Senior Seminar Paper

Keep Calm and Carry On Smith 1
Brandy Smith
HIST 495
Dr. Mason
Senior Seminar Paper
April 29, 2016
Keep Calm and Carry On
Following World War Two, all citizens of London were in for a huge shock and
adjustment as the city and its inhabitants were forever changed architecturally and
psychologically by bombing it endured. The East End of London was particularly hard hit by the
extensive bombing and its inhabitants were among the poorest people in the city. As their men
returned home from battlefields and others came home in a wooden box, they continued living in
temporary housing that replaced their bombed homes, their kitchens continued to survive on
meager rations, they attempted to mentally adjust to a new time of peace, lost their independence
and equality in the workplace and had loads of babies; the women of the East End had a unique
and especially challenging post war period. This is a discussion of how WW2’s impact on the
women of London affected them for years beyond VE day through the lens of the poor East End.
I will explore what this experience was like for these strong women who pulled through a
harrowing war experience and endless bombing simply to arrive into a time of peace that brought
its own set of hardship and challenges. A true testament to the “strong stuff” British women are
made of, it is astonishing to research the strength and dignity in which they pushed on through
this difficult time in history and arrived on the other side battered but just as strong as ever.
History may be written primarily by men about men but women are the backbone behind it all.
This post-war period was a turning point in London women’s history as it was a time where

women’s role began to make a slow change toward the modern, independent woman. They truly
embody the British spirit to “Keep Calm and Carry On” as the popular WW2 slogan and banner
so famously states.
I. Bombing
Bombing was one of the toughest challenges faced by the women of London during the
war years. The German goal was to bomb the morale right out of the British people. Events such
as the Blitz, forty consecutive nights of continuous bombing, did a good job toward defeating
morale but they were never successful1. The people of London gritted their teeth and endured the
endless bombs, the loss of housing and the decimation. After the war ended and peacetime
reigned, bombs should no longer have been a concern on the everyday mind of an East End
woman. However, unexploded or undetonated bombs had lodged themselves into different areas
of the city and were occasionally found and detonated or just randomly detonated and caused
further damage2. Even after the Nazi’s were defeated, they continued to injure and kill London
civilians with their bombs for years. As an East End woman, one can imagine the stress this
would cause to your everyday life. It would be a constant concern wherever you walked,
wherever your children played and wherever you lived. When a bomb was found, often the
whole area was evacuated and you were ripped away from your home until the bombs was
properly disposed of3. The bombs may no longer be falling from the sky but they were still
causing extreme mental anguish to the strong women of London with the dangerous possibilities
the unexploded bombs posed.
1 Ziegler, Philip.London at War.Toronto: Knopf Canada,1995.
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Unexploded bombs have continued to be a problem through modern years. Just about a
year ago, an one thousand pound unexploded bomb was found in London intact4. On August 11,
2015 another unexploded bomb was safely defused in a basement in East London5. Just last year,
two unexploded bombs were discovered in the city. This is not as rare of an occurrence as one
might think; the London Fire Brigade said seven unexploded bombs were discovered between
2009 and 2014, as well as five undetonated hand grenades6. Though those numbers may not
seem high, it is astonishing to think that seventy years after the last bombs were dropped this
many are still hiding away in the bowels of the city.
II. Lack of Housing
Another big issue faced by the women of London was the extreme lack of proper housing.
The bombs of World War Two had leveled much of the housing in London, particularly in the
poor East End. This resulted to people living in condemned buildings barely fit for habitation and
temporary housing. It was not uncommon for a family of 6 to be crammed into a 1 bedroom flat
in a rickety old building that was condemned for bulldozing before the war even began7. This
also led to the rise of the small, prefabricated temporary homes that people flocked to. Meant to
only last a few years, some of these pre-fabs are still standing and people are still happily living
within despite the estimation that they were a temporary form of housing.
4 Medina, Miguel. "Huge Unexploded WWII Bomb Found in London." Huge Unexploded WWII Bomb Found in
London. March 24, 2015.Accessed April 28, 2016.http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/huge-unexploded-
wwii-bomb-found-in-london/ar-BBiDMI7.
5 Smith-Spark, Laura."Experts Defuse Unexploded World War II Bomb in London." CNN. August 11, 2015.Accessed
April 28,2016. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/11/europe/uk-london-unexploded-bomb/index.html.
6 Medina, Miguel. "Huge Unexploded WWII Bomb Found in London." Huge Unexploded WWII Bomb Found in
London. March 24, 2015.Accessed April 28, 2016. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/huge-unexploded-
wwii-bomb-found-in-london/ar-BBiDMI7.
7 Salisbury,Harriet.The War on Our Doorstep: London's EastEnd and How the Blitz Changed It
Forever. London: Ebury, 2012.

