Britain and its allies had won the War, and the British empire had expanded still further, with the handing over of German East Africa and Mesopotomia (later Iraq), Palestine and part of Greater Syria from the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. It now owned 30 per cent of the world's surface and controlled 25 per cent of its population; so winning the war could be judged, from that perspective, as a success. But this expansion was rendered problematic, as it required yet more troops and administrators to rule at a time when the British economy was much weakened by the colossal cost of the war effort in lives and money.

Figures vary slightly concerning the carnage of the Great War, but, approximately, of 5,397,000 men mobilised, 703,000 were killed, and 1,663,000 wounded, giving a casualty rate of 44 per cent. Ten per cent of the British male population under 45 was dead.

In the early part of the war, officers led their men ‘over the top’ (of the trenches) at the Front, wearing a different uniform and carrying a pistol, not a rifle. This made it easy for the German soldiers to carry out their orders to take out the officers in order to increase the chaos and demoralisation among the men. The average length of time before becoming a casualty as an officer in the trenches was six weeks.

The war was followed by the 1918–1920 pandemic of Spanish Flu, which killed some 40 to 50 million worldwide, and around 250,000 in Britain.

By 1920, many, many yachtsmen, and potential yachtsmen, were dead or invalided. I can find no figures for yachting, but in the neighbouring field of rowing, a quarter of the membership of Bradford Amateur Rowing Club on the River Aire were killed on active service. The huge losses of men and their families’ grief made enjoying leisure seem disrespectful into the mid-1920s. There was little sailing in Swansea Bay, for example, till 1922, when its first post-war regatta was held.