Golden Jubilation

The newly refurbished and extended Getty Images Gallery has selected photographs from the Getty agency archives to showcase the carefree Fifties. The Empire might have been crumbling, with ill winds of change blowing from abroad but, in the young queen's country, we'd 'never had it so good', in the words of Harold Macmillan, and patriotism was at an all-time high as war-weary spirits soared.

With current lifestyle supplements full of retro-whimsy, one could mistake some of the styles on display for the latest in catwalk chic. But this is the real deal, from a time when Roger Bannister was crashing through the four-minute mile, the sound barrier was being broken, Sundays were shut and the streets that children played on were not taken up with double-parked cars.

Jubilation, from Fri 24 May, The Getty Images Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, SW3 (020-7376 4525)