When the power goes or the shelves empty, your cupboard will already be full.

A supermarket holds about two days of stock. Your cupboard can hold a fortnight.

My name is Pauline Whitfield. I worked in shops for forty-odd years, and for the last twenty-five of them I ran the stock room and the orders at a big supermarket. I decided what came off the lorry, and every time snow was forecast or a scare came on the news, I watched the same things go first: bread, milk, bottled water, batteries, candles, toilet roll.

Here is what most people never see. A big shop keeps a couple of days of most lines on the shelf and in the back, and refills overnight from the depot. When the lorry doesn't come, because of snow, a strike, a fuel shortage or everyone buying three times their usual, the shelf empties in a day or two and there is nothing behind it.

My mum never got caught out. She grew up with rationing and kept a store cupboard all her life: tins in rows, the oldest at the front, and a list on the inside of the door. This book is her cupboard and my stock room, written down for a British house or flat today.

It has all happened in living memory:

• January 1979.The lorry drivers' strike stopped deliveries and shop shelves emptied in places.
• The Beast from the East, 2018.Heavy snow and bitter cold, and some shops ran short of bread and milk within days.
• March 2020.Pasta, tins, flour, toilet roll and paracetamol stripped from the shelves, with limits on how many you could buy.
• Storm Arwen, November 2021.About a million homes lost power, and some were cut off for more than a week.

None of those was the end of the world. Every one went on longer than people expected on the first day, and every one was far easier for the houses with food, water, warmth and light already inside.

Real pages. Every amount is written down for you.

Real pages from the real book. This is exactly what opens on your phone.

Ten chapters. Built for a British house or flat.

Pounds and pence, British shops, British weather. Every chapter ends with a short checklist.

• Why a fortnight: what really happens in a British kitchen when the power, the shops or the roads stop · p. 5
• How the shops work, from the stock room: own brand, best-before, what sells out first and when shelves refill · p. 15
• My mum's store cupboard: what rationing taught her, and every habit brought up to date · p. 25
• The fortnight list, food: for one and for two, much of it fine cold, with diets covered · p. 35
• Water and washing: litres per person, storing it, frozen pipes and the stopcock · p. 50
• Warmth without the boiler: one warm room, layers, flasks, the prepayment meter, carbon monoxide · p. 61
• Light, power, the radio and the phone: torches, power banks, 105, the Priority Services Register, cash · p. 72
• Medicines, health and living alone: repeats, the first-aid box item by item, the check-in neighbour · p. 82
• Snow, storms and the long shortage: Met Office warnings, being snowed in, no car, no panic buying · p. 92
• The fortnight plan: day 1 hour by hour, then days 2 to 14 · p. 102
• The kitchen-wall power-cut plan, ready to print · p. 108
• The shopping list with rough prices, and the twelve-week build on a pension · p. 112

Questions, answered straight