All language subtitles for World at War e15 Home Fires; Britain (1940-1944).en

(♪ tea dance)

(narrator) For the wartime
newsreel cameras,

the dancers wore gas masks.

But the Germans never used gas
against British civilians.

Hitler's weapon
against British civilians was bombs.

Over two million homes
were damaged, blasted, gutted.

And beginning with London,
whole cities were hammered.

Fire and high explosives

probed and tested the strength
of the British way of life.

(air-raid siren)

In November 1940, the Germans
shifted their attack from London.

The first provincial city they hit hard
was Coventry.

(♪ church organ)

The heart was torn out of the cathedral,
out of the city.

People were bewildered,

and their leaders were bewildered, too,
by the huge fires.

(man) On paper, Birmingham, Nuneaton,

Rugby, should've come
to the aid of Coventry,

which they did, in fact.

But on arrival here, they found

that the couplings
on the fire engines were dissimilar,

didn't marry up,
and it meant, therefore,

that cooperation broke down completely.

Of course, in addition to that,
you've got 360 fractures on the gas main

and all the other services went.

All the water supplies
were disconnected.

If the firemen wanted to find sources,
they simply were not there.

(narrator) The king visited Coventry.
With him, the Home Secretary.

(Hodgkinson) Herbert Morrison came in.

The military folk
wanted to establish martial law.

We had a stand-up fight on this.

Alderman Bill Halliwell and myself said,
“No, this must be a civic exercise.”

The pressure was taken off
and virtually he and I,

plus the regional officers,
conducted operations from then on.

There were virtually
seven weeks of dictatorship.

You see, there was nothing
in the textbooks of civilian defence

to indicate to local authorities

how to behave in an emergency,
calamity situation,

such as we found
on the morning of November 15th.

(narrator)
While Morrison strove to correct this

by creating Britain's
first national fire service,

volunteers shored up
the crumbling home front.

Fresh evacuation
hurried the children away,

as city after city
passed through crisis.

Portsmouth, Southampton,

Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow.

Then Plymouth became the worst-hit city

with seven big raids
in March and April 1941.

A quarter of its people,
50,000 trekkers,

fled the city at night
and slept out in the hills.

This film was not shown
in wartime Britain.

The censored press
could only hint at chaos.

30,000 people lost their homes
and many lost much more.

(alarm)

And when the sirens went, it was
somewhere around nine o'clock, I think,

I called my mother
and she came down the stairs.

She said, “I'll take Raymond.”
I said, “All right, I'll take Sheila.”

And we called Mrs Todd,
that was the lady upstairs,

and she came down
with her three children.

And we went in our respective cupboards,

and I sat on a little tiny chair,
I put Raymond at my side,

and I held Sheila in my arms.

And after that, I didn't know anything.

I must've come to in the cupboard,
because I heard my father say:

“Oh, I'm afraid your mother's had it.”

And then I said, “Oh,
Sheila's all right. She's in my arms.”

And I went to touch my other child
and I couldn't feel him.

And I must've lost consciousness again
because I was buried, I believe.

Later, I learned that my mother was dead
and the two children were.

And Mrs Todd was killed,
and her two children.

She was expecting a baby any hour.

(narrator)
Mrs Bunt's husband, a sailor,

came home on leave the next morning.

(man) There was her mother
laying on the bed in the front room.

We went across the road
to her brother's place.

He told me about the two children.

I went up, there they were… cold.

Not a blemish on them.

That's when I lost my temper.

I said,
“Instead of us dropping bloody paper,

we ought to be hitting them
the same as they're hitting us.”

Mr Magee, after all this,
what do you think about us

going over to Berlin and doing the same?

I should think so, too.

Bit worse than this, I hope,
with a wicked bugger like he is.

I definitely do, sir.
Bomb them tenfold.

I'm sorry
for the women and children of Berlin,

but what about
the people of this country?

(cheering)

(narrator) This is what the authorised
newsreels did show of Plymouth.

Churchill's voice and presence
did sustain morale.

And in cabinet,
he knew how to get his way.

