After a war, a housing shortage. This is, of course, inevitable. There is no labour to spare for building when men are all fighting or making munitions, yet weddings are even more frequent than at other times and babies continue to be born. An increase in population is not met by any increase in dwellings. On the contrary, destruction is going on all the time. Throughout England in the last war bombers were razing homes to the ground or were making them uninhabitable. Repairs had practically ceased. Anyone looking for a house after the war found dry rot and woodworm rampant; found, too, that in empty houses broken windows had gone unrepaired, no painting had been done. Again and again, a young couple cheered by seeing a cheaply priced house were told by their surveyor that to make it habitable would cost more than the purchase price.

In 1946 we were looking for a flat in London: success was deemed almost impossible, but by great good luck—and a large premium—we got what we wanted in Kensington. All around us were empty houses, mostly damaged in the blitz, surrounded by delightful gardens run wild and with boards proclaiming that they were for sale. But soon we saw at night in houses with no gas, electricity or water, the faint light of candles moving from window to window: squatters had arrived from London’s East End, claiming for themselves the right to a home. ‘Communist influence’, intoned the daily papers in solemn notes; but it did seem possible that these families, like ourselves, had only wanted a place to live in. They had neither the luck nor the cash to get it in any other way.