Eighty years ago this week the new normal establishes itself

 

The London County Council discussed the project for a national theatre, which had been kicking around for over a century. The location proposed was on the south bank of the Thames in the heavily bombed area between Waterloo Station and two long established features of the river front, the Shot Tower and the Lion Brewery. The theatre was indeed built on the site but over ten years later.  The  Brewery (admittedly abandoned since 1930) was demolished to make way for the Festival of Britain in the late 1940s and the Shot Tower followed it into oblivion as the National Theatre was built. The brewery's iconic huge Coade stone lions were preserved by the order of King George VI; one stands facing Parliament and the other at Twickenham Stadium.

In what was described as a major easing of wartime controls, men aged 31 and over and all women other than nurses and midwives were to be released from the "Control of Engagement Order". In reality 8.75m people were still barred from changing jobs by "essential work orders" which remained in place, although the government professed to want this figure reduced.

The Ministry of Information, established to impose wartime censorship and propaganda, was to be abolished. However it was to remain in operation until a new central organization could be set up to help  present overseas a "true and adequate picture of British policy, institutions and ways of life." The new body would also operate domestically where it was deemed essential to good administration under a democratic system that the public should be adequately informed about the many matters in which government action impinged on their daily lives. The big state was here to stay and propaganda was a key function.

The trial of SS guards at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp had introduced the British public to the full horror of what the Nazi regime was capable of. Twelve including three females had been sentenced  to death. The celebrated British executioner Albert Pierrepoint was sent to Germany to carry out the sentences. The women were hanged first, singly, the men came next but in pairs.