Austerity Britain
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5. Elizabeth Layton, ‘The Economics of Housing’, Town Planning Review (Apr 1951), p 9; Jim Yelling, ‘Public Policy, Urban Renewal and Property Ownership, 1945– 55’, Urban History (May 1995), pp 50–54; Phyllis Willmott, Joys and Sorrows (1995), pp 123–4; The Letters of Kingsley Amis (2000), p 222; Richard Bradford, Lucky Him (2001), p 126; Kingsley Amis, That Uncertain Feeling (Penguin edn, 1985), p 103.
6. Patrick Nuttgens, The Home Front (1989), p 67; Holmans, ‘Housing’, p 487; Harriet Jones, ‘“This is Magnificent!”’, Contemporary British History (Spring 2000), p 102; Brian Lund, Housing Problems and Housing Policy (Harlow, 1996), p 121.
7. Peter Mitchell, Memento Mori (Otley, 1990), pp 8 (preface by Bernard Crick), 42, 66; Yorkshire Observer, 26 September 1949; Alison Ravetz, Model Estate (1974), pp 226–9.
8. Seán Damer, ‘Last Exit to Blackhill’ (Glasgow, 1992), pp 32–9.
9. Godfrey Winn, This Fair Country (1951), pp 109–17.
10. The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, 1950–1957 (2003), pp 23–4; Picture
11. Journal of the Town Planning Institute (Sept–Oct 1949), p 232; Junichi Hasegawa, Replanning the Blitzed City Centre (Buckingham, 1992), pp 108–9; Observer, 28 Jan 1951.
12. Nick Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics (1990), chap 4; Coventry Evening Telegraph, 31 Dec 1949; Listener, 1 Dec 1949; Winn, This Fair Country, pp 221–3.
13. Nick Tiratsoo, ‘Coventry’, in Tiratsoo et al (eds), Urban Reconstruction in Britain and Japan, 1945–1955 (Luton, 2002), pp 24–5; Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, p 57; Coventry Standard, 16 Mar 1951.
14. New Society, 8 Feb 1979 (Gordon Cherry); Evening Standard, 15 Jan 1951; Observer, 28 Jan 1951; C.A.C. Turner, ‘Houses and Flats at Crawley’, Town and Country Planning (Feb 1951), p 83; Harold Orlans, Stevenage (1952), pp 120–21; Daily Telegraph, 26 Apr 2003 (Keith Miller); The Times, 7 Feb 1950.
15. Nick Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities, 1945–55’, Contemporary British History (Spring 2000), p 40; C. D. Buchanan and D. H. Crompton, ‘Residential Density and Cost of Development’, Town and Country Planning (Dec 1950), pp 514–18; Winn, This Fair Country, p 222; Paul Elek, This Other London (1951), pp 52–3; Orlans, Stevenage, p 106; The Times, 25 Jun 1949.
16. Peter Shapely et al, ‘Civic Culture and Housing Policy in Manchester, 1945– 79’, Twentieth Century British History, 15/4 (2004), pp 417–20; Manchester Guardian, 3 Mar 1950; David Byrne, ‘The Reconstruction of Newcastle’, in Robert Colls and Bill Lancaster (eds), Newcastle upon Tyne (Chichester, 2001), p 343; Benwell Community Project, Slums on the Drawing Board (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1978), p 8; Dan Smith, An Autobiography (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1970), p 33.
17. Anthony Sutcliffe and Roger Smith, Birmingham, 1939–1970 (1974), pp 428–9, 431; Anthony Sutcliffe, ‘A Century of Flats in Birmingham, 1875–1973’ in Sutcliffe (ed), Multi-Storey Living (1974), p 200; Herbert Jackson, ‘Birmingham’s Planning Problems’, Town and Country Planning (Jun 1951), pp 221, 281–2; Sutcliffe, ‘Century’, p 200; Gordon E. Cherry, Birmingham (Chichester, 1994), p 170; Miles Glendinning and Stefan Muthesius, Tower Block (New Haven, 1994), p 167.
