Never had so much been owed by so many to so many

The fight against COVID-19 reminded me of Fighting Fit: The Wartime Battle for Britain's Health by Laura-Dawes a book that was shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year in 2017. An interesting read that tells how the British not only met the challenge of maintaining their health during the Second World War, but on many measures were in better health at war’s end and had also started the groundwork for the National Health Service. Here is a taste:

The fight for health on the home front had been waged by a vast and sometimes improbable army: Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, nurses and doctors, club women and tea ladies as well as Nobel Prize winners, housewives and nutritionists, air raid wardens and psychologists. Never had so much been owed by so many to so many.
— Laura Dawes, Fighting Fit: The Wartime Battle for Britain's Health

Acknowledgement: Part of the British fight for health included plans to keep the population well nourished despite threats to food imports and the need for war time rationing. The image above You're not starving Britain, Hitler gives an idea of this thinking. It was taken in 1939 and shows cases of Australian produce arriving at a British port. The image is out of copyright and comes from the Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria. See acknowledgement page for full details.

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