And if Henry V said,
“Now, gentlemen,

I've been into all this thing and the
Channel is very tricky at the moment.”

“We can't get the reinforcements,
the rate of sickness can't be replaced.”

“The bridgehead, according to Hamley's
infantry tactics, is too small.”

“And, in short, I feel there's
nothing else but to launch an attack.”

But he didn't say that.

He said, “Once more
unto the breach, dear friends.”

Winston had that extraordinary power.

(narrator) Churchill's speeches
rang less true now.

Almost worse than bombing,

U-boat attacks on shipping
cut Britain's food supplies.

The Germans
were on the rampage everywhere.

(Churchill) We cannot tell what
the course of this fell war will be,

as it spreads, remorseless,
through ever-wider regions.

We know it will be hard.
We expect it will be long,

We cannot yet see how deliverance
will come or when it will come,

but nothing is more certain than
that every trace of Hitler's footsteps,

every stain
of his infected and corroding fingers,

will be sponged and purged

and, if need be,
blasted from the surface of the earth.

He may spread his course far and wide

and carry his curse with him.

He may break into Africa or into Asia.

But it is with us,
here in this island fortress,

that he will have to reckon
and settle in the end.

♪ Now behold in me an LDV

♪ For battle I'm just yearning

♪ Doing my best like all the rest

♪ To keep the home fires burning

♪ Each evening stiff and starched

♪ Up and down the street I march

♪ I'm guarding
the home of the Home Guard

♪ Guarding the Home Guard's home

♪ All day long, steady and strong

♪ Doing what I'm told
and I can't go wrong

♪ All the ladies are fond of me
but last night one of them gave a shout

♪ When she saw me
pulling my bayonet out

♪ While guarding the Home Guard's home

(narrator) The Home Guard
had been founded a year before.

On exercises,
its members played at fighting.

You are a new corps,
a corps with its traditions to make.

But you have already got your motto,
and your motto is: “Kill the Boche!”

In the course of your duty,

you may have the luck
to come in contact with the enemy.

If you do, one of your duties

is to shoot when you see a sitter,
and shoot to kill.

(narrator)
The British still lived in fear,

not just of invasion,
but of the foe at home—

fear of listening spies.

And fear of enemy aliens.

In the summer of 1940, the press
had screamed, “Intern the lot.”

And almost all of them—
Germans, Austrians,

refugee Jews, left-wing exiles—

had passed through verminous
transit camps, interned without trial.

I was interned just like that, you know?

Fetched by the police
without knowing anything beforehand.

Two policemen came and fetched me.

(narrator)
Although they did not know it,

they were bound for Liverpool,
for embarkation.

People standing lining the streets,
you know?

Throwing stones at you, spitting at you,
shouting “spies”, you know?

And that was horrible.

Everyone thought it will be a
concentration camp like it is in Austria

or in Germany.

And we were brought on that boat.

Several of them
wanted to jump into the water

because they didn't know
what is in front of them.

When we arrived on the Isle of Man,

we had pictures taken
with our number on.

So we had already the feeling,
“Well, we are criminals.”

But from that moment on,
it was much, much better.

We had quite nice people
to look after us,

and we had more security.

We had so much security
that we were fenced in, even.

(narrator) Aliens had the right
of appeal to tribunals,

and by 1941 many were free.

But a new threat to civil liberty
had loomed:

Regulation 2D.

Because Stalin
was in alliance with Hitler,

the British Communist Party
opposed the war effort.

Under 2D, its paper,
the Daily Worker, had been banned.

Five months later
when Hitler struck at Russia,

Churchill himself
seized the chance to be Stalin's ally.

Germany's new thrust east

took the pressure
off Churchill's battered island.

There was time now to perfect
the new and truly total war economy.

But at its head,
in the coalition government,

were two jealous rivals—

big men brought in
from outside Parliament.

Max Beaverbrook, the newspaper baron,
now Minister of Supply,

and Ernest Bevin,
the strong man of the TUC.

For Bevin,
the industrial workers were his people.

Well, mates, ever since we took office,

we have been exhorting you
to work harder.

