Posted by Mike Dennis on October 24, 2006 at 07:05:07 from 84.71.132.45 user MTD.
In Reply to: S&As 1930s version posted by Rob Marshall on October 23, 2006 at 15:14:25:
AR's view of the 1930s was a rural one, and has previous threads have argued a middle-class one. Both my parents grew up in this period one in a small rural town and one in a seaside town, and for both of them their thirties was not one of hardship.
One of the major elements that lead to the planning of the welfare state during the Second World War was the reaction of people in rural and semi-rural areas when encountering evacuees from the cities - how poor so many of them were. As for Churchill losing the 1945 election, this had more to do with the memory for many of the electors still in the forces of the aftermath of the First World War - those soldiers etc were promised a 'land fit for heroes' and never got it, the then Labour party were offering that and so got elected.