🧼 Boiled socks. Powdered milk. One bath a week — if the water was hot. Britain in the late 1940s and early 50s was no fairytale. Peace had come, but comfort had not. Families lived with ration books, blackout curtains, and bombed-out homes — yet somehow, they carried on.
This is the story of how post-war Britain rose from the rubble: from the birth of the NHS to prefab homes, from the Windrush generation to the rise of skiffle and rock. It wasn’t glamorous — but it was real, resilient, and deeply human. 🇬🇧✨
Which memory hit you hardest? Drop it in the comments and help us keep this era alive 🕰️
46 Comments
💂♂ Would you have made it through these years?
💬 Drop a comment if your family lived through post-war Britain—or if this era fascinates you.
Britain' hardest years? You must be joking! They were better years for most of us than it is today, that's for sure! A much fairer society. I know, because I have lived during both times – there is no comparison.
my mum married in May 2nd 1945 🎉her borrowed wedding gown made from Parachute silk the gown was her cousins ❤🎉there wedding car caught fire on the way to there reception in Plymouth Devon 😊we lived in a prefab up till 1962,
born 1958 now i am 66 most of my family have died just me my two siblings eldest 70 youngest 65 and a very handfull of cousin most have died
now a world of AI of fake food
people with headphones walking around like Robots ,
not enjoying birdsong
just prattle rattle music in there brains
😂😂
It was beautiful back then ❤🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 now this wonderful country is being invaded ! 🤬🤬
Seems very white😂
So what the bloody hell happened, Thatcher?
I was born in 1942 but I still remember good times I think I was the best time to be born into our country we had all the good years ahead unfortunately we also had the bad times to come which is where we are now. I now despair for our once beautiful country which I feel is slowly falling apart.
life then was hard us kids had bugger all even the schools had sod all 1football 1 set of cricket gear a gym in a stable a playground that formerly was grazing patch for horse's food was even worse school meals were always over cooked with loads of bleached cabbage raw swede's tasted better. tere was little to celebrate money was as rare as rocking hoss muck
Born in 1946, we didn't have a TV until I was 11 years old.
We lived in a two storey semi detached prefab. It was great it had a fitted kitchen, three bedrooms, a bathroom upstairs and a toilet at the rear entrance.
And now its being over run by immigrants
In 1948………the health of the country improved markedly. Between 1945 and 1951 the Labour Party built 1 000 000 units of social housing, and that impetus of 200 000 per year continued until Thatcher maggoted the country in 1979. We also got free access to university if we passed our exams and also got paid a survival allowance as uni students. Grammar school was free as long one passed the 11+ exam. As for the "hero" Churchill; he got kicked out by the votes of the returning servicemen; he was a total anachronism by 1942.
My father, who in worked Tertiary education since 1946-47, noticed that my "rationed' generation grew taller than kids born after rationing had ended. That rationing may have produced a dull diet, but it was more healthy and more nutritious than that offered to the white sliced-bread/instant coffee generation that followed us.
Anyone remember 'Jungle Jim' on TV in the 1950's?
Left propaganda.
Britain 1945 – 1959 was good for many British. What ruined Britain was c1948 and the mass immigration first a Labour government then the Tories c1950s. Most British people had a job and if you had a job then life was OK. The 1960s see serious British industrial decline and unemployment on the increase again due to mass immigration. 1970s were seriously bad with 1.5 million unemployed and poverty widespread. The 1980s see 3 million unemployed and poverty the norm. Mass immigration from the West Indies and Asia etc. ruined the lives many British people. Now we see working people relying on Food Banks and still the illegal migrants arrive despite how bad life in Britain is today. The worst mistake Britain made was declaring war on Germany c1939 that bankrupted Britain and lost the Empire!
Born in 1936, remember the prefabs, they used us kids to balance the sections during assembly, the kitchens were the heaviest. Started work at 15 as an apprentice toolmaker at Ericssons, one day per week at Nottingham Tech College, wonderful time.. pay was 39 shillings per week rising to 14 Guinea’s per week at 21. 🇨🇦
Austerity … Rationing seemed normal to me. I was born just prewar
Vintage Brummie Est 1947, I'd gladly go back to that immediate post WW2 era, when positivity, hope and enthusiasm were the prominent outlooks and before things started going South in the 'Swinging Sixties' and the 'Permissive Seventies'. I stuck it out until Callaghan's '78 -'79 Winter of Discontent before bailing out and moving to the US where I've watched ever since with a tear in my eye as, with the exception of the brief remission from its Post-WW2 descent into socialism during the Thatcher Years Britain has steadily collapsed…how are the mighty fallen?
