WesWorld

This is the BBC Home Service…

1 January
Millions of people across the British Empire celebrate the New Year. In London, huge crowds gather to hear Big Ben chime in the first hour of 1945.

Sir John Hathorn Hall GCMG, DSO, OBE, MC, Croix de Guerre, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Aden since 24 October 1940, has been appointed as Governor of Uganda. Replacing Sir Hall is Reginald Stuart Champion.

10 January
The following research establishments are to be founded this year with the agreement of the War Office, Air Ministry, Ministry of Supply and the Treasury:
National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) at Pyestock, Hampshire, created from the organisation of Power Jets Limited to undertake fundamental and experimental gas turbine research for the Air Ministry, War Office and the Admiralty. (Pyestock is next door to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough)
Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) at Waltham Abbey, Essex, created from the Army’s long-standing explosives department at the site.
Guided Projectile Establishment at Westcott, Buckinghamshire, a sub-unit of the Royal Aircraft Establishment. It has ranges at Larkhill and Aberporth.
{Note: These are not 'new' organisations, but enlarged and rationalised departments created from others currently doing the same work, of course in all cases investment in terms of structures and equipment will be forthcoming]

18 January
During severe gales today, winds of 113 mph are recorded at St. Ann's Head Lighthouse, Pembrokeshire.

19 January
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain has been reorganised as the National Union of Mineworkers. Within the organisation, each coalfield continues to exercise a degree of autonomy, having its own District Association, President, General Secretary, and headquarters. A national strike requires a two-thirds majority in a ballot of members.
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1888 to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation was founded in 1898, joining the MFGB in 1899, the Northumberland Miners' Federation joined in 1907 and the Durham Miners' Federation joined the following year. The MFGB supported the Liberal Party until 1918 when it supported the Labour Party. The MFGB was involved in many trade disputes, including the National Miners' Strike of 1912 and the General Strike in 1926.

24 January
The motorcar and motor and aero engine manufacturer Alvis Limited has been acquired by NEE engineering conglomerate which also includes English Electric, Napier and Paxman.

4 February
A railway accident at London King's Cross railway station on the East Coast Main Line of the London & North Eastern Railway has killed two passengers injured twenty-five others, as well as the train attendant.
The 18:00 service from Kings Cross to Leeds had left platform five at King's Cross station five minutes late, and entered Gasworks Tunnel. On this occasion, the train was not assisted out, because the coaches had been propelled, rather than hauled, into the platform, therefore there was no locomotive at the rear. On the uphill gradient in the tunnel, the locomotive came to a stand and then began to slide backwards. In the darkness, the driver did not notice that the train was no longer moving forwards. Meanwhile, the points had been altered ready for the next departure, the 19:00 Aberdonian service to Aberdeen on platform ten. The signalman became aware of the 18:00 train sliding back and attempted to alter the points again in order to send it into an empty platform but was slightly too late and moved the points between the two bogies of the rearmost coach. The rear of the train collided with the front of the coaches in platform ten. In the collision the rear coach rose into the air and collided with a signal gantry which crushed one of the two first-class compartments in the middle of the coach, killing two passengers, one of whom was Cecil Kimber, who controlled the MG Car Company.

8 February
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health has been founded as an independent, not-for-profit British organization for health and safety professionals. It is based in Wigston. The Institution of Industrial Safety Officers is a division with around 500 members.

Part I

This is an overview of the books and plays and films that are shaping Britain during the year and being seen by millions on the stage or read on trains, on beaches and in libraries all across Britain. [All books referencing WW2 etc. have been altered to fit WW timelines and situations]


Books
Several well-known authors have published new works this year.

A constant of British literature, Agatha Christie has released a new murder mystery, 'Sparkling Cyanide'. The book features the recurring character of Colonel Race and is an expansion of the Hercule Poirot short story 'Yellow Iris'. This full-length version omits the character of Poirot, substituting Colonel Race as the central investigative character instead. The novel uses the basics of the short story, including the method of the poisoning, but changes the identity of the culprits.

Winston Graham has released the first book of a historical fictional sequence, 'Ross Poldark'. The book’s main character, Ross Poldark, is a British Army officer who returns to his home in Cornwall from the American Revolutionary War only to find that his fiancée, Elizabeth Chynoweth, having believed him dead, is about to marry his cousin, Francis Poldark. The book chart’s Ross’ attempts to restore his own fortunes and life.

Henry Green’s novel, 'Loving', describes life above and below stairs in an Irish country house. In the absence of their employers the Tennants who are touring in Europe, the servants enact their own battles and conflict; invading one another's provinces of authority to create an anarchic environment of self-seeking behaviour, pilfering, gossip and love.

The well-known supernatural writer Margery Lawrence has published, 'Number Seven, Queer Street'. A collection of eight supernatural short-stories.

The well-known author C.S. Lewis has released, 'That Hideous Strength', this novel is the last of the Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of 'Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra' (also titled Voyage to Venus) and again features the philologist Elwin Ransom. Unlike the principal events of the two previous novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than in space or on other planets in the solar system. The story involves an ostensibly scientific institute, the N.I.C.E., which is a front for sinister supernatural forces.

'The Pursuit of Love' is a novel by one of infamous Mitford Girls, Nancy Mitford. It is about an upper-class English family during the 1930s and 1940s and although a comedy, the story has tragic overtones.

George Orwell, the pen name of the reporter and social investigator Eric Blair, has released a novel 'Animal Farm' which is an unusual allegorical and dystopian novel which is modelled on a children’s story or parable. The book is a critique of Marxist ideology and is set on a farm where the animals’ rebel against their human masters and run the farm themselves as an commune under the leadership of the pigs.

Evelyn Waugh has published his latest novel, 'Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'. The novel deals with what is theologically termed the operation of Grace. This is achieved by an examination of the Roman Catholic, aristocratic Marchmain family, as seen by the narrator, Charles Ryder.

The philosopher and historian Robin George Collingwood, who died in January 1943 has had one of his works posthumously published, 'The Idea of Nature'. Several other works will be published in the next few years.
Bertrand Russell has published another fine work, 'A History of Western Philosophy And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'. The book is a conspectus of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratic philosophers to the early 20th century. The origins of the book are a series of lectures on the history of philosophy that Russell gave at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia during 1941 and 1942. It has been criticised by reviewers for over-generalisation and omissions, particularly from the post-Cartesian period, but nevertheless became has become a popular and commercial success.
'The Perennial Philosophy' is a comparative study of mysticism published by Aldous Huxley. Its title derives from the theological tradition of the philosophia perennis.

New works from Wales include; Idris Davies’ 'Tonypandy and other poems', D. Gwenallt Jones’ 'Detholiad o Ryddiaith Gymraeg', R. J. Derfel and Huw Menai’s ,The Simple Vision'. In Northern Ireland F. L. Green's novel 'Odd Man Out' is published.


Poetry
New works published this year include;

W. H. Auden, For the Time Being
John Betjeman, New Bats in Old Belfries
Walter de la Mare, The Burning-Glass, and Other Poems
W. S. Graham, Second Poems
Michael Hamburger, Later Hogarth
A. P. Herbert, Light the Lights
Philip Larkin, The North Ship, London: Dent
Alun Lewis, Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets
Ruth Pitter, The Bridge
William Plomer, The Dorking Thigh, and Other Satires
Henry Treece, The Black Seasons
Vernon Watkins, The Lamp and the Veil


Short Stories
'Leaf by Niggle' is a short story by J. R. R. Tolkien, written in 1938–39 and first published in the Dublin Review in January 1945.
In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not much value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to detail, making every leaf uniquely beautiful. Niggle ends up discarding all his other artworks, or tacks them onto the main canvas, which becomes a single vast embodiment of his vision. However, there are many mundane chores and duties that prevent Niggle from giving his work the attention it deserves, so it remains incomplete and is not fully realised. Also, Niggle's next door neighbour, a gardener named Parish, is always whining about the help he needs but he is lame and has a sick wife and honestly needs help. Niggle, having a good heart, takes time out to help. Niggle catches a chill doing errands for Parish in the rain and eventually, Niggle is forced to take a long-awaited trip. He has not prepared and as a result ends up in a kind of institution in which he must perform menial labour. In time he is paroled from the institution and is sent away for 'gentle treatment'. Niggle discovers that the new country he is sent to is in fact the country of the Tree and Forest of his great painting, now long abandoned and all but destroyed (except for the one perfect leaf of the title which is placed in the local museum). The Tree here and now is the true realisation of his vision, not the flawed and incomplete form of his painting. Niggle is reunited with Parish, who now proves his worth as a gardener, and together they make the Tree and Forest even more beautiful. Finally, Niggle journeys farther and deeper into the Forest, and beyond into the great mountains that he only faintly glimpsed in his painting. Long after both Niggle and Parish have taken their journeys, the lovely field that they created becomes a place for many travellers to visit before their final voyage into the Mountains, and it earns the name "Niggle's Parish."

