Little, Brown £22.50 pp878
The 1960s must be the most inspirational decade in British history. True, other decades have established their own identities to an extent that is surprising — after all, what’s so special about any period of years defined arbitrarily by its dates? But the 1960s seem to be special, inspiring much naive hope and optimism at the time, inspiring resentment and reproach during the subsequent Thatcher era, and still apparently inspiring enough nostalgic curiosity to justify a big book.
Dominic Sandbrook is making a habit of doing this sort of thing. Only last year, we were knocked out by the young Oxford historian’s first book, a blockbuster on the years 1956-63, Never Had It So Good. This proved a winning format and for readers impatient for another 900 pages he has followed through on his success in the same easy-to-read style covering 1964-70. In fact, he promises us next a volume on the 1970s; although perhaps he should take his time in finishing it, in cutting as well as pasting. Some books are twice as good for being half as long.
There are two big stories here and the trick is to tie them together convincingly. The first is political: how the Conservative party of Harold Macmillan came unstuck and gave Harold Wilson his chance to try to make Labour into “the natural party of government”. It was old Harold, suddenly feeling and looking his years, against young Harold, at 46 the youngest prime minister since Lord Rosebery (and until Tony Blair). What Wilson promised was to forge a new Britain in the white heat of a scientific revolution. In the long run, many of his instincts about the need for modernisation and entrepreneurship were vindicated, but not in the way he hoped. In the short run — and this was a prime minister who said that a week is a long time in politics — nearly everything came unstuck. The National Plan for economic growth proved abortive; the defence of the pound proved catastrophic; only belated devaluation rescued the record from abject failure. The tactics were often as brilliant as the strategy was incoherent.
Sandbrook tells this story with unflagging relish, drawing on the uniquely copious literary legacy left by members of Wilson’s talented government. There has never been a cabinet like it for diarists — Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, Richard Crossman — and Sandbrook has mined a rich vein of human interest here. Inevitably George Brown, “tired and emotional”, in Private Eye’s seminal phrase, staggers unsteadily through a whole string of incidents that provide not only light relief but a truly sobering perspective. “Don’t say in my condition”, he angrily, tragically, shouts at the prime minister in a late-night telephone call.
White Heat lives up to its subtitle by also telling a second story, that of the “Swinging Sixties”. There is an attempt to identify some common themes, notably the challenge to a traditional image of Britain, but this cultural story remains distinct. It is told, in fact, largely through simply interleaving chapters of political narrative with chapters of cultural narrative, both using essentially the same techniques. With the same undaunted zeal, the author moves from unpicking the anecdotes of the Benn diaries to picking and choosing “among thousands of books on the Beatles”.
Sandbrook develops his own verbal tics in grappling with his cast of characters. Thus he moves from contrasting Wilson’s cultural tastes with “the likes of Crosland and Jenkins”. Pausing only to observe “the likes of Princess Margaret” among symbols of swinging London, we move to the new prominence of photography, “with the likes of David Bailey and Mary Quant”. We pause to observe an operatic revival, “thanks to the likes of Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett and Peter Maxwell Davies”, although noting that “the likes of Harold Pinter and John Osborne appealed to a minority of a minority”.
This is history of a commendably inclusive range. Even the launch of the Sunday Times Colour Section in 1962 gets its couple of pages of fame. There is something for everybody, if not in every chapter then through judicious skipping between them. Many of the political points are well made and well documented, with generous references to the books cited in support.
If Wilson himself comes out of this account in a less than heroic light, it could be a lot worse. The encomium on him by President Lyndon Johnson still makes embarrassing reading: “In you, Sir, England has a man of mettle, a new Churchill in her hour of crisis.” This particular hour of crisis was in July 1966, with sterling manifestly overvalued and under pressure. What Johnson really wanted, of course, was a British military commitment in Vietnam; and to get it, he offered not just flattery but billions of dollars in support of sterling. Yet Wilson resisted joining the Americans in their folly — a finest hour of sorts.
That Sandbrook himself is not immune from such evocative twinges is shown in his epilogue. How on earth to pull this big and baggy book together? The answer he comes up with is to stake his chips on Dad’s Army. This classic television sitcom about the Home Guard, first shown in the summer of 1968, is thus made the emblem of a country that looked back as well as forward. It is the vehicle for the closest that the book comes to arguing a thesis.
It is certainly true that “the permissive society” is a contestable phrase, rather than an objective description of Britain in the 1960s. Roy Jenkins may have been a great reforming home secretary, but his efforts elicited limited enthusiasm. A poll in 1969 asked respondents to name one law that they would like to see passed: 26% chose the return of hanging, 25% to bring back the birch, 5% to tighten welfare benefits and 5% to halt immigration. When the poll asked what changes people most strongly deplored, the most popular choice was “easier laws for homosexuality, divorce, abortion etc”.
Although White Heat characteristically mentions “the likes of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin”, it refrains from quoting the latter’s canonical assertion that “sexual intercourse began in 1963”. The general sentiment behind these words is, nonetheless, what is at issue. Thus, “what some historians still insist on calling the ‘cultural revolution’ of the 1960s” is Sandbrook’s real target, or perhaps his Aunt Sally. It is a provoking conclusion, given his title — not a lot of white heat and not a lot of swinging either, it seems. That won’t stop Sandbrook’s loyal readers from enjoying this lively narrative.
TIMES OF CONFLICT
By 1966, the Vietnam war had become a serious political issue. The prime minister, Harold Wilson, acknowledged his “regret” over US attacks on Hanoi and Haiphong, but most Britons went further: almost half thought the Americans should withdraw their troops. In 1968, right, an anti-Vietnam demo at the American embassy, right, led to 200 arrests.
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