Austerity Britain, 1945-1951

David Kynaston begins his book, the first of a planned multi-volume survey of Britain, on a high note by chronicling the celebrations of V-E Day. It is a joyous starting point for his ambitious goal, which is to chart the evolution of the nation from the end of the Second World War to the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979. It is an era that began with the commitment to nationalizing industries and creating the modern welfare state and ended with a government winning power with a promise to undo many of these programs, and Kynaston plans to show how the country developed over this period. This he does by focusing on the people who lived in those times, drawing from the early work of Mass-Observation, contemporary press accounts and the private writings of diarists to provide a sprawling portrait of Britain in the late 1940s.

What particularly stands out is how much different the nation was back then. The Britain that emerges from these pages is a nation driven by an industrial economy, with an overwhelmingly white and predominantly male workforce in physically demanding jobs producing a quarter of the world's manufactured goods. The everyday lives of these Britons was different as well, lacking not only the modern conveniences that the author notes early in the text but even many of the basics of prewar life, basics which had been sacrificed to the exigencies of war. Kynaston notes their growing frustration with ongoing scarcity, a frustration that illustrated the gulf between their harsh realities and the idealistic dreams of government planners that is a persistent theme of the book.

Richly detailed, superbly written, and supplemented with excellent photographs, Kynaston's book is an outstanding account of postwar Britain. It offers readers an evocative account of a much different era of British history, yet one with all-too familiar concerns over youth, crime, and an emerging multiracial society. Having devoured its pages, I look forward eagerly to the next installment and the insights Kynaston will offer.

A very readable history of post war Britain (17/20 people found this helpful)

I read a review in The Sunday Times when the book first came out. I thought it was a suitably obscure subject and asked the library to get me a copy. In then became a bestseller and I was told that the waiting list was 54 and I was 27.

I then read better reviews and they said it was a great book. I was born in 1950 so that period of history is of interest to me as I believed it shaped the1950s and 1960s and some of the attitudes still prevail today.

The book is a great review of British life in its every aspect and the thinking of the time. We had won the war but the peace was tougher than the war for a lot of people. Rationing went on for years and the old attitudes in society did not break down quickly enough.

I did not start to take notice of what was going on in society until about 1963 and the attitudes that are set out in this book certainly prevailed for thr next twenty years. All the old threadbare cliches of privilege and what society was all about still existed.

In 1946 the National Trust had a meeting and one of their representatives said about Montacute House in somerset that the public could not of course be admitted to the house because they smelt. There was two minutes dead silence.

People did smell in 1946 if you read about their washing an living conditions.

Housing was a big priority then as now Neil Kinnock's family moved in November 1947 to a new two bed-roomed prefab on a council estate in Nant-y Bwch " It was like moving to Beverly Hills he recalled " It had a fridge, a bath, central heating and a smokeless grate... and people used to come just to look at it.

The BBC was holding up standards as always and banned in 1948 jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind.Extreme care should be taken about certain references such as pre natal influences(e.g. his mother was frightened by a donkey and marital infidelity.

The public's views on extra marital sex were recorded. One taxi proprietor said "I may say my wife and I have dropped one or two people who weren't playing the game ,we didn't think they were worth knowing."

It is an interesting old fashioned view that you would ostracise people for immorality. You would be ploughing a lonely furrow now if you did that.

In economic terms there was lot of price fixing and when proper competition came later British industry were not up to it because they had had such cosy arrangements.

There were standards to be maintained and a lot of people saw themselves as gentleman and had a code " Shoes have laces", "motor cars are black" "jelly is not officer's food". People believed this stuff.

Price fixing was everywhere between such companies as Lyons and Wall's in ice creams. Selling was a gentleman's existence with Sheffield operating as a big cartel. Orders were reported to the respective trade and association committee and at the end the day they would tell you what prices to quote. The price fixing was incredible.

British industry was not prepared to follow the American gospel of productivity and the 3 Ss standardisation, simplification specialisation.

In education only those who passed the eleven plus were deemed fit for a decent education and people like Cliff Richard did not pass and neither did John Prescott and the author said did not get the bike and thereafter never quite forgave the world.

All these attitudes were alive and well right through my teens in the sixties and well into the seventies. Some of them are still around now sixty years later.

If you want to understand present day Britain this is the book for you and at 632 pages before you get to the notes and index it is a hefty read but well worth it.

I will be quoting it to all those who think today's problems are some how unique.

We have seen it all before.

Too much of a good thing (8/11 people found this helpful)

It is well written and enlivened by many personal reminiscences and anecdotes. One trouble is that these inflate the length to 692 pages, which is rather too long for anyone who doesn't start out with a strong interest in the subject.
The subject of the decline of Britain's place in the world has a special interest for Americans, who wonder if it's their turn next. In 1945 a quarter of the world was ruled by King George, Emperor of India, Liege Lord of Canada etc. The Union Jack flew over Jerusalem and Hong Kong. Britain had stood for the world against Hitler and had won. Yet the British found that they were poverty-stricken. There were many theories to account for this. A favorite theory for Americans was that it was due to the British embrace of socialism and government controls. Kynaston does try to cover all the theories but I lost track. Maybe he should have been more polemical and less fair-minded. I found AN Wilson's "After the Victorians" much more readable in spite of its biases and lack of scholarship..

Dazzling social history (69/71 people found this helpful)

This is an exemplary social history of Britain in the six years after World War 11, dazzling in its scope and impressive in its detail.

It covers the impact of the War and its aftermath on most major aspects of British society: class, health, crime, sport, culture (high and low), work, play, leisure, politics, race, the mass media and much more.

Moreover it does it readably. Kynaston seems to have learnt the lessons of the readability studies published at about the time that he covers, including the most important (and most often forgotten) of all: put flesh and blood on your facts, quotes and anecdotes. He does this by enlivening his narrative from beginning to end with a focus on people. Politics may be a clash of ideas but it is people who generate these ideas. Education is teachers and pupils in classrooms. Buildings and suburbs, cities and towns are the product of architects and planners, government officials and residents.

The readability studies of Flesch, Gunning and others said Be Specific and Kynaston bowls over his readers with a wealth of fascinating details. They said Illustrate with a Wealth of Anecdotes and Kynaston provides a veritable newsreel of little stories, weaving them together so seamlessly that the reader is scarcely aware that he is often making an incisive argument. This is because the argument is presented as narrative rather than the abstract analysis normally associated with academic historians.

The result is that you get the feel of time and place, the taste of food, the appearance of streets and towns and cities, the image and reality of buildings. This is, after all, social history, not political history. Politicians make their appearances and so does politics - but in a social context.

It is difficult to imagine anyone beginning to read this book and failing to finish it. It is eminently readable in both the measurable technical sense and in the general sense that it is approachable and captivating.

Outstanding. (18/38 people found this helpful)

Quite simply a remarkable History book. It certainly makes you think how and why the country has changed since then.

Austerity Britain, 1945-1951

David Kynaston

Reader Reviews:

An outstanding study of a changing nation (2/2 people found this helpful)

A very readable history of post war Britain (17/20 people found this helpful)

Too much of a good thing (8/11 people found this helpful)

Dazzling social history (69/71 people found this helpful)

Outstanding. (18/38 people found this helpful)

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