James Cameron 's personal account of post-war Britain in ten programmes covering 1945-56.
4: ' When Cripps became Chancellor of the Exchequer, he became a great figure; this strange, monastic-looking man, emaciated, said to live off watercress grown off the blotting paper on his desk. When I said we lived in a world of Fish and Cripps, I was very much attacked.'
(HAROLD MACMILLAN )
It's doubtful if there was even very much fish around in 1947. Actual living conditions were worse than during the war; parachute silk was all the rage for a bride's trousseau, and the swirling New Look was condemned as wasteful by the austerity-conscious politicians. By 1948 the world stage was full of tragedy: Gandhi was assassinated: Jan Masaryk was found dead: Czechoslovakia lost her freedom; and the new
Jewish State of Israel was born into bloodshed. But at home we had the excitement and glamour of the royal wedding, and Bevan's triumphant launching of the National Health Service. Producers HELEN FRY and GWYNETH HENDERSON