Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (98 page)

By this time the meeting was in unroar . . .

Eventually, the proposal to demand a public apology from the programme’s producer was defeated by 33 votes to 16. Fatalism, it seemed, ruled. ‘Will the interest caused by the broadcast remain with the tenants so that the effect will prove beneficial in its outcome?’ wondered the not unfriendly reporter. ‘Or are they content to remain the inhabitants of a “dump”?’
¹¹

On Saturday the 28th there was as usual a full Football League programme (Accrington Stanley going down to the only goal at Hartlepool), but the nation’s attention was firmly fixed on the Cup Final at Wembley, where Blackpool were due to play Newcastle United. ‘This has come to be regarded as “the Matthews final”,’ wrote Geoffrey Green in
The Times
that morning. ‘One cannot expect this supreme player to last for ever, and this may well be his last chance to procure the only prize – a cupwinner’s medal – that has escaped him in a wonderful career. The whole country, except the north-eastern corner, of course, wishes him success.’ Stanley Matthews was now 36, and this was the second Cup Final since the war to be billed as the Blackpool right winger’s last chance.

That afternoon, the familiar, deeply reassuring pre-match rituals were enacted – the Band of the Coldstream Guards, the community singing (starting with ‘Abide With Me’), the presentation of the teams to a heavily overcoated King George – before the game began. The first half was scoreless, despite what Green in his match report described as ‘the uncontrolled lonely brilliance of Matthews’, but early in the second half, with the match now being watched by television viewers as well as the 100,000 in the stadium, Newcastle’s centre forward, Jackie Milburn, scored twice in five minutes. ‘There was a violent pounding on my back as someone beat a victory tattoo,’ was how a spectator standing among Geordies in the three-bob ‘H’ pen described the reaction to the second goal, ‘and the harsh crack of the rattles merged with a mighty outburst which seemed to shake the arena and call a tune from the empty beer bottles lying about my feet.’ It only remained for the Magpies to play out time, which they comfortably did.

Afterwards, Joe Harvey and his men climbed up to the Royal Box to receive the Cup and their winners’ medals. There was a special moment for Jack Fairbrother – the Newcastle goalkeeper whom the Football Association had unsuccessfully urged to wear a baseball cap, apparently because a cloth cap was too working-class. Grinning as he passed Princess Margaret, he was greeted with, ‘A lovely day for you!’ Meanwhile, Matthews, in Green’s words, ‘slipped quietly from the scene’.
¹²

Afterword

It had been an extraordinarily hard six years since the end of the war – in some ways even harder than the years of the war itself. The end was at last in sight of a long, long period of more or less unremitting austerity. Few adults who had lived through the 1940s would readily forgo the prospect of a little more ease, a little more comfort. A new world was slowly taking shape, but for most of these adults what mattered far more was the creation and maintenance of a safe, secure home life – in any home that could be found. ‘The Safe Way to Safety whenever and wherever infection threatens in your own home’ ran the reassuring message in the spring of 1951 from the makers of Dettol. ‘Such deep, safe, soapy suds!’ was the unique selling proposition of New Rinso. ‘If it’s safe in water, it’s safe in Lux.’
^1.
For the children of the 1950s, there would be – for better or worse – no escape from the tough, tender, purifying embrace of family Britain.

Notes

Abbreviations

All books are published in London unless otherwise stated.

A World to Build

1 Waiting for Something to Happen

1. M-O A, FR 2263.

2.
Heap, 8 May 1945;
Independent on Sunday
, 11 Jul 1999; Langford, 8 May 1945; Harold Nicolson,
Diaries and Letters,
1939
–
1945 (1967), p 456; M-O A, FR 2263.

3.
Nicolson,
Diaries and Letters
, p 457; Langford, 8 May 1945; Vera Brittain,
Wartime
Chronicle
(1989), p 265; Heap, 8 May 1945; Langford, 8 May 1945; BBC WA, R9/9/– LR/3470; Lewis, 8 May 1945.

4.
M-O A, FR 2263; Ursula Vaughan Williams,
R.V.W.
(1964), p 262; Cecil Beaton,
The Happy Years
(1972), p 38; diary of Joan Waley, 8 May 1945; Haines, 8 May 1945.

5.
Streat, p 259; Loftus, 8 May 1945; David Rayvern Allen,
Arlott
(1994), p 78; James Lees-Milne,
Prophesying Peace
(1984), p 187; M-O A, TC 49/1/C.

6.
Nella Last’s War
(Bristol, 1981), p 280; BBC WA, R9/9/– LR/3470; Lewis, 8 May 1945.

7.
Joan Wyndham,
Love is Blue
(1986), pp 177–8;
The Noël Coward Diaries
(1982), p 29; Heap, 8 May 1945.

8.
M-O A, FR 2263; Ferguson, 9 May 1945; King, 8 May 1945; Streat, p 260; Haines, 8 May 1945.

9.
Hereford Times
, 12 May 1945;
Midland Counties Express
, 12 May 1945; M-O A, FR 2263.

10
. Langford, 9 May 1945; St John, 8–9 May 1945;
The Journals of Denton Welch
(1984), p 191.

