The post-war world seemed to have little time or space for Jennings' films. By the end of the turbulent forties, the mood of Britain was changing profoundly, and his cinematic songs of unity and identity were falling on ears tuned to the different strains of a fading British Empire. The second to last film he was ever to make, The Dim Little island, is a celebration of English 'foibles', art, ingenuity, and of course, music.

Jennings believed that it took a national cata­clysm to awaken British genius, and indeed it was the war that quickened his and that of many of his contemporaries. Peacetime left them seek­ing a comparable challenge.