Beeching cuts and the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester has increased significantly, and double track has now been reinstated on the Golden Valley Line. The Conservatives increased their Commons majority in the general election of 8 October 1959, their first with Harold Macmillan as prime minister, who famously said that most people "had never had it so good". Ernest Marples, previously the Postmaster General, was made Transport Minister two weeks later in a cabinet reshuffle; Marples was described by some as "cocky", "flash", "slick" and as a "construction tycoon", and Macmillan noted that the Northern working-class boy who had won a
I Who Have Never Known Men none of them know why they are being held prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults. One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world. The "New York Times" described it "Never" as "bleak but fascinating", and "about as heavyhearted as fiction can get". "Kirkus Reviews" compared it to "the Handmaid's Tale", and said that it is "thin", but "moving" and "powerful". I Who Have Never