THE END!
"The Dome closes on triumphant note" taken from "The Times" of September 29, 1951
"Nations like families, have their milestones by which they measure the transit of the years. Looking back, they date this and that event of trivial but cherished memory by recalling that it happened at the same time as some famous occasion.
The Festival, which closes tomorrow*, is such a landmark in the social history of Britain. It will remain as a vivid recollection in the memory of young men and women and of children who may reasonably hope to be still alive at the turn of this twentieth century, and after that, it will be weighed in the balance by historians. The quiet closing of the South Bank exhibition, robbed, unhappily of the King's farewell speech, but marked by a thanksgiving service tomorrow afternoon, at which the Archbishop of Canterbury will give the address, is a moment for thoughtful appraisal. From stormy beginings, chequered by doubts as to the timeliness of its birth, the Festival was a characteristic family affair and none the less so because visitors from overseas were numerous and welcome.
Never has a nation expressed itself in less didactic terms than were to be found in the architecture and in the interior displays on the South Bank. Faith in Britain was expressed modestly. No artist in design spoke at the top of his voice. The tone was conversational. A new and welcome note of obtrusive good manners, alien in conventional essays in publicity, was maintained. Strident showmanship, flag-wagging and all manner of exhibitionism were absent from this exhibition.
As time passes and detailed pictures of the South Bank grow blurred, what will linger in the minds eye? For many it will be mainly a vision of coloured lights and of buildings seen against them, of Big Ben and his clock tower across the river, and on the far Surrey side shining between visitors and the drab purlieus of Waterloo Station. The Skylon with its absurd distinction.
The fate of the lessons taught so tactfully in the "Dome of Discovery", the "Lion and the Unicorn", "Power and Production", and other pavilions is less easy to foretell. Memory plays tricks, and the bus which for some reason was on display and which was so often mistaken for a means of getting home may well loom large, forty years on, and in some now childish minds.
When the King declared the Festival open, he described it as "symbol of Britain's abiding courage and vitality." That phrase expresses exactly the common background against which personal memories of all who visited the South Bank will be grouped. Those who planned the exhibition, and those who came and saw and approved of it, know that their generation is one which the clutch of circumstances grips harshly. They accept this as a challenge. It has not robbed them of courage or of pride in the national will or of that strength and blessing in hard times, a light heart.
These qualities were, without distortion, reflected in a Festival which from tomorrow belongs to the historians."
*It was all over : in London, it almost was - apart from the 1851 Centenary Exhibition (until 11 October) and the Festival Pleasure Gardens (until 3 November!), but in other parts of Britain, the Festival Ship "Campania" did not finish at Glasgow and the Land Travelling Exhibition did not finish at Nottingham until 6 October; technically at least the Festival of Britain did not finish until 27 October where it had first 'started' on 24 March in Stratford-upon-Avon with The Shakespeare Festival!
"The Times" journalist is of course referring to the closure of the South Bank Exhibition in London, not the Festival of Britain; there had been a bit more to the nationwide Festival of Britain than just the South Bank Exhibition! MDP
