Nation had high hopes of new Elizabethan Age
Britain was a very different place in the year that the King George VI died and his eldest daughter became Queen. Eugene Byrne travels back to 1952
KING George VI, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer at the age of just 56 at Sandringham House on February 6. The news reached Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, when she and her husband were on holiday in Kenya. She flew back to London the following day.
The British in 1952 liked to do everything properly and decently, so of course they observed an appropriate and fitting period of mourning.
The King’s body lay in state at Westminster Hall for four days before the funeral at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. There was no riot of intrusive press photographers, no lurid speculation in the Daily Mail about any feuds among the royals.
That would have been unthinkable, even though there were feuds enough – think of the Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the throne to be marry Mrs Simpson, who had flirted openly with Hitler, and who was now living in exile in Paris. George VI’s Queen, who now became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, had never forgiven the Duke and his wife for the strain they had placed on her husband by forcing him to become king.
No, the press did not go into any of that, because along with decency and propriety came deference as well. The Royals in 1952 were not some soap opera for the entertainment of the masses, they were the anointed leaders of a great empire.
They were, to many, semi-divine.
And after the decent period of mourning had been observed, the British permitted themselves to get excited about the new Queen. She was young and glamorous, she was married to a young and equally glamorous man with a distinguished war record. (However much the rest of the British aristocracy might sneer about the Duke of Edinburgh coming from one of Europe’s less distinguished royal houses.)
Columnists and commentators gushed about the coming of a ‘new Elizabethan Age.’ Like her Tudor namesake, the new Queen was going to usher in a new period of greatness for Britain. The country would forge its way in the postwar world as a powerhouse of manufacturing, science, knowledge and discovery.
This optimism would reach its apogee – its height! – the following year when the news of Hillary and
The new Queen at Balmoral, 1952. There was plenty of talk of a ‘new Elizabethan Age’
A police officer directs traffic with the aid of a flare, London, December 1952. The smogs were now notorious killers. (Mirrorpix)
Tenzing’s conquest of Mount Everest reached the country on the day of her coronation.
In 1952 it was permissible for the British to allow themselves a modest amount of optimism. The country was plainly turning a corner. Six years of war had been followed by years more of dreary, pinched austerity as the postwar Labour government tried to balance the books of a bankrupt country.
In spite of formidable challenges that would have left lesser men and women in despair, they had succeeded, building the foundations of a welfare state that would look after everyone from cradle to grave. The National Health Service meant no one would have to worry about being able to afford to call the doctor ever again.
The bomb damage was being cleared and new buildings went up.
Above all, people were gradually being moved out of damp, leaking, vermin-infested slums and into clean new homes with gardens, bathrooms and inside toilets.
It was progress, but not fast enough. In 1951 Prime Minister Clement Attlee had called a snap general election and had narrowly lost. Even though Labour won more votes than the other parties combined, the system gave the Tories a 17-seat majority. When the new Queen was proclaimed, Mr Churchill had been back in Downing Street for four months.
The Conservatives would undo a little of Labour’s work at the edges, returning the nationalised road haulage industry to private hands and, more contentiously, bringing in a charge of one shilling (5p) for NHS prescriptions, but there were no major changes.
Churchill was as committed to building houses as his predecessor, and massive numbers of council homes continued to be built. The Minister of Housing and Local Government, Harold Macmillan, was responsible for meeting the Tories’ manifesto pledge to build 300,000 houses each year. He succeeded, and would later become prime minister himself, not least because of his proven competence.
One of the headline promises of the Tories’ election campaign was to bring an end to the hated wartime identity cards, which everyone still had to carry.
Another important promise, and probably the one which persuaded many floating voters to opt for the Tories, was to end the food rationing which had continued into the postwar years as the country struggled to pay its bills.
They would keep their promise, but found it took longer than they hoped. The only big treat to come off the rations in 1952 was tea. Sugar and sweets would remain rationed until 1953, and meat didn’t come off the books until 1954.
Yes, optimism could be permitted, although the new Elizabethan Age got off to a frankly very disappointing start at Helsinki in the summer of ’52. It saw one of Britain’s poorest ever Olympic performances – just one gold medal (in the equestrian jumping event).
Optimism also had to be tempered with hard-headed realism when it came to the wider world,
» THE New Musical Express published the first UK singles charts in November 1952. The official first UK Number One was Al Martino with ‘Here in My Heart’, which remained in that position into early 1953. In second place was Jo Stafford with ‘You Belong to Me’. Both were Americans. It would be a long time before the Beatles came along.
At the cinema, 1952 offered you no end of stiff-upper-lipped British war movies, but also popular that year were The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, and Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, with Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism.
Alec Guinness was becoming a very bankable British star. He packed them in with The Card, a comedy of a young man’s rise to wealth and respectability from a humble background. It was adapted from a 1911 Arnold Bennett novel and co-starred Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson and another popular British star of the day: Petula Clark.
Many of the biggest box office hits came from America, as usual. The most successful movie in Britain in 1952 was The Greatest Show on Earth, a now
Gene Kelly in one of the cinema’s biggest attractions in 1952
almost-forgotten circus drama starring Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde and directed by Cecil B DeMille with a cast of thousands (well, around 1,500).
For more serious drama, there was High Noon, a surprisingly bleak and cynical Western starring Gary Cooper and whose theme song, ‘Do Not Forsake
Me, Oh My Darling’ became a major hit.
But for something more lighthearted, and a movie that’s never gone out of fashion, how about we go to the local cinema – there were many more back then! – to see Singin’ in the Rain?
We’ve delved into the archives for some photos of Bristol in 1952, the year Elizabeth became Queen.
What a difference 70 makes! years
the
The Horsefair, still looking much as it did before the modern Broadmead was built, along with its enigmatic Victorian drinking fountain
Bristol’s tobacco industry was thriving, with more people smoking than ever – ‘Gold Flake and good living go hand-in-hand’, apparently
A sunny day on Queen Square
trip was later broadcast in America. The tour extended to Europe in 1983 and a live album recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall was also released.
Fame was watched by 11 million viewers in the UK at its height and fans rushed to snap up record releases from the show leading to chart success for singles like Starmaker and Hi Fidelity.