'Taste' is a short story by Roald Dahl, first published in the March 1945 issue of Ladies Home Journal.
There are six people eating a fine dinner at the house of Mike Schofield, a London stockbroker: Mike, his wife and daughter, an unnamed narrator and his wife, and a wine connoisseur, Richard Pratt. Pratt often makes small bets with Schofield to guess what wine is being served at the table, but during the night he is uninterested, instead attempting to socialize with Schofield's eighteen-year-old daughter, Louise. When Schofield brings the second wine of the night he remarks that it will be impossible to guess where it is from, but Pratt takes that as a challenge. The tough talk on both sides leads the two to increase the bet until Pratt declares that he would like to bet for the hand of Schofield's daughter in marriage. If he loses, he will give Schofield both of his houses. Though his wife and daughter are understandably horrified, Mike eventually convinces them to accept the bet. However, Pratt proceeds to name the district, commune, vineyard, and the year of the wine (though Mike doesn't turn over the bottle, his reaction appears to be one of disbelief that Pratt could have guessed correctly). At this moment, however, the maid walks in and returns to Pratt his glasses, which he had left on the cabinet in the study earlier in the evening where the bottle had been left out to reach room temperature. Pratt had picked out this place in the study on an earlier visit as the ideal place to sit the wine, his glasses being left there reveals that he knew the wine in advance and cheated on the bet. The story ends with Mike starting to get angry and his wife telling him to calm down.


Essays
'Good Bad Books' is an essay by George Orwell, first published in Tribune on 2 November 1945.
The essay examines the lasting popularity of works not usually considered great literature. Orwell defines a "good bad book" as "the kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished." Orwell acknowledges G. K. Chesterton as the originator of the term, as seen in his defences of penny dreadfuls and detective stories in the 1901 collection The Defendant. Orwell claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true; it is hard to say which quality outweighs the other." Therefore concluding that, "I would back Uncle Tom's Cabin to outlive the complete works of Virginia Woolf or George Moore, though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies." Other examples he gives include the Sherlock Holmes and Raffles stories, R. Austin Freeman's stories The Singing Bone, The Eye of Osiris and others, Ernest Bramah's Max Carrados, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Helen's Babies and King Solomon's Mines. Minor novelists W. L. George, Leonard Merrick, J. D. Beresford, Ernest Raymond, May Sinclair, and A. S. M. Hutchinson are also mentioned as writers "whom it is quite impossible to call 'good' by any strictly literary standard, but who are natural novelists and who seem to attain sincerity partly because they are not inhibited by good taste."

'Notes on Nationalism' is another essay by George Orwell, completed in May 1945 and published in the first issue of Polemic in October 1945. The essay was soon translated into French, Dutch, Italian and Finnish. The article was abridged in translated versions, omitting details of particular relevance to British readers. A short introduction based on material supplied by Orwell preceded the translated abridgements.
In this essay, Orwell discusses the notion of nationalism, and argues that it causes people to disregard common sense and become more ignorant towards factuality. Orwell shows his concern for the social state of Europe, and in a broader sense, the entire world, due to an increasing amount of influence of nationalistic sentiment occurring throughout a large number of countries.
Nationalism is the name Orwell gives to the propensity of “identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” The occurrence of nationalism is visible throughout history, and is prevalent even in today's world. Nationalism is not only defined as alignment to a political entity; it can also encompass a religion, race, ideology or any other abstract idea. Examples of such forms of nationalism given by Orwell include Communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Marxism and Pacifism. Orwell additionally argues that his definition of "nationalism" is not at all the same as what he and most people mean by "patriotism". “Patriotism is of its nature defensive… Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.” Orwell explains that he uses the expression "nationalism" for lack of a better alternative to label the concept he describes in his essay.
Orwell argues that nationalism largely influences the thoughts and actions of people, even in everyday tasks such as decision-making and reasoning. One of the themes Orwell discusses is that of the effects of nationalistic sentiment on human way of thinking. Nationalism causes dishonesty within people, as every nationalist, having chosen one side, persuades himself that his side is the strongest, regardless of the facts provided against his faction. From this sense of superiority, people then argue and defend for the faction which they have aligned with; the slightest slur or criticism from another faction causes them to retort or even act violently, since they realise they are serving a larger entity which provides them with this sense of security, and thus have the obligation to defend it. Additionally, they may also become ignorant to the point of self-deception, as Orwell describes, “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” Such people become susceptible to bias, only acknowledging information which they judge themselves as true, where emotions hinder in addressing facts. One believes in what they approve in their own minds as true to the point that they themselves deem it as an absolute truth, or as Orwell puts it, “More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly.”
Further, Orwell criticises the silliness and dishonesty of intellectuals who become more nationalistic on behalf, not of their native country, but for some other, of which they have no real knowledge. Orwell argues that much of the romanticism written about political leaders describing their might, power and integrity, was written by intellectuals. Intellectuals are influenced by a certain public opinion, “that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware” – where he is surrounded by scepticism and disaffection, and that would look askance at a very deep attachment to his own country. Yet, Orwell argues, “He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself.”
Also in his essay, Orwell provides three characteristics which describe those who follow nationalistic sentiment; these are obsession, instability, and indifference to reality. Obsession refers to the manner in which nationalists passionately tender to their faction. Orwell writes that “As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance... he will generally claim superiority for it (if the chosen unit of allegiance is a country) not only in military power and political virtue, but in art, literature, sport, structure of the language, the physical beauty of the inhabitants, and perhaps even in climate, scenery and cooking. He will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags, relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named.” In the context of stating that "Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connexion with the physical world", he argues further that uncertainty over the calamities that are reported makes it "easier to cling to lunatic beliefs". "Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakeable fact can be impudently denied". "The nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world." Regarding instability, Orwell reasons that nationalism can become ironical in various ways. Many of the leaders revered by nationalist factions are outright foreigners, who do not even belong to the country they have glorified, or, more often, are "from peripheral areas where nationality is doubtful." Finally, Indifference to reality describes how nationalistic behaviour clouds people from perceiving facts of the real world. The use of violence, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, all prove to be irrelevant towards the notion of "good or bad", where there is no outrage from within the public as the atrocities are committed by "our side". Some nationalists even go into the trouble of defending such actions, searching for arguments to support his case.


Plays
Appointment with Death is a play by crime writer Agatha Christie based on her 1938 novel of the same name.
Christie started writing the play in a burst of enthusiasm after being involved in the preparations for Murder on the Nile which was being presented by her actor friend Francis L. Sullivan. The writing was completed by March 1944 and preparations were made towards the end of the year for an opening in Glasgow before transferring to the West End theatre. The play opened there at the King's Theatre, Glasgow on 29 January 1945 and then opened in the West End on 31 March 1945 at the Piccadilly Theatre. The play was not well received by the critics although box office receipts at the start were good but the play closed on 5 May after just 42 performances.
The play was directed by Terence de Marney and the West End production is most notable for the appearance of Joan Hickson in the role of Miss Pryce. The adaptation of the book is notable for being one of the most radical of Christie’s re-workings of a novel, not only eliminating Hercule Poirot from the story, but changing the identity of the killer. In the play, the ill Mrs Boynton commits suicide and drops several red herrings that pointed to her family members as possible suspects, hoping that they would suspect each other and therefore continue to live in her shadow even after her death, whereas in the novel Lady Westholme is the murderess. In the play, Lady Westholme becomes a purely comic character.

An Inspector Calls is a play written by dramatist J. B. Priestley. The play is a three-act drama, which takes place on a single night in 1912, focusing on the prosperous middle-class Birling family who live in a comfortable home in Brumley. The family is visited by a man calling himself Inspector Goole, who questions the family about the suicide of a young working-class woman, Eva Smith (also known as Daisy Renton). The family are interrogated and revealed to have been responsible for the young woman's exploitation, abandonment and social ruin, effectively leading to her death. The play is part of the repertory of classic "drawing room" theatre and is a scathing critique of the hypocrisies of Victorian/Edwardian English society and as an expression of Priestley's Socialist political principles.
Arthur Birling, a wealthy mill owner and local politician, and his family are celebrating the engagement of his daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, Birling's competitor's son. In attendance are Arthur's wife Sybil Birling and their younger son Eric Birling, who has a drinking problem that is discreetly ignored. Inspector Goole arrives and explains that a woman called Eva Smith killed herself by drinking strong disinfectant. He implies that she has left a diary naming names, including members of the Birling family. Goole produces a photograph of Eva and shows it to Arthur, who acknowledges that she worked in one of his mills. He admits that he dismissed her 18 months ago for her involvement in an abortive workers' strike. He denies responsibility for her death. Sheila enters the room and is drawn into the discussion and admits to recognising Eva as well. She confesses she contrived to have Eva fired for an imagined slight and admits that she was motivated by jealousy and spite towards a pretty working-class woman. Sybil enters the room and Goole continues his interrogation, revealing that Eva was also known as Daisy Renton. Gerald starts at the mention of the name and Sheila becomes suspicious. Gerald admits that he met a woman by that name in a theatre bar. He gave her money and arranged to see her again. Goole reveals that Gerald had installed Eva as his mistress, and gave her money and promises of continued support before ending the relationship. Arthur and Sybil are horrified. As an ashamed Gerald exits the room, Sheila acknowledges his nature and credits him for speaking truthfully but also signals that their engagement is over. Goole identifies Sybil as the head of a women's charity to which Eva had turned for help. Despite Sybil's haughty responses, she eventually admits that Eva, pregnant and destitute, had asked the committee for financial aid but Sybil had convinced the committee that the girl was a liar and denied her application. Despite vigorous cross-examination from Goole, Sybil denies any wrongdoing. Sheila begs her mother not to continue, but Goole plays his final card, making Sybil admit that the "drunken young man" should give a 'public confession, accepting all the blame'. Eric enters the room, and after brief questioning from Goole breaks down, admitting that he drunkenly forced Eva to have sex and stole £50 from his father's business to pay her off when she became pregnant. Goole accuses them all of contributing to Eva's death. He reminds the Birlings (and the audience) that actions have consequences. "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish."
After Goole leaves, Gerald checks and finds there is no Inspector Goole on the police force, as does Arthur when he calls the Chief Constable. Placing a second call to the local infirmary, Gerald determines that no recent cases of suicide have been reported. The elder Birlings and Gerald celebrate, with Arthur dismissing the evening's events as "moonshine" and "bluffing". The younger Birlings, however, realise the error of their ways and promise to change. Gerald is keen to resume his engagement to Sheila, but she is reluctant, since with or without a dead girl he still admitted to having had an affair. The play ends abruptly with a telephone call, taken by Arthur, who reports that the body of a young woman has been found, a suspected case of suicide by disinfectant, and that the local police are on their way to question the Birlings.

