After The War Britain Was Keen To Sit Back And Smell The Roses

When Victory in Europe was announced on 8 May, 1945 the British nation was ecstatic, celebratory - and exhausted. The country had fought with every sinew, and that battle - as with our current crisis - depended not just on those on the front line but in every household and every job.

We are all familiar with the Dig For Victory campaign, which was promoted to counter the blockade by German U-boats of food imports, although I suspect few of us realise the extent to which not just gardens but public spaces were dug up and cultivated. 

This was not just an enthusiasm for home-grown veg - there was an edge of desperate need. Britain's agricultural output rose by a huge 66 per cent, but the effort to do this had been all-consuming.

In 1939 pleasure gardening had more or less been put on hold. 






Monty Don explored how gardens across Britain changed after the Second World War ended. Pictured: The Peace rose is as resilient as it is beautiful


But when the soldiers came home in 1945 and women who had spent the war working in factories or other essential war work returned to their conventional role as housewife and mother - exactly as my own mother did - they wanted a home they could enjoy rather than one that was an extension of their effort to win the war. 

People wanted peace, colour, ease, and above all normality.

One of the direct results of the Blitz, which destroyed so many homes, tour hà giang từ hà nội was the urgent building of new dwellings - many in new towns - which had gardens attached. This was a transformative experience for many people. 






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In the early 20th century - when most of the 1945 generation of adults who lived through the Second World War were growing up - only 30 per cent of British homes had gardens. 

Today that figure is around 90 per cent. Much of that increase was thanks to new properties built immediately after the war.

However, new towns deliberately reduced the number of allotments they contained. Instead of learning the lessons of the war and creating more spaces for people to grow food, planners deliberately turned their backs on this policy. 






Rose breeder Francis Meilland, developed the peace rose in France, in 1935. Pictured: Francis with the symbolic flower 


The war was behind them and, rightly or wrongly, everyone wanted to move on into a brave new world of peace and kynghidongduong.vn domesticity. 

The new homes had the hitherto unknown luxuries of bathrooms, indoor lavatories, fitted kitchens... and gardens. What people wanted from these outdoor spaces were lawns, flowers and somewhere to hang the washing - not the wartime labour of digging for victory.

This is the backdrop to perhaps the best-known and one of the best-loved roses of all time. 

It is a hybrid tea rose developed in France by rose breeder Francis Meilland in 1935 and given the decidedly unromantic name 3-35-40.