Post-war austerity gave way to a new optimism and by the end of the decade, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would tell us we'd never had it so good

As the first UK productivity team to visit the US reported figures well above our own, The Director looked across the pond for inspiration. "We need a frank acceptance of the principle of extra reward for extra effort," said the magazine in October 1949, while noting that US industry generally focused less on quality: "[It] does not attempt to reach perfection."

At home another transatlantic phenomenon was discussed in three lengthy reports. The American management consultancy sector had an annual turnover of $65,000 in 1949, so The Director set out to discover whether its practitioners should be dismissed as charlatans or brought under a professional body.

Nationalisation ruffled feathers. IoD member Lord Lyle, of Tate and Lyle, found a unique way to get his message to customers by printing a warning against this meddling on every pack of sugar. A guest of honour at the IoD Annual Dinner in 1949, he suggested the institute should not accept members from nationalised industries before investigating their former activities. "We want no quislings in our midst," he said.

Early technology was emerging as, reporting from the Business Efficiency Exhibition at Olympia, the magazine noted: "British office machinery is clearly making fast progress." In another workplace experiment, Sir Graham Cunningham, the chairman of the Dollar Exports Board, introduced his own unusual practice by playing relaxing music before and after each board meeting. Popular tunes included "Pennies from Heaven" and "The More We Are Together".

The early 1950s were tough for entrepreneurs: "An upward trend in prices coupled with heavy taxation is making the going tough for pioneers," said The Director. In 1950, 13,726 new companies were created, compared with 14,288 the previous year and 23,815 in 1946. One in 10 new businesses was in the food industry while other trades attracting newcomers were engineering, building and clothing manufacture.

Yet post-war manufacturing was burdened with devaluation and a deterioration in the UK's terms of trade. Export levels became a priority: "The attainment of the highest export levels has been, since 1945, literally a matter of life and death." Britain was producing some of the latest white goods-refrigerators, cookers and washing machines—but British housewives had to put their names down on long waiting lists.

Metal was scarce. The magazine advertised the British Iron and Steel Federation's steel scrap drive and a July 1951 article brought the problem home: "Obsolete machinery, old bedsteads, used tin cans and neglected ploughs are food and drink to the iron and steel industry in normal times. In...the present they are more vital than ever."

There was a rise in the use of light metals such as aluminium, which was used for the huge Dome of Discovery—the outstanding architectural feature of the Festival of Britain of May 1951, which was rather more successful than the billion-pound Millennium Dome half a century later.

Other national stalwarts were in crisis: in February 1950, The Director charted the decline of the coal industry. In spite of giving miners the highest of industrial wages, and in spite of the "stimulus" of nationalisation, Britain suffered the embarrassment of having to import coal twice in less than four years. "Once again the old problem of whether to change to oil is reappearing on the boardroom agenda," said the magazine.

Likewise, shipping's 1948 output—nearly half the world's shipping originated in the UK—had declined in four years as Japan, Germany and other western European facilities forged ahead.

Health and productivity were already linked, with surveys showing a noticeable decline from pre-war levels of productivity and the magazine littered with ads for time- and labour-saving factory machinery. "The common cold costs the country 21 million working hours a year," said The Director in February 1954. Britain's productivity grew by 40 per cent over the years 1950-59, but in the same period that of Germany and Italy rose by 150 per cent and that of Japan by 400 per cent.

Unions in the building industry banned overtime at the height of post-war reconstruction. But for many managers and City professionals it was still a culture of long lunches and weekends that began at noon on Fridays. "The antipathy of the British for work must be seen to be believed," scoffed The Director's US correspondent.

In a litany familiar to today's business leader, the August 1950 edition reported on the famine of young technologists and feast of arts graduates: "Industry and the universities must work closer together if the needs of both are to be satisfied." An article the following year picked up another familiar concern, that of translating new scientific ideas into industrial know-how.

But some areas of industry and commerce had raised productivity—thanks to early telecoms developments. One taxi firm compared the effect of its new in-car radio-telephones to increasing its fleet by 40 per cent.

Refrigeration and frozen food were revolutionising diet by June 1950, with British production of frozen fruit and vegetables multiplying tenfold and bringing in £2m a year. But with buyers' budgets still limited, retailers had to get creative and the "science" of selling came into its own. "Sales staff must be scientifically trained. [...] Every staircase, wall and window must be designed for the function of selling."