I've never done so much exhortation
to work hard in my life.

But we've got to do it
to win this victory.

We'll all go along together
with a mighty effort,

and show to the Hitlers and Mussolinis

that we do not only work and fight,

but we can be cheerful
in doing it as well.

(cheering)

(Chandos) Ernie Bevin, you see,
is an Englishman to the fingertips,

and with a great hold
over the trade unions

and the labour movement as a whole.

I think he's the most conceited man
that I've ever known.

It happens to self-made men very often.

But the great thing about Ernie

is that he never
went back on what he said.

He'd say to me,
“Well, I said it, didn't I?”

That is a tremendous thing.
He was very loyal in those ways.

A very likeable man.

And one day, we were fighting for,
a rather technical point,

the extraction of wheat in the loaf.

And they were trying to get it
up to 88% extraction.

And Ernie suddenly said
in the committee, he said:

“I say the middle of this loaf
is indigestible.”

“I can't eat it.
(hiccups) What did I tell you?”

Churchill grew in admiration

of the great fundamental qualities
of Bevin—

his single-purposeness

and the obvious desire,
determination, on the part of Bevin,

to suppress
all party-political considerations.

Imagine the power he had.

He was in charge
of the possibilities of service

for everybody
in the civilian life of this country.

(narrator) He had total powers over
every man working, and over every woman.

From March 1941, Bevin began
to direct women into vital work,

and into vital work the pretty girls
went, but not enough of them.

So in December, Britain went further
than any fighting land had ever done

and further than
the Germans could ever go.

Conscription of women was announced.

Girls called up could choose between
the women's services

or war work in the fields or factories.

(radio) “Music While You Work”

will be played to you this morning
on Rhythmic Records.

(sings along)

(♪ “Yes, My Darling Daughter”)

—You'll be leaving us shortly?
—Yes, I think I will.

I think I'll give the Land Army a try.

—Do you think you'll like that?
—Yes. The life rather appeals to me.

I don't think any of us
want to starve, though.

What will I do about my hair? I can't
possibly come down to the country.

Oh, well then, madam, I suggest
you wear it straight, like Hitler's.

I'd like to help to build Spitfires.

My boy's in the RAF, well,
and I feel I'm helping him.

The sooner we all pull together,
the sooner it'll be over.

I would like to go in the services
because the uniform appeals.

(♪ “Fall In”)

(woman) Changing step
at the march in quick time.

Change step!

Change step!

Move to the right in threes.
About… turn!

Slow…

march!

About…

turn!

(narrator) Bevin's concern
was long-term efficiency,

but Beaverbrook revelled
in short-term frenzies.

Now he was calling for tanks.

We want tanks.

We want very many tanks.

We want them
for the defence of our island

and also for offensive operations.

(narrator) Beaverbrook's methods
outraged his colleagues.

Even his loyal friend Churchill

was troubled by his moods,
his resignations,

and his quarrels with Bevin.

(Chandos) Max Beaverbrook
did a very good crash job.

But in my opinion, and I am biased,

he left behind an enormous quantity
of wreckage—administrative wreckage.

And he said,
“War is a matter of improvisation.”

“Organisation
is the enemy of improvisation.”

(man) Ernie Bevin…

domineering, dogmatic,

even tyrannical, could be ruthless.

“Don't stand in my way.
Don't criticise me.”

“I will tolerate no interrogation
from any source.”

Beaverbrook the same. The same.

Two strong personalities,
domineering and ruthless.

(narrator) Early in 1942,

Beaverbrook flounced out
after two weeks in a new job—

boss of war industry,
Minister of Production.

For convincing reasons,
Bevin had finally won.

Well, I think he won because Churchill
had the sense, the common sense,

to realise it was good to have
the trade union movement on his side.

He didn't throw Beaverbrook overboard.

Don't forget, Beaverbrook
was out and in, and out and in.

(narrator) And finally out.
This time he stayed out.

A visit to Russia,
where he'd been welcomed

by Britain's ambassador,
Sir Stafford Cripps,

had convinced him that the delightful
Stalin was a great man.

