When Britain went to war on 3 September 1939 there was none of the ‘flag-waving patriotism’ of August 1914. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force.The first eight months of the war were a time of official unwarranted optimism and bureaucratic muddle. Many early wartime measures such as the blackout and evacuation proved highly unpopular. But this ‘Phoney War’ was soon followed by the ‘bracing defeat’ of Dunkirk and the fall of France in June 1940.For the next year, under Winston Churchill’s inspiring and resolute leadership, Britain with its Empire stood alone against Hitler, until they were joined by two powerful allies, the Soviet Union and the United States.But for the next five years the British had to endure the bombing of their towns and cities in the Blitz, as well as attacks from flying bombs and rockets. In all 60,595 civilians were killed and 86,182 seriously injured. Rationing of food began in January 1940 and clothes in June 1941. By 1943, virtually every household item was either in short supply and had to be queued for, or was unobtainable.The British were the most totally mobilized of all the major belligerents and there was a great and genuine community of spirit in wartime Britain which often transcended class and other barriers. But there was also an almost universal feeling, exemplified by the popularity of the 1942 Beveridge Report, that after victory the country could not go back to pre-war social conditions.VE Day found Britain exhausted, drab and in poor shape, but justly proud of its unique role in gaining the Allied victory.Wartime fashion, June 1943Oxford Street, London, c.1942I C I plant BillinghamEdward VIII and Wallis Simpson, 1940British school children, 1940Anderson shelter, 1940Comfortable Luv, 1940Avranches, Normandy, August 1944London window shopping, 1941Henley- on- Thames, May 1944Hambleden, May 1944London, 1941Stanstead, 1941London, 1941Marlow, Buckinghamshire, May 1944London Park, 1941London, 1941Weekly rounds, 1944Farmhands, 1945White Cliffs of Dover, 1944Cambridge streetLondon, July 1944Horse power, 1945Unknown river, 1944Bomb damage, July 1944Land army girls, 1944RefugeesTwo Guernsey boys, 1940Unknown town in Kent, 1945Stradford-upon-Avon, April 1944Moreton – in – Marsh, May 1944London, 1944Hambleden, May 1944Roadiside well, 1944Stradford-upon-Avon, May 1944High Street, Eye, Suffolk, May 1945Royston station, 1944Lower Regent street, 1945Farmall tractor, Spring 1943Oxford street, May 1944The Queen at Buckingham Palace, 1945Henley-on- Thames, 1944Moreton-in- Marsh, May 1944Trafalgar SquareAlbert Memorial, April 1944Stratford-upon-Avon, April 1944Winston Churchill, 1943Daffodil pickers, March 1943Hyde Park, May 1944River Avon, 1944Bomb damage, September 1940Colchester, 1942Day nursery, Hatfield, June 1943During the BlitzYou taking my snap SirBuckingham Palace, 1944Wartime fasion, June 1943Piccadilly Circus, 1945Family Butcher, Luton, 1944German Prisoners of WarBomb damage in London, 1944Bishop’s Stortford, Essex, June 1944