When Daddy Came Home: How War Changed Family Life Forever

Compelling and moving real-life accounts of the impact of the return of the troops at the end of World War II
Summer 1945: Britain was in jubilant mood. At last, the war was over. Soon the men would be coming home from the battlefronts of Europe and the Far East. Then everything would be fine: life would get back to normal. Or would it? Six long years of war had profoundly changed family life. In the absence of their menfolk, the wives had run the home. In the absence of their fathers, the children had ruled the roost in what were effectively one-parent families. For years, Dad had been a khaki figure in a photograph on the wall, a crumpled letter from overseas, an occasional visitor on weekend leave. Now he was here to stay, a stranger in a group that had learned to live without him—and was not always prepared to have him back. Most homecomings were joyful, never-to-be-forgotten moments of humor and hope. Others were hard. Welcomes were marred by rejection. Relationships were ruined forever. Divorce and delinquency, the twin horrors of post-war society, were set to soar. And there was no one to help, no one to offer advice, no one to deal with the tears and the trauma.