Austerity Britain

by David Kynaston

  At 3.00 the flags stopped waving, the bells stopped ringing, and the tumult briefly died down as everyone paused to hear Winston Churchill’s short speech, delivered from 10 Downing Street and heard across the land not only on radios but from innumerable loudspeakers, including in Whitehall itself. He announced that the war in Europe would formally end just after midnight but that hostilities had in effect ceased; declared with a characteristic flourish that ‘the evil-doers now lie prostrate before us’ (a gasp from the Whitehall crowds); and near the end almost barked out the words ‘Advance Britannia!’ ‘There followed,’ Nicolson recorded, ‘the Last Post and God Save the King which we all sang very loud indeed. And then cheer upon cheer.’ Gladys Langford, sitting on a chair just inside Green Park and hearing the speech ‘broadcast thro’ loudspeakers in the trees’, was unsure whether it was the King or Churchill speaking, but few others had doubts. A notably unenthusiastic member of the dense throng around Westminster was Vera Brittain, a pacifist throughout the war and now returning to the spot where she had been on Armistice Day, 1918. She generally found the mood of the afternoon ‘all so formal and “arranged”’ in comparison with the ‘spontaneity’ 27 years earlier – but it was Churchill specifically whom she could not bear. She felt his appeal to crude nationalism all too ‘typical’; condemned him for having in his speech ‘introduced no phrase of constructive hope for a better society which renounces war’; and even ‘caught a glimpse of him standing in his car as he went from Downing St. to the H. of Commons surrounded by cheering crowds, waving his hat, with the usual cigar & self-satisfied expression’.

  As soon as his speech was over, the Heaps, who had joined the multitude in Parliament Square, managed to beat a temporary retreat home (a top-floor flat at Rashleigh House, near Judd Street) for ‘a much needed wash and cool off’ on what was becoming ‘a sweltering hot day’. But for Langford, who had no intention of returning to the fray, escape was far more difficult:

  Queued for a bus but none came – contingents of marchers – officers, men, girls, lads in rough marching order. Walked back to Piccadilly but couldn’t negotiate the Circus. Solid mass of people (St John’s Ambulance men and nurses behind Swan and Edgar’s). A policeman advised me to work my way along by the wall – but I couldn’t get near the wall. Followed a tall American soldier and made my way to Wardour St. but Leicester Sq. was impassable. Dodged thro’ Soho side streets and finally reached Tottenham Court Rd – a 19 bus and home.

  Between 3.20 and 4.00, about a third of the adult population was tuned in to Bells and Victory Celebrations. Happily for BBC Audience Research, the ‘great majority’ of its listeners’ panel ‘found this broadcast exactly fitted their mood and taste – it was vivid, noisy and inspiring; it brought invalids, and those who lived in remote corners of the country, in touch with the spirit of festivity in the capital and other cities visited’. Even so, ‘some wished that the noises – of merrymaking, bells and sirens – had been left to speak for themselves, without the constant flow of “patter”’ – and ‘the commentator at Cardiff who spoke through the Hallelujah Chorus was thought particularly tiresome.’ Frank Lewis, a young man from Barry, might well have been in Cardiff that afternoon but in fact was in Manchester, where he had been studying at the university and had just started a job in a warehouse. At 3.15, having listened to the Prime Minister’s address, he left his suburban lodgings and caught a tram to the city centre: ‘Town was full of people, all lounging about doing nothing . . . I went in Lyons, by the Oxford cinema (where there was a queue) and got a cup of tea.’ Lewis, definitely a glass-half-empty diarist, then went to the crowded Albert Square: ‘Everybody seemed to be waiting for something to happen. I stayed for only 10 minutes, then came home; there was nothing doing. These so-called celebrations seem so useless, – people hanging about “doing nought”.’3.

