LIFE IN BRITAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1940, Page 10

LIFE IN BRITAIN

i CHANGES OF WARTIME A description of life in Britain under wartime conditions' is given in the following article by Ivor Brown, author and dramatic critic. Let us take a walk one Winter afternoon along Oxford Street, the great shopping centre, the “Women’s Mile,’’ as it has been called, he writes. i Life in Britain to-day is not normal. lOf course not. It is not normal to be at war, to have one’s menfolk away, Ito have a house strangely empty or | strangely crowded with refugees and ■ war workers, to know that you must i not only pay an income tax of 7/- in ' the pound but must save voluntarily, ; if you can, in order to lend money to ithe Government. I So it is hardly to be expected, this iWinter afternoon, that Oxford Street will be its old self. It used to be so gay, as the lights' came twinkling out in' the windows, then blazing everywhere, and calling out to forget the darkness, to spend, to be social, to think of going on afterward in company to .a dinner and a show. Now, as we walk along, we cannot look forward to a West End all atwinkle with light. It is, indeed, very difficult to walk in Oxford Street at jail. There are so many pelople about. The pavement is packed. _ The shops are packed. What is more, the counters inside the shops are packed. There were not these crowds in Sep-' tember. I PLENTY TO BUY. They are shopping, easily, for there is plenty to buy. There is no extravagance. The British people are well aware that they now have to compromise in money matters. They must spend to keep trade mloving; they must save to pay for the war. So we shall see housewives going watchfully about their shopping, purchasing serviceable things, stronger shoes than of old. for example, and comfortable, useful articles to send to their sons and daughters on war service at home! or abroad. Quality and utility are . now the goal. There is not the old hilarity of the town lit up,' but there is stout-heartedness and confidence ; and the will to carry on. 1

Later on some of these myriads will be going to theatres 1 and picture houses. These have reopened in large numbers and many of the entertainments are packed. Meanwhile those at home, the Londoners, are not idle in their evenings. One hundred and fifty thousand of them are engaged in defence work, air raid precautions, flre-fighting, and so on.

You will not see many children. They are mostly in the country, where the Government would have them remain.

I Let us imagine ourselves in an English country town, one of those serene, ! mellow, red-bricked towns with a fine old market square, where the comt merce of the land has been carried on since the Middle Ages. On market day, round the square, they are selling everything from cattle to cabbages, farm stock to furniture, exactly as they have been doing for hundreds of years. , The difference to-day is that there is more of everything, not less, 'in this market town. It would be exI tramely difficult to find a shortage of ! anything here, except of space inside a shop. • That is scarce, because all the farmers and their,families come in on market days and fill the town ■with their .cars and carts,-the steets' and shops with their persons, and the tills 1 and banks with their money. NOT MAKING FORTUNES

The .farmers are not making fortunes. If there should ever be a shortage of food they will not be allowed

'to exploit it, but they are prospering i reasonably. The taverns are packed I with them when their business is done land they feel inclined to chat and i argue over a pint of beer. This being ja free country, they will talk very ; freely about the war and how to win L " it, and they will be as critical as they e like of the Government, knowing that L " nobody is spying on them and report- ® ing what they say to the secret police. ’ There is one quite new feature in this otherwise unchanging' market s amid the English meadows. A shiop has just, been opened which sells one ” thing only, war saving certificates and 3 defence bonds. The interest on these ’ is low, but the security is good and l . the cause—that of victory for freedom , —approved by all. There are plenty of people inquiring about the bonds — 1 and buying them. ’ Prices of commodities have ad--5 vanced a little, both here and in London, but not greatly. A large firm of ’ clothiers announces no change of L prices since the war. War-time move- > ments of population have mixed L classes and ages and accents. In the ‘ remotest part of Wales you will find 3 large deposits of young Liverpool. So ’ in the counties round about London there is every kind of war-time blending. The movements have had extrat icrclinary effects. It was hard for many people in the towns to see their children go away last September, but the t statistics prove how beneficial- to • many of those town children the coun- ! try life has been. The Minister of Health recently gave Parliament most • encouraging figures about their pliysii cal development under the new conditions. Their mental griowth has not been ■ neglected. By working in with local . rural schools the town children are . now being given complete education . in the country and are getting a far . wider view of life. The enormous migrations caused, inevitably, a multitude of personal and administrative problems. But all these are now being successfully smoothed out. There can be no dispute about one thing. The change of environment has been immensely stimulating to many of the children from the towns, to whom quite new horizons have been opened. Of course, it is Injnt a Britain that entered this most fateful year of 1940. Happiness and war do not mix. The 1 British are not fussing about happiness. They are getting on with their various jobs without pomp and pretentiousness. They dre keeping their lights down and their heads up. They are fostering trade and keeping a little pocketmoney for recreation. ..Ab'ove all, they mean to keep their minds free to' speak their opinions, and read and hear what they please. There is no atmosphere of hate or intolerance or hysteria. They know that loss of freedom, self-control and self-respect'would be, jn effect, a Nazi victory. And that they will never per- ' mit. (