Snippets from 1947.

I think there is no better way to get a real feel for a time than to turn to the newspapers of the day. Newspapers are unfettered by the "historical viewpoint" and they paint a picture of a moment in time with the materials that were available at the time, rather than some idealised picture of days gone by. No need to look back with rose-coloured spectacles when newspapers can tell you the way it was.

Following up on some family history recently, I've been travelling back seventy years to September 1947, and my time travel is courtesy of the pages of the Daily Herald. The Second World War has been over for two years, but Britain is still beset by enormous problems and serious economic shortages. The dreadful winter of 1946/47 nearly brought the country to its knees far more effectively than years of enemy bombing campaigns, and in September 1947 the Government was putting together contingency plans for the coming winter, whilst my mother was otherwise engaged on a more personal matter.

I've chosen two pages from the now-defunct Daily Herald which caught my eye as an illustration of the world I was born into. The examples given in the reports - football coupons being reduced to half their size in order to save paper and cinemas closing early to conserve power - illustrate just how far the economic shortages were making serious inroads into the lives of ordinary people. This came at a time when the rationing of food and luxuries was probably even more widespread than it was during the war itself.

Another interesting sidelight is provided by a couple of smaller items which relate to the future of energy supplies in the UK. One is a short article about "Atom Boys" (note the gender specificity!), a hand-picked group of 160 young men who will become the country's atom scientists of the future. I really like the idea of apprentice nuclear scientists. The article doesn't actually say "they will be a glowing beacon that will light the path to the future", but I'm sure that, but for the sub-editors pencil, it would have done. The second is an advert for miners to return to the pits. "Join the Miners - the miner's the skilled man the nation will always need". Oh, if only they could have seen into the future and spotted Margaret Thatcher looming. She screwed Moses Heyes and his colleagues and closed Bold Colliery in 1985. So much for the "skilled man the nation will always need". And plus ca change, the Tories are still screwing us. Compare and contrast with 1947 when Clement Atlee and his colleagues were giving us the NHS and the rest of the now derided Welfare State. Think about it and weep.