When Harold Macmillan said that most of our people have never had it so good what did he mean?

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HST4306 – Britain: The Road from 1945

Matthew Woodward – History – November 2009

When Harold Macmillan said that ‘most of our people have never had it so good’ what did he mean?

1818 words

It was estimated that in 1947 that there were a mere ten self-service stores throughout Britain. This figure rose to three thousand by 1956, quadrupled to twelve thousand in 1962 and doubled again to twenty four thousand by 1967. The sale of frozen foods doubled between 1955 and 1957, and doubled again by 1960. By the end of the fifties, forty two million loaves of sliced bread were being sold each year throughout the UK and the growth of the tea bag was extravagant, as Tetley’s Tea opened in 1952 and commanded three quarters of the market by the early sixties. Other products such as American influenced ‘soda’ was being commercialized, and Britain saw the development of produce such as newly promoted ‘health drinks’ such as Iron Bru, Vimto Tizer, Coca-cola and Pepsi. With the large growth acceleration of Sainsbury’s supermarket in the 50’s and the end of food rations in 1954, the food consumer market was now open and fully operational. The consumer society was now tremendously booming and everything was working towards better personal convenience, especially with banks now offering larger credit opportunities and businesses proposing suitable pay-back schemes for large purchases such as televisions, refrigerators and other electrical household appliances. ‘You can do your week’s shopping in a day… here is the refrigerator to give you a fresh interest in food, more fun and more leisure’ claimed a British mother, pointing out some of the advantages of transforming Britain. The new phenomenon of the contemporarily named ‘affluent society’ was becoming apparent. Throughout this essay I will be examining the social boom of the fifties alongside the advantages and disadvantages of the new change and its overall effect. I will also analyze whether the social transformation was either positive or negative and why exactly Britain underwent this huge social modification.

The booming fifties can be seen as an age of opportunity and possibility, where people could borrow money from the banks more easily than previously possible. People were given the chance to improve their personal lives, especially with the average weekly wage almost doubling from £6 eight shillings in 1950 to £11 two shillings in 1959, as families started putting money to one side so that they could afford new technological appliances that would make their lives easier and more relaxing. These were new appliances such as televisions, fridges and washing machines. By 1956, most of the middle class couples could afford to buy luxuries such as vacuum cleaners, record players, cameras and enjoy weekly outings to the cinema.

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However, the ‘crowning glory of the household’ was the motorcar and not the washing machine or the television that everybody seemed to desperately crave. Just like most of the other transformations of the affluent society, the car-revolution was based on pre-war tendencies: in 1919 we could account for only 100’000 private vehicles; in 1939 there were a little over two million; in 1955 three and a half million and by 1965 there were over nine million cars throughout the UK. This lead to rapid road infrastructure development, as society saw the introduction of traffic lights and the building on multiple national ...

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