Mussolini made the trains run on time. The fact that we were so often reminded of this suggests that the Italian Fascist dictator didn't do much else.

Hitler, his German counterpart, planned a thousand- year Reich which fell short by about 990 years and left the world with nothing for which to bless him.

One of the very, very few good things to come out of the Second World War was an improvement in housing in britain. Since so much of it had been knocked down by Hitler's bombers, there was a pressing need for new homes throughout the land - and quick.

It was estimated that, at the end of the war, of the 20,000 couples who had married in Bradford during the previous five years, only 10,000 had a home of their own. And Bradford had got off lightly in the bombing.

London, Liverpool, Tyneside and the Midlands were in a far worse state in terms of numbers. In terms of quality, Britain's housing stock was rotten. Nowadays rats would turn up their noses at what many families called home before the war.

The answer was American and came in ready-made pieces, assembled on site. Building took days, not months and the end products were bungalows made of metal, or concrete sheeting. They were called Prefabricated Houses but this, being a real mouthful, became 'prefabs' in no time. Bradford's prefabs began to appear shortly after VE Day, but almost a year after the City Council asked the Government for some.

Putting up prefabs was pretty labour-intensive. The skilled work was done in the factory. Assembly needed no more than dexterity, some strength and a foreman who knew what he was about. There were plenty of strong labourers about, though the foreman's job wasn't always easy, because they didn't, by and large, speak English.

Working on the fine, logical, Sam Small principle of 'tha knocked it down, tha build it up', German prisoners-of-war found themselves digging trenches for drainpipes in Clayton, Buttershaw and other prefab sites.

The first homes were ready before Christmas 1945; and they were a revelation. For many of the first occupants, a fitted kitchen, a bathroom (sometimes even a separate lavatory), two bedrooms, a front room and a garden were as near as they would hope to get to Paradise in this life. They were detached, too.

The children had a new ditty:

Hey baba rebab,

Me mother's got a prefab.

She keeps it in her handbag.

Hey baba rebab.

They were much bigger than handbag-sized in reality and, for between 50p and 75p a week in rent, offered, for many, the first chance to raise a family in healthy surroundings.

In Bradford, typically, the novelty was short-lived. By 1958, remaining tenants were asking when their houses would be replaced.

There were complaints about condensation and damp and the word 'slum' slipped from the lips of Alderman Dick Ruth, the energetic chairman of the public works committee.

Quite simply the prefabs were getting old. Like many 'temporary' buildings they had stood too long.

Elsewhere in Britain prefab-dwellers fought to be allowed to stay in them. Bradford, consciously buffing its 'progressive' image, accelerated its programme of replacement.

But how many people today, living in a high-rise flat block, wouldn't rather have their feet on the ground - even in a prefab?

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.