18. Sheffield Telegraph, 30 Sept 1949, 6 Oct 1949.
19. Listener, 21 Dec 1950, 10 May 1951. In general on Churchill Gardens, see: Nigel Glendinning, ‘Art and Architecture for the People?’, in Jim Fyrth (ed), Labour’s Promised Land? (1995), pp 278–9; Nicholas Bullock, Building the Post-War World (2002), pp 85–6.
20. On Matthew and his department’s takeover at the LCC, see: Miles Glendinning, ‘Teamwork or Masterwork?’, Architectural History (2003), pp 311–12; Nicholas Bullock, ‘Ideals, Priorities and Harsh Realities’, Planning Perspectives (Jan 1994), pp 97–8; Nuttgens, Home Front, pp 68–9.
21. Nicholas Day, ‘The Role of the Architect in Post-War State Housing’ (PhD, University of Warwick, 1988), pp 257–8.
22. Bryan Appleyard, The Pleasures of Peace (1989), pp 26–7; Lionel Brett, ‘Post-War Flats in Britain’, Architectural Review (Nov 1949), p 315; Bullock, Building, pp 57– 8; Architectural Review (May 1951), p 299.
23. The Times, 13 Feb 1950; Osborn, p 185; Town and Country Planning (Apr 1951), pp 151–2.
24. Spectator, 27 Jan 1950; Frank Worsdall, The Tenement (Edinburgh, 1979), p 145. 25. Seán Damer, Glasgow (1990), p 189; Gerard Mooney, ‘Living on the Periphery’
25(PhD, University of Glasgow, 1988), pp 220, 229–32, 240–51, 253; Thomas A. Markus, ‘Comprehensive Development and Housing, 1945–75’, in Peter Reed (ed), Glasgow (Edinburgh, 1993), p 153.
14 That Dump?
1. Alison Ravetz, Model Estate (1974), pp 134, 135; Peter Mitchell, Memento Mori (Otley, 1990), p 84; Yorkshire Evening Post, 17 Apr 1951.
2. Yorkshire Evening Post, 9 Apr 1951; Sunderland Echo, 10 Apr 1951; Mark Lewisohn, Funny, Peculiar (2002), pp 176–7; Daily Mirror, 10 Apr 1951.
3. The New Yorker, 28 Apr 1951; The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, 1950– 57 (2003), pp 62–3; Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell (1979), pp 255–6; Langford, 10 Apr 1951; John Campbell, Nye Bevan (1997), p 238; Tony Benn, Years of Hope (1994), pp 147–8.
4. V. S. Naipaul, Letters Between a Father and Son (1999), p 85; Barrow News, 14 Apr 1951; M-O A, D 5353, 12 Apr 1951.
5. Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 Apr 1951; BBC WA, Any Questions?, 13 Apr 1951; Langford, 14 Apr 1951; Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951 (Oxford, 1983), p 835; Daily Express, 16 Apr 1951.
6. Macmillan Diaries, p 64; M-O A, D 5353, 16 Apr 1951; Daily Mirror, 17 Apr 1951; Daily Express, 17/18 Apr 1951.
7. Govan Press, 20 Apr 1951; Daily Mirror, 18 Apr 1951; Jack Dash, Good Morning, Brothers! (1969), pp 86–7. In general on the case of ‘the Seven’, see: Jim Phillips, ‘The Postwar Political Consensus and Industrial Unrest in the Docks, 1945–55’, Twentieth Century British History, 6/3 (1995), pp 309–10; Nina Fishman, ‘“A Vital Element in British Industrial Relations”’, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations (Autumn 1999), pp 70–71.
8. Langford, 18 Apr 1951; Haines, 19 Apr 1951; News of the World, 22 Apr 1951; Dilwyn Porter, ‘Amateur Football in Britain, 1948–63: The Pegasus Phenomenon’, in Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter (eds), Amateurs and Professionals in Post-War British Sport (2000), pp 1–30; The Times, 23 Apr 1951; Langford, 21 Apr 1951.
