The war was expensive and financed through high taxes, selling off assets, and accepting large amounts of Lend Lease from the US and Canada.

[6] The common experience of wartime hardships created a new consensus for a post-war welfare state, including universal social security, a free national health service, improved secondary education, expanded housing, and family allowances.

The Labour Party took the initiative, but the Conservatives led the Education Act of 1944, which made major improvements in secondary schools in England and Wales.

[12] William Beveridge of the Liberal Party declared war on the five "giant evils" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.

The consensus policy was that local authorities would lead during the transitional period, but in the longer run, most new building would be left to the private sector.

[23] David Edgerton has emphasised the success story in producing munitions at home and using the Empire and the U.S. to build a very large high quality stock of weapons.

Participants were not randomly digging; they were promoting self-sufficiency, imposing control over the domestic sphere, and exhibiting patriotism in working for the common good of winning the war.

There were sharply different gender roles and class experiences; gardening had been a favourite elite hobby and the upper-class women helping out knew what they were doing.

[35] Just before the war began Britain was importing 20,000,000 long tons of food per year, including about 70% of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.

[36] It was one of the principal strategies of the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic to attack shipping bound for Britain, restricting British industry and potentially starving the nation into submission.

[39] According to historian Margaret Gowing, the mobilization of Britain's workforce to meet enormous wartime demands in munitions production came in three distinct phases.

In the initial phase leading up to May 1940, efforts to mobilize manpower were largely ineffective and fell short of meeting the nation's escalating labour demands.

The second phase (spring 1940 - mid-1943) witnessed a remarkably efficient organization and deployment of both men and women into essential roles across key industries and vital government services.

Overall, the government grappled with the immense challenge of effectively marshaling its human resources to meet the unprecedented labour requirements imposed by a total war.

[46] After the German occupation of France put Wales within the range of the Luftwaffe, its ports and industrial centres became subject to episodes of intensive bombardment.

The Northern Ireland government under Richard Dawson Bates (Minister for Home Affairs) had prepared too late, assuming that Belfast was far enough away to be safe.

From January 1942, United States soldiers began to arrive in Northern Ireland, in preparation for the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

After the end of the war, large numbers of captured German U-boats were surrendered to British forces on the Scottish and Irish coasts and were brought to Lisahally.

Figures produced by the Ministry of Home Security give a total of 60,595 civilians killed and 86,182 seriously wounded, directly due to enemy action.

The host families worked well with most children, however there was a minority from poor, undernourished, unhygienic and uncooperative environments who brought along a strong distrust of authority.

Sociologist Richard Titmuss argues, "Reports in 1939 about the condition of evacuated mothers and children aroused the conscience of the nation in the opening phase of the war."

[54] The quality of elementary education in major cities declined because of poor leadership in handling crises, confusion and inconsistency in evacuation and school closings, the destruction of some buildings in air raids, and the military requisition of others.

The Archbishop of York replied, "it is a lesser evil to bomb the war-loving Germans than to sacrifice the lives of our fellow countrymen..., or to delay the delivery of many now held in slavery".

"[63] Standards of morality in Britain changed dramatically after the world wars, in the direction of more personal freedom, especially in sexual matters.

He promoted ecumenicism, working to establish better relationships with the Nonconformists, Jews and Catholics, managing in the process to overcome his anti-Catholic bias.

The success of the government in providing new services, such as hospitals and school lunches, as well as egalitarian spirit, contributed to widespread support for an enlarged welfare state.

[74] During this period there were growing anxieties about female sexuality, and 'public concern became especially pronounced after the arrival of American troops during the summer and autumn of 1942'.

[75] There was increased attention to the behaviour of young girls that would loiter around the army bases like Burtonwood and spend time with the American troops.

[76] Women were portrayed as vulnerable to these men and there were social concerns about how "half-caste" babies 'threatened to blur the racial lineaments of British national identity.

'[1] Venessa Baird, born in April 1958 to a Liverpudlian mother and Black GI based at Burtonwood airfield,[77] is one of many mixed-race babies that came of the interracial relationships between British women and African-American troops during World War II.