The sixth volume in David Kynaston’s history of postwar Britain covers the eighteen months between the death of Winston Churchill and England’s victory over Germany in the World Cup, for which the celebrations matched those of VE Day. Around Piccadilly, said screenwriter Laurence Marks, the blast of car horns was incessant: ‘It’s deafening. Union Jacks seem to be waving everywhere. People are dancing in the streets. People are crying. Grown men. Girls are removing their clothes and climbing up Eros.’ At a time when the British Empire had virtually disappeared, the UK was poised uneasily between Washington and Brussels and the pound was on the brink of devaluation, the triumph at Wembley gave a boost to the nation’s morale. 

Indeed, there was already hope in the air – what Kynaston describes as a palpable sense that possibilities were opening up. He attributes this in part to the sounds of the mid-Sixties, a golden age of pop music. Its undisputed stars were, of course, The Beatles, whose songs heralded a cultural revolution. Its bad boys were the Rolling Stones, whose mutinous cacophony sounded the death knell of the status quo. Meanwhile, according to the poet Jeremy Reed, The Who’s ‘My Generation’ seemed to ‘power the whole scooter-led Carnaby Street ethos forward into the mid-Sixties orange sunshine optimism of a generation flagrantly proud of its disaffection from the past’.

There were more solid grounds for faith in the future: a rising standard of living, relatively full employment, increased social mobility. Material progress was unmistakable. More people possessed cars, fridges, telephones, washing machines, central heating and televisions. Barclaycard was launched and the Bank of England ordered two computers. Harold Wilson’s