Wisden 1940-1949

1940 -1949

The war and defeat stared peace loving Britons in the face during the early 1940's. They watched their cities being bombed and burned; streets piled with bricks and rubble; theirs' and their neighbours' most private quarters exposed to the elements.  Night upon night in R.A.F messes across England new faces would appear to replace those of the previous evening who no longer existed. No lights after dark, and severe food and clothes rationing were in force. Sleeping in underground railway stations became a matter of routine for many Londoners. Planes dominated the skies but they were not like the planes of today, the tiny fighters screamed in the day and the ominous bombers droned night and day. Men and women walked the streets in uniform, fires lit up the sky. Cricket was a forgotten pastime.

This situation to a greater or lesser degree incarcerated the British people for five fearful years. Even after the tide of the war had changed there was little respite, life was anything but normal in the immediate post war years. Rationing hung around like a bad smell until 1953. People will say today how evil the bombi