The chapter examines how ideas of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother were conveyed to women through the writings of childcare experts. It considers the work of principal authorities on child development who were popular from the 1940s to 1990s including Frederick Truby King, John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, Benjamin Spock, Penelope Leach and Gina Ford. Literature on childcare abounded throughout the second half of the twentieth century and ideas of how mothers should behave were hotly contested. Definitions of what made a ‘good’ mother were constantly in flux, though, so women had to adjust to these changing requirements. Through an analysis of the oral history interviews, this chapter explores the relationship between mothers and the experts. It shows how mothers could struggle to reconcile the demands that these experts were making upon them.

Displaced Chagos islanders are not only embroiled in political mobilisation and protest: they also participate in cultural expression in exile. This chapter illustrates how representations of a homeland in song lyrics and oral narratives have been transformed through experiences of displacement and relocation, and asks to what extent such transformed representations help or hinder political and legal struggles in exile. Focusing on the relationship between displacement and musical production, it reveals the changing structure and thematic content of Chagossian song lyrics by comparing the lyrics of songs composed by Chagos islanders while living on the colonial Chagos Archipelago with those composed by displaced Chagos islanders living in exile. The latter songs form part of an emergent collective historical imagination motivated by the political and legal struggles for compensation and the right to return to Chagos.

This chapter introduces the debates surrounding the history of motherhood and how this book adds to our understanding of the subject. It explains why the period after 1945 is of particular importance and interest due to changing conceptions of the role of women that were occurring at this time. It demonstrates how women in the post-war decades were making their choices in respect to motherhood in a new context, with post-war welfare reforms, the introduction of the NHS, falling maternal and infant mortality rates, and rising numbers of married women in the workforce. Further changes then occurred in the latter decades of the century, such as rising rates of cohabitation and divorce. The chapter also discusses the book’s use of oral history as a methodology and Oxfordshire as a case study.

Women in post-war England lived through a reconceptualisation of women’s work. Attitudes towards working mothers were often contradictory though. The chapter therefore uncovers the deep ambivalence which has characterised women’s attitudes towards their participation in the labour force throughout the second half of the century. It investigates how the interviewees combined paid labour and motherhood in the course of their lives and how society perceived them. It also addresses how important class and levels of education were in determining women’s attitudes towards, and experiences of, work. Both paid work and motherhood were conceived of as ways in which autonomy could be gained for women in the post-war world. Furthermore, influenced by the discourses of contemporary feminism which were influential from the 1970s, women came to speak of their desire to gain independence through work, whether this was inside or outside the home.

Childbirth is an essential aspect of motherhood. This chapter therefore continues the examination of women’s relationship with medical professionals by looking into maternity provision and the changing relationship between mothers and the health services between the 1940s and 1990s within the spheres of antenatal care, childbirth and postnatal care. The second half of the twentieth century saw a transformation of maternity care in England with the introduction of the NHS in 1948 offering a free and universal maternity service for the first time. However the period has also been characterised as one of increasing medical intervention with medical professionals seeking to control women’s reproductive capacity. This chapter questions this picture through focusing on women’s own attitudes towards the care they received and how actively they felt they could determine it.

Throughout their decades in exile, Chagossian groups have focused on their campaigns for compensation and the right to return to Chagos, while other interest groups have worked against the resettlement of the Chagos Archipelago. According to the terms of the 1966 Exchange of Notes, the UK Government made Diego Garcia available for US defence purposes for an initial period of fifty years, renewable for a further twenty years. Given the military significance of the US base on Diego Garcia, it seems likely that both governments will seek to renew the lease in 2016. Meanwhile, the UK Government has allocated considerable resources towards preventing Chagossians from returning to Chagos, directly through immigration legislation relating to the British Indian Ocean Territory, and indirectly through the creation of a Marine Protected Area in Chagos.

Through an assessment of the role of kinship, neighbourhood and class in women’s experiences, and making use of the interviews specially conducted for the book, this chapter examines national debates about the place of mother in the family and wider community in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. It considers the concepts of motherhood and family which were in vogue in the post-war decades as revealed in contemporary texts, such as social surveys and community studies, and government reports. The chapter examines the rise and fall of the nuclear family; the changing relative importance of family and friends; how women formed their social networks; and to whom they turned for advice and support. The roles of locality, ethnicity and religion in influencing attitudes and experience are also considered.