The Festival of Britain, May to September 1951
75 years ago this month, a year before I was a twinkle in my father’s eye, the Festival of Britain closed. It had run for a mere five months. The postwar British government had proposed the Festival, partly to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1851 Great Exhibition but mainly to lift the spirits of the nation after World War 2. Herbert Morrison, a government minister, stated, “We ought to do something jolly… we need something to give Britain a lift”. The proposal had its opponents, who argued that money could be better spent elsewhere. Britain’s needs were great in...
