On returning to Liverpool in September 1945 I found life very dreary; it was a great anti-climax after the excitement of Water-beach and Bomber Command. Rationing had become worse; even bread was rationed. Nonie was pregnant again. We found a first-floor flat at 29 Ullet Road, near Sefton Park, and I bought a 1939 Morris 8 from Nonie's brother Brian for £120. There had been remarkably little inflation during the war because of the government's tight control of prices and wages. Nevertheless, great social changes had occurred. The poor people in Liverpool were better fed than they had been before the war because, as a result of food rationing, price control and work for all, everyone could afford the limited rations and, for children, there was a free issue of milk. We were able to afford a live-in maid at a salary of £1 per week and, since her father had retired from practice after the war, Nonie had a relatively easy life. Nevertheless, there was general gloom from the strict rationing of food and clothes.

I called to the medical school to see Professor Tom Davie, the professor of pathology, who had been appointed Director of Post-War Medical Establishments. Although it was not immediately apparent, Britain was moving rapidly towards a National Health Service and, in order to help re-establish discharged doctors from the services, additional registrar posts had been made available at the teaching hospitals at a salary of £600 a year, paid by the state. I was fortunate to be appointed medical registrar to Robert Coope with whom I had worked in 1942 at Broadgreen Hospital. He was a consultant physician at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary.

As more and more doctors were demobilised and given registrar posts, the number of registrars at the Royal Infirmary was two or three times what it had been before the war, and so the amount of work for each doctor was not great. Once again I went back to the study of medicine; my enthusiasm had been increased by the encouragement I had received from Cony while I was in the RAF. I also attended the dramatic ward rounds of Henry Cohen.