Daniel’s Reviews > The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-39 > Status Update

There was a fairly active form of censorship for American periodicals. Postal subscribers did not have their copies tampered with in the mails, but on several occasions, during the Abdication crisis and after, people who bought copies of Time and other American news magazines from the bookstalls found whole pages torn out.

And F.L. Allen's Only Yesterday, which presented the social life of the American Twenties in terms of fashion and current topics as well as of public events. Both books sold well in England, and had imitators. This documenting of life as it had really been served more than an official purpose; it was entertainment--a dramatic crystallization of the news that flowed in a haphazard stream through the newspapers.

A new Bill was brought forwared in 1936 [...] to prohibit the advertisement of cures for blindness, cancer, consumption, epilepsy, paralysis, and Bright's disease. At the second Commons reading, however, in March, the House was counted out--the reason being that it was the day of the Grand National Steeplechase, which most members had gone to watch. The patent medicine business continued.

[Serials on BBC radio, on Sunday evenings:]]
In certain cases these performances coincided with Evensong, and a clergyman complained to the Radio Times that not only was his congregation severely depleted, but that he himself regretfully missed every other instalment of the current serial through taking Evensong on alternate Sundays.

[Coronation of George 6:]
The American touch was provided by Neile Vanderbilte, the millionaire's son. He had secured a ticket for the Abbey, and during the ceremony was seen to be praying constantly into his waistcoat: where he was broadcasting a commentary through a pocket radio transmitter. This was picked up by his trailer, parked a few hundred yards away, and from there transmitted direct to the United States...

[On the fire that destroyed the Crystal Palace in 1936]:
The fire, the most spectacular one of the century, completely destroyed the main building and only the twin towers at either end were left standing. The current rumour was that the Palace had been deliberately fired, as offering a too prominent landmark to German bombers.

[of the Press]:
Royalty was not fair game because, by etiquette, forbidden to reply. The last recorded offence was by a famous sporting sheet in the Nineties which headed its news column one week with the gratuitous statement that 'there was nothing whatever between the Prince of Wales and Lily Langtry' and the next week with the absolutely unrelated remark: 'Not even a sheet.'

The only really successful colour films at this time were cartoons, and especially the Silly Symphonies of Walt Disney. Disney's black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoons had been popular with the public for some years. His Silly Symphonies proved even more popular.

A charming craze which swept all round the world at this time was 'yo-yo'. [...] The yo-yo was a wheel wrapped round with a piece of string. By a flick of the wrist the strong was made to unwind; the wheel ran down it, and then back again as the string rewound itself. [...] Serious grown-up people wandering down the street would absently produce yo-yos from their pockets and jiggle them up and down.

Horce racing was helped in its struggle against the competition of greyhound racing by the introduction of the 'Tote', or Totalisator, which encouraged small betting. By 1930, most of the chief courses had installed these machines; [...] partly because bookmakers had a bad reputation both for giving unfair odds and for welshing. Welshing had been facilitated by the speed and startability of the small car.