After the war, the BBC World Service increased it’s programming to America, partly because the number of American troops stationed in Britain during the war did feel a pang of nostalgia but also letting the English-speaking world know that Britain was doing okay with recovery and rapidly getting back to normal.
Sometimes it was a hard role to maintain, as is evidenced by this episode from July 2, 1947 of London Column; a news/magazine program aimed at showing recovering Britain was doing okay. At the beginning the announcer, Jerry Wilmont laid out the coming attractions for the program – mostly light and breezy stuff but a moderately sobering report on British imports for the coming year. There would be less tobacco, less gas and less newsprint being imported into Britain (the newsprint would bring a return to the war-era four-page newspaper) and fewer imported films (i.e., Hollywood). The reason having much to do with the value of the dollar and paying back war material during the lend-lease period. Only food and much-needed machinery, and integral part of the recovery process rebuilding bombed-out factories would stay as they were as were raw materials. Food was still being rationed, and Textiles were being exported.
But there issues looming on the horizon that gave a dose of reality to the proceedings. The Paris Peace conference was, for all intents and purposes, a dismal failure, with the Soviet Union taking a belligerent stance towards Germany (unification was out of the question) and very uneasy situation in Eastern Europe.
The light and breezy part came with a report of the return of the statue of Eros to Piccadilly Circus on June 29. The statue had been removed at the beginning of the war and was only now being returned, amid much celebration, even in the pouring rain. It didn’t stop the celebration nor did it stop the BBC from conducting interviews.
And that’s a look at what was going on in Postwar Britain on July 2, 1947 from London Column from The BBC.