See How They Run is a comedy in three acts by Philip King. The title is a line from the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice". It is considered a farce for its tense comic situations and headlong humour, heavily playing on mistaken identity, doors, and vicars and is set in 1943 in the living room of the vicarage at the fictitious village of Merton-cum-Middlewick. King wrote the first act in 1942 under the title Moon Madness, with the final act completed in 1943. His play was first staged by Henry Kendall at the Peterborough Rep in 1944. Henry Kendall's production, re-cast and restaged, was then presented by producer Jack de Leon at his Q Theatre, close to Kew Bridge, as Christmas entertainment opening on 21 December 1944. It then transferred to the Comedy Theatre, opening to rave reviews on 4 January 1945. The cast included Joan Hickson as the maid Ida (an actress new to comedy who had been acting at the Q Theatre since 1942), Beryl Mason and George Gee as Penelope and Clive. It ran for 18 months at the Comedy, notching up 589 performances.

The Years Between is a play by the writer Daphne du Maurier, better known as the author of Rebecca (which was adapted for the London stage in 1940). The Years Between was first performed at the Manchester Opera House in the autumn of 1944, before transferring to London, opening at Wyndham's Theatre on 10 January 1945 starring Nora Swinburne and Clive Brook. It is also being turned into film starring Michael Redgrave and Valerie Hobson which should be released next year.
The Years Between unfolds in the library/living room of an English country house. The man of the house, Colonel Michael Wentworth, MP, is presumed dead after his plane crashed into the sea on a flight to Europe. His wife Diana is persuaded to take over the Colonel's parliamentary seat, supported by her neighbour Richard Llewellyn, a sympathetic farmer with whom she strikes up a romantic relationship. Llewellyn teaches the Wentworths' young son Robin how to fish, thus becoming his great friend. Three years later, the Colonel returns. He has been playing a key role within military intelligence and his disappearance and death were staged by the authorities to provide convincing cover for his activities. The remainder of the play deals with the fallout of Michael's return on the various protagonists.

Quoted from "Hood"

The well-known author C.S. Lewis has released, 'That Hideous Strength', this novel is the last of the Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of 'Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra' (also titled Voyage to Venus) and again features the philologist Elwin Ransom. Unlike the principal events of the two previous novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than in space or on other planets in the solar system. The story involves an ostensibly scientific institute, the N.I.C.E., which is a front for sinister supernatural forces.

The best of the series, actually; though it takes a few readings to actually work that out. The first time I tried to read it as a kid, it was just incomprehensible; but once I grew up, it became the one I re-read and quote.

There are a couple of my favourites in here too. Animal Farm and An Inspector Calls are today standard fare on school syllabuses (the later film version of An Inspector Calls with Alastair Sim is especially good).

They'll be more favourites of mine in the forthcoming films post, 1945 was certainly a creative year in Britain - perhaps it was a side-effect of impending end of the war?

A round-up of the British films released this year and which enthralled millions at cinemas up and down the country.


Cineguild, one of the independent companies founded by director David Lean, Ronald Neame and Noël Coward's is supported by the Rank Organization and have released to films this year based on Coward’s plays.

The first is Brief Encounter about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love (as opposed to the polite arrangement of her marriage) brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey. The screenplay is by Noël Coward, and is based on his 1936 one-act play Still Life. The soundtrack prominently features the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff, played by Eileen Joyce.
The film takes place around the end of 1938. Laura Jesson (Johnson), a suburban housewife in a dull but affectionate marriage, tells her story in the first person while at home with her husband, imagining that she is confessing her affair to him. While on her regular Thursday shopping trip to Milford, while waiting in the railway station, Laura is helped by another passenger to remove a piece of grit from her eye. The passenger is Alec Harvey (Howard), an idealistic doctor who also works one day a week as a consultant at the local hospital. Both are in their later thirties and married with children. Enjoying each other's company, the two arrange to meet again. They are soon troubled to find their innocent and casual relationship quickly developing into love. For a while, they meet furtively, constantly fearing chance meetings with friends. After several meetings, they realise a future together is impossible and, not wishing to hurt their families, they agree to part. Alec has been offered a job overseas. Their final meeting is in the railway station refreshment room, which we see for the second time, now with the poignant perspective of their story. As they await a sad and final parting, Dolly Messiter, a talkative acquaintance of Laura, invites herself to join them and is soon chattering away, oblivious to the couple's inner misery. As they realise that they have been robbed of the chance for a final goodbye, Alec's train arrives and he departs with a last look at Laura but without the passionate farewell for which they both long. As the train is heard pulling away, Laura is traumatised, and, hearing an approaching express train, suddenly dashes out on to the platform. The lights of the train flash across her face as she conquers her impulse to commit suicide. She then returns home to her family.
Much of the film version was shot at Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Noël Coward makes the station announcements in the film. Some of the urban scenes were shot in London or at Denham or Beaconsfield near Denham Studios where the film was made.


The second Cineguild production is Blithe Spirit, a fantasy-comedy film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, cinematographer Ronald Neame and associate producer Anthony Havelock-Allan is based on producer Noël Coward's 1941 play of the same name. The film is in Technicolor and is Lean's first attempt at directing comedy. The film was shot at Denham Studios during the spring of 1944. The film features Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford, in the roles they created in the original production, along with Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings in the lead parts of Charles and Ruth Condomine.
Seeking background material for a mystery he is working on, novelist Charles Condomine invites eccentric medium Madame Arcati to his home in Lympne, Kent, to conduct a séance. Madame Arcati performs peculiar rituals and finally goes into a trance. Charles then hears the voice of his dead first wife, Elviram, who becomes visible, but only to Charles. He becomes both dismayed and amused by the situation. Relations between Charles and Ruth become strained until he convinces Elvira to act as a poltergeist and transport a vase and a chair in front of his current wife. Ruth seeks Madame Arcati's help in sending Elvira back where she came from, but the medium professes that she does not know how. Ruth warns her disbelieving husband that Elvira is seeking to be reunited with him by arranging his demise. However, the spirit miscalculates; Ruth, not Charles, drives off in the car she has tampered with and ends up dead. A vengeful Ruth, now in spirit form, harasses Elvira to the point that she wants to leave. In desperation, Charles seeks Madame Arcati's help. Various incantations fail, until Arcati realizes that it was the Condomines' maid Edith who summoned Elvira. Arcati appears to succeed in sending the spirits away, but it soon becomes clear that both have remained. Charles sets out on a long vacation. However, he has a fatal accident as he is driving away, and he joins Elvira and Ruth as a spirit. As with most of Coward’s work, Blithe Spirit is renowned for its dialogue. During an argument with Ruth, Charles declares, "If you're trying to compile an inventory of my sex life, I feel it only fair to warn you that you've omitted several episodes. I shall consult my diary and give you a complete list after lunch." The line, considered extremely risqué by censors, is deleted from the US release.


A big production released this year (the most expensive film so far made in Britain, costing £1.27 million) is Caesar and Cleopatra. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (John Bryan). It is a Technicolor film directed by Gabriel Pascal and starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh. It was adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s 1901 play, Caesar and Cleopatra and was produced by Independent Producers, Pascal Film Productions and Eagle-Lion Distributors. In this philosophical coming-of-age film, an aging Julius Caesar takes possession of the Egyptian capital city of Alexandria, and tries to resolve a feud between young Princess Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy. During the resulting sometimes-murderous court-intrigues, Caesar develops a special relationship with Cleopatra, and teaches her how to use her royal power.


