitz-British-Attack-Juliet-Gardiner/dp/0007386613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433961734&sr=8-1&keywords=juliet+gardiner