London was always a cramped city, particularly in the poorer areas. When bombs took down
homes and apartment buildings, there was not ample replacement housing for the displaced
persons. Alternative housing became unique locations such as the tube stations8. Some people
literally lived within tube stations after the houses were bombed out. Also used as replacement
housing were condemned buildings. These were buildings considered to be unfit for habitation
before the war and slotted for demolition. When houses became scarce, some of these were still
standing and people moved into them. By the end of the war many families were living in
condemned buildings. When the city moved to follow through with the original plans for
demolition, the people had nowhere to go. Thus, many of these buildings set to be demolished
back in the 1930’s did not get torn down until the 1960’s due to the need for housing in the poor
districts of London9. This was a regular occurrence particularly in London’s East End.
The people living in these temporary rehousing locations were promised proper housing as
soon as the war ended. The war came to an end in 1945 and people were still in temporary
housing. Temporary housing often had a family of eight living in a two bedroom flat. They were
usually cramped, dirty, old and not up to code. These people were repeatedly promised rehoming
and proper housing by the government yet they rarely followed through. Many people were not
rehomed until the 1950-1960’s. The rehoming effort was a huge undertaking that was hard for
the highly decimated city government to deal with.
The flipside of the lack of housing and the destruction of London that the bombing causes
was the first major rehabilitation of the city since the great fire of 1666. This was the first
instance where people realized that they could change the city. Before this it had just been

accepted that the city was how it was. When the city was bombed and reconstruction was
needed, people decided that it was a time to make some modern changes and adjustments. An
engineer named Patrick Abercrombie led this effort largely through creative engineering and
radical changes in the typical forms of housing. He championed modernizing the city and
making new suburban neighborhoods for people to move to. He contributed largely to the
modernization of the city that helped shape it into the city we see today.
III. Rationing
One of the toughest things encountered by the women of London during the war was
making do with the extreme rations. When the war ended, the rationing did not do to the effect
of the war. Britain has been stretched to her limits and resources were still scarce and hard to
come by through the fighting had stopped10. Those who were already stretched very thin had
no relief besides the end of bombing. Women in the very poor East End had it especially tough.
They did not have much money and rationing further limited their options for meals. With full
families and more babies all the time, an East End woman in post-world war two London had
a challenging and seemingly impossible job with trying to keep everyone fed and satisfied due
to rationing as well as their limited funds. Creativity with recipes and menus was the key.
Rationing had a distinct effect on the diet of the people of London. The rationing of certain
foodstuffs continued well into the 1950’s. Creativity with recipes was integral to the average
housewife’s chores in order to keep her family happily fed. The Ministry of Food had a huge
effort to put out ration recipe books and information to help the mothers and wives. There was
also a big campaign with vitamins to help supplement the diet11. In the 1950’s, there was a fad

