Customer Reviews

London 1945

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

London at many times during its history has been the most desirable place to be. 1945 was not one of those times as a war weary population began the year by V2 attacks and then at the end faced 9 more years of rationing, queing and essentially living life down at heels. The author contends that it took 50 years to realize some of the dreams of the post war planners, I would add that it probably took the same amount of time to overcome some of the after effects of the war.

Maureen Waller is very able to the task of setting the scene, providing what amounts to a comprehensive depiction of the British capital in the last days of the war. She does not indulge in the sort of glory mongering, but shows just how miserable life could be for some and how they chose to go on despite these difficulties.

Waller's approach is thorough. If you wanted to know how one was reimbursed following V2 bombing, how one bough sugar, or the practices of wartime criminals, this is the book for youThe Britain of the period amounts to a vastly different world in which all activity is governed by the state and to a degree that seems somewhat claustophobic by today's standards.

This is a remarkable book, both readable and comprehensive. Waller is to be commended for her scholarship and attention to detail.

This well-written book covers life in London at the end of the war in immense detail. The ten chapters deal with (1) V-1/V-2 bombings, (2) censorship and propaganda, (3) housing, (4) rationing, (5) clothing, (6) crime, (7) V-E Day, (8) Churchill's defeat in the 1945 election, (9) heart-rending stories of the evacuation of children, and (10) demobilization and the transition to a peacetime society (my labels, not the book's).

First person narratives are intertwined with historical fact to create a book that conveys the full flavor of living in that era. The author especially emphasizes the bureaucratic side of wartime London. For example, when a house was bombed, a complex set of procedures came into play to assess whether the house could be repaired, to account for the inhabitants and rescue them, to guard property against looting, to determine whether payments were warranted under insurance policies, to find replacement housing, to replace lost ration tickets, and lastly to serve snacks to the homeless victims. Everything was thought out, and everything was done in a systematic manner. Of course, crime and abuses of the system were commonplace as well.

Even for those who are fairly knowledgeable about WWII history, it is amazing what Londoners suffered through. Homemakers had to be masters of bureaucracy to be on top of weekly changes to the ration system, as well as queuing for groceries and scrounging for clothes and household goods. The fear of being in the next bomb blast didn't disappear until the war ended. London housing was nothing to brag about even before the war, and during the war people crowded together in incredibly cramped conditions, often living in bombed-out ruins. Children were evacuated to the countryside for their own safety, but at the end of the war some children did not want to return to their real parents, and in many instances the parents didn't want their kids back. And when the war ended, wartime conditions continued. For instance, rationing continued after the war so that food could be provided to Germany. It took more than a decade after the war for London to truly recover. All in all, Waller has written a superb book that brings these events alive for the reader.

The publication of this book is timely. It gives an insight into what enormous civilian sacrifices war can require and what sparks the inspiration to persevere and to continue persevering through a long unremitting siege. It fosters a fesh awareness

of what duty, service, and charity can accomplish. Not all the players in this drama are saints, but abundant misdeeds are always upstaged by a fundamental decency as the citizens of London, somehow "out of the nettle danger" manage to "pluck the flower of safety." The reader wonders what will be the venue of the next ordeal of similar size.

Maureen Waller gives a superb sense of what it was like for ordinary folks to live in London in the waining months of the war and just after, a time of profound change to the British lifestyle. She has combed original sources for the personal stories and telling details that bring the grand story of the War to life on an intimate scale. She honestly seems to have read every newspaper and government report issued for the entire period.

Two examples will suffice: women's undergarments were almost impossible to obtain - the materials for corset stays had more worthy uses in the military - so women made undergarments out of blackout cloth, which wasn't rationed. Similarly, food in restaurants did not require the use of ration coupons, so Britons of the wealthier sort at least got in the habit of eating out for the first time - a habit which surely transformed British eating habits after the war as well.

The sadder, tragic side of the war is not overlooked - Waller starts the book with a chapter on late-war bombings and their effect on the Londoners left behind in the city.

The book is organized topically - a chapter on housing, one on food, one on kids, one on crime, one on politics, etc. The This topical method means the narrative thread is a bit lost (every chapter seems to start at January and wend its way to December over again). However, the accumulation of interesting stories is fascinating and a novel addition to the list of anyone interested in London, in the War, or both.

Waller has written a similar book on 17th-century London which does not seem to be available in the U.S. but can be obtained on the UK website for those who enjoy this book as much as I did.

Fascinating book. So often we read about soldiers' stories, idealized lustful romances flourishing in a war-torn city, or grandious accounts of military might. Not here.

This book tells you what the average citizen had to endure during WWII. Having been born in the 1970s, the concept of citizens sacrificing their material goods for their country and cooperating with and whole-heartedly believing in their government is a foreign concept to me. I cannot imagine rationing food, stealing to survive, having a 1-inch bar of soap to last for a month, or living in a subway tunnel, but the people of London did so for years. Reading this book has helped me put my priveledged, American life into perspective.

I read this book as a reference source for an historical fiction book I am writing, and found the information within it to be invaluable. The author must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours doing research --- combing through photo archives, interviewing WWII survivors, visiting the Imperial War Museum, and who knows what else! The result is a book that is engaging, easy to understand, never dry or boring, and chock full of incredible information.

