Big celebrations are expected on Friday as the nation marks 75 years since the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the end of the War in Europe with a speech broadcast from Downing Street on 8th May 1945. He said at the time: “We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing, but let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead”.
This significant anniversary of VE Day has generated a lot of interest, in part because it comes at another time of crisis and upheaval for the world.
For an insight into how people on the home front felt during World War II, researchers can access a number of datasets held in the UK Data Service collection relating to this incredible period in history.
For datasets offering a sample of people’s opinions on domestic, foreign and military affairs during the Second World War, the UK Data Service has data from the 58 surviving BIPO (British Institute of Public Opinion) polls conducted between 1938 and 1946. Questions cover, among others, appeasement; whether to sue for peace with Germany, Italy and Japan; satisfaction with the government’s conduct of the war; attitudes to the dropping of the atomic bomb; and morale.
Social scientists may also be interested in two sets of qualitative data conducted by researchers at University of Durham’s Department of Sociology and Social Policy during the 1980s, which aimed to record the experience of local women who had worked on the home front during the Second World War.
One project: Women Workers in North-East Shipyards During the Second World War, 1939-1945 offers insight from interviews with 45 women about their experiences as workers in the shipbuilding and ship-repair yards of the North-East of England during the Second World War. The project explored the women’s experience of work within a very traditional male dominated occupational world. The primary aim was to secure an oral history record and to establish a resource for future researchers.
Another dataset, Women Workers in the Aycliffe Royal Ordnance Factory during World War Two, 1939-1945, consists of 68 semi-structured interviews, conducted during 1988-89, with women wartime workers from a wide range of occupations and grades within the munitions factory. The interviews were structured around a set of topics which included early life and family situation, relations with fellow workers (including male workers and supervisors), trade union activity and social life at the factory.
This study is available via the UK Data Service QualiBank, an online tool for browsing, searching and citing the content of selected qualitative data collections held at the UK Data Service.