9. Kenneth Harris, Attlee (1982), pp 477, 480; Macmillan Diaries, p 66; Campbell, Nye Bevan, pp 244–5; The New Yorker, 19 May 1951.
10. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (1992), pp 162, 168; Streat, p 579; Brian Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell (1996), p 117; Campbell, Nye Bevan, p 250; Gaitskell, p 257.
11. Daily Express, 24 Apr 1951; Preston, 24 Apr 1951; Leeds Guardian, 27 Apr 1951.
12. The Times, 28/30 Apr 1951; Newcastle Journal, 30 Apr 1951; Mike Kirkup (ed), Charlie Crowe’s Newcastle United Scrapbook (Seaham, 2001), pp 35, 37; The Times, 30 Apr 1951.
Afterword
1. Woman, 5 May 1951.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the following for kindly allowing me to reproduce copyright material: Evelyn Abrams (Mark Abrams); Dannie Abse (Farewell to the Twentieth Century, Pimlico, 2001); Gillon Aitken Associates (Copyright V. S. Naipaul 1951, Copyright V. S. Naipaul 1999); Pat Arlott (John Arlott); Ouida V. Ascroft (Florence Speed); Don Bachardy (Christopher Isherwood): Lady Diana Baer (Mollie Panter-Downes); Joan Bakewell; Stuart Ball; Michael Banton; Correlli Barnett; BBC Written Archives Centre; Prue Bellak (Julian Critchley); Tony Benn; Birmingham City Archives (Mary King); Michael Blake-more; Michael Bloch (James Lees-Milne); The Robert Bolt Estate; Mark Bostridge and Rebecca Williams (Vera Brittain’s literary executors, for quotations from her Wartime Chronicle); Veronica Bowater (Vere Hodgson); Lady Florette Boyson (Sir Rhodes Boyson); E. R. Braith-waite; British Library of Political and Economic Science (Crosland papers); Robin Bruce Lockhart (Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart); Sue Bruley; Michael Burns; John Campbell; Rene and Michael Chaplin (Sid Chaplin); Jonathan Clowes Ltd (Letters Copyright 2001 Kingsley Amis, Memoirs 1991 Kingsley Am
is, on behalf of the Literary Estate of Kingsley Amis; Copyright 1998 Doris Lessing, 1961 Doris Lessing, 2002 Doris Lessing, on behalf of Doris Lessing); The Estate of Cyril Connolly (extracts from Horizon magazine, copyright 1945, 1947 Cyril Connolly, reproduced by permission of the Estate of Cyril Connolly, c/o Rogers Coleridge & White Ltd, 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN); Curtis Brown Group Ltd (on behalf of the Estate of Pamela Hansford Johnson, copyright Pamela Hansford Johnson 1948); Renée Daly (Lawrence Daly); Seán Damer; The Dartington Hall Trust Archive; Hunter Davies; Norman Dennis; Faber and Faber Ltd (Steven Berkoff, Autobiography; T. S. Eliot, Notes towards the Definition of Culture); Fabian Society; Margaret Fenton (Frederic Osborn); Annemarie Flanders (Allan Flanders); Howard Ford (Erica Ford); Margaret Forster; Enid Grant (Enid Palmer); Rachel Gross (Geoffrey Gorer); Sir Peter Hall; Bill Hamilton, Literary Executor of the Estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell, and Secker and Warburg Ltd (extracts from the published writings of George Orwell, copyright George Orwell); Lord Hattersley; Trustees of HM Book Trust (Harold Macmillan); Pamela Hendicott (Judy Haines); David Higham Associates (Arthur Bryant, John Lehmann, Malcolm Muggeridge, Dylan Thomas); Donald Hinds (Journey to an Illusion); Hazel Holt (Barbara Pym); Steve Humphries (The Making of Modern London, 1945–1985); Institution of Mechanical Engineers (Lord Hinton of Bankside); Islington Local History Centre (Gladys Langford); Ian Jack (Before the Oil Ran Out, Secker & Warburg, 1987); Dan