On the 27th of March the Forum welcomed as guest speaker David Davies whose talk was titled Our Lives–Our Times 1945–64.
Illustrated by an interesting selection of photographs, the talk covered politics and life in general in the UK for the period mentioned in the title.
David commenced with the conferences at the end of WW11 when the participants changed due to death and the British general election, the only constant being Joseph Stalin. This resulted in the Soviet domination of Central Europe for many years afterwards.
At this time the UK was virtually bankrupt, rationing continuing till 1954 and bomb damage remaining into the late 1950s. In 1947 there, was freezing weather which resulted in 25,000 deaths. Smog was a regular occurrence, in 1952 it resulted in 4,000 deaths in London and in 1953 North Sea flooding caused many casualties.
David mentioned celebrities from the period and some notable events such as the Coronation, the breaking of the sound barrier and the ascent of Everest.
Forum Chairman Mike Earle thanked David Davies for a very interesting and informative talk.