Russia had been pressing
a reluctant British government

to start a second front in Europe.

Out of office, Beaverbrook flung himself
into a campaign for the second front,

building on Britain's almost
mystical admiration for the Red Army.

We believe in the skill
of the Russian generals.

We believe in the equipment
of the Russian divisions.

And we believe in the fighting power
and the courage of the Russian soldiers.

And this is the day
to proclaim our faith!

(cheering)

Weapons we must give,

and raw materials.

Bread we must give,

and sugar, too.

Men we must give,

equipped with tanks and with airplanes.

That is a pledge of the second front.

(cheering)

(narrator)
Also cheering Beaverbrook on,

Britain's Communist Party
now backed the war.

Their leaders
were calling on the workers

to make their war production
mightier yet.

No one calls for the second front
without being personally prepared

to place their being, their energy,
and every ounce of fight they possess

at the disposal of the government.

There is a full understanding
of what is meant,

and the people of this country

are quite rightly beginning to resent
this war on the cheap,

this one-way war that's going on,

where it's the Russians
that do the dying

and the fighting and the sacrifice,

while we pay tribute to them

from the benches
of the House of Commons.

(applause)

(narrator) But one left-winger
on those benches, Cripps,

had just returned
from his stint in Moscow.

Many people saw him
as a possible rival for Churchill.

His views on Russia had vast appeal.

(Cripps) We've got to try and help
the Russians in every way that we can

to make ready,
to meet the spring offensive of Hitler.

I appreciate there are
some people in this country

who are still afraid
of the spread of the Russian ideology.

But what they've got to recollect
is that if we are friendly with Russia

and have an arrangement
of cooperation with them,

any dangers which they fear
will be very much less.

As a matter of fact, the Soviet Union
have no idea and no wish

to interfere with the internal affairs
of any other country.

I know that
from the lips of Stalin himself.

(narrator) Again, in the headlines,
disaster was stacked on defeat.

The press was critical,

especially the Daily Mirror's
scalding campaign against profiteers.

One cartoon was too much for Churchill:

“The price of petrol has been increased
by one penny—Official”.

Churchill told Morrison
to stop the paper,

but the press
rallied to the Mirror's support,

led by the young editor of Beaverbrook's
Evening Standard, Michael Foot.

The liberty of press in this country

can only be maintained
by the vigilance of the people,

the vigilance of Parliament, and the
courage of the newspapers themselves.

That's the only way. Therefore, we must
fight, fight to retain those liberties.

The ministers come along and tell us,
they've told us in the last few weeks,

it's only the Daily Mirror
they were trying to get at.

“The attack is over,” they say.

“No more demands
on any other newspapers.”

“All other newspapers
may continue to live in tranquillity

and in freedom and in peace.”

There's something rather familiar
about those words.

—I have no more territorial demands.
—(laughter)

I can picture in my mind's eye now

Mr Morrison himself
muttering those words.

“I have no more territorial demands.”

Coming down Shoe Lane with a firm look
on his jaw and a hot gun in his pocket,

with the Evening Standard
safely suppressed under 2D,

and its proprietors
safely looked after under 18B.

The only man who thought it was
going to be shut down was Churchill.

When it was brought up in the Commons,

the House of Commons came out
on the side of the Mirror, more or less.

They didn't like the Mirror, but they
weren't going to have it suppressed.

And after that,
we trimmed ourselves a bit

and the government
forgot their foolishness.

(narrator) Since democratic life did
go on, there were still by-elections.

The coalition government
lost a string of them to independents.

Tom Driberg stood at Maldon
as an independent Socialist.

Maldon was a very safe Tory seat.

(man) I hadn't the faintest idea
how to be a candidate.

I didn't belong to any party, I didn't
know the electoral law or anything.

First I went to see my employer,
Lord Beaverbrook,

whom I was working for at the time
on the Daily Express.

And he was a bit sceptical.

He said the only advice he would give me
was that I must wear a hat.

He said, “The British people

will never vote for a man
who doesn't wear a hat.”

