Family Britain 1951 1957

As in his highly acclaimed Austerity Britain, David Kynaston invokes an astonishing array of vivid, intimate and unselfconscious voices to drive his narrative of 1950s Britain. The keen-eyed Nella Last shops assiduously at Barrow Market as rationing gradually gives way to relative abundance; housewife Judy Haines, relishing the detail of suburban life, brings up her children in Chingford; the self-absorbed civil servant Henry St John perfects the art of grumbling. Well-known figures are encountered on the way, such as Doris Lessing (joining and later leaving the Communist Party), John Arlott (sticking up on Any Questions? for the rights of homosexuals), and comic-strip hero Roy of the Rovers (making his goal-scoring debut for Melchester).

In this colorful, unfolding tapestry, great national events—the Tories’ return to power, the death of George VI , the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the Suez Crisis—jostle alongside everything that gave Britain in the 1950s its distinctive flavor: Butlin’s holiday camps, Hancock’s Half-Hour, Ekco television sets, Davy Crockett, skiffle, and teddy boys. Deeply researched, David Kynaston’s Family Britain offers an unrivaled take on British society as it started to move away from the painful hardships of the 1940s toward domestic ease and affluence.