The biggest box-office success of the year is The Seventh Veil, a melodrama made by Ortus Films, a company established by producer Sydney Box, released through General Film Distributors in Britain and Universal Pictures in the United States. The film score was written by Benjamin Frankel with original piano works by Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven as well as parts of the Grieg and Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concertos.
Francesca Cunningham (Ann Todd) is a suicidal, silent, mental patient under the care of Dr. Larsen (Herbert Lom). Via hypnosis Larsen leads her to describe her life history so he can investigate the events that brought her to attempt suicide. The film largely consists of a series of flashbacks in which Francesca talks about her life, removing successive veils to recover memories. Only her second cousin and guardian Nicholas, a crippled musician (James Mason), is interested in her. Nicholas though is a bitter man, jealous of her talent and very misogynistic because of his relationship with his mother, but a divine music teacher who encourages her to excel but also to avoid all emotional entanglements. While at the Royal College of Music, Peter (Hugh McDermott), an American studying in London, becomes romantically interested in her. Although she is initially unresponsive, Francesca and Peter become engaged, but she has not yet reached her majority, then 21, and Nicholas withholds his consent. He insists they leave for Paris in the morning; she completes her education, and begins her career, on the continent. Years pass. Nicholas and Francesca return to Britain when she is invited to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, but she discovers Peter has married someone else. An artist, Maxwell Leyden (Albert Lieven), is invited to paint her portrait by Nicholas; they soon fall in love and agree to live together. Still apparently her guardian, Nicholas becomes angry at the news and strikes her hands with his cane while she plays. She flees from him, but while with Max, is involved in a serious car accident where she suffers burns to her hands. Francesca becomes convinced she will never play again. After therapy, now cured according to Dr Larsen, Francesca finds Nicholas is her real love rather than Peter (now divorced) or Max. Filmed on a budget of £100,000, the film has the 10th top audience of all films, 17.9 million.

The Agitator is a drama film based on the novel Peter Pettenger by William Riley directed by John Harlow and starring William Hartnell, Mary Morris and John Laurie. A young socialist is forced to question his beliefs when he unexpectedly inherits a large firm.

Johnny Frenchman is a drama produced by Ealing Studios and directed by Charles Frend. The film was produced by Michael Balcon from a screenplay by T.E.B. Clarke, with cinematography by Roy Kellino. The film is set in a small fishing port in Cornwall, whose inhabitants have a historic but largely benign rivalry with their counterparts from another port over the water in Brittany whose men fish the same grounds. Legally the French may not fish within three miles of the British coast, and vice versa, and alleged breaches of this rule are the cause of frequent spats between hot-headed Cornish harbour-master Nat Pomeroy (Tom Walls) and Lanec Florrie (Françoise Rosay), an equally redoubtable widow from the Breton port. Beneath all the bluster and posturing however, there is a mutual understanding and respect between the two communities. Widower Nat's daughter Sue (Patricia Roc) has been friends since childhood with local boy Bob Tremayne (Ralph Michael), and their eventual marriage has been taken as a given. During a visit by the Cornish contingent to Brittany a wrestling match is arranged between Bob and Lanec's son Yan (Paul Dupuis), during which Yan breaks a bone, to the concern of Sue. Yan is attracted to Sue and begins actively to woo her, with great success. Sue is torn between her own attraction to Yan and her unspoken commitment to Bob, a situation which leads to increased friction between the two communities. However when Bob decides to join the Royal Navy, in a showdown conversation with Yan before he leaves the two agree that Sue must be allowed to follow her own heart.


Madonna of the Seven Moons is a drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree for Gainsborough Pictures and starring Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger and Patricia Roc. The film was produced by R.J. Minney, with cinematography from Jack Cox and the screenplay was written by Roland Pertwee from the novel The Madonna of Seven Moons by Margery Lawrence, published in 1931. The film is the first to be directed by Arthur Crabtree, who has spent many years previously working for Gainsborough as a cinematographer. A buried trauma from the past holds the key to the disappearance of a respectable married woman. Maddalena has a dual personality which leads her to forsake her husband and daughter, to flee to the house of the Seven Moons in Florence as the mistress of a jewel thief.

Painted Boats is directed by Charles Crichton and released by Ealing Studios. The film focuses on two families living and working on cargo-carrying canal boats, the traditional Smiths on their horse-drawn boat and the modern Stoners on their motorised vessel. Despite some differences of opinion (Mr. Smith disapproves of motorised boats as he claims they churn up mud and damage canal banks) relations between the families are generally harmonious. The main plot deals with the tentative attraction between Mary Smith and Ted Stoner, despite their differing viewpoints. Mary appreciates the gentle rhythm of traditional canal life whereas Ted's ambition is to get off the canals and into mainstream life at the earliest opportunity.

Perfect Strangers is a big-production drama made by London Films. It stars Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr and the supporting cast includes Glynis Johns, Ann Todd and Roland Culver. It was produced and directed by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Clemence Dane and Anthony Pelissier based on a story by Clemence Dane. Dane won the Academy Award for Best Story. The music score was by Clifton Parker and the cinematography by Georges Périnal.


Pink String and Sealing Wax is a period drama released by Ealing Studios, directed by Robert Hamer and starring Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers and Gordon Jackson.


Strawberry Roan drama directed by Maurice Elvey and starring William Hartnell and Carol Raye. The screenplay is developed from the well-known and widely-admired 1932 novel of the same name by A. G. Street. Farmer Chris Lowe (Hartnell) meets and falls in love with Molly (Raye), a chorus-girl. Despite the fact that she is a city girl through and through, she accepts his proposal of marriage and after the wedding goes to live on the farm. Chris realises that the transition for Molly will be difficult, and in an attempt to ease her into farm life, buys her a strawberry roan calf to look after. Unfortunately Molly finds the adjustment to rural life extremely difficult and does not settle down. She fails to integrate into the local community and starts to feel she has made a big mistake. She tries to quell her unhappiness by spending her husband's money, but goes to excess and eventually leaves Chris facing financial ruin. In despair she takes off on her horse and suffers a fatal fall, leaving Chris destitute and overcome with guilt.


Waterloo Road is Gainsborough Pictures film directed by Sidney Gilliat. The film is shot in the streets around Waterloo Station. Lorry driver Jim Colter (John Mills) fights to save his wife from the advances of a philandering petty-gangster Ted Purvis (Stewart Granger). Dr. Montgomery (Alastair Sim) is a friend of the family who also narrates the tale.

They Were Sisters is a melodrama directed by Arthur Crabtree for Gainsborough Pictures and starring James Mason and Phyllis Calvert. The film was produced by Harold Huth, with cinematography from Jack Cox and screenplay was developed by Roland Pertwee from a popular novel of the same name by Dorothy Whipple. The film spans the years from the immediate aftermath of the Great War through to the late 1930s. The film features the spouses of both Mason and Calvert; Pamela Mason (billed under her maiden name Pamela Kellino) and Peter Murray-Hill. They Were Sisters is another big hit for Gainsborough, becoming one of the top grossing films of 1945.
The film focuses on the lives of three sisters; Lucy (Phyllis Calvert), Charlotte (Dulcie Gray) and Vera (Anne Crawford). The film opens at a dance in 1919, establishing the personalities of the four main protagonists and following them through courtship and marriage. While the sisters have remained close to one another over the years, both their characters and the paths down which their lives have travelled are very different. Lucy is the most stable of the three, a sensible and practical woman in a happy marriage, whose greatest sadness in life is her inability to have children which she sublimates by lavishing affection on her nephews and nieces. Vera is married with a child but the relationship is humdrum and loveless and she is restless and bored with her dreary home life, indulging her appetite for adventure and excitement through a series of flirtations with other men which sometimes go beyond the bounds of the socially acceptable towards the promiscuous. Charlotte is a cowed, fearful and flinching drudge, suffering severe physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her manipulative, brutal husband Geoffrey (James Mason), who constantly belittles and humiliates her in front of their three children. The action of the film shifts between the three households, but its main focus is the way in which Lucy and Vera have to look on impotently, unable to do anything to help matters despite their best attempts as Charlotte's treatment by her husband becomes ever more shocking and she spirals into alcoholism in an attempt to blur her despair. A final attempt by Charlotte to flee Geoffrey ends in tragedy as she is struck and killed by a car. Vera's marriage too crumbles, as her husband finds out about a serious extra-marital relationship in which she is involved, and petitions for divorce. The film ends by showing the four children of Charlotte and Vera being cared for by the childless Lucy.

The Way to the Stars was made by Two Cities Films. It was produced by Anatole de Grunwald and directed by Anthony Asquith. The screenplay was written by Terence Rattigan. The film stars Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John and Stanley Holloway.
The setting of the film is an airfield called Halfpenny Field (pronounced hay penny) during the Great War. Pilot Peter Penrose (John Mills) is posted in the Summer of 1915 as a pilot to (the fictional) No 720 Squadron at Halfpenny Field, as a very green pilot who is assigned to B Flight, under David Archdale (Michael Redgrave). When the squadron’s commanding officer (Trevor Howard), is killed Archdale takes over. While Penrose develops into a first-class pilot, he meets Iris Winterton (Renee Asherson), a young woman staying with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion pub in the nearby village. Archdale marries Miss Todd (Rosamund John), the popular manageress of the hotel, who is known to everyone as Toddy. The Archdales later have a son, Peter. The action flashes forward to May 1916 when Archdale is shot down and killed over France. Penrose had been courting Iris, despite her aunt's disapproval, but Archdale's fate weighs heavily on his mind. Not wanting Iris to suffer if the same happened to him, he stops seeing her. In 1917 Penrose, now posted to a new squadron, makes an emergency landing at Halfpenny Field, where he meets Iris again. Iris had decided to leave her aunt for good. Toddy persuades a still-reluctant Penrose to propose to Iris, saying that she did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husband's death.


