They converted Wembley into an athletics stadium by putting 800 tonnes of cinders over the greyhound track. They housed athletes in RAF camps. Members of the British team bulked out their meagre diets with whale meat. And the only sort of drugs testing was to see whether the medal winners had overdosed on the Horlicks tablets handed out to those taking part.
Those who organised and paid for the make-do-and-mend 1948 Olympics might raise an eyebrow at the description of the event planned for London this summer as the austerity Games. To be sure, the economic backdrop looks superficially similar: an economy in trouble; a country up to its eyeballs in debt; a chancellor counting every penny. But there the similarity ends.
The Britain of 2012 is struggling to emerge from a long and deep recession that has pushed national debt to upwards of 60% of the economy's annual output. Activity is still 4% below the peak reached in early 2008 and it will take until 2017 for living standards to return to 2004 levels, the year before London won the right to host the Games.
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