When choosing the next prime minister the voters could not have been faced with a more different pair than Churchill and Attlee.
The cigar and drink-loving wartime leader whose soaring rhetoric inspired the British defiance of the Nazis was being challenged by the bank manager-like Clement Attlee, once described by a Labour colleague as being a bit of a "mouse".
But Attlee, along with several other key Labour figures, among them Ernest Bevin, had benefited hugely from being given key cabinet appointments during the war.
They had proved their competence and had gained valuable experience of the levers of government.
As Bevin said, digging at the Toriesí over reliance on Churchillís prestige, the wartime coalition had not been "a one man government".
But with Churchill leading the charge against Labour the Conservatives were confident that the voters would "Vote National" and "let him finish the job".