The Wicked Lady is a film starring Margaret Lockwood in the title role as a nobleman's wife who secretly becomes a highwayman for the excitement. The film has one of the top audiences ever for a film, 18.4 million. It was made by Gainsborough Pictures. The story was based on the novel The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton by Magdalen King-Hall, which in turn, was based upon the (disputed) events surrounding the life of Lady Katherine Ferrers, the wife of the major landowner in Markyate on the main London - Birmingham road. Also starring are James Mason, Griffith Jones, Michael Rennie, Enid Stamp-Taylor, Francis Lister and Emrys Jones.

The World Owes Me a Living is film drama directed by Vernon Sewell and starring David Farrar and Judy Campbell. The film is based on a novel by John Llewellyn Rhys, the credits acknowledge the assistance and co-operation of the Air Ministry and the de Havilland Aircraft Company. In June 1944, Paul Collyer (Farrar) crash lands his plane. He appears to be suffering from amnesia, the surgeon diagnoses no actual injury to the brain, but states that the memory loss is most likely attributable to shock, and in such cases memory is most often recovered through some mental jolt from the past. His wife Moira Barrett (Campbell) is summoned to his bedside. Paul seems to recognise her and his mind starts to go into flashback mode. Paul is seen as part of a flying circus display at which Moira is a spectator. A serious accident to one of the planes brings them together. That evening he meets old flame Eve Heatherley (Sonia Dresdel), who is now engaged to Paul's friend, Jack Graves (Jack Livesey). He runs into Moira again and they talk of her passion for flying. The display accident causes the flying circus to fold and Paul is out of a job. He drifts from job to job for a time, before running into Chuck Rockley (Eric Barker), a fellow performer in the old flying circus, who informs him that he and Jack are starting a new flying circus to be financed by Eve, now married to Jack. Paul accepts the offer to join them, and together they open the Pegasus Flying Field. The venture is a success, but Eve soon loses interest and starts to take an interest in Jerry Frazer, a local ex-pilot. One afternoon an aircraft makes an emergency landing at Pegasus, and it turns out that the pilot is Moira, who is training for a record-breaking long-distance flight. She says she is looking for a co-pilot and asks Jack, who is talked out of it by Eve and he eventually refuses on the grounds the plan is too risky but he gives Moira instruction in blind flying. The Pegasus pilots are offered the opportunity to earn extra money by flying at night to give the local RAF station the opportunity to practice searchlight operations. Moira accompanies Paul on one flight, but the plane develops engine trouble and they have to land away from base. They check into a local hotel for the night and realise that they are in love. Meanwhile Jerry, encouraged by Eve, is working on an idea he has for freight-carrying gliders. When Eve dies suddenly and unexpectedly, Jack steps in to help Jerry with his ideas. Initially there is little commercial interest in the glider idea, until finally an aviation company offers to build a prototype if Pegasus will agree to finance a transatlantic test flight. Moira agrees to front up the cash as long as she is allowed to join the flight. The glider is built and preparations are finalised for its inaugural flight when an inspection by the Air Ministry calls a halt, as the prototype is too close in design to a craft secretly being worked on by their own designers. In recompense, the Air Ministry offers to buy out the Pegasus concern and provide the Pegasus men with RAF piloting jobs. Everyone is happy apart from Moira, who is bitterly disappointed about losing the chance of a transatlantic flight. Paul asks her to marry him. The action returns to the present, where Paul's memory is obviously returning. He starts to question Moira but she tells him that he is over-tired and they will discuss things the following day. She leaves his bedside and goes into an ante-room, where she is met by two small children asking Can we see Daddy now?

Other dramas released this year are; Give Me the Stars directed by Maclean Rogers and starring Leni Lynn, Will Fyffe, Jackie Hunter and Olga Lindo. Great Day is directed by Lance Comfort and starring Eric Portman, Flora Robson and Sheila Sim. In the film, the small English village of Denley is thrown into excitement by the impending visit of the Prince of Wales. However, the impoverished local squire is threatened with disgrace and ruin as the day approaches. Meet Sexton Blake is directed by John Harlow and starring David Farrar, Manning Whiley, Dennis Arundell and John Varley

For You Alone is a romance melodrama directed by cinematographer Geoffrey Faithfull, starring Lesley Brook, Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley. The film was produced by Butcher's Films, more known for turning out quick and cheap B-movies, but this film is a relatively sophisticated and well-financed production. The film is promoted as a musical, in crucial concert scenes the film features singers Heddle Nash and Helen Hill with accompaniment from the London Symphony Orchestra; however, none of the film's actors sing. John Bradshaw (Robert Griffith), a young naval officer, attends a concert at Westminster Central Hall where he meets Reverend Peter Britton (G.H. Mulcaster) and his daughter Katherine (Brook). After the concert the three share a taxi, and after seeing her father off on the train to a conference Katherine agrees to have tea with John. They enjoy each other's company and later go to see a film, followed by dinner and a stroll along the Thames Embankment. John impulsively tells Katherine that he has fallen in love with her, but she reminds him that they hardly know one another. The couple finally part, agreeing to meet again the following day. However Katherine receives a telegram at her hotel, stating that her brother Dennis (Hanley) will be arriving home the next day. She returns home early the next morning, leaving a note of explanation for John. Unfortunately John forgets the name of Katherine's hotel and does not receive the note and is distraught when she fails to turn up for their rendezvous. Meanwhile back at home, Katherine finds that Dennis is accompanied by Max Borrow (Manning Whiley), an old admirer who still wants to marry her. He has sustained serious eye injuries while saving Dennis' life and Katherine as a result feels she must accept him. John remembers that Katherine's father is due to return to London from the conference and waits at the station until he arrives. They learn from the hotel why Katherine departed so hurriedly, and Rev. Britton invites John back to their village. John is deeply upset to discover Katherine is engaged. Katherine admits to John the reason she and Max are engaged, and John agrees to not pursue matters unless Max can be cured. Max goes off for a medical examination, and John is recalled to his ship. As he is about to leave, a fire breaks out in a storage shed where children are playing. Max, having been told that his sight is safe, arrives back while the drama is in progress. John is injured as he rescues the children. Katherine's reaction leaves Max in no doubt as to her feelings and that evening he releases her from her obligation to him so that she may marry John.

I Know Where I'm Going! is a romance film by the filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie and Petula Clark in her fourth film appearance. Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is a young middle class Englishwoman with an ambitious, independent spirit. She knows where she's going, or at least she thinks she does. She travels from her home in Manchester to the Hebrides to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a very wealthy, much older industrialist, on the (fictitious) Isle of Kiloran. When bad weather postpones the final leg of her journey, a boat trip to Kiloran, she is forced to wait it out on the Isle of Mull. There she meets Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey). They are sheltered for the night in the nearby home of Torquil's friend, Catriona Potts (Pamela Brown). The next day, on their way to catch a bus into town, they come upon the ruins of Moy Castle. Joan wants to take a look inside, but Torquil refuses to go in. When she reminds him that the terrible curse only applies to the Laird of Kiloran, Torquil introduces himself: he is the laird, and Bellinger has only leased his island. As the bad weather worsens into a full-scale gale, Torquil takes advantage of the delay to woo Joan, who becomes increasingly torn between her ambition and her growing attraction to him. Desperate to salvage her carefully laid plans, Joan tries to persuade Ruairidh Mhór (Finlay Currie) to take her across to the island immediately, but the experienced sailor knows conditions are far too dangerous. Joan manages to bribe young Kenny (Murdo Morrison) into attempting it by offering him enough money to buy a half share in Ruairidh's boat and marry Ruairidh's daughter Bridie (Margot Fitzsimons). Torquil learns of the scheme and tries to talk Joan out of it, but she proves adamant and they have a blazing row. As Joan leaves for the boat Catriona points out Joan has fallen in love with him. Armed with this knowledge, he races to the quayside and invites himself aboard. The boat's engine gets flooded and they are caught in the Corryvreckan whirlpool, but Torquil is able to restart the motor just in time and they return safely to Mull. At last, the weather clears. Joan asks Torquil for a parting kiss before they go their separate ways. Torquil enters Moy Castle, and the curse takes effect almost immediately. A narrator relates that, centuries earlier, Torquil's ancestor had stormed the castle to capture his unfaithful wife and her lover. He had them bound together and cast into a water-filled dungeon with only a small stone to stand upon. When their strength gave out, they dragged each other into the water, but not before she placed a curse on the Lairds of Kiloran. Any who dared to step over the threshold would be chained to a woman to the end of his days. From the battlements, Torquil sees Joan marching resolutely toward him. They embrace.

I Live in Grosvenor Square is a romance film directed and produced by Herbert Wilcox. In the summer of 1943, an American businessman, John Patterson (Dean Jagger), is staying in the London home of the Duke of Exmoor (Robert Morley) in London's Grosvenor Square. He is befriended by the Duke and an MP, David Bruce (Rex Harrison), who is contesting a parliamentary by-election. On a weekend visit to the Duke's estate near Exmoor in Devon, Patterson meets the Duke's granddaughter, Lady Patricia Fairfax (Anna Neagle), who is David's childhood sweetheart. After a cool beginning based on cultural misunderstandings, they fall in love. David is unaware of what is happening until the final night before the election, when it becomes clear to him during a party on the estate. David loses the election. When Patterson realizes that Pat and David have long expected to marry, he contrives to return to London. David and Pat have an ugly showdown over Patterson, only to learn that he has left. David realizes that Pat still loves Patterson and arranges for them to reunite.

