
In the early 1950s, two million British households had no electricity or gas, which meant cooking in ranges or on open fires and lighting by candles or oil lamps. As late as 1961, 15 percent of the households in the industrial city of Birmingham didn’t have exclusive use of a toilet, and 32 percent didn’t have their own fixed baths; nearly 20 percent of Manchester’s households lacked a hot-water tap—the percentage of working-class households living in these conditions was naturally higher.
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