Another entertaining and interesting read, mixing politics, world events sport, show business and domestic mundanity. I’m not quite old enough for anything that happened to me to appear within the pages but I’m starting to recongise people that I am familiar with just starting their own careers that will later have some influence on me at a later date.
I think that the lessons I have learned from this volume is that second world war cast a very long shadow - there was still rationing, bomb sites and balance of payments problems, not to mention domestic attitudes and social standing. Ans secondly, significant turning points are not always widely acknowledged or even noticed at the time - the author chose to end this at the conclusion of the Suez crisis as he (and many others) consider this a vital crux of British History. And indeed some writers at the time did lament the loss of British influence and highlighta the importance of the event but for most it was a confusing set of circumstances and there were more pressing concerns.
Despite these larger issues, the mid-50’s do seem to have been an up-beat time, with full employment, the spread of both BBC and commerical entertainment and increasing prosperity shown by an increase in consumer goods.
I’m looking forward to the next in the series, but for my heavyweight non-fiction I’m going to take a sideline into a Dickens biography and pick up in 1958 at a later date.