  Lewis was no doubt more curmudgeonly than most participants, or indeed non-participants. But it is clear from the findings of the pioneering sociological-cum-anthropological organisation Mass-Observation – which had begun in 1937 and relied largely on volunteer diarists and observers – that riotous abandon was the exception rather than the rule:

  Mostly, the crowds are concentrated in the few focal points of Central London. Away from these, people are restrained and orderly; the excitement seems to be almost entirely a result of the stimulus of crowds and group feeling . . . There was little gaiety in Central London away from the thickest of the crowds, and correspondingly little in the suburbs. People had put great efforts into decorating their houses, but seemed to anticipate little further in the way of celebrations . . . Bonfires, street tea-parties and fireworks, activities meant in the first place for children, were the chief features of provincial celebrations.

  Adeline Vaughan Williams (the composer’s first wife) was struck by how ‘very sedate’ Dorking in Surrey was, while Cecil Beaton found Kensington ‘as quiet as a Sunday’. And he added, ‘There is no general feeling of rejoicing. Victory does not bring with it a sense of triumph – rather a dull numbness of relief that the blood-letting is over.’ Even young people could find it hard to celebrate with a full heart – ‘I felt most depressed which I felt was very naughty considering how long we have worked and fought for this’ was the downbeat diary entry of Joan Waley, who after school and a year’s domestic-science course had joined the WRNS and worked near Bletchley on the Enigma code-breaking machines – while for those who had lost loved ones, a heavy tinge of sadness was inevitable.

  Nevertheless, the probability is that most people were neither depressed nor ecstatic. Rather, they took the two days in their stride, reflected upon them to a greater or lesser extent, and above all tried to have a good time while enjoying the spectacle. ‘V.E. Day,’ noted Alice (known to all as Judy) Haines, a youngish married woman living in Chingford, with a firm underlining in her diary, ‘and we are due to go to the Westminster Theatre, Buckingham Gate (!) to see Cedric Hardwicke in “Yellow Sands”. Decided to chance it by 38, which indicated “Victoria” as the destination anyway. Yes, but we dodged Piccadilly, travelling via Oxford St.’ The exclamation mark was a nod to Buckingham Palace, where from soon after Churchill’s speech the Royal Family had started to make a series of balcony appearances to the delight of the massed subjects below. But Haines’s main concern, especially as she was accompanying her husband to the show, was to look the part on this special day: ‘I wore my blue silk frock with red, white and blue (mountain rose, edelweiss and gentian flowers) brooch and red coat, and felt right in the fashion.’4.

  Many in the course of the evening went to thanksgiving services. ‘In the quiet of that tiny country church we found the note we really had been seeking,’ the Cotton Board’s Sir Raymond Streat, one of whose sons had died in action the previous autumn, wrote to another son about attending Nether Alderley Church. ‘Manchester business men and Cheshire farm labourers joined in a crowded service. References were made to those whose lives had gone into the purchase of victory. Your lady mother took this stoically.’ Ernest Loftus, headmaster of Barking Abbey School, attended the church in the village near Tilbury where he lived: ‘A full house – largest congregation I’ve seen for years. I read lesson as usual. Villagers had bonfire & social afterwards. We went home & listened to B.B.C.’ He was probably in time to hear the Home Service’s Tribute to the King, running from 8.30 to 9.00 and listened to by 36 per cent of the adult population. Representatives from different walks of life were lined up in Studio 8, Broadcasting House to pay their particular live tributes. ‘I speak for the men and women of the British Police,’ an anonymous policeman announced. ‘The war brought us many new tasks: we’ve faced them not only as officers of the law, but as the friends and protectors of your Majesty’s subjects.’ The not yet unmistakable voice belonged to John Arlott, still an acting patrol sergeant based in Southampton but starting to get some radio work.

  The royal tribute was the prelude to George VI’s address to his people, broadcast live at 9.00. The King’s sta
mmer made it a somewhat nerve-wracking occasion for all concerned, but in fact his longest-ever broadcast (some 13 minutes) did not go too badly – the ultra-royalist James Lees-Milne even describing it as ‘perfect, well phrased, well delivered in his rich, resonant voice’ and ‘expressed with true feeling’. Just before it began, one of Mass-Observation’s investigators slipped into her local pub in Chelsea, where she joined three young Marxist neighbours (‘two M22B, twin brothers, and F25B’, in other words two 22-year-old middle-class men and a 25-year-old middle-class woman):