The author has managed to put a personal face on the effects of war on civilians -- from food and clothing rationing, to air raids and shelters, loss of homes and lives, and even the lengths to which women went to look good (shoe polish for mascara, cooking browning for painted on stockings, and lard for makeup remover.

The anecdotes, quotes, and photos really bring the time period to life! This is a wonderful book and it really shows the triumph of the human will, especially women's will, over adversity.

OK, so you've been sufficiently beguiled by David Kynaston's marvelous `Austerity Britain' and `Family Britain' that you've decided to write a book yourself, say about that culminating year of the British World War II experience, 1945. You'll concentrate on life in London as the war winds down with the long-awaited Allied victory in Europe and then the surprisingly abrupt Japanese surrender and especially on the poignant and sorrowful realization of the populace that the end of those struggles did not at all mean the end of their sacrifices and deprivations. You'll describe in wonderful detail, with incisively selected first-person recollections and compelling narrative, every aspect of wartime life, from the effect on the populace of the V-1's and V-2's to the shortage of women's undergarments to the endless struggles with food rations to rationing's inevitable spawning of a black market to the sexual interaction of women without their men but with Allied substitutes to the reasons for the facially astonishing replacement of Hero Churchill with Bureaucrat Attlee. Sounds like a wonderful, and wonderfully rewarding, project, doesn't it? Too late. The definitive social history of that year in that city has already been written, and this is it.

While Professor Kynaston covers much of the same ground in `Austerity Britain,' the temporal breadth of that work obviously precluded the kind of detailed analysis Ms. Waller is able to bring to bear for this relatively short period in the capitol city. And she doesn't miss any aspect of life in describing the people's anxiety and the strange but understandable lassitude as the war ground to a resolution. Particularly striking to me is her portrayal of the attitudes of the civilian population to servicemen coming home from the war; rather than being greeted as returning `heroes,' they were as often treated as interlopers by a population which felt it had made at least as many sacrifices for the `cause.' Indeed, all of the elements which one would expect to bring to the British people an unprecedented sense of cohesion and resolve instead combined to produce an expectation-less emotional and economical malaise exemplified, if not created and abetted, by the doggedly redistributive but almost universally desired `welfare state.'

Ms. Waller says it best: `The wartime community spirit was replaced by a selfish Me First mentality, and general lowering of the moral climate. The new Labour Government projected its forthcoming plans for the welfare state not as a vision for living for which the country would need to work hard, but, naively, as the first great chance to get something for nothing. It was an attitude that seeped into the very fabric of life. Fiddling expenses and ripping people off were typical examples of the new, post-war British disease.' Further reading on this subject is available online in the British dailies.

In sum, a terrific read which not only provides an unrivalled history of the matters addressed but an historical framework for much that has happened since. Sorry, you'll have to find another subject: this one is done and done.

It must be serendipity when a very talented author chooses a fascinating subject and writes, in my opinion, the definitive book on the subject. That is what has happened here. Author Maureen Waller combines first-person accounts, statistics, and narrative to tell the story of Londoners during the last months of war in 1945, and the first difficult days of peace that year. I can't begin to tell you how many times I shook my head in the coffee shop, reading about the courage, fortitude, and determination of the people of London, as they endured shortages, bombs and rockets, loss of their homes, and death for yet another year. The Government grew massively, in response to the needs of the people, entering into every phase of their lives. Just the detailed information on rationing was mind-boggling. So was the effort to save and recycle everything (especially compared to these days). For example, bus passengers were encourage to recycle their ticket stubs so the paper could be recycled! The author relates a huge number of fascinating bits of trivia. For example, pants cuffs were banned because they used too much cloth. And the most popular fruitcake recipe at Harrod's (recipes were newly popular since the servants of the wealthy had mostly gone to factory or other wartime jobs) had as its main ingredient---tea!! (The Government bought up the ENTIRE tea output of several Asian nations). Women's heels could only be 2", jars of homemade jam could not be sold legally (although one could 'give away the odd jar'), queuing (standing in line) originated during WWII, coal was carried home in prams (baby carriages), the list goes on. I didn't think it was possible for me to read any book that made me more of an Anglophile, but Ms. Waller accomplished that! If you love the English people, reading about WWII, just reading great history, this book is for you. If you've been to London, this book is also for you, since it names many places familiar to the average tourist. In summary: WOW!

Wow,I was totally blown away reading what it was like for England during WW II! I appreciate so much,how 'in-depth' this book is in showing the horror of what the British went through. Having to evacuate their children to keep them safe.Trying to live with everything rationed. Even what it was like when huge numbers of the American and other allied G.I.s were stationed in England. Can't think of anything the author didn't cover.

(My Air Force father was stationed in England from 1954-57 several years after the war when I was a child,and I never had any idea how much damage there had been or what England went through! Wish I could go visit again today).

The last two chapters are really eye-opening and a testament to the insanity and inhumanity of war regardless of how 'justified' or 'self-righteous' a country feels they are in engaging in it. Their soldiers(I'm sure on every side) and the soldier's families lose more than is ever worth it!

This book shows grace, faith and courage under pressure. The people of the British Empire during WWII endured things that people should not have to endure then or now.