The Way It Was Life in Elizabeth’s Britain, 1952-1979

'A tour de force about post-war Britain which delights and illuminates on every page.' David Kynaston The first part of Matthew Engel's sweeping social history of modern Britain during the reign of Elizabeth II. She came to the throne in 1952 when Britain had a far-flung empire, Winston Churchill was prime minister, sweets were rationed, mums stayed at home and kids played on bombsites. In the seventy years that followed everything changed utterly - except the Queen herself, ageing far more gracefully than the fractious nation with which she became synonymous. While the Queen is the motif for this book, the story Engel tells is not about her - it is primarily about the British. Through original research, interviews with people who were there and his own memories of the time, Matthew Engel traces the transformation of life in Britain as never before. Beginning with the death of King George VI and ending on the eve of Margaret Thatcher's election, Engel not only covers all the major historical events but also explores everyday life - from the food we ate and where we shopped, to what we watched on television and the newspapers we read.

Matthew Engel is a journalist and author. He has written for the Guardian and Financial Times, among other publications, and was the editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack for twelve years. His books include Eleven Minutes Late and Engel's England.

Author’ s note Prologue THE 1950s 1. God save the . . . 2. The state of her realm, 1952 3. The crowning glory 4. What’ s on tonight? 5. Women and children 6. The moral tone 7. The immoral tone 8. Let him have it, Goddard 9. Shoulders back! 10. Summoned by buzzers 11. Years of living dangerously 12. The reign of error 13. The young ones 14. The newcomers 15. Reach for the sky 16. Of dukes and debs 17. So good 18. Keep going well THE 1960s 1. Wives and servants 2. C’ mon, little miss, let’ s do the twist 3. Goodbye to all that 4. Read all about it! 5. They love us, yeah, yeah, yeah 6. Enough rope 7. The last from the past 8. Mickey Mouse and Rattí n 9. Up, up and away 10. If you can meet with triumph and disaster 11. Smashing the crockery 12. Ye Blocks, ye Stones 13. Closing time 14. A woman’ s work 15. Down with skools 16. The past blasters 17. Now we are forty 18. The faint echoes of empire 19. The moon, money and Murdoch THE 1970s 1. Is the show really over? 2. Listen to reason 3. The iceman cometh 4. Everybody out 5. Down among the dead elms 6. And the bands played on 7. We’ re in 8. He’ s out 9. It’ s that man again 10. Change and decay 11. Anarchy on the King’ s Road 12. Heatwave and humiliation 13. Flaps, sir! 14. The land of lost content 15. Mark the herald angels sing 16. The girl that I marry 17. The madman of Kampala 18. But this is home 19. Weirder still and weirder 20. The people’ s pleasures 21. Hearth and health 22. The eerie quiet, the bitter harvest 23. Change and echoes 24. The woman’ s hour Acknowledgements List of illustrations Index