Birth of the NHS and Austerity Olympics: The year his public life began
PRINCE Philip appeared at his first solo engagement in 1948 – a year memorable for many reasons.
HAVING led the Labour Party to a majority three years earlier, Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s radical programme of social reform continued unabated.
On July 5, 1948, Aneurin Bevan officially launched the NHS at Park Hospital in Manchester. That day, Sylvia Beckingham was admitted there with a liver condition, the new health service’s first patient.
THE 1948 Summer Olympics was held in London. But it became known as the ‘austerity games’ due to the prevailing postwar economic gloom, with most events taking place in the already 20-year-old Wembley Stadium. Despite this, Great Britain finished with a creditable 23 medals. These were also last Games to feature art competitions, with medals awarded for architecture, painting and music.
WHILE the British Empire continued to rule swathes of the globe, the cost of the Second World War and the election of a pro-decolonisation Labour government in 1945 led to its inexorable and quickening decline. In 1948, George VI had relinquished the title Emperor of India, while Burma and Ceylon achieved independence.
RATIONING of meat, sugar and chocolate continued unabated. But happily for sandwich lovers, restrictions on bread and flour were removed after two years of rationing. Surprisingly, bread was never rationed during the wars, as officials believed such a move would have represented an intolerable blow to morale.
THE EMPIRE Windrush passenger ship landed at the Tilbury Docks, carrying 492 West Indian immigrants brought from Jamaica. This intrepid group – including a future mayor of Southwark and calypso legend Lord Kitchener – were the first in a wave of immigrants from the Caribbean, who would become known as the ‘Windrush Gen- eration’ and leave an indelible mark on this country’s urban and musical culture.
BRITAIN’S first supermarket was opened by the London Cooperative Society, in Manor Park, East London. Many other
British retailers quickly adopted this self-service mode, with baskets and checkouts.
SIR Laurence Olivier’s film of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which would be the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, hit the cinemas. Although enjoyed by audiences, Olivier was criticised for taking liberties with the script. Most notoriously, he played up Hamlet’s Oedipal relationship with his mother, with critics noting ‘phallic symbolism’.
RONNIE Barker, later of the Two Ronnies, made his debut as a professional actor in November 1948 as Lieutenant Spicer in a performance of J M
First supermarket is opened
Barrie’s Quality Street, a comedy set in Napoleonic times which proved so popular it had the chocolates named after it.
THE average weekly wage was £7.28 and the average house cost £1,751.
TAKE It From Here, the hit wireless show that launched writers Frank Muir and Denis Norden towards TV stardom, was first broadcast.
1948 saw the births of singer Elaine Paige, footballer Trevor Brooking, actor Jeremy Irons, TV presenter Judy Finnigan… and, of course, the Queen and Prince Philip’s first child, Prince Charles, who was born on November 14.