(narrator) Then in June
came a fresh shock from Africa.

(Driberg) Tobruk fell
about three or four days

before polling day in the election.

We rushed out a leaflet
headed “Tragedy at Tobruk”.

And it was a tragedy,
and we felt it as such,

but, nonetheless,
I'm bound to admit that

that did probably greatly add
to the number of votes which we got.

(narrator)
Driberg won by a huge majority.

Meanwhile, the rebel MPs of all parties
wanted a showdown with Churchill.

(man) And when Tobruk fell in 1942,

Churchill was in Washington.

The American press
carried alarmist reports

of the state of the government at home

and the possible votes of censure,
and so on.

So much so, that Winston rang me up.

It was about 5am our time,
I suppose about midnight his time,

to ask what was happening—

was the government still in office
and what was going on, and so forth.

And I was able to tell him,
so far as I knew,

nothing had happened expect this motion
had been tabled that he'd have to take.

(narrator) Churchill came back

to a motion expressing no confidence
in his leadership.

It even seemed to the rebels
that they might win, but they muffed it.

As so often with these
great parliamentary debates,

there's a bit of an anticlimax
when you get there.

And in this case, the anticlimax
came instantly in the opening speech

by this ineffable old Tory,
Sir John Wardlaw-Milne,

because he made
this fantastic suggestion

that there should be
a supreme commander

of all the armed forces
who should be…

And he named him none other than the
Duke of Gloucester, whom God preserve.

But there was a roar of laughter
and a howl of disappointment.

(narrator) And in gales of derision,
the motion was swept away.

There were only 25 votes
against Churchill.

And now the war news
began to grow brighter.

The Germans were held up at Stalingrad.

Britain won in November at El Alamein.

Churchill went north to Bradford
in sprightly spirits.

Now, we have just passed through
the month of November,

usually a month of fogs and gloom,

but, on the whole,
a month I've liked a good deal better

than some other months we've seen

during the course
of this present unpleasantness.

—(applause)
—And so I say to you,

let us go forward together and put
these grave matters to the proof.

(cheering)

(narrator) Churchill was safe
in power while the war lasted,

but the hopes of the British people
were swinging away from him.

Beyond victory,
what could Churchill offer them?

♪ Roll out the barrel

♪ We'll have a barrel of fun

♪ Roll out the barrel

♪ We've got the blues on the run

(narrator) But by the middle of the war,
there weren't so many barrels.

If you wanted beer,
you might have to bring your own bottle.

And many other things which people
had relied on were now in short supply.

Apples and razors, prams and potatoes,
bread and offal were all unrationed.

But you had to queue.

And because they hated queuing,
people welcomed rationing.

Soap and clothes were rationed,
as well as most essential foodstuffs.

You knew you could get the ration
and the British system seemed fair—

the same for everyone, rich or poor.

Each person got
up to eight ounces of sugar a week,

every two months a packet of dried eggs,

eight ounces of cheese a week, eight
ounces of fats, four ounces of bacon,

and about a pound of meat.

(man) Are you helping to win the war
on the kitchen front?

If you're saving our shipping by
making the most of what we grow at home,

if you're growing vegetables on every
bit of ground that you can get hold of,

if you're only eating what you need

and not what you like
and as much as you like,

then you are helping to win the war.

And my advice to you
is cook potatoes in their jackets,

and grow your own onions.

(narrator) And they did, assailed
by a barrage of films and posters.

After war work, before fire watching,
between spells of training,

townsmen toiled on their allotments.

Britain was under blockade.

By 1943, farmers had brought

nearly four and a half million
extra acres under the plough,

and allotments were chewing up
scraps of good land left over.

Vegetables flourished
round the Albert Memorial.

Good, plain food was still cheap
and unrationed in factory canteens

and in new publicly-owned
British restaurants,

but many people complained that the
rich could still find fancier titbits.

The black market
snaked silently through Britain.

“Poor fella.
Now, what can I sell his mother?”

I want to talk to you
about what is called racketeering,

or the black market.

It is being stopped.

These food cheats
are the enemies of the people.

