 It should all have been so simple.
The country had been able to spend £7million a day to defeat the Germans.
Only a fraction of that amount would be needed
to fulfil Lloyd George's ringing promise that his coalition government would make Britain
"a fit land for heroes to live in."
It should all have been so simple.... |
In SALFORD PALS (1993)
Michael Stedman tells the story of the pals battalions raised in the industrial town of
Salford. Like too many of the heroes who went out to fight and die for their King and
Country, their peacetime reward was unemployment, hunger and despair.
... the terrible consequences of the 1921 slump in trade
were now upon the town, Unemployment in the borough rose rapidly and beggars became an
accustomed sight in the streets.
Many of the survivors of the Pals were reduced to selling
cards, matches and mementoes. Soup kitchens and food distribution centres became familiar
ports of call for many, even the
seriously wounded, who often found that medical tribunals discharged their disability
rights far too soon.
Bitter irony (left): The food parcels seen here being
distributed in April 1921 to Salford ex-servicemen, many of them disabled, were paid
for out of surplus funds left over from the public's over-subscription towards a borough
war memorial.
It very quickly began to dawn on large
numbers of demobilised soldiers, whatever their wartime rank, that the dream of coming
home to the secure job which they believed was their right was not going to come true.
This letter, published in The Times on February 4th 1920 was signed EX-BATTERY
COMMANDER
A uniformed hero
|
During the War all those who put on the King's
uniform had a great access of friends. We were heroes in those days. Our relations, too,
even our rich relatives, took a new interest in us. On leave from the Front we were
welcome and honoured guests - especially as we gained promotion: 'My Cousin the Major.'
... when at last we came home, were demobilised and doffed
our uniforms, we realised how much our welcome had depended on the glamour of our clothes,
with all that they implied. In mufti we were no longer heroes, we were simply
'unemployed', an unpleasant problem.
Many businessmen think they did their part in the war at
home just as much as those on active service, and that no obligation rests on them to help
ex-officers. I know that many of them worked long hours, even overworked in their
country's cause, but they got a reward in experience, in an increase of income, and in
good positions. And although the strain of long hours is great, their offices did not
admit poison gas, mud, and shells, with the ever present threat of sudden death.
There is a large balance outstanding to the credit of the
ex-officer. Are you going to withhold payment until it is too late?
Pte Turner, 97th
Brigade Machine Gun Company, reflects:
|
Unemployed ex-soldiers with
barrel-organ (the picture on the side shows the family of one of the
men - "all under 10"
|
One universal question which I have never seen
answered: two or three million pounds a day for the 1914-18 war, yet no monies were
forthcoming to put industry on its feet on our return from that war. Many's the time I've
gone to bed, after a day of 'tramp, tramp' looking for work, on a cup of cocoa and a
pennyworth of chips between us; I would lay puzzling why, why, after all we had gone
through in the service of our country, we have to suffer such poverty, willing to work at
anything but no work to be had. I only had two Christmases at work between 1919 and 1939.
Extract from Martin
Middlebook First Day
on the Somme 
page one page two
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