through the National Health Service where Rosehip Syrup was widely distributed as a cure all
health miracle supplement12. The effects of it are widely debated but the super sweet syrup was
extremely popular and widely distributed in this time by health professionals.
Even the clothing and fashion of this time was heavily influenced by rationing. Clothing
had to be bought on a point system. Points were distributed in coupons to the citizens and using
this, you could purchase new clothing13. This made for very little fashion and mostly
functionality and durability. Utility wear was the name of the off rack, readymade clothing that
was cheap and easily purchased with coupons14. While not stylish, Utility wear was functional,
durable and became the wardrobe of the time whether the people liked it or not. Mending and
reusing clothing was also a huge part of the post-war years. If you could not buy new, you
made something old work. This was widespread throughout England. Even Queen Elizabeth
II bought her wedding dress material with rationed clothing coupons15. Women from all around
the country sent coupons to the then princess to help her get her dream wedding dress. Not
even the royal family was exempt from rationed clothing.
The lasting impact of rationing cannot be overlooked. When in London, I spoke with the
senior historian, Terry Charman, at the Imperial War museum. Though he was born in 1949,
after the end of the war, he remembers purchasing clothes with ration coupons and eating
rationed foods. He distinctly remembered the day his mother burned her ration book because
rationing had finally ended after nine long years. For him to remember something like this so
distinctly shows how strong of an impact rationing had on the people. Even the supposed
British love for “queuing” or forming a polite line and waiting your turn can be traced to the
12 Waller,Maureen. London 1945.New York: St. Martin's Griffin,2005.
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lines for rationed foods. This was a huge part of not only the war effort but also post-war life
and it has left a lasting impact on the people of London.
IV. Lack of Men
World War Two contributed to a scarcity of young men throughout the world. Between 21
and 25 million men died in the war effort worldwide16. This loss was felt especially hard in
some of the poorer parts of London as women moved forward as widows, children became
fatherless, mothers moved on without their sons. The losses were felt by industry as well
because there was not the workforce they had once had. Women were left to find a way to
support themselves as widows or single mothers17. Men were unable to return to their jobs and
often the women who had worked for them throughout the war stayed on in their positions. It
was a very different world after the war as women became more independent and socially
stratified.
Following World War Two, women’s rights began to increase. They had worked their way
into men’s positions throughout the war and had earned respect18. When Queen Elizabeth II
ascended the throne in 1952, her young, vibrant beauty gave a face to a new generation of
women. This was the time when women began to wear trousers on a regular basis19. Women
began to filter into the larger job market more and more. No longer did a women have to go
from her parents’ house to her husband’s house; she could get a job and support herself.
Women were getting into more and more skilled and respected positions as well. The job force
19 Worth, Jennifer. Call the Midwife. Edited by Terri Coates. London: Penguin Books, 2002.

