Read Online Austerity Britain, 1945–51 by David Kynaston - Free Book Online Page B

‘fair shares’ for all. Between them, according to the Titmuss version, these two circumstances led to a widespread desire for major social and other reforms of a universalist, egalitarian nature. The Beveridge Report and the rest of the reconstruction package followed. Tellingly, in his treatment of the Blitz, Titmuss noted that ‘there was nothing to be ashamed of in being “bombed out” by the enemy’ and that ‘public sympathy with, and approval of, families who suffered in the raids was in sharp contrast to the low social evaluation accorded to those who lost material standards through being unemployed during the 1930s’. 19 In the round, such a Whiggish, feel-good reading – unity forged through adversity, irresistible pressure from below leading to longed-for change, human nature actually improving – would, not surprisingly, take some shifting.
     
    And of course, there were plausible grounds for it. In August 1942, a year and a half after Orwell in The Lion and the Unicorn had detected a ‘visible swing in public opinion’ towards socialism and a planned economy since the fall of France, Mass-Observation asked working-class residents of Holborn and Paddington what changes they hoped to see after the war. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m sure,’ was the rather helpless reply of one middle-aged woman, but others were more forthcoming. ‘C’ in M-O annotation referred to ‘artisan and skilled workers’, with ‘D’ being ‘unskilled workers and the least economically or educationally trained third of our people’:
     
There’ll have to be more equalness. Things not fair now. Nobody can tell me they are. There’s them with more money what they can ever use. This ain’t right and it’s got to be put right. ( M 65 C )
     
I think the biggest change of all should be security for the ordinary people; I mean, nothing like the depression that followed the last war.
     
I think a lot could be done to avoid that. ( Inv. asked how ). I’m afraid that’s too big a question. ( M 30 C )
     
I think I’d like a lot of changes. ( What particularly? ) I don’t know. ( F 50 D )
     
I do feel that the schooling of children should be a sort of pooled schooling; every child should be allowed to have the same chance; not because a mother has more money she should be allowed to send her child to one school – the class distinction in the schools, I think that should be wiped right out . . . ( F 30 C )
     
Oh, lots. ( asked what ) Much better living for the ordinary working man. ( Anything else? ) Better housing and everything. ( F 25 C )
     
There’ll have to be changes. Did you read about that old bitch Lady Astor? She’s one that’ll be changed, if I had my way. It’s the likes of her that causes revolutions. ( M 45 C )
     
    Later that year, in early December, the publication of the Beveridge Report caused a sensation. One London diarist noted that it had ‘set everybody talking’, and Beveridge himself conceded that ‘it’s been a revelation to me how concerned people are with conditions after the war’. Among ‘my friends and colleagues’, stated an engineering draughtsman, ‘the publication of the Report caused more discussion and interest than any war news for a long time,’ and he added that ‘the tone of all the discussions was favourable.’ From Mass-Observation’s national panel of some 1,500 regular correspondents (from ‘all walks of life, living in all parts of the country’, though in practice almost certainly with a middle-class bias), more than 300 wrote in to express their views, with only a handful against. Reconstruction hopes seemingly remained high and widespread later in the war. Debates in 1943/4 in the Forces ‘Parliament’ in Cairo saw strong support for bills to nationalise the retail trade and restrict inheritances; a poll by Gallup in July 1944 found 55 per cent welcoming the idea of a national health service (and 69 per cent preferring the prospect of health centres to