Inside the Big Issue: VE Day is 80 – but the war on poverty remains

When the Second World War ended and the grim contents of Hitler’s bunker were picked over, one surprising thing was discovered. Among the papers was a copy of Social Insurance and Allied Services, better known to you and me as the Beveridge Report. 

William Beveridge’s 1942 report, decrying want and squalor among the five giant evils of British society, had been a smash hit in Britain, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and laying the foundations for the welfare state. Keen to get the message of reconstruction out, the government had the report translated and airdropped over Nazi-occupied Europe. 

If Britain could defeat Hitler, Beveridge argued, it could easily defeat poverty. This week, as we mark 80 years since VE Day, Europe may be free, but poverty remains resolutely with us.

What’s inside this week’s Big Issue?

100-year-old Dorothea Barron lied about her height to join the Wrens – the Women’s Royal Naval Service – during WWII. She reflects on a remarkable life

“VE Day was absolutely overwhelming. We felt as though the whole country had come together to save us from the Nazis. We had fought back and made sure they hadn’t put a foot in England, the bastards. It was a feeling of overwhelming relief. We’d spent every ha’penny fighting the Nazis,” Barron tells Adrian Lobb.

“As soon as the war finished, we were told to go back to the kitchen. It was so demoralising. We were totally ignored and disregarded, treated as non-people after the war.”

From kitchen stove to combat zone, resourceful chefs in Ukraine are keeping the population fed

War forces people to get creative to keep the population fed in times of shortages and rationing. Recipes from World War II used parsnips in place of bananas and bulked out puddings with potato.

Writer Felicity Spcter recently returned from Ukraine, where she met the resourceful chefs feeding those on the front lines with hard-won nourishment and undimmed hope.

Keep calm and open a canteen: How food activists are bringing back a wartime dining concept to unite people

During World War II, the public canteens set up by Winston Churchill became an integral part of British life. Now, in our modern age of social disconnection, it could be time to bring them back, argue Dr Marsha Smith and Professor Bryce Evans.

Mealtimes might seem like a mundane activity; something we do to fulfil our biological needs. Yet eating in groups is one of the most fundamentally human activities that we undertake. Sociologists and historians agree that the more everyday something seems, the more powerful it is. We need that activity so much that it becomes completely normalised. Eating meals together is like a social glue holding us together. 

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