was still dominated by men but women were pushing their way in with the muscles they
acquired in the war effort of the Second World War.
The young midwife Jennifer Worth is a great example of a young woman in Post- World
War Two London20. She was a trained and experienced nurse and midwife and at twenty-two,
she left home to work in the poor East End as a midwife with the nuns at Nonnatus House as
a National Health Service worker. She was not alone, many young women trained as nurses
and midwives and worked for the National Health Service when they were young. For several
years she worked and supported herself as a single woman in Poplar, London.21 She did not
have a husband, she made her own money and she had a highly skilled and highly respected
position. Worth later married and started a family of her own but not until after she had
stretched her legs as a single woman and taken care of herself for a time.22 Many women fit
into this mold; eventually they would marry and have children but they enjoyed their younger
years as independent, career women who made their own way through the world.
Poorer women and single or unwed mothers had less options to support their families.
Many fell into the world’s oldest profession as a last ditch effort to save themselves or their
children from starvation23. Prostitution was a bustling business, especially in poorer areas of
town such as the East End. Worth talks about the poor parts of town she often had to ride her
bicycle through and how she could see the soiled women peering down at her from dirty
windows above pubs. She even had an experience with one young Irish women who fell into
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the trade as a part of a clever ruse and was only fifteen years old when Worth found her alone
and pregnant and gave her the help she needed24.
V. Loss of Independence and purpose
During World War Two, women stepped into men’s roles to keep the war effort moving. They
worked in factories, patrolled the streets, cracked German codes and kept London going. When
the men returned home post-war, they returned to their jobs and roles. The women who had learned
independence and purpose during the war were often thrust back into lives of marriage,
housewifery, motherhood and menial jobs. For some women, this war a welcome change back to
normalcy. For others, this was an outrage as they felt they had earned their roles and wished to
keep that independence and purpose.
Women had spent the WW2 years working in factories, fighting off bombs, helping the war
department and any number of war related jobs that may have been previously occupied by men
if they were not off at war. After the men returned, women were expected to return to the home or
their “feminine” jobs. Many women had found great purpose and enjoyment in their work and did
not wish to quit. Women also chaffed at the loss of independence and equality the war had given
them in the wartime workplace. They had worked jobs normally reserved to men and been quite
successful at them. They had also been a part of the war effort. A secret group of code breakers
worked out of the facility at Bletchley Park outside on London. It was here that the German Enigma
machine code was cracked and it is estimated that the work of the people at Bletchley Park
shortened the war by up to four years25. Though it was not all women, Bletchley did have a number
of intelligent and stand out women who worked right alongside of the men cracking codes and

helping to do their part to end the war. It was important work such as this and others that left some
women searching for something more in the post war years26.
VI. PTSD
World War Two left an entire generation with vestiges of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
There were the soldiers, the civilians bombed, victims of racial genocide, widows; it was an entire
generation of people deeply affected emotionally by the world wide conflict27. The civilians of
London lived through years of war, rationing and bombing. There is no way that they were not left
with an emotional burden and light PTSD symptoms. I believe women especially would have been
left with an emotional burden after spending years worrying about bombs falling every day,
worrying about how they would feed their families, worrying about their husbands and brothers
off fighting28. It would be very hard to get past that mindset and return to normality.
Men returning from war nearly always struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the
post- World War Two years, PTSD was not well understood or recognized. They called it shell
shock and had no treatment or any kind of relief. The soldiers came home from the war and many
immediately married their sweethearts and began jobs and families in an effort to return to
normalcy. Many men were successful but many were not. There are stories of men who came
home and could not perform their jobs due to anxiousness and overreactions. These are common
signs we now recognize to be associated with PTSD but then they did not understand or attribute
it to that. These men were living with often young wives who did not understand what their
husbands are going through. It was a hard time to be a veteran because the experience they went
through was not well understood at home and the men themselves were not very well understood.
27 Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography.New York: Nan A. Talese,2000.

We have made great strides in the care and understanding of PTSD victims and people returning
from wars.
Between the women and children who had lived through extensive bombing and destruction
on the Homefront and the men who served in the gore of the frontlines, London was full of people
recovering from harrowing experiences. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was not understood or
recognized at this point but with the knowledge we have now, it had to have been an undiagnosed
epidemic in the population of London in this post- war reconstruction period. Without the
understanding of the disorder at the time, it is nearly impossible to track specific cases of PTSD in
these people at this time but given the circumstances it had to have been affecting a huge portion
of the population both civilian, woman and solider. One cannot live through years with such
mental, emotional and physical anguish without having some lasting effects and emotional
manifestation. This is a part of history I wish could be explored further. I wish we could go back
and diagnose people and treat them accurately for the PTSD symptoms. It is curious to think of
what a possible difference in could have made in the lives of the citizens and soldiers of the Second
World War.
VII. Exploding population
Similar to the baby boom experienced in the United States, London saw an extreme jump in
babies born during the post war years. A combination of peace after years of war, men returning
home from war, implementation of national health care and getting married as well as a lack of
birth control availability contributed to this baby boom. Particularly in poor areas of London, such
as the East End, babies were born constantly29. These women did not have contraceptives
available, they married young and had many babies. Jennifer Worth’s popular memoir, Call the
29 Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography.New York: Nan A. Talese,2000.

