Wanna know why you can't find old British pots and pans?

Good old shitty bloody war.

https://archive.org/details/the-world-at-war-1973-thames-television-world-war-two/04+Alone+(May+1940+%E2%80%93+May+1941).mp4

The World at War, Episode 4, 13 minutes in.

Basically, we needed to increase production of planes for the Battle of Britain and needed metal to do so. Not only was there a military battle happening though, but a propaganda one. A need to ensure morale stayed high within the British public. So to make them feel like they're playing their part to help the war effort, to understand how desperate the situation was, there was a drive to donate any metal that you could to build planes. Mostly pots and pans, gates, and fences. That's why you'll often see large stones with rows of black metal stumps in front of old houses, because the fences were chopped at the base.

The best bit? It was a waste of bloody time. There's not much aluminium in all that metal and that was what was needed the most. Huge piles of metal sat and rusted for years after the war.