Britain was one of the last countries to go decimal – and had Margaret Thatcher not abolished the Metrication Board, we might have abandoned miles and pints too. Ros Taylor finds out how Britons were persuaded of the merits of getting rid of shillings and farthings, and why the revolution went unfinished.

Mark Stocker is an art historian who works with the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa) and is the author of When Britain Went Decimal: The Coinage of 1971.

Warwick Cairns is the author of About The Size of It: The Common Sense Approach to Measuring Things.

Seth Thévoz voiced a Commons speech by the MP for Horsham, Peter Hordern, in 1970. He also read an extract from a Guardian article by Anthony Burgess, Damned Dots (1966) which is not available online.

Sir John Wrottesley's intervention in 1824 and the riposte can be read here.

The BBC's Decimal Day 1971, Nationwide, ITV's Granny Gets the Point, the Royal Mint history of decimalisation and a Thames TV report on metrication were useful sources. Max Bygraves' Decimalisation is on YouTube. Your Guide to Decimal Money, circulated to all households, can be read online. A 1975 Conservative memo discussing metrication is at the Margaret Thatcher Archive. I also drew on Andrew J Cook's PhD thesis, Britain's Other D-Day: The Politics of Decimalisation (University of Huddersfield, 2020).

The UK Metric Association and Metrication UK campaign to complete the metrication revolution.

"Ask a man whether women should wear slacks and the answer is almost certain to be a firm 'No.'" How did women get to wear the trousers? Ros Taylor talks to fashion expert Belinda Naylor and Purna Sen, who wore trousers to her sixth form in 1978 – and was thrown out.

Belinda Naylor is a producer with an MA in fashion curation. Her Instagram, where you can find some of her favourite women in trousers, is @fashion_chatter.

Purna Sen is the former head of human rights at the Commonwealth Secretariat and a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University.

The extract from the Manchester Guardian in 1952 is voiced by Seth Thévoz.

The clip from The Seven Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe is available on YouTube.

Man Alive: The Office Christmas Party (1970) is also on YouTube.

In 2002 the Guardian explained why schools could still choose whether to impose skirts. I also drew on Amy Gower's doctoral thesis, Schoolgirls, identity and agency in England: 1970-2004, University of Reading, 2021.

Lego has pictures of its early minifigures.

In 1948 Britain declared an Emergency in Malaya

It wasn't really an emergency. It was a guerrilla war.

And Britain would spend 12 years trying to drive communists out of its territory. What were we doing there?

Ros Taylor talks to Open University history professor Karl Hack and Economist bureau chief Dominic Ziegler about what the UK did in Malaya, and why Singapore cultivates positive memories of British occupation.

The Imperial War Museum's exhibition Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus is on until 26 March.

Karl Hack is Professor of Asian and Imperial History at the Open University. He is the author of The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and counterinsurgency at the end of empire (Cambridge University Press).

Dominic Ziegler is the Singapore bureau chief at The Economist. Faris Joraimi's writing is here.

Footage of Australian soldiers in Malaya comes from a public relations film at the Australian War Memorial YouTube channel.

Lee Kuan Yew's 1989 speech on immigration is on YouTube.

Seth Thévoz voiced James Griffiths, secretary for the colonies, Anthony Eden (both in 1951) and Ernest Popplewell, the MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1952. All three speeches are in Hansard.

Singapore's Heritage Trail tells the story of the second world war there. Freedom House publishes an annual report on Singapore. The British Army Review ran a special edition on the Malayan Emergency in 2018.