With wonderment, The Director described the self-service experience of the early 1950s: "All goods are put on open counters and customers circulate with specially constructed pram-like baskets. They cannot leave the store except by passing the cash desks where they pay for the things in their baskets."

These US-inspired "pram-like baskets" would soon be filled with another US product—Coca-Cola. In 1953, reported The Director, the UK's manufacturers were lining up for the bottling and distribution rights—on which they could capitalise when sugar was de-rationed.

The 1950s also strengthened the UK's love affair with the aeroplane. BOAC—British Overseas Airways Corporation—advertised its flights from London to New York and Montreal. The De Havilland Comet was confidently expected to give Britain a three-to-five-year world lead in jet passenger aircraft. But a design glitch meant that it took another four years before the aircraft was ready for delivery: the market was lost to Boeing and other US manufacturers.

The more grand executives, though, opted for private planes: "A director of a big brewery who flies the company's aircraft 20,000 miles a year on business proves that it is time- and trouble- saving to get around the country by air."

The British car industry, promising at the start of the decade, began to feel the heat when, in July 1953, The Director announced the arrival of "the People's car"—the famous Volkswagen "Beetle".

An article in December the same year—"The war of the wheels"—assessed the UK industry's chances of survival and recommended broadening demand: "Bring on the battle for the small car market." By the production of the millionth Beetle in 1955, we were still four years away from another enduring icon, the Austin Mini.

The decade also kicked off the commercialisation of the beautiful game: "First-class football in England is now big business. What started in the days of our grandfathers as a more or less casual sport played by men wearing quaint-looking knicker-bockers and long side-whiskers has now developed into a highly organised commercial undertaking with an annual turnover of millions."

The 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II gave rise to new demand for TVs: in 1953 alone, 100,000 sets were sold—and with each came a new medium for advertising. The Director featured a two-part series looking at how commercial TV would break the BBC's monopoly.

Electrical mod-cons—"The office that goes everywhere"—were all the rage, with advertising pushing facsimiles, intercoms and the first photocopiers. But computer uptake was relatively slow. According to an April 1955 article, "The truth about the electronic brain", they could cost up to $20,000. And a December 1957 case study of Morgan Crucible revealed that its computer had taken four years to install and might take another four to reach full capacity. 

Much of 1958 belonged to the founding of the EEC—an event that prompted a focus on exports. The signing of the Rome Treaty paved the way for the Common Market of the six, which was formally established on January 1, 1958. The Director described the Free Trade Area as an "exciting prospect" for directors but also wondered whether the UK would be able to maintain a Commonwealth link while playing a part in the European market. As it happened the UK was having great difficulties in penetrating foreign markets and lagged behind other countries in terms of export figures.

Incomers, though, were another matter—tourism boomed and the UK's total income from tourism equalled that of steel and iron exports—a hint of things to come. But the magazine was concerned that visitors might fail to recognise the UK's modern attractions: "Emphasis on our tradition, our pomp and ceremony may give the impression that ours is a land of thatched cottages, crumbling castles and outmoded pageantry," it noted in 1958.

Despite the credit squeeze, a seven per cent bank rate and the Suez crisis, production was stable and unemployment low. Technological advances kept coming at a fast pace. As postal offices welcomed automation and speculation about the arrival of colour television spread, 1958 also saw the magazine's motoring correspondent Dudley Noble test drive one of the first air-conditioned Rolls Royce saloon cars. New designs rewarded by the Council of Industry Design included the innovative Grant's Scotch Whisky bottle.

Directors' health also became a familiar topic and the IoD set up its own Medical Research Unit. "In the new world of environmental medicine the executive is almost a forgotten man," said The Director in 1958. An October 1959 piece followed up shocking statistics on tranquiliser numbers dispensed in the UK—48 tons dispensed in 1955—enough for 20 doses per head of the population.

"Although our overall standards of living have never been so high," it said, "we have never been so dependent on outside aids. Our morale has to be boosted with tranquilisers and our excitement moderated with sedatives."
While the NHS today is burdened by obesity, alcohol- and smoking-related disorders, nearly half of hospital beds in 1959 were occupied by sufferers from nervous and mental diseases. Is this why we all got off our heads in the 1960s?