Demobbed by Alan Allport

What happened in Britain when the war ended? Victory speeches? Street parties? Then life went back to normal?

Yes, yes and no. For so many people things had changed and the pieces didn’t fit back together.

Many men came home to find wives who had thought that they would never return. Who had been unfaithful, wives who had changed as they had to work, as they had to cope with the consequences of war on the home front. Children didn’t know their fathers, and were nervous of these strange men, upset at the changes to their routine.

“Blighty is proud of and grateful to, its fighting men, but its civilian population has had its share of war and privations. It therefore dos not care for the loud protestation of some of the Forces men who expect priority in travel, plentiful leave, good food, pleasant accommodation after the war and an assured job.”

Could either side really understand the other?

The country fit for heroes wasn’t quite ready. It had been impoverished by the war, homes and communities had been devastated by bombing, and rationing was to continue for a great deal longer.

How do you cope with a dull civilian job after fighting a war? Maybe a job you never expected to return to. With an employer who didn’t expect or really want you back? Many couldn’t cope, and returned to the forces.

And maybe above all there was post traumatic stress. Unrecognised and largely untreated.

Most eventually put their lives back together, but many couldn’t.

Alan Allport’s book paints a compelling picture of all of this. Through contemporary reports, through archive material and though striking first-hand testimonies.

It’s not a book to pick over and analyse, but a book to say what it’s about, and whether it’s done well. I hope I’ve done the fomer, and the answer to the latter is a very firm yes.

It is a book to break your heart, and a book that should be compulsory reading.

And a book that raises an important question: How much has really changed?