This was a pivotal period in the slow transition from war to peace which began when the Home Guard was stood down at the end of 1944 and continued into 1946, when the majority of men in the forces were demobbed.
The British population greeted VE day and VJ day with joy and celebration, but this was also tinged with a sense of trepidation. In the summer of 1945, people danced the jitterbug, laughed at the BBC’s most popular radio comedy ITMA. They flocked to the cinema, the mass entertainment of the era, and consumed films which expressed and explored the fantasies and fears of a nation coming to terms with the complex legacies of war. Six years of war had taken a terrible toll on the population on the home front, who had endured bombing, rationing and shortages. To their dismay, austerity became more severe following VJ day, when bacon and lard rations were reduced.
The election of the first majority Labour government in July 1945 was an indication of a desire for change, rather than a return to the poverty and inequalities of the 1930s. Post-war planning had been avidly discussed in parliament, in the media, by women’s organisations, such as the Women’s Institute Movement, since the publication of the Beveridge report in 1942.
Many families had been fractured by the conflict; men and women had been away from their homes for long periods of time, in armed forces or working in war industries whilst hundreds of thousands of children had been evacuated. How and where could these families be put back together. For the lucky few, one of the newly constructed prefabs - or people’s palaces as they were called - would offer a home of their own. Most would not be so lucky, there was acute shortage of houses with over a million homes destroyed or damaged in London alone.
Consequently, many families found the return to domestic life far from peaceful.
Professor Maggie Andrews has been for a number of years been researching, writing and broadcasting on the Home Fronts of the First and Second World War. Her recent publications have included an article on ‘How War enters the Worcester Home in Two World Wars’. (Midland History 2023) and a book on Women and Evacuation in the Second World War (Bloomsbury 2019). She is now working on a book on women who shaped the global home fronts to be published by Routledge.
In 2025 the National Memorial Arboretum will be reflecting upon and remembering the significant events that brought about the end of the Second World War and marking the anniversaries of both VE and VJ Day.
The Year Was 1945, a series of exhibitions, events, services, talks and tours will open a window in time to 1945, sharing the stories of those who lived and served 80 years ago.