  They say the pub has sold out of everything but gin, so Inv. gets four gins, and a few minutes later – a little late for the start – the King’s speech is turned on. Several women at the back of the lounge stand up, assuming reverent attitudes. There is a sense that people have been waiting all this time for something symbolic and now they have got it: the room is hushed as a church. M22B puts his feet on the table, leans back in his chair, and groans . . . At ‘endured to your utmost’ there are deep cries of ‘Hear hear!’. Whenever the King pauses, M22B says loudly, Ts, Ts, and becomes the centre of looks of intense malevolence from all corners of the room . . . When the King says ‘Of just (long pause) – of just triumph’ several women’s foreheads pucker and they wear a lacerated look. At ‘strength and shield’ Marxist unaccountably removes feet from table. When God Save the King is sung, the whole room rises to its feet and sings, with the exception of the Marxist twins, who remain sullenly seated. F25B, the wife of one, gets up.

  Afterwards, the investigator asked her why she had stood up. ‘Was it sheer politeness? She says yes, she supposes so – she felt like being in harmony with everyone else.’5.

  The news bulletin that accompanied the King’s broadcast included the welcome return of the weather report (Stuart Hibberd referring jocularly to ‘news of an old friend – the large depression’), though for Nella Last, a middle-aged, middle-class housewife living in Barrow-in-Furness, not even this made her ‘fully realise things’ as she continued to have ‘that curious “flat” feeling’ through the evening. Thirty-nine per cent of adults then stayed tuned to Victory Parade, though by the time the programme ended at 10.45 the audience had dropped by more than half as even the unadventurous left home to see the floodlights and the bonfires. ‘A grand team of voices’, as one grateful listener put it, included Stewart MacPherson describing the scene in Piccadilly, Richard Dimbleby in Whitehall and Howard Marshall outside Buckingham Palace. There was praise for ‘the choice of Tommy Trinder to give the running commentary from Lambeth’, while ‘listeners were much moved by the final sequence of Ralph Wightman [the countryman broadcaster] from Piddletrenthide’, which was ‘even described as “a stroke of genius”’. The programme also featured the recorded voices of Eisenhower, Montgomery, Air Chief Marshal Tedder and men of the fighting units, as well as descriptions of the celebrations in Dover, Birmingham and several American cities. ‘Made me think,’ ruminated Frank Lewis in his digs at 233 Upper Brook Street, Manchester 13. ‘Pretty picturesque and patriotic picture as a whole; especially descriptive were the crowded scenes, Piccadilly etc, and Mr Churchill speaking to a crowd from a roof top in Whitehall, with his cabinet’. Even so, he ended his diary entry on a far from gruntled note: ‘“On this most memorable of all days,” to quote the radio, I have spent the enormous sum, I don’t think, of 1/11d.’6.

  Of course, the image we have of that warm Tuesday night is very different and predominantly takes its cue from the events in London’s West End. ‘There was wild excitement in Trafalgar Square, half London seemed to be floodlit – so much unexpected light was quite unreal,’ wrote Joan Wyndham, having taken time off from her WAAF mess in the East Midlands. ‘There were people dancing like crazy, jumping in the fountains and climbing lamp-posts.’ Or take Noël Coward: ‘I walked down the Mall and stood outside Buckingham Palace, which was floodlit. The crowd was stupendous. The King and Queen came out on the balcony, looking enchanting. We all roared ourselves hoarse . . . I suppose this is the greatest day in our history.’ The iconography is understandably imperishable: of Churchill making the ‘V’ sign from a floodlit Ministry of Health balcony as the jubilant crowd below sang ‘Land of Hope and Glory’; of the Old Etonian trumpeter (and young Guards officer) Humphrey Lyttelton playing ‘Roll out the Barrel’ as he lurched on a handcart from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square and back followed by a long, swaying line of revellers doing the conga; of young women in confident groups on their own; of even the two princesses (Elizabeth and a 14-year-old Margaret Rose) being allowed to mingle with the crowds after midnight.