Kiss the Bride Goodbye is a romantic comedy drama, directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Patricia Medina and Jimmy Hanley. Factory girl Joan Dodd (Medina) and Jack Fowler (Hanley) are in love and expect to marry in due course. When Jack is transferred away however, Joan's socially-ambitious mother (Ellen Pollock) seizes the chance to meddle in her daughter's life by encouraging the attentions of Joan's older boss Adolphus Pickering (Claud Allister), who is infatuated with her. Pickering proposes marriage, and under pressure from her mother, Joan accepts. The preparations for the marriage are under way when Jack returns unexpectedly. He is appalled to find Joan in her wedding finery, and persuades her to run away with him. The pair decide to visit Joan's aunt and uncle and make their way there by train, while Joan's parents are horrified by her disappearance with Jack and fears the worst. When Joan arrives in her bridal gown, her aunt and uncle assume that she and Jack are just married, and prepare a bridal chamber for the couple, much to their embarrassment. Comic misunderstandings ensue all round, until Joan finally demands the right to marry the man of her choice.

The Echo Murders is a thriller film directed by John Harlow and starring David Farrar, Dennis Price, Pamela Stirling and Julien Mitchell.


Latin Quarter is a thriller directed by Vernon Sewell and starring Derrick De Marney, Joan Greenwood and Beresford Egan. The film is an adaptation of the play L'Angoisse by Pierre Mills and C. Vylars. It is Sewell's second film version of the story, following The Medium in 1934. It was made by British National Films at Elstree Studios. In the Paris of 1893, sculptor Charles Garrie (De Marney) enters into an illicit relationship with the married Christine Minetti (Greenwood). Christine's husband Anton (Egan) is also a sculptor, and mentally unstable. Anton finds out about Christine's affair and soon after she vanishes without trace. Although the police consider Anton the prime suspect in being involved in his wife's disappearance, they can find no incriminating evidence, nor any lead as to her whereabouts, alive or dead. Anton's mental deterioration gathers pace, and in due course he is arrested for the murder of his mistress and in this case there is no doubt of his guilt. He still refuses however to give any indication of what happened to Christine. Charles remains desperate to discover Christine's fate, and relates the whole story to a criminologist (Frederick Valk). A psychic is called in and a séance is held in Anton's studio, revealing that Christine has always been much closer to home than anyone could have realised.

The Man from Morocco is an action adventure film directed by Mutz Greenbaum and produced by Welwyn Studios. One of a group of prisoners who have spent two years building a railway in the Sahara escapes and returns to Paris to find his lover believes him to be dead and that she is being pursued by his deadliest enemy.


Dead of Night is a chilling portmanteau horror film made by Ealing Studios. The individual stories were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. The film stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers and Michael Redgrave. Architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country house party where he reveals to the assembled guests that he has seen them all in a dream. He appears to have no prior personal knowledge of them but he is able to predict spontaneous events in the house before they unfold. The other guests attempt to test Craig's foresight, while entertaining each other with various tales of uncanny or supernatural events that they experienced or were told about. These include a racing car driver's premonition of a fatal bus crash; a light hearted tale of two obsessed golfers, one of whom becomes haunted by the other's ghost; a ghostly encounter during a children's Christmas party (cut from the American release); a haunted antique mirror; and the story of an unbalanced ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) who believes his amoral dummy is truly alive. The framing story is then capped by a twist ending.

A Place of One's Own directed by Bernard Knowles is an atmospheric ghost story based on the novel by Osbert Sitwell, it stars James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price and Dulcie Gray. Mason and Mullen are artificially aged to play the old couple. Mr and Mrs Smedhurst (James Mason and Barbara Mullen) are a business couple wanting to retire. They find a mansion in the country, Bellingham House, at a bargain price. They move in along with their servants and soon learn the house is supposedly haunted. They invite a young companion, Annette (Margaret Lockwood), to join them but within days of arriving she steadily begins hearing strange voices. The new owners learn that a young invalid girl was believed to have been murdered 40 years previously in the house – and their preconceptions of the supernatural are challenged. When the spirit of the murdered girl possesses Annette, her health declines drastically and soon she’s at death's door. A young doctor, Dr Selbie (Dennis Price), has fallen deeply in love with Annette and attempts to cure her but to no avail. In a state of delirium, Annette calls for old Dr Marsham (Ernest Thesiger), the GP who had attended to the dead girl 40 years earlier.

29 Acacia Avenue is a comedy film adaptation of a play directed by Henry Cass. Peter Robinson (Gordon Harker) falls in love with the naïve country girl Fay (Betty Balfour) and the worldly, wealthy and already-married Joan, and lives with them both (and Joan's husband) at his parents' house. However, one day Peter's parents unexpectedly return from holiday, and all hell breaks loose.

Don Chicago is a comedy directed by Maclean Rogers and starring Jackie Hunter, Joyce Heron and Claud Allister. It is based on a novel by C. E. Bechhofer Roberts. An aspiring, but timid, gangster is forced to leave the United States after crossing the wrong people, but on arriving in Britain he is treated as a dangerous criminal.

Dreaming is a comedy directed by John Baxter and starring Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen and Hazel Court. Its plot concerns a soldier who is knocked unconscious during a battle and has a series of bizarre dreams.

Flight from Folly is a musical comedy directed by Herbert Mason (in his last directorial credit before moving into production) and starring Patricia Kirkwood and Hugh Sinclair, with music from Edmundo Ros and his famous Rumba Band. The film was designed to give Kirkwood her first starring screen role, previously she had appeared in minor roles in four films before focussing her career on the West End stage, where she is a major star.
When his muse and girlfriend Nina (Tamara Desni) takes off with a continental lothario, composer and playwright Clinton Clay (Sinclair) is devastated and turns to drink for solace. His doctor (Sydney Howard) tries, with the help of Clinton's butler Neville (A. E. Matthews), to get him to pull himself together but all attempts fail as Clinton's behaviour becomes ever more unbalanced and every nurse they engage is sent on her way by him in quick order. Showgirl Sue Brown (Kirkwood) is currently out of work, hears of Clinton's problems and poses as a nurse. She is taken on to be his keeper, and manages to placate him to the extent that he does not dismiss her. When Clinton decides to travel to Majorca in pursuit of Nina, Sue is included in the party along with Neville and Clinton's sculptor sister Millicent (Jean Gillie). Harriet (Marian Spencer), a devious widow with designs on Clinton, follows them to Majorca. Once on the island, Clinton tracks Nina down and asks her to star in a tryout of a new musical he has written. She agrees, and Clinton makes arrangements to stage the musical there. On opening night however, the jealous Harriet locks Nina in her dressing room and disappears with the key. Sue offers to take Nina's place on stage, and proves to be a huge success with the audience. Clinton realises that he has fallen in love with her and is instantly cured of his malaise, happy now to let Nina go with her playboy lover.

Home Sweet Home is a musical comedy directed by John E. Blakeley and starring Frank Randle, Nicolette Roeg and Tony Pendrell.

I Didn't Do It is a comedy crime film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring George Formby, Dennis Wyndham and Carl Jaffe. The story concerns an actor (Formby) staying at a theatrical boarding house who is framed for a murder.

I'll Be Your Sweetheart directed by Val Guest and starring Margaret Lockwood and Vic Oliver is another musical released this year.

Old Mother Riley at Home is a comedy directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and Freddie Forbes.

The Rake's Progress is a comedy-drama film. The plot follows the career of upper-class cad Vivian Kenway (Rex Harrison). He is sent down from Oxford University for placing a chamber pot on the Martyrs' Memorial. Sent to South America, he rebels against plantation life, eventually becoming a car racing driver. He descends to a life of woman-chasing and drunkenness, which causes the death of his father, Colonel Kenway (Godfrey Tearle). The plot diverges from the theme of the Rake's Progress paintings by having him redeem himself by a hero's death in the Great War.

Handling Ships is a 70-minute stop motion animated film made by Halas and Batchelor, made at the request of the Admiralty as a training aid for new navigators joining the Royal Navy. It is the first feature length work, and the first work in Technicolor, in British animation history. After independent careers in animation, John Halas and Joy Batchelor began working together in 1938, and founded Halas and Batchelor in 1940 to create information films. For Handling Ships, Halas and Batchelor used stop motion animation of three-dimensional ship models, along with schematic designs, to simplify the intricacies and vagaries of ship movement and educate the viewer. The film was shot in 35 mm and Technicolor.

British Infrastructure and Transport Projects in 1945

New Sections of Motorway opening this year (labelled by prospective Junction numbers):
Lancaster Bypass – to become the J33-35 section of the London-Glasgow M6, this is the second section to be completed (J29-35 completed)
Maidstone Bypass West – to become the J10-12 section of the London-Folkestone M20, this is the first section to be completed
M50 J1-4 (Brokeridge Common - Ross on Wye) – the main section of the M50 providing fast access between South Wales and the Midlands. The M50 has been built before the larger M5 planned within this area so that traffic from South Wales does not congest Tewkesbury or Gloucester.
Stretford and Eccles Bypass – to become part of the trans-Pennine M62 which is planned for the 1950s

New sections of Motorway beginning construction this year (labelled by prospective Junction numbers):
Maidenhead Bypass – to become the J7-9 section of the London-Port Abraham (Wales) M4 and this will be the second section to be completed
Maidstone Bypass East– to become the J12-13 section of the London-Folkestone M20
Doncaster Bypass – the first section of the new A1 (The Great North Road) which is being built as A-Class dual-carriageways, but some sections, like the Doncaster Bypass will be built to motorway standards and designated as the A1(M)
The J0-1 Strensham - Brokeridge Common section of the M50, which is the final section


New Town – New Designated Towns

Peterlee in County Durham designated 10 March 1945 as Easington New Town. The case for Peterlee was made in the report “Farewell Squalor” by Easington Rural District Council Surveyor C.W. Clarke, who also proposed that the town was named after the celebrated Durham miners' leader Peter Lee. A deputation of miners met with the Minister of Town and Country Planning to put the case for a new town in the district. The minister responded by offering a half-size new town of 30,000 residents. They would come largely from the surrounding villages in the District of Easington. The Peterlee Development Corporation has been established under the direction of A V Williams. Berthold Lubetkin has been brought in to develop the initial master plan. There will be road links to the A19 and A1(M) roads and the Durham Coast Line.

