Life in Post-War Britain: "Toils and Efforts Ahead"

On New Year’s Day 1946, the people of Britain desperately wanted to look forward to a new and better life. The Second World War had ended four months earlier with the formal surrender of Imperial Japan. The war in Europe had been over for eight months. But, upon announcing to Parliament the German surrender, Winston Churchill had told the nation: “Let us not forget the toils and efforts that lie ahead.”

In 1946, Clement Attlee, leader of the newly elected Labour Government, underlined Church...