War is over but did we win?

Now I was about to go to Juniors School. This was from age 9 until 13 unless one passed the 11+ which I sat at age 10.
This was in 1946 when I went to Juniors School My father was discharged from the Army I think in 1946. I, of course didn't recognise him at all and to be honest I never did have any sort of relationship with him at all during his lifetime. We had no arguements and he loved us all. He was one of the finest of men finding enough to keep us all together during the harsh years after the war. It is that he had been in the jungle for so long, had lost contact with us children when we needed it most. It was just that. We moved house in early 1947 and went on the same estate but to a semi detatched house and it had ELECTRICITY and 3 bedrooms. I had a bedroom to myself. That was great. It also meant that I was further away from my cousin and we played together in the summer. In the winter he would look for a willow branch, a large one and he would whittle it away and make a cricket bat. It was my job to get some balls, the ones that you find at a fair on the coconut site. Wooden balls that were perfect for us 8 year olds. I tried to get about 12 if I could. It was also my job to make pads out of rush matting that was used in the bathroom. It was no good and my mother was to throw it away, it made great pads. It perhaps gives one an idea as to how we improvised because there were no bats or balls much at all in the days of war and just after too. My father was out of work as much as in work for the first few years after the war. This was in part due to the massive borrowings we had to make from the USA. They sold us I think Corvettes that were mothballed and ready to be disposed of, all at high prices. Could you blame them? No! The dissapointment was that they also insisted that they could have bases in all our dominions too. Remember the British went into the war with a Commonwealth and a healthy bank balance. When war was over, most of the commonwealth was either demanding independence or was not happy with the situation as it was. and we were then BANKRUPT. America went into the war rich and came out FILTHY rich. I think G. B was the only country to honour it's debts and I do believe that it was only about 10 years ago that we honoured our debt and finally cleared it. perhaps one can see why the question was did we win the war?
1947 was a dreadful winter too, we had little fuel such as coal and everything was still on ration, it was the start of my Juniors School. I caught Rheumatics. Had I caught Rheumatic Fever I would have had a weak heart and almost certainly not be here now. I had to stay in bed for about 3 weeks. I managed to recover though and sat my 11+ in I guess March 1947. Noboby expected me to pass anything at all. I certainly didn't as this episode will give you some idea. There were about 24 boys in our class and the teacher selected a boy every night to collect the pencils and sharpen them. there was no ink or writing pens either. Today it was my turn. I collected the pencils and took them to the teachers table. At the end was a had turned pencil sharpener. Well after about 10 minutes I had sort of sharpened about 2 not good at all. Anyway the teacher asked this boy to help me. This boy was really thick. However he sharpened the pencils in about 3 minutes sharp. He looked at me and just said "Thicko" I went red faced and wanted to crawl in a corner out of the way. I had been turning the sharpener the wrong way. To be honest I was, and still am hopeless at anything practical. Now I waited for my 11+ results.
More to follow.