The Spirit of '45
Film by Ken Loach
DVD. 91 minutes. Dogwoof (London 2013). £10.78
The morning of May 8th 1945 (VE day) was remarkably quiet; no bells, no 'All Clear' sirens. Mass Observation recorded a whole series of disgruntled conversations. Despite the signing of the Peace to end the War in Europe at 2.40am there had been no general announcement. People were left watching and waiting.
Once the waiting was over the people rejoiced. They joined together in a community of rejoicing. They owned the day and the event. Ken Loach's film Spirit of '45 picks up this moment. The war is over and there is the promise of a 'brave new world'. And this is the received memory of those events as people laughed, drank and generally made 'whoopee'. Perhaps, behind it all there was not only a hope for a grand move to the new. There was also a deep desire to return to what had been before the war. But the under-swell of 'moving on' pervaded. It was clear that incoming Labour Government had an agenda. This agenda appealed to most, but not to all. There were suspicions that Labour's mantra of 'the common good' smacked of communism.
Loach outlines, in pictures, this initial time of promise, this initial sense of community. He shows the general belief for a 'common good' for everyone. The first part of the film lets the images of the newsreels and the interviews reveal this sense of the promise of great changes; the nationalisation of many industries, the creation of the National Health Service and the creation of a 'womb to tomb' Welfare State. A 'Brave New World', indeed! However, not everyone was bowled over by it. The years of late 1940s austerity were very hard for many. Mass Observation was to record many conversations round the 'what was the war for? – nothing's any better' theme.
Loach carefully lets the newsreel film and interviews of those times run their course. Many people still alive from those days have watched the film with nostalgic eyes. They see the beginnings of the 'Big Society' – all for one, everyone for each other'. In the austere years that followed 1945 many had to depend on one another even more than during the war. There was the ongoing sense of common identity in the continued rationing, the lack of decent housing, and the grey pall of smoke that hung over the industrial areas.
The latter part of the film acts as a mirror image to 1945. It shows the late 1980s, when much of what was set up in the period after 1945 was carefully and firmly dismantled. Community thinking now seemed as old-fashioned as nationalisation. In less than 40 years much of the hope and expectation of what had emerged after 1945 was seen as dated as retro fashion. What had felt like 'all for one for we're all in this together' had changed. Now 'all for me' was the current cry. After all, by the late 80s, we didn't believe in Society any more. Only some looked back in nostalgia to the post 1945 days.
But had there ever really been that fondly remembered community life of popular memory? The 'neighbourliness' of the rows of back-to-backs was perhaps never quite as real as it was recalled. After 1950 those streets were soon torn down and the people moved out into 'soulless' estates far from the shops, pubs and other amenities. Corner shops were replaced by supermarkets. The world got bigger and far less local or communal. There were to be no more 'Coronation Streets' – except in soap operas.
All documentary makers, including Loach, have an agenda. I think Loach has a good agenda for he makes those who lived after 1945 see with 'older, wiser eyes' the reality rather than the fond memories. It was no easier or harder then than it is now. The 1980s undoing of much of what happened after 1945 gives us an uncomfortable, but more genuine picture, of what we are like and what we are about.
The British are wonderful in a crisis and life in the UK in World War 2 and after 1945 proved this. Today a vision of the 'Big Society' is very different from 1945. Welfare is now seen as scrounging. In this film Loach asks us to ask why it is, when times of crisis pass, we are not as resourceful, companionable, altruistic, outward looking or caring as we like to remember.
This film pricks balloons of myth and memory, and does it very well. It asks uncomfortable questions – who are we now? What do we believe as a nation? How do we get on with each other? Loach's film tells us as much about how we are now as it tells us of how we were then.
Further reading: David Kynaston, Tales of a New Jerusalem 1945–1979. Volume 1: Austerity Britain 1945–1951 (Bloomsbury, London 2010).
Christopher Wardale was conceived in late October 1945 – a true 'baby boomer'. He is a retired Anglican priest who was Vicar of a Co. Durham pit village during the Miners' Strike of 1984. He lives now in Newcastle upon Tyne with his civil partner.