Glenrothes in Fife designated under the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1943 as Scotland's second New Town on 30 June 1945. It is located approximately 30 miles from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town plan is to build a new settlement for a population of 32,000 to 35,000 people. The planning, development, management and promotion of Glenrothes is the responsibility of the Glenrothes Development Corporation. The primary aim of Glenrothes is to house mining families who would supply the labour for a newly established coal mine. The new mine, the Rotes Colliery, will be the most technologically advanced in Scotland and will be built near Glenrothes. The aim is to employ 2,500 miners and produce 5,000 tonnes of coal per day and railway yards will be established to transport the extracted coal from the site. It is intended that a mixed community would be housed in Glenrothes and that other forms of employment will be attracted to the area to support a balanced economy. In 1944 the Scottish Coalfield Authority condemned the segregation of miners in mining villages and sought to encourage miners to be housed away from collieries and to integrate with a mixed community where members of their family would also be able to find suitable employment. An additional benefit to this form of social engineering was communities will be less vulnerable to depressions in the coal industry. Major industrial estates are planned to the south of Glenrothes, largely due to the proximity to the proposed East Fife Regional Road (A92) planned to open by 1960 giving dual carriageway access to the main central Scotland road network.

Hatfield in Hertfordshire designated on 20 May 1945 under the New Towns Act 1943 as part of the earlier Abercrombie Plan for London forming part of the initial Hertfordshire group with nearby Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth. Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield and is of Saxon origin. Hatfield is the location of the de Havilland airfield and aircraft factory which employs around 4,000 people. The Government has designated 2,340 acres for Hatfield New Town, with a population target of 25,000.

Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire designated 20 May 1945. It is located approximately 20 miles from Kings Cross. Welwyn Garden City was the second garden city in England, being founded in 1920 by Sir Ebenezer Howard following his previous experiment in Letchworth Garden City. The designation as a new town under the New Towns Act 1943 means the Welwyn Garden City Company will hand over its assets to the Welwyn Garden City Development Corporation. Louis de Soissons remains as planning consultant.

16 February
The Society for General Microbiology has been founded in Reading, Berkshire. The society's first president is Dr. Alexander Fleming.

9 March
The People's Press Printing Society, a readers' co-operative, has been created to own and publish a left-wing daily newspaper called the Daily Worker. Shares have been sold for £1 each.

14 March
Parliament today passed the Water Act 1945. It was introduced by the government to expand and support the national water supply. It empowers the Minister of Health to acquire land and water rights, to protect water resources against misuse, pollution and waste, and to demand information and statistics from water users.
There are over 1,000 water suppliers in England and Wales, with 26 supplying half the volume of water used. Another 97 supply a further quarter and the remainder is split between 900 small undertakings. The Act does not extend as far as allowing the nationalisation of these water suppliers, but it gives the Minister power to order individual suppliers to amalgamate.

15 March
Ismail Al Atabani, a Sudanese businessman has founded the newspaper Al-Rayaam in the Sudan.

17 March
Trials have begun of a new guided weapon codenamed BEN at the Guided Projectile Establishment range at Larkhill. Flt Lt. Benson of the RAE in 1943 devised a system with an RDF-guided searchlight which guides a projectile fitted with a photoelectric cell which is tracked from 50ft altitude. The projectile has two 3in cordite rocket engines; four nozzles in the nose keep the projectile on track. It is aimed to get within 200ft of a target, when the RDF set shows the projectile and the target in same area the searchlight is switched off and warhead explodes. The weapon has been suggested for naval use too. [OOC knowledge only]

26 March
Today David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, died at home from cancer. Lloyd George was a notable and able politician, indeed one of Britain’s most notable politicians. During a long and distinguished political career he had served in many high offices, notably as Chancellor of the Exchequer 1908-1915 and as Prime Minister 1916-1922. He had led the Liberal Party, after the retirement of Herbert Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, from 1926 to 1931.

12 April
The Prime Minister, Sir Howard Kingsley Wood, has announced that a general election will be held on 5 July.

13 April
The first Scottish National Party Member of Parliament, Robert McIntyre, is elected to Parliament following his victory in the Motherwell by-election.

18 April
Sir John Ambrose Fleming, the noted electrical engineer and physicist has died.
Fleming is well known for inventing the first thermionic valve (vacuum tube) and the diode (then called the kenotron) in 1904. Fleming was born in Lancaster and educated at University College School, London, and University College London. He entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1877, becoming a Fellow of St John's in 1883. He went on to Lecture at several universities including the University of Cambridge, the University of Nottingham, and University College London, where he was the first professor of Electrical Engineering. He was also consultant to the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Swan Company, Ferranti, Edison Telephone, and later the Edison Electric Light Company. In 1892, Fleming presented an important paper on electrical transformer theory to the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London. Fleming retired from University College, London in 1927 at the age of 77, being knighted the same year. He remained active, becoming a committed advocate of the new technology of Television which included serving as the first president of the Television Society. In 1941, the London Power Company commemorated Fleming by naming their new 1,555 GRT coastal collier, SS Ambrose Fleming.

Just an OOC inquiry, but in WW, what are the political goals of the Scottish Nationalist Party?

The history of the SNP in WW is as OTL, created 1934 with the merger of the National Party of Scotland (NPS) and the Scottish Party. As historical, the agreed policy aim is for a devolved Scottish Assembly rather than independence, but after the merger this changed and SNP called for independence and John MacCormick, leader of the NPS, left the party in 1942. Obviously the leader, Professor Douglas Young, has not run his anti-conscription campaign and hasn't been jailed. So public support for him might be slightly greater than historically.

I wouldn't bother too much about the SNP, if things go as historical they'll loose that seat in the fortcoming General Election and not gain another until 1967!

Quoted from "Hood"

I wouldn't bother too much about the SNP, if things go as historical they'll loose that seat in the fortcoming General Election and not gain another until 1967!

Thanks - merely curious.

Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough Report AR/T32/485/E

This report summarises the wind tunnel tests on scale models of the High-Tail Design carried out during December 1944 - February 1945.

The model was based off the source photograph and scaled from the dimensions of the Gloster E.28/37. The fuselage is of circular diameter with a nose intake and tail jetpipe exhaust (blanked off).The wings are set high on the fuselage and have a very thin thickness/chord ratio of 6%. The leading edge is swept back. Three sets of wings were produced with leading edge sweep of 30 degrees, 40 degrees and 45 degrees. The tail has a high-set tailplane at the top of the tailfin. The horizontal surfaces also being swept.

Tests within the high-speed tunnel confirm that the wings delay the onset of compressibility and shock-wave formation. The 45 degree swept wing is the superior layout for combating compression effects but rigidity is an issue, flutter is especially a problem to be overcome.

The second main purpose of the testing programme was to discover more about the high-tail layout.
Advantages noted during the tunnel tests were; the tailplane surfaces are kept well out of the disturbed airflow behind the wing and fuselage giving smoother and higer dynamic pressure flow with better pitch control than using conventional surfaces in jet-propelled designs. The glide ratio is much improved as the horizontal tail empennage is less affected by slipstream of the wing and fuselage. The horizontal tail itself has a more effective aspect ratio for improved lift slope and exhibits less interaction drag than a cruciform tail (the comparative structure was that of the Gloster G.41).
However, several disadvantages with this layout were also evident. The most serious of these is a dangerous deep stall condition at high angles of attack where blanking of the airflow over the horizontal tailplane and elevators by a stalled wing can lead to total loss of pitch control. Flutter was also an issue and in one case the entire tailfin broke off due to the additional structural stresses. While the advantages were clear at higher speeds, during low speed operations stable control proved more problematic.

The conclusion is that a full-scale flying research aircraft embodying some if not all the features of the High-Tail Design should be built to investigate the practical limits of the design in open conditions across a much wider range of performances. This type should be jet-propelled.

19 April
Geoffrey Francis Fisher is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury. Fisher was an assistant master at Marlborough College when he decided to be ordained, becoming a priest in 1913. In 1914, Fisher was appointed Headmaster of Repton School, succeeding William Temple who he has also succeeded as Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1932, Fisher was appointed as the Bishop of Chester and became the Bishop of London in 1939.

Colonial Armed Forces - 1945 Changes

Egypt
The Royal Egyptian Air Force this year will receive; eight Avro Anson C.Mk.II and four BCAC Wayfarer transports to re-equip No.3 Sqn and four Anson T.Mk.III and four Anson T.Mk.IV to equip the Flying Training School.

