Careless Talk

The traditional image of the Home Front in World War II is of cheery Londoners, singing along to Vera Lynn on the radio and making do and mending as bombs fall all around them. But there was another side to life in wartime Britain, a side many would like to forget. Questionable Governmental procedures often hindered Britain's chance of winning the war. With meticulous plans for protecting the nation's art treasures, little preparation was made for the protection of its population. A catalogue of authoritarian blunders shows in frightening detail just how close Britain came to a totalitarian state. Propaganda fed to the people bore scant relation to the facts, and dark forces like racism found a ready outlet in wartime society. Crime continued to flourish, and the class tensions in prewar society were often thrown into sharp relief. This is a portait of a nation at arms.