The elegance and sophistication acquired by the British propaganda machine after some five years of war is suggested by Frances Thorpe and Nicholas Pronay:

Moreover,

Nevertheless, no matter how “innocent” of propagandist intent an instructional film appears, its music score often contains a message “unheard” by the average viewer. Caution is advised : such messages could be conveyed by the composer's unconscious mind-set, rather than from a conscious propagandist intent. Moreover, one must beware of “finding” something that is not there. Alwyn's thesis that music is non-representational, illustrating whatever the listener imagines it to illustrate, is a reminder and a warning.

Despite the caveats, however, listening to the “hidden message” of the music track is revealing. From the very start of the war Alwyn's contribution to propaganda films was enthusiastic and industrious, and covert propagandist content can be detected in many of the titles already considered here. Throughout 1944 and 1945 Alwyn was called upon to score some twenty official propaganda films, including contributions to Rotha's Worker and Warfront magazine series and the RAF newsreel The Gen.

Realist's A Start in Life (1944), directed by Brian Smith for the MoI and Board of Health, was originally for the Latin-American market, but its value at home was plain. As propaganda, documentaries about the care of children have much to offer – for who else's sake was the war being fought?