There must be no dirty fingers
in the people's food.

(narrator) The ugly Squanderbug,
symbol of waste, was outlawed.

Women were reminded
not to waste old clothes

and not to ask for glamorous new ones.

Every scrap
of manufactured matter counted.

(newsreel) Fashion is rationed.

The rot set in when silk stockings

had to be sacrificed
in the early stages of the war.

That was pre-Austerity.

Did you realise the difference
between Austerity and Utility?

Austerity, on the left, is the elder
sister of Utility, in the checked suit.

And Austerity was allowed

many fashionable privileges
denied to Utility.

For instance, pleats.

Utility, as you know,
is confined to four,

whereas Austerity
was lavish with pleats.

(narrator) Strict petrol allocation
drove cars off the road,

though some drivers ran on coal gas.

Trains and buses were scarce now, too.

(newsreel)
You wonder why we make a fuss

if George decides to take a bus.

But look again and you will see that
George ain't all that George should be.

He's only got a step to go—
a couple of hundred yards or so.

Whilst others, further down the queue,
have far to go and lots to do.

When George gets on we often find
that other folk get left behind.

He pays his fare and rides a stage,

then off he hops…

and see the rage.

And seeing this gives George a jog.

(George)
Perhaps I'm just a transport hog.

Hello, Forces. Once again, this is
Joan Griffiths saying thank you for…

(narrator) The BBC,
official voice of Britain,

was more high-minded than ever,
but the public didn't mind.

The Brains Trust,
a weekly intellectual forum,

was one of radio's
most popular programmes,

and the voice of the novelist
JB Priestley made him a major star.

The British were absolutely
at their best in the Second World War.

They were never as good,
certainly in my lifetime before it.

And, I'm sorry to say, that they've
never been quite as good after it.

Because a large number of people

were living more intensely
than they'd ever done before,

a large number of people equally
felt they needed some of the arts.

(narrator) Dame Myra Hess
played in the National Gallery.

(Priestley) There was a greater demand,
I think, for good books,

good plays, music,
the sight of some good pictures,

than I'd ever known before
in this country.

(narrator)
Still more people loved Hi, Gang!

and “That Man”, Tommy Handley.

—(man) ITMA!
—(fanfare)

(chorus) ♪ It's that man again,
yes, that man again

Can I do you now, sir?

(applause)

Well, well, if it isn't Canteen Clara,
the rissole-smacking bomber.

I say, you look a bit tousled.
Have you flown off the handle?

No, sir. I've been fire watching
for the first time.

(laughter)

—Did you have a chaperone?
—Oh, yes, sir.

And a very nice polite chap he was, too.

Always said “pardon”
before he took his boots off.

(laughter)

I'd hate to hear what he said
before he took his socks off.

(narrator) And Gracie Fields was back.

♪ I'm the girl that makes the thing

♪ That drills the hole
that holds the spring

♪ That drives the rod that turns
the knob that works the thingamabob

♪ I'm the girl that makes the thing
that holds the oil that oils the ring

♪ That takes the shank that moves
the crank that works the thingamabob

♪ It's a ticklish sort of job
making a thing for a thingamabob

♪ Especially when you don't know
what it's for

And I don't know!

♪ But I'm the girl that makes the thing

♪ That drills the hole
that holds the spring

♪ That makes the thingamabob
that makes the engines roar

♪ And I'm the girl that makes the thing
that holds the oil that oils the ring

♪ That makes the thingamabob
that's going to win the war

'Tis true!

(narrator) Aircraft production
had trebled in two years.

In the next two, it doubled again.

Britain's war economy
was much more widely based

and thoroughly organised than Germany's.

But the cost of such
concentrated effort was high.

Familiar customs in industry
were swept aside.

Workers put in massive overtime which
stretched mind and body to the limit.

Then, sometimes, their patience snapped.

This is Betteshanger, Kent,
scene of a famous dispute in 1942.

Industry cried out for coal,
but output fell and went on falling.

Many miners had joined up
or had found better-paid work.

Older men worked longer hours
and had to guard the mine, as well.