Jacobson; Jackie Jones (Mervyn Jones); Lynn Jones (Lynn Creedy); P. J. Kavanagh (Ted Kavanagh); Dora L. Kneebone (Rose Uttin); Lawrence & Wishart (Jack Dash, Good Morning, Brothers!); Sir Michael Levey (John Brophy); Alison Light (Estate of Raphael Samuel, for extract from The Lost World of British Communism, Verso, 2006); Liverpool University Press (John Barron Mays); Arthur McIvor; Trustees of the Mass-Observation Archive; Gerry Mooney; Jane Moser (Joan Waley); Jamie Muir and Denis Norden (Frank Muir and Denis Norden Archive); John Murray Ltd (‘Business Girls’ by John Betjeman, from Collected Poems, copyright The Estate of John Betjeman); News International Archive and Record Office (Papers of the John Hilton Bureau); Juliet Nicolson (Harold Nicolson); Jill Norman (Elizabeth David); The Joe Orton Estate; Peter Pagnamenta; Angela Partington; The Estate of Frances Partridge (extracts from Everything to Lose, copyright 1985 Frances Partridge, first published in 1985 by Victor Gollancz, reproduced by permission of the Estate of Frances Partridge, c/o Rogers Coleridge & White, 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN); PFD (extracts from The Sea and the Land, copyright Estate of James Lansdale Hodson 1945, The Way Things Are, copyright Estate of James Lansdale Hodson 1948, and Thunder in the Heavens, copyright Estate of James Lansdale Hodson 1950, on behalf of the author’s Estate; extracts from The Kenneth Williams Diaries, copyright The Estate of Kenneth Williams 1994, on behalf of the author’s Estate; extracts from Love is Blue, copyright Joan Wyndham 1986); Mike and Trevor Phillips (Windrush); Allan Preston (Kenneth Preston); The Random House Group Ltd (Dear Tom: Letters from Home by Tom Courtenay, published Doubleday); Alison Ravetz; Marian Ray and Robin Raynham (Marian Raynham); Basil Streat (Sir Raymond Streat); Valerie Tedder; Paul Thompson; Barry Turner (When Daddy Came Home by Barry Turner and Tony Rennell); Graham Turner; Geoffrey Tweedale; Roxana and Matthew Tynan (Letters of Kenneth Tynan); UCL Library Services, Special Collections (Hugh Gaitskell); University of Wales Swansea, Library & Information Services (South Wales Coalfield Collection); Nigel Watson; Seymour J. Weissman (Evan Durbin); The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine; Phyllis Willmott; Colin Wilson; Bill Wyman; Emma and Toby Young (Michael Young); Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska.
I am indebted, in many different ways, to archivists, librarians, fellow-historians, friends and relatives. They include: Sarah Aitchison; Helen Arkwright; Martin Banham; Nicola Beauman; Elizabeth Bennett; Piers Brendon; Sophie Bridges; Steve Bunker; Peter Cain; Terry Carney; Mark Clapson; Nigel Cochrane; Rob Colls; Fiona Courage; Heather Creaton; Seán Damer; Patric Dickinson; Marguerite Dupree; Joy Eldridge; Amanda Engineer; Angela Eserin; Alexandra Eveleigh; Robert Frost; Andrew George; Elizabeth Hennessy; Len Holden; David and Val Horsfield; Bill and Gisela Hunt; Caroline Jacob; Harriet Jones; Jacqueline Kavanagh; Bill Lancaster; Valerie Moyses; Jonathan Oates; Erin O’Neill; Stanley Page; Anne Perkins; Andrew Riley; Simon Robbins; Richard Roberts; Richard Saville; Dennis Sherer; Dorothy Sheridan; Emma Shipley; Adrian Smith; John Stevens; David Taylor; Richard Temple; Deborah Thom; Alistair Tough; Jenny Uglow; John Wakefield; Andy Ward; David Warren; Tracy Weston; Yvonne Widger; Melanie Wood; Christine Woodland.
