click on the links below to explore further

The Festival of Britain not only sought to demonstrate Britain's post war economic recovery, it tried to display a socially improved nation. Building on the idea of Britain having eventually triumphed in the war through a combination of perseverance and 'pulling together', it spurred the nation on to future improvement through collective action.

pulling together

Since 1945 men and women in all kinds of neighbourhoods - new housing estates, small towns, suburbs and central areas of large cities - have sought ways by which they could preserve something of the warmth and comradeship which they knew in the war years (National Federation of Community Associations Festival leaflet)

From the start the Festival was conceived as a nationwide, democratic celebration. The Festival Council operated as an advisory and co-ordinating body and the Festival Office organised the official programme of events, but beyond that local activities were to be organised at a local level. A meeting in 1949, in London's Guildhall, brought together representatives from local authorities and encouraged them to start preparing their own events. As well as organising entertainments, the Festival Catalogue of Activities notes a variety of local authorities marking the Festival through permanent environmental improvements. Battersea notes the clearance of bomb sites and planted trees, Croydon arranged special floral displays in the park and Sheffield built children's playgrounds.

Voluntary and charitable organisations were also urged to participate in the Festival. The Festival Catalogue lists a baffling range of events - Our Dumb Friends League held a special children's dog show, the West Sussex Women's Institute held a Festival of Good Entertainment and the Lymington Community Association devised a town carnival. But the importance of participation went beyond simply creating a full events programme. Being part of the Festival was an active demonstration of a set of values seen as an essential part of being British.

a spur to the future

The Festival has given a direct challenge to every community to make the best of itself. It is certainly to be hoped that the bands of public spirited citizens in towns and villages who are doing so much to brighten their own communities will do even better in later years (Herbert Morrison in 'The Times Festival Supplement')

The Festival of Britain had a clear social purpose - the New Britain being built would be founded on a set of communal values and social progress would be achieved through collective action and provision. The National Health Service had been created for everyone, new homes should cater for community as well as individual needs and the Festival, there to be enjoyed, should help define a nation's sense of itself. Yet some of this promise was to be short-lived. The Festival closed in September 1951 and a month later the incoming Conservative administration hastily demolished the South Bank site.

Although there was no Festival style, there was a Festival spirit. For me, and I believe for many others, the Festival was the high point of our post war dream of a better world. There on the South Bank we asserted our conviction that the labour and the wounds had not been in vain and that a shining new world was being born. (John Murray in 'Design', May 1961)

The closing ceremony at the South Bank photograph by contributor John Benning Why not contribute your memories?