But when they could stand
these conditions no more, they struck.

(man) We all marched down into Deal
and then onto the Canterbury Road.

There were several local residents
and particularly some of the troops,

they were jeering and sneering at us.

But little did they know at the time

that we were manning this pit
24 hours a day,

with the Home Guard troops, ourselves,

and many of us worked and stopped
at the pit here 24 hours a day.

(narrator) The miners knew
strikes were forbidden by Bevin

by a wartime regulation, order 1305.

But faced
with a solid body of 1,000 men,

you couldn't jail them all
or even collect fines,

and Bevin and Churchill knew it.

(Roberts) I don't think Churchill
wanted us to go to prison.

He wanted us to stay here
and guard his property.

Because it was his property, after all.
It wasn't ours.

(narrator) The government gave in.

Desperate for labour, late in 1943,
Bevin called up boys.

Not for the forces, for the mines.

You'll be here four weeks.

Is there any district you'd like to go
to at the end of your training?

—Bolsover, Derby.
—Pass down to the billeting section.

—Good old steel toecaps.
—Thank you.

—What size is your hat?
—Seven and a quarter, please.

(narrator) One new national serviceman
in ten became a Bevin Boy.

You couldn't escape,
whoever your dad was.

You're a public schoolboy.

It'll be a change for you
going in the mine, won't it?

Yes, but it's a necessity
that someone's got to do the job,

so I think I'm doing my part in…
in helping.

I was expecting to go into the army.

I was very shocked when I heard
on the news on Christmas Day

that I was to be
directed into the mines.

It was a ballot, actually,

and they drew out numbers
ending in nought or nine.

My registration number ended in nought,
so there was no ducking away from that.

I had to go in the mines
regardless of anything.

(narrator) His parents hoped
he'd be an army officer.

They were flabbergasted.

If somebody'd said,
“You'll go into the mines”,

I'd have thought they were joking.

(narrator) But lads of 17

without a mining background
couldn't solve the problem.

Output went on falling and falling.

And in 1944,
in Yorkshire and South Wales,

over 200,000 miners
came out on unofficial strike.

The men have worked continuously
for a period of nearly five years,

under war conditions,

suffering from a deep sense of grievance

because they have not been rewarded
by the state equally

with ex-mine workers
employed in government factories.

(narrator) In bustling Tyneside
shipyards, as in mines,

men who remembered
mass unemployment feared the peace.

Their doubts and wishes spoke out even
in government-made documentary films.

(man) Tyneside's busy enough today.

Old 'uns and young 'uns
hard at work making good ships.

But just remember what the yards
looked like five years ago.

Idle, empty,

some of them derelict,

and the skilled men that worked in them
scattered and forgotten.

Will it be the same again
five years from now?

Other films echoed the same question,

like this early effort by the Boulting
brothers, starring Bernard Miles.

I reckon Hitler's made a lot of us
change our minds a bit lately.

We made a fine big war effort,

but when it's all over, we've
got to make a fine big peace effort.

There's no two ways about it.
We can't go back now we've made a start.

Cor, look at that Dunkirk.

Weren't no unemployed there.

Every man had a job to do
and he done it.

That's what we've got to see
they have in peacetime—a job.

And there'll be work enough, too,
when this lot's over—

building up something new
and better than what's been destroyed.

There mustn't be no more chaps
hanging around for work what don't come.

No more slums, neither.

No more dirty, filthy backstreets

and no more half-starved kids
with no room to play in.

We can't go back to the old way
of living. Leastways, not all of it.

That's gone forever.

And the sooner we all make up our minds
about that, the better.

We've gotta all pull together.

There was a great community spirit
during the war.

It is the nearest thing that I've seen,
in my lifetime,

to the operation
of a kind of socialist state,

that is of a democratic
socialist state of citizens

believing they could influence
by their actions,

speedily, what was going to be done,

and that the world could be changed
by the way they operated.

They saw that the world was changed
by their actions in the war

and thought that could be translated
into political action as well.