Since 2001 I have been a visiting professor at Kingston University, where I have enjoyed the company and stimulation of Gail Cunningham and her colleagues in the Faculty of Art and Social Sciences.
The following people kindly read all or part of the various drafts: Julian Birkett; Brian Brivati; Mike Burns; Juliet Gardiner; John Gross; Lucy Kynaston; James Lappin; David Loffman; Sara and Steve Marsh; Glen O’Hara; Dil Porter; Harry Ricketts; Phyllis Willmott. I owe much to their comments, encouragement and often salutary sense of perspective.
My greatest debt, of course, is to those who have been most intimately involved in this project: Amanda Howard for transcribing my tapes; Andrea Belloli for her copy-editing; Libby Willis and Patric Dickinson for reading the proofs; Douglas Matthews for compiling the index; my agent Deborah Rogers and her assistant Hannah Westland; my editor Bill Swainson and his colleagues at Bloomsbury, including Nick Humphrey for his help with pictures and Emily Sweet for putting the book to bed; and, above all, Lucy, Laurie, George and Michael at home. Their belief in me and what I am trying to do has made all the difference.
New Malden, autumn 2006
Picture Credits
VE Day celebrations in Lambert Square, Coxlodge, Newcastle upon Tyne (NCJ Media Ltd)
The Tory candidate addresses an election meeting in Bethnal Green, June 1945. Photograph by Kurt Hutton (Picture Post, Getty Images)
Aneurin Bevan in Ebbw Vale during the 1945 election. Photograph by Ian Smith (Time and Life, Getty Images)
The Haymarket, Sheffield, 1946 (Local Studies Department, Sheffield Central Library)
Museum steps, Liverpool, 1946. Photograph by E. Chambré Hardman (NT/E. Chambré Hardman Collection)
Mrs Francis, Christmas Street, off the Old Kent Road, 1946. Photograph by Charles Hewitt (Picture Post, Getty Images)
The Gorbals, Glasgow, 1948. Photograph by Bert Hardy (Picture Post, Getty Images)
‘Mr Browning’s Winning Team’: West Sussex, 1947. Photograph by Marjorie Baker (Henfield Parish Council)
England versus South Africa at Lord’s, June 1947 (Reproduced from John Arlott’s Vintage Summer: 1947)
Margate, June 1948. Photograph by Chris Ware (Picture Post, Getty Images)
Holidaymakers outside Waterloo station, July 1948. Photograph by James Wilds (Topham Picture Library)
Elephant and Castle, December 1948. Photograph by Bert Hardy (Picture Post, Getty Images)
Mrs Lilian Chandler and the President of the Board of Trade (Harold Wilson) discuss the housewife’s plight, December 1948. Photograph by Bert Hardy (Picture Post, Getty Images)
Durham Miners’ Gala, 23 July 1949 (Gilesgate Archive (M. Richardson))
Reading the small ads, London, 1950 (The Museum of London)
Blackpool, 1949. Photograph by John Gay (English Heritage, National Monuments Record/heritage-images)
The Ark Royal, Birkenhead, 1950. Photograph by E. Chambré Hardman (NT/E. Chambré Hardman Collection)
The Pool of London, autumn 1949. Photograph by Bert Hardy (Picture Post, Getty Images)
The car dealers of Warren Street, autumn 1949. Photograph by Charles Hewitt (Picture Post, Getty Images)
The victorious Newcastle team returns from the 1951 Cup Final (NCJ Media Ltd)
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. He has been a professional historian since 1973 and has written fifteen books, including The City of London (1994–2001), a widely acclaimed four-volume history, and WG’s Bi
rthday Party, an account of the Gentleman v. Players match at Lord’s in July 1898. He is currently a visiting professor at Kingston University.