11
. Lees-Milne, p 188;
The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton
(1986), p 858; recollections of Michael Burns; Langford, 9 May 1945; Lewis, 9 May 1945; Heap, 9 May 1945;
Fifty Years On
(Radio 4, 23 May 1995); Heap, 9 May 1945.

12
. Kenneth Tynan,
Letters
(1994), pp 70–71; M-O A, FR 2263.

2 Broad Vistas and All That

1
. The main source for this paragraph is A. H. Halsey (ed),
Twentieth-Century
British Social Trends
(Basingstoke, 2000).

2.
Picture Post
, 4 Jan 1941.

3.
Richard Bradford,
Lucky Him
(2001), p 52.

4.
F.W.S. Craig (ed),
British General Election Manifestos
(1975), pp 123–31; Asa Briggs,
Michael Young
(Basingstoke, 2001), p 69.

5.
Times Literary Supplement
, 14 Jan 2000.

6.
John Vaizey,
In Breach of Promise
(1983), p 141; John Singleton, ‘Labour, the Conservatives and Nationalisation’, in Robert Millward and John Singleton (eds),
The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain,
1920
–
1950 (Cambridge, 1995), p 17.

7. Alan Deacon and Jonathan Bradshaw,
Reserved for the Poor
(Oxford, 1983), p 42; Nicholas Timmins,
The Five Giants
(2001), p 47; Jane Lewis,
Women in Britain
since
1945 (Oxford, 1992), p 21; Jeffrey Weeks,
Sex, Politics and Society
(Harlow, 1989), p 232;
New Statesman
, 6 Feb 1998 (Raymond Plant). Generally on the Beveridge Report, see: Rodney Lowe,
The Welfare State in Britain since
1945 (Basingstoke, 1999), chap 6.1; Timmins, chaps 1–3.

8.
Ralf Dahrendorf,
LSE
(Oxford, 1995), p 385; Jim Kincaid, ‘Richard Titmuss 1907– 73’, in Paul Barker (ed),
Founders of the Welfare State
(1984), pp 114–20; Charles Webster, ‘Investigating Inequalities in Health before Black’,
Contemporary British
History
(Autumn 2002), p 86; John E. Pater,
The Making of the National Health
Service
(1981), p 78;
Guardian
, 20 May 1994 (Paul Addison).

9.
Times Educational Supplement
, 24 Jul 1943; Gary McCulloch,
Philosophers and
Kings
(Cambridge, 1991), p 61;
TES
, 24 Jul 1943.

10
.
Financial News
, 22 Jan 1934; Paul Oliver et al,
Dunroamin
(1981), pp 34–7, 46; George Orwell,
Coming up for Air
(Penguin edn, 1962), pp 13, 16; Thomas Sharp,
Town Planning
(1940), pp vii, 54, 57, 109;
Independent
, 19 Feb 2001;
Architectural
Review
(Apr 1943), p 86; Gordon E. Cherry,
Urban Change and Planning
(Henley-on-Thames, 1972), p 163; Harold Wilson,
The Governance of Britain
(1976), p 54.

11. F. J. Osborn, ‘Space Standards in Planning’, in Gilbert and Elizabeth Glen McAllister,
Homes, Towns and Countryside
(1945), p 101.

12
. Lionel Esher,
A Broken Wave
(1981), p 31; Patrick Dunleavy,
The Politics of Mass
Housing in Britain,
1945
–
1975 (Oxford, 1981), p 54;
Picture Post
, 4 Jan 1941;
Architectural
Review
(May 1942), p 128; Sharp,
Town Planning,
pp 76, 78.

13
. Peter Hall,
Cities of Tomorrow
(Oxford, 2002), p 236; Arnold Whittick,
F.J.O.
(1987), p 74; Nicholas Bullock, ‘Plans for Post-war Housing in the UK’,
Planning
Perspectives
(Jan 1987), pp 82, 78; Nick Tiratsoo et al,
Urban Reconstruction in
Britain and Japan,
1945
–
1955 (Luton, 2002), p 6.

14
. Junichi Hasegawa,
Replanning the Blitzed City Centre
(Buckingham, 1992), pp 50–52, 77–9; Hasegawa, ‘The Reconstruction of Portsmouth in the 1940s’,
Contemporary British History
(Spring 2000), pp 49–50; Nick Tiratsoo, ‘Labour and the Reconstruction of Hull, 1945–51’, in Tiratsoo (ed),
The Attlee Years
(1991), pp 127–31.

15
. Gordon E. Cherry, ‘Lessons from the Past’,
Planning History
, 11/3 (1989), pp 3–7; Tiratsoo et al,
Urban Reconstruction
, p 5; Cherry, ‘Lessons’, p 5; Brian Chalkley, ‘The Plan for the City Centre’, in Mark Brayshay (ed),
Post-war Plymouth
(Plymouth, 1983), pp 17–18, 27–8, 30.