It was extremely exciting,
but some of the political leaders,

because they were so involved
in their own pursuits,

didn't appreciate what was happening.

(narrator) And so,
the people's hopes for a better peace

fixed themselves
on Sir William Beveridge,

who'd been commissioned
by the government

to draw up plans for a welfare state.

When his report was published in 1942,
it was a best seller.

The report proposes, first,

an all-in scheme of social insurance,

providing for all citizens
and their families

all the cash benefits
needed for security,

in return for
a single weekly contribution

by one insurance stamp.

It preserves the maximum of individual
freedom and responsibility

that is consistent
with the abolition of want.

(narrator) The government
first blew hot, then cold, very cold.

Churchill wouldn't act.

Churchill got very worried
and his two chancellors,

Sir Kingsley Wood and Anderson,
were equally critical.

That's why the Beveridge plan
was delayed after my bill.

That's why education came first.

(narrator) A major reform of education
would tread on fewer big toes.

It had other uses, too.

(Butler) It wasn't very controversial.
It was very long.

Churchill realised
here was a wonderful way

of exercising the troops, you see?

(narrator) Churchill was,
first and foremost, a war leader.

He kept the brakes on reconstruction.

(Butler)
Churchill didn't take much interest.

He wanted to know whether we were
going to go in for nationalisation.

We had a proposal by Herbert Morrison
to nationalise the electricity industry,

and that's where
the coalition government stopped.

We couldn't get agreement on that.

(narrator) A new party, Common Wealth,

called for Beveridge now,
and won two by-elections.

Other independents took up the cry.

The Beveridge bandwagon rolled on.

Early in 1944,
West Derbyshire had its say.

One candidate was wholly independent.

Indeed, he had no programme at all.

I have no animosity…

to the other two candidates.

If I am not elected, I am the only one
that has anything to lose.

I am very proud…

that what I consider

to be the foundation stone
of true democracy

has been well and truly laid
in the village of Kniveton,

Derbyshire, England.

(narrator) Goodall then fled
to his father's cottage.

The real fight was between
an independent socialist, Charlie White,

who had Common Wealth support,

and the youthful Conservative
Lord Hartington,

who had official Labour backing.

Hartington's family
had always found a seat here,

and to reject him
would be most untraditional.

But White won by a landslide.

Conservatives were not pleased.

Democracy, however, was safe enough

for the Fascist leader, Mosley,
to be released.

He had been interned since 1940.

The government said that he was ill,
but very few people believed it.

This caused the greatest public uproar
of the war years.

Fear and hatred
had changed their targets.

Released aliens
served in the Pioneer Corps.

On newsreels,
they now appeared as lovable allies.

(man) This is Corporal Gruker.

His scars and his glass eye

are the legacy
of being kicked by a horse

when he was in a crack
Austrian cavalry regiment.

—The Dragoons, wasn't it, Gruker?
—Yes, sir. I was kicked twice.

Once by the horse and once
by Shickelgruber. I prefer the horse.

(narrator) Alien troops
were welcomed now in Britain

where they gathered to prepare
for the D-day invasion.

The Free Poles
conquered many Scottish hearts.

And the GIs were everywhere.

(all chant) One! Two! Three! Four!

(narrator)
They were well-equipped, well-paid,

and gave the girls fine new things
like nylons and the jitterbug.

Churchill could now inspect an army
which knew that it would win.

The hour of our greatest effort
and action is approaching.

We march with valiant allies
who count on us as we count on them.

The only homeward road for all of us
lies through the arch of victory.

(narrator) At last, the day came.

And it was sweet.

Wally Hammond's cover drive
delighted crowds

who basked serenely
in the fine summer weather.

Britain seemed close
to the winning post.

Wasn't it all over, bar the killing?

(newsreel) Thanks to the very fine
weather in the Straits of Dover,

all holiday crowds had a good time,
except those rash enough to travel.

Is the favourite winning?
Ah, who cares anyway?

(droning)

(narrator) The V-1.

A plane with no pilot.

(droning ceases)

(explosion)

A new kind of weapon.

A new kind of war.

It was time to hide again.

(droning)