  Certainly Anthony Heap had no complaints, or at least no complaints bar the absence of live music and ‘the fact that the pubs, though allowed to keep open till midnight, were nearly all closed’. He and his wife returned to the West End at 7.30, saw one of the Royal Family’s 11 balcony appearances and made a typically painstaking tour of the main floodlit buildings. ‘One small incident we witnessed in St James’s Street – a dozen or so young revellers dancing “ring-a-ring-a-roses” round Philip Page, the gouty and arthritic dramatic critic of the Daily Mail, as he slowly hobbled across the road – was typical of the hundreds of smaller manifestations of high spirited gaiety that we saw tonight.’ For many, Heap noted, that night was still young:

  No one seemed to bother much about getting home, for though the last trains to the suburbs had left the West End at the ridiculously early hour of 11.15 or thereabouts, there were still as many sightseers about when we started to walk home just before midnight as there were when we arrived on the scene in the early evening. While outside Leicester Square station was a queue extending all the way up to Cambridge Circus waiting for the first trams in the morning! A sight which made us truly thankful that we were able to walk home, footsore and weary though we were as we trudged through Bloomsbury, so dark and drear by comparison with the brightly illuminated West End.

  The couple finally flopped into bed at 1 a.m. ‘It had been a grand day and we’d savoured it to the full. We were, in fact, VE Day-drunk!’ 7

  The West End, though, was not London, let alone Britain. ‘Usually, crowds were too few and too thin to inspire much feeling,’ reckoned Mass-Observation, ‘and on V.E. night most people were either at home, at small private parties, at indoor dances or in public houses, or collected in small groups around the bonfires, where there was sometimes singing and dancing, but by no means riotously.’ Most contemporary accounts confirm this rather low-key feel to proceedings. ‘The town was thronged but the crowds were orderly’ was how Colin Ferguson, a pattern-maker working for Babcock & Wilcox in Glasgow, found that city’s George Square shortly before midnight. ‘Most of those walking about evidently just out to see what was going on.’ So, too, in the Birmingham suburb of Erdington, where after the King’s broadcast ‘the “bonfire” in Mr Swinnerton’s field in Marsh Lane’ was the attraction for Mary King (a retired teacher), her husband and a group of friends: ‘It was a tremendous scene. Many people gathered to enjoy the sight. Everything quiet and orderly & enjoyable.’ Raymond Streat was at a big bonfire in Wilmslow, built by the Boy Scouts: ‘What curious people are we English? There was no cheering or rowdying. About two thousand folk stood there silently watching flames lighting up the dark skies . . . We were all content, apparently, to stand still and to stare. One or two attempts to launch a song died away.’ Judy Haines and her husband, meanwhile, had heard the King’s speech relayed at the Westminster Theatre before setting out for home: ‘Quite easy to get on the bus (though we changed at Leyton) and we had a front seat and good view of the bonfires and merriment. Met Mother H. waiting for Dad, at Chingford. Went in to spam and chips, etc. After that we were invited to a party at the Odeon, which we refused. Mrs Telford had thought we would have loved it, but I explained we had just done a show and had a meal.’ She noted, as any sensible person would, ‘It was twenty to twelve, by the way.’8.

  Not all the bonfires were quiet, meditative affairs. Certainly not in deepest Hereford
shire, where the local paper described what it was pleased to call ‘A Country Village Celebration’:

  Passing through the village of Stoke Lacy early on Tuesday afternoon one was startled to see the effigy of Hitler hanging from a gibbet in the car park of the Plough. That evening, a crowd began to gather, and word went round that Hitler was to be consumed in flames at 11 pm. At that hour excitement was intense, when Mr W R Symonds called upon Mr S J Parker, the Commander of No 12 Platoon, of the Home Guard, to set the effigy alight. In a few minutes the body of Hitler disintegrated as his 1,000-years Empire has done. First, his arm, poised in a Heil Hitler salute, dropped as smartly as it was ever raised in life. Quickly followed his German hat; then a leg fell off, and then the flames burnt fiercely to the strains of ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, ‘There’ll always be an England’ and ‘Roll out the Barrel’. Then the crowd spontaneously linked hands, and in a circle of 300 strong sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Mr Parker then called for cheers for Mr Churchill, President Truman, Marshal Stalin, and our serving boys and girls.