ABSTRACT
Around 1955–6 English society was suddenly hit by a wave of change and from then onwards driven on a new course that was to transform the atmosphere of the country within a few years. This happened without warning. 1954 had seen the end of post-war reconstruction: the nation had regained its equilibrium, thanks to full employment, the Welfare State and economic expansion. After the great shocks of 1917–20, 1931 and 1945, political consensus seemed restored with traditional Labour–Tory confrontation temporarily becalmed in ‘centrism’. The historic leaders, Churchill and Attlee, had just left the scene with their missions completed, and everything seemed to point to calm and stability. It was at this moment that the new lines of cleavage suddenly came to light, putting all the nation’s conventional values in question. The ingrained conformism of decades was riven by shocks both from without and within. While the young rebelled, literature and the arts were seized with a new creative spirit. In the midst of the calm the country suddenly burst out in all directions.