Contracts have been signed to supply the Royal Egyptian Navy with four Denny Sea Motor Gunboats, to be delivered early in 1946.


Iraq
By 1946, it is planned the Royal Iraqi Army will grow to 40,000 officers and men. The Army will have a GHQ Staff and comprise twelve infantry battalions organized into four brigades; two cavalry regiments; four artillery regiments; four armoured car regiments; three engineer companies; various departments, ancillary services and training schools. This represents an increase of three armoured car regiments and another engineer company over the next 48 months.

The Royal Iraqi Air Force this year will receive; thirty De Havilland Hornet FB.Mk.I fighters to replace its Hawker Henleys in the ground-attack role (No.1 & No.4 Squadrons) and four BCAC Wayfarer transports (No.8 Squadron).
The Royal Iraqi Navy Air Force will receive a Short Sunderland MR.Mk.III to replace its current Sunderland I and twelve ex-FAA Fairey Barracuda TBR.Mk.I to re-equip No.1 Squadron, which currently has Fairey Swordfish biplanes.


Transjordan
The Arab Legion Air Force (ALAF) has been formed recently this year, under the nominal command of Commander-in-Chief (Air) Middle East to provide aerial support for the Arab Legion in Transjordan. All training is supervised by the RAF, who also provides maintenance assistance. All the ALAF aircraft are currently based at RAF Amman.
The current organisation is:
No.1 Flight, Amman, 1 BCAC VC.1 Viking (Royal VIP aircraft), 1 Miles M.60 Marathon (Royal VIP aircraft), 2 DH Dragon Rapide
No.2 Flight, Amman, 4 Westland Lysander II, 2 Fairey Balmoral B.Mk.I

6 May
The Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference begins today in London. This is a meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth nations and his hosted by the Prime Minister, Sir Howard Kingsley Wood. Many of the visiting Prime Ministers and officials arrived last night at the new Heathrow Airport, which is not yet officially open for routine airline flights.

7 May
The Air Ministry has created a new department, the Armaments Research Department which is based at Fort Halstead in Kent.

At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference today, Eire’s Taoiseach, Desmond Myles, announced the intention of his government to become a Republic, but also wishing to remain part of the Commonwealth. Under current provisions, Eire would be forced to leave the Commonwealth; the commonality of allegiance to the Monarch was the cornerstone of the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster 1931. Discussions have begun on altering the rules of membership of the Commonwealth. The first proposal was to allow the President of a republic to act as the representative of the Monarch.

8 May
Discussions at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on a new declaration for Commonwealth membership have gone well. The Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations recognised that the initial proposal could not constitute a basis for continued Commonwealth membership. However, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, suggested the position of Head of the Commonwealth, separate but held by the same person as the Monarch.

10 May
At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference today, a new proposal for Commonwealth membership has been discussed and voted upon. The new proposed declaration is a three-point programme based upon common Commonwealth citizenship, a declaration of Eire’s continued membership and recognition of the Monarch in a separate capacity as Head of the Commonwealth. There was general support for the proposal, and protectorates like Iraq and Oman have also strongly suggested they would join the Commonwealth under such proposals. Assurances were made to Canada that this would not broaden membership to nations currently outside the Empire. King Edward VIII has also given his support to the proposal.

11 May
The London Declaration has been signed at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference today. The text includes the vital paragraph; "The Government of Ireland have ... declared and affirmed Ireland's desire to continue her full membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations and her acceptance of the King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth."
The Commonwealth has been renamed the British Commonwealth of Nations to reflect its broader role. It is hoped that Iraq and Oman and the Trucial States will soon sign similar declarations to formally join the new British Commonwealth of Nations. The news was greeted with approval from both sides of the House of Commons.

15 May
G. & J. Weir Limited, who have made a series of pioneering rotary-winged aircraft, have been acquired by Hawker Siddeley. Their operation has been merged with another Hawker Siddeley subsidiary, Saro (formerly Saunders-Roe).

19 May
The small firm of Cunliffe-Owen have flown their ambitious prototype private venture 12-seat airliner, the Concordia, It has a with low-wing and tricycle undercarriage and is powered by two 550hp Leonides radials for a planned maximum speed of 216mph and a range of 1,200 miles. Interest has been received from Jordan and Malta.


20 May
The Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC) is established by the Bank of England and several major commercial banks to provide long term investment funding for small and medium-sized enterprises.

21 May
Roger Hollis was looking over the reports from Source Table. The transcripts revealed very interesting information. He turned to the case officer, "So there is no doubt that Harry has been talking to Julien. These three calls are most interesting, certainly they are looking for funds. The most worrying is this plan to strike to cut cross-channel ferries." "I can't see them convincing the union to strike here, after all they just had a pay settlement and the situation in Europe is not a classic worker's struggle." "Even so, we must be careful. You'd better warn Special Branch to keep tabs on party members going to the Channel ports. Also, we'd better let our Dutch cousins know about this information." "And the Prince's Court?" "They have ears at the Dutch intelligence offices, it will reach his ears soon enough."

27 May
Trials have begun of the HT-4 acoustic-homing torpedo at the Underwater Weapons Research Establishment at Portland.

31 May
London Heathrow Airport is officially opened for civilian use. The Prince of Wales attended the official opening ceremony.

3 June
The War Office and the Air Ministry have announced the latest cuts to the armed forces in response to the ‘Peace Dividend’ in Europe.

The Army will disband all its current Second Line Territorial Army Divisions as active formations next year. Their component TA formations will continue at local level but many will disbanded. These units are; 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division, 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, 23rd (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, 38th (Welsh) Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division, 46th Infantry Division and the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. The latter had recently become a motorised division, its equipment will be passed to the 42nd (East Lancashire) and 49th (West Riding) Divisions. In addition the 5th and 6th Armoured Divisions in Britain and the 33rd Armoured Brigade in Iraq will be disbanded. This both eases manpower shortages and makes re-equipment easier and less costly given the reduced size of the tank fleet. The London District HQ and its forces will be merged with Eastern Command.

The biggest disbandment for the RAF is the merger of Army Co-Operation Command with Bomber Command. Its three remaining squadrons will form a Group in Bomber Command, but how long these will remain part of Bomber Command cannot be foreseen, but it clear the new Auster light aircraft signify a shift away from ground support to a more passive spotting role. There have been calls to create a separate Army Air Corps, but this seems unlikely to happen. No.10 Group of Fighter Command is to be merged with No.11 Group with a reduction in headquarters personnel. No 23 Group of Flying Training Command responsible for advanced training and Royal Auxiliary Air Force units is to be disbanded and as the Command continues to be rationalised into larger but fewer components to save headquarters personnel. Four heavy bomber squadrons of Bomber Command are to be disbanded (61, 49, 50 and 106 Squadrons) with one to reform as a Transport Command unit.

7 June
The Benjamin Britten opera Peter Grimes opens at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Peter Grimes was written by Benjamin Britten with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough. The borough is a fictional village which shares some similarities with Crabbe's own home village of Aldeburgh. The first performance was conducted by Reginald Goodall and is the first of Britten's operas to be a critical and popular success.

8 June
With only a month to the General Election, canvassers and party supporters are out on the streets alongside their candidates and Members of Parliament.
We listen in to the concerns of the man and woman on the street:

"What is your view on the proposed Welfare reforms Labour want to introduce?"
"Well... I don't really know."
"Have the rising costs of living impacted on your weekly budgeting?"
"Well... I don't really know."
"What do you think of about the international situation?"
"Well... I don't really know. I must go, my washers on."

"Yes, I think politics is the most important thing in modern Britain today and we all come out in support around here, but you simply can't let it interfere with daily life can you?"

"I see great principles at stake here. As your Conservative candidate you can be sure that I shall act. You can also be sure that I shall not interfere... That is with those great principles which I deem to be at stake..."

"As an employer what do you think about the Trade Union movement and the effect a Labour government could have on workers?"
"Work? We've got chaps here who could break out in a muck sweat merely by standing still."
"But surely co-operation would increase productivity?"
"They're a shower. Absolute shower."
"But industrial must surely increase the workers partipation and therefore their maintain a natural rhythm of work?"
"What you call their natural rhythm of work is neither natural, rhythmic, or anything very much to do with work."

"My politics is a matter between my conscience and the ballot box..."
"Your politics - to each according to his needs, from each as little as he can get away with. And no overtime except on Sundays, at double the rate. That's a damn fine way to build a new Jerusalem."

"I'm gonna find it pretty difficult to say what I want to say in a few words. In fact I'm now only just beginning to catch on. I must have been dead stupid. I've swallowed everything they've given me to swallow… Everything! All the phoney, patriotic claptrap of the employers, all the bilge I've heard talked about worker's rights until my head's reeling with stink of it all. Trouble is, everyone's got so used to the smell they can no longer notice. Furthermore they're deaf too! So deaf they can't even hear the fiddles, in fact they don't want to! Wherever you look, it’s a case of blow you Jack I'm all right!"

13 June
The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts today is formally renamed as the Arts Council of Great Britain. The a Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts was formed in 1940 by the government to promote and maintain British culture and was chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education. The Arts Council's first Chairman to be appointed is the famous economist John Maynard Keynes.

14 June
Voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls for the Northern Ireland General Election.