16
.
Architectural Review
(Jan 1941), pp 31–2; Hasegawa,
Replanning
, p 32; Nick Tiratsoo,
Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics: Coventry
1945
–
60 (1990), p 13; Tiratsoo et al,
Urban Reconstruction
, p 17. In general on the reconstruction plans for Coventry, see: Tiratsoo,
Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics
, chap 2. .

17.
Picture Post
, 4 Jan 1941; Steven Fielding et al,
‘England Arise!’
(Manchester, 1995), pp 81–2.

18
. Jeremy Nuttall, ‘“Psychological Socialist”, “Militant Moderate”: Evan Durbin and the Politics of Synthesis’,
Labour History Review
(Aug 2003), pp 238, 241, 243; Stephen Brooke, ‘Evan Durbin: Reassessing a Labour “Revisionist”’, in
Twentieth
Century British History
, 7/1 (1996), p 34; E.F.M. Durbin,
The Politics of Democratic
Socialism
(1940), pp 330–31; Jim Tomlinson, ‘Planning: Debate and Policy in the 1940s’,
Twentieth Century British History
, 3/2 (1992), p 164. In general on Durbin, in addition to the above, see: Elizabeth Durbin,
New Jerusalems
(1985).

19
.
Architectural Review
(Feb 1942), p 40; James Lansdale Hodson,
The Sea and the
Land
(1945), p 303; Deacon and Bradshaw,
Reserved for the Poor
, pp 32–4.

20
.
The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume II
(1968), p 104; M-O A, TC 2/2/J; Vere Hodgson,
Few Eggs and No Oranges
(Persephone edn, 1999), p 334; Mass-Observation, ‘Social Security and Parliament’,
Political
Quarterly
(Jul–Sept 1943), pp 249, 246–7; John Jacobs, ‘December 1942: Beveridge Observed’, in John Jacobs (ed),
Beveridge
1942
–
1992 (1992), pp 21–2; Tony Mason and Peter Thompson, ‘“Reflections on a Revolution”?’, in Tiratsoo,
Attlee Years
, p 57; Robert J. Wybrow,
Britain Speaks Out,
1937
–
87 (Basingstoke, 1989), p 16; BBC WA, R9/9/9 – LR/3163.

21
. M-O A, FR 1162.

22
. José Harris, ‘Did British Workers Want the Welfare State?’, in Jay Winter (ed),
The
Working Class in Modern British History
(Cambridge, 1983), p 214; Jacobs, ‘December 1942’, p 21; M-O, ‘Social Security’, p 253.

23
. George H. Gallup (ed),
The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain
1937
–
1975
, Volume One
(New York, 1976), p 75;
Express and Star
, 22 Nov 1943.

24
. Hodson,
Sea
, pp 303, 348; Steven Fielding, ‘What Did “The People” Want?’,
Historical
Journal
, 35/(1992), pp 627–8; Jacobs, ‘December 1942’, p 30.

25
. Wybrow,
Britain Speaks Out
, p 16; Singleton, ‘Labour’, pp 21–2; Rodney Lowe, ‘The Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State’,
Twentieth Century British History
, 1/2 (1990), p 175;
The Collected Essays, Journalism
and Letters of George Orwell, Volume III
(1968), p 226.

26
. Mass-Observation,
The Journey Home
(1944), pp 42, 96, 105, 109–10; M-O A, TC 3/1/F.

27
. M-O A, FR 1162.

28
.
Architectural Review
(Nov 1941), p 148; Naoki Motouchi and Nick Tiratsoo, ‘Max Lock, Middlesbrough, and a Forgotten Tradition in British Post-war Planning’,
Planning History
(2004), pp 17–20;
Journal of the Town Planning Institute
(Nov– Dec 1945), pp 1–5.

29
.
Architectural Review
(Apr 1943), p 88; Hasegawa,
Replanning
, pp 80–84; Peter J. Larkham, ‘Rebuilding the Industrial Town’,
Urban History
(Dec 2002), pp 401–2.

30
.
Coventry Standard
, 1 Mar 1941; Hasegawa,
Replanning
, p 39;
Coventry Evening
Telegraph
, 15/19/21 Dec 1944; Mason and Thompson, ‘Reflections’, pp 63–4.

31
. Mass-Observation, ‘Some Psychological Factors in Home Building’,
Town and
Country Planning
(Spring 1943), pp 8–9; Mass-Observation,
People’s Homes
(1943), pp 4–5, 219, 226;
Architectural Review
(Nov 1943), p 144.

32
. Mass-Observation,
People’s Homes
, p xix; Mrs M. Pleydell-Bouverie,
Daily Mail
Book of Britain’s Post-War Homes
(1944), pp 19–20; R. E. Pahl,
Divisions of Labour
(Oxford, 1984), pp 321–2; Nick Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities, 1945–55’,
Contemporary British History
(Spring 2000), p 39.