As in Austerity Britain, an astonishing array of vivid, intimate and unselfconsc
ious voices drive this narrative. The keen-eyed Nella Last shops assiduously at
Barrow Market as austerity and rationing gradually give way to relative abundanc
e; housewife Judy Haines, relishing the detail of suburban life, brings up her c
hildren in Chingford; and, the self-absorbed civil servant Henry St John perfect
s the art of grumbling. These and many other voices give a rich, unsentimental p
icture of everyday life in the 1950s.