I remember those years. I remember the queues, the rations but we survived it was a very hard time. But we were happy able to go out and play we had nothing in the way of material things no money 120 grams of lollies a week not many luxuries but I remember that I had a very happy childhood.
I was born in 1936, 3 when the war started and 9 when it ended. I remember so many things about that time. Rations if you didn’t eat what was on your plate you went hungry because there was nothing else. My mum was an amazing cook the food was just plain meat & 3 veg but very nourishing & she always baked cakes and pies when the ingredients were available.
My childhood 6 pence from an old lady to do her shopping one day she said i was the first child she could trust not to steal from her I asked her what was it like being old aches and pains she replied i now know what she meant
Post-War Britain certainly were "The Greatest Generation". 🇬🇧
Born in 1944 in Glasgow don't remember anything before 1946. My father was working in Bradford as a Civil Engineer responsible for maintaining clothing factory output. He was killed in a road accident on his journey home to Glasgow to visit his family now three.
We survived thanks to our Mums resolve to keep her family together. She set up a hairdressing business as it allowed her to work and look after her two children in their home environment.
Different generation in mind in attitude.
This programme is more or less at one level but as a Ninety four year old I don’t remember all the depression this announcer seems to be gloom and doom and the fact there were no more bombs was an enormous relief or any more killing on the battlefields! Yes it was done collectively to recover! But that is not legal. In so many places is it?
Great video thanks
And what happened in 1948 when the country was still recovering. The abolishment of the work houses and the N.H.S. was born. Along with that The Windrush swanked in and complained about their digs.
Born 1945 this brings back memoris.
Britian did rebuild itself from the ashes of WW2 by hard work and sweat. The early immigrants came peacefully willing to do the same. We now see mass invasion of radicals who commit serious crimes on others, would like to replace democracy with a religious state that is violently antisemitic and oppressive to Christians. The Bible foretells that peace will be taken from the earth. I pray for England and all nations to turn to Christ while there is still time.
I was born in Birmingham in 1944 and remember all of that – especially the incredibly strong sense of community. We even made many of our own toys – especially guns, swords and bows and arrows. Several houses near my grandma's were bomb sites and my primary school had bomb shelters in the playground. Our working class area was very egalitarian because we all just scraped by. Rationing didn't end until I was ten years old. Only a minority had a phone or a car. I grew up in first, a prefab, and then a council house
What a ghastly society … ugliness everywhere …Germany was in a far better situation
I was between 6 and 20 in thiscperiodcno real hards ship only earning in 1959. 60 quid a month!! Clear but managedcto still run a car all be it. A 1937 Austin 10 never broke down in 1000s of miles nothing was. Rationed afterc1954 or much hardship afterc1945!!
This angered tens of millions of brits
To think of all the unity that those hard days brought, days of hope. Now we have 'diversity' and despair. Betrayed by successive leaders. The Windrush never came because they were invited, they came because of a better way of life..check your history.
Hornby dublo train sets. Mechanical at first. Electrical later. Mecanno in every home. Sliding down the staircase on tea trays so many memories thanks
Along with the thick orange juice and cod liver oil given to children do you remember the teaspoon of malt. I loved it. Changing from dwriting on slate boards to having pencil and paper. Then. Pen and ink. Ink wells pen nibs and blotting paper. Later proudly using a fountain pen using quink.
Britain is not like that any more ,mismanagement immigration ,and greed has set in its worse now than then ,old jimmy 74
APART FROM THE WORST WINTER, EVER, 1947, IT WAS GREAT, BECAUSE WE KNEW NOTHING BETTER. BUT GOING BACK TO IT, ( AS I THINK WE ARE ) WILL BE TOUGH.
Thank you for sharing .
hi Susan Williams I was shipped off to London got tablespoon of malt at school, loved it, hated milk.
The power outage was communist union workers what a bullshit doc
I was born in 1947, as children we just had to get on with things.
the policies celebrated here are why Britain never recovered and is in constant decline – decline paused during the Thatcher years but that's about it … one big welfare state now
The part about the Windrush is not accurate. The government wanted to stop them coming but couldn't legally do it. Later they recruited from the Carribbean.