People in their Places

Just six years after the end of a war when Britain had been encouraged to pull together for the common good; festival organisers acknowledged that the country was again divided. 

As well as the well documented social mixing that took place during World War Two; town and country had often crossed over for the duration.  Evacuees are a well known example.  City girls joined the women’s Land Army or became LumberJills. City parks became allotments.  Young country-reared adults were mobilised into cities. For a while, it must have been the case that city dwellers became more aware of the seasons and growth cycles of edible plants. Conversely, country-bred children would have realised what it was like to live without fresh air.  But by 1951 it would seem like all that had never happened and that people had settled back into old ways.

In the guidebook’s section on the countryside, it states that Britain was divided between countrymen and townsmen, two very different sets of people who are “out of step” with each other.  So the great wartime mix up didn’t make a great deal of difference in the long run then.  This statement of fact could be used to support the strong argument that social levelling was lost when the war ended.  When the dust settled, the population sought a return to a settled way of life, one that they were familiar with from before.  Countrymen returned to the land; city kids returned to their families and jobs in the local factories that had been kept open for them.

 Although the edges are blurred by commuters buying rural homes and children having to move away from the countryside to find work and affordable housing; there is still some division apparent.  Farmers and hunters claim to be misunderstood by the urban masses.  The programme predicts that technology would create better understanding.  I’m not sure that they got that bit right. 

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