Midwife, chronicles her days as a midwife in Post-World War Two Poplar (East End of London
borough) delivering what seemed like endless babies to the poor but unbelievably strong women
who lived there30.
In East End London during the 1950’s, most women married young to local boys who worked
on the docks. They would usually move to a small flat in the poor area and live on a little bit of
money and a whole lot of love. Babies usually came quickly and a plenty. Thankfully the National
Health Service had regional midwives providing these women with better prenatal care then they
had ever received and safe, home deliveries. The biggest part missing from this women’s health
care was contraceptive. Contraceptives were unavailable through the National Health Service, the
main source of health care throughout the poorer regions of the city such as the East End, and were
a bit of a mystery to most people31. The lack of contraceptives led to women having baby after
baby after baby. Sometimes the family had more children than they could financially support.
These situations are described by Worth in her memoir as some of the saddest she ever witnessed.
Worth believed that contraceptive information should have be part of her job as a midwife to
distribute. She felt that women should be able to limit the number of children they had on limited
resources in a safe and healthy way if they so choose32.
To assert the point that contraceptive information should have been spread, Worth tells the
story of one desperate mother who became pregnant with her seventh child when she could barely
feed and house the six she already had. She resorted to an illegal street abortion to get rid of the
child she did not believe she could care for. This resulted in her coming down with a severe case
of sepsis from the dirty tools of the untrained, street midwife and lying in a coma for three weeks
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before making a miraculous recovery. The illegal abortion nearly killed her but she felt that was
her only option to help from having a baby she could not feed and care for33. This is just one story
but it was the problem faced by many poor East End mothers. Contraceptive information and
items were not widely distributed until the 1960’s in the poorer districts of London. Had the
National Health Service made a more concentrated effort to inform the poorer recipients of the
National Health Service of contraceptive options, it may have saved the lives of many mothers and
babies from other tactics to not have children they could no care for.
On May 8th, 1945 Winston Churchill said to the British people:
“I say that in the long years to come not only will the people of this island but of the
world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we've done
and they will say "do not despair, do not yield to violence and tyranny, march
straightforward and die if need be-unconquered." Now we have emerged from one deadly
struggle-a terrible foe has been cast on the ground and awaits our judgment and our mercy.”
And they were unconquered indeed. Through years of unimaginable hardship, the British people
rose strong and true and never defeated. Particularly in poor areas of London, such as the East End,
you see people draw incredible strength to come through the war and continue to overcome
hardship through the post war period. Women particularly had an interesting time following the
war as they lost some of the independence and jobs gained during the war but kept moving forward
toward better things and more independence. There was a huge explosion in the population as men
came home from war, married their young sweethearts and began families. It was a time of change
and forward movement. Times were hard but they were getting better. They came through times
of rationing, bombing, hard jobs and mental agony to win a victory in one of the worst conflicts

our world has ever seen. Following the war the continued on with their heads held high in a
constant effort to “keep calm and carry on”.

Bibliography
Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2000.
Medina, Miguel. "Huge Unexploded WWII Bomb Found in London." Huge Unexploded WWII
Bomb Found in London. March 24, 2015. Accessed April 28, 2016.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/huge-unexploded-wwii-bomb-found-in-
london/ar-BBiDMI7.
Salisbury, Harriet. The War on Our Doorstep: London's East End and How the Blitz Changed It
Smith-Spark, Laura. "Experts Defuse Unexploded World War II Bomb in London." CNN.
August 11, 2015. Accessed April 28, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/11/europe/uk-
london-unexploded-bomb/index.html.
Waller, Maureen. London 1945. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2005.
Worth, Jennifer. Call the Midwife. Edited by Terri Coates. London: Penguin Books, 2002.
Ziegler, Philip. London at War. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1995.

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