A new historical volume presents a treasure trove of fascinating, often overlooked details from Britain's complex interwar period, weaving together social, cultural, and political threads from 1918 to 1939. The book serves as both an entertaining miscellany and a profound examination of a nation grappling with trauma.
Cultural Curiosities and Social Shifts
The work reveals surprising connections and anecdotes that illuminate the era's character. For instance, Alan Napier, who portrayed Alfred in the 1960s Batman television series, was actually a cousin of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Meanwhile, Patrick Macnee, later famous as John Steed in The Avengers, faced expulsion from Eton College for selling risqué magazines to fellow students.
Significant changes to daily life emerged during these decades. The introduction of driving tests and speed limits in 1934 transformed Britain's roads. In cultural landmarks, London Zoo's modernist penguin pool achieved Grade I listing in 1970, though the penguins themselves relocated elsewhere in 2004—prompting whimsical questions about their preferences.
Post-War Trauma and Collective Grief
Beneath the surface of these curious facts lies a darker, overarching narrative of national trauma. The Armistice of 1918 brought silence to the guns but left deep psychological wounds across the country. While the Peace Day Parade that followed stretched six miles through London, taking four hours to pass any point, the celebration was tempered by remembrance of staggering losses: 888,000 military personnel killed, two million wounded, and 107,000 civilian casualties.
The human cost was devastatingly personal. Half of those who served in the Army were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, creating approximately 750,000 fatherless children. Male suicide rates increased by sixty percent in the decade following the conflict. This collective trauma fueled interest in new psychological treatments for shellshocked veterans, including electroconvulsive therapy, insulin coma treatment, and lobotomies.
Pandemic and Spiritual Searching
Further tragedy arrived with the Spanish flu pandemic, which lasted from 1918 to 1920 and claimed another quarter of a million British lives. With no effective cure—only questionable remedies like ammoniated quinine, eucalyptus oil, and Turkish rhubarb offered by chemists—the nation faced compounded grief.
This widespread bereavement sparked increased interest in alternative spiritual practices. Many turned to Christian Science, horoscopes, reincarnation, Theosophy, and Spiritualism in attempts to contact departed loved ones. As the author notes, while there was "much credulity, gullibility and downright delusion in these years," such responses were profoundly understandable given the circumstances.
Political Promises and Social Realities
Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised returning servicemen "an ordered land of active, energetic, scientific, organised progress," but reality proved more complex. Despite increased government spending on welfare, pensions, education, and housing subsidies—which boosted home ownership—social challenges persisted.
Divorce cases and illegitimacy rates rose, with contemporary newspapers blaming "young people engaged in mixed bathing." Economic difficulties hit heavy industries particularly hard, with unemployment affecting shipbuilding and coal mining sectors. The General Strike of 1926 involved railwaymen, dockers, transport workers, printers, and miners, creating widespread hardship.
Cultural Innovations and Entertainment
Amidst these struggles, cultural life flourished in unexpected ways. The 1920s saw the lifting of bans on theatrical or cinematic depictions of Queen Victoria, enabling careers for performers like Anna Neagle, and later Emily Blunt and Jenna Coleman. Jazz music captivated the nation, described as "loud and chaotic, starting fast before speeding up," with even the Prince of Wales among its devotees.
The new technology of wireless broadcasting transformed entertainment, with the BBC established in 1922 under controller Sir John Reith—whom Churchill dubbed "the Wuthering Height." Public service broadcasting aimed for moral uplift, banning George Formby's songs for innuendo and prohibiting words like "bawdy," "belch," "bitch," "blasted," and "bum" from the airwaves in 1935.
Literary and Cinematic Developments
Readers preferred the "back-slapping bonhomie" of John Buchan or Bulldog Drummond—who in one tale strangled an escaped gorilla in a Godalming garden—over Wilfred Owen's melancholic war poetry. Agatha Christie created the "endearing rather than daring" Hercule Poirot, while children's classics flourished with Dr. Doolittle, Rupert Bear, Mary Poppins, Just William, and Winnie-the-Pooh.
Cinema became enormously popular, with London boasting 268,000 cinema seats by the 1930s. Gracie Fields rose as the most popular star, her resilient attitude suiting the times, while Alfred Hitchcock began developing his distinctive style suggesting mystery behind Cockney cheer. Magnificent Art Deco "cathedrals of entertainment" were constructed for film screenings.
Technological Advances and Gathering Storms
The interwar period witnessed remarkable material innovations that transformed daily life. New materials included Bakelite, Cellophane, reinforced concrete, foam rubber, nylon, and polystyrene. Household names emerged with the first Aga cookers, Anglepoise lamps, and Goblin Teasmades, while chocolate lovers welcomed Aero, Black Magic, Crunchie, Kit-Kat, and Smarties.
Yet shadows lengthened as the 1930s progressed. Historians recognize the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 sowed seeds for future conflict, with a humiliated Germany determined to rise again. The "exclusive and aggressive spirit" of Nazism gained momentum under Hitler, while 78,000 Jewish refugees arrived at British ports as preparations for conflict became evident.
Britain distributed thirty-eight million gas masks—unfortunately containing asbestos—and implemented evacuation plans for city and coastal children. As dictators rose across Europe—Franco, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler—British pastimes included darts, caravan holidays, Butlin's resorts with knobbly-knee contests, visits to Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle, and the Empire Exhibition at Wembley featuring butter effigies of royalty later sold as wagon grease.
The book concludes as hostilities recommenced with Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz, leaving readers anticipating the author's continuation of this compelling national story in his distinctive style.
