The campaign actually started on 29 December 1967.
The British economy was suffering at the time from a rapidly increasing balance of payments deficit, exacerbated by the closure of the Suez Canal in the aftermath of the Six–Day War and an unofficial dock workers's strike that started at the end of September. On 18 November the Wilson government abandoned three years of attempting to maintain the exchange rate and devalued the pound sterling from USD 2.80 to 2.40.
On 13 December, The Times published a letter from John Boyd–Carpenter, Conservative MP for Kingston–upon–Thames, arguing that if a number of people in responsible positions were to work [say] one extra half day a month – for example on a Saturday morning – without pay, others would follow suit and this would "show the world that we were in earnest."
Fred Price, Marketing Director of Colt Ventilating and Heating, was inspired to issue a memo endorsing the MP's suggestion. Five female secretaries working at the company's Surbiton headquarters agreed amongst themselves that they would volunteer to begin working an extra half day a week as Price had suggested. One of them, Valerie White, replied to the Marketing Director's memo, and on 29 December, 240 employees at the Surbiton headquarters voted to start work at 8:30 a.m. each morning instead of 9:00 – thus working an extra 2.5 hours a week.
Other companies joined in the campaign immediately on seeing the ensuing headlines. The Colt secretaries came up with "I'm Backing Britain" as a slogan for their campaign, and Managing Director Alan O'Hea had 100,000 badges made showing the slogan emblazoned across a Union flag. The Duke of Edinburgh sent a message of support, and the leaders of all three major political parties endorsed the campaign.
Support was not, however, universal. The trade unions were broadly against the campaign (even though Colt's own shop stewards agreed to support it) and there were many satirical responses in the media. Although both Labour and Conservative parties were criticised for attempting to use the campaign for their own political purposes, the Leader of the House of Commons, Richard Crossman, described it as "something we should have nothing to do with".
By early February, the media began reporting that the campaign was actually achieving very little. Colt had found itself unable to administer it, and responsibility had been passed around a number of different organisations, but by this time little more was being done than the distribution of badges and promotional material. By May it was being run by just four people at the Industrial Society, and enthusiasm had pretty much evaporated.
In retrospect, the campaign was judged to have done very little to improve the fortunes of any businesses. It would come to be regarded as a classic example of a failed attempt to transform Britain's economic prospects.
© Haydn Thompson 2021