I'm not sure that the air in 1940s England was any less polluted than it is today. Remember that there was far greater and more widespread use of coal at the time (trains, ships, residential and commercial heating, factories) than there is today.
Wasn't it in the 1950s that people died in London due to heating-coal smog lasting days?
I'm not saying it wasn't less polluted than today, I'm just suggesting that we shouldn't assume that it was just because we're talking about 60 years ago.
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