Desc: Mortgaged to the Yanks: Directed by Donna Sharpe. With Tony Benn, Kenneth Clarke, Denis Healey, Christopher Meyer. Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003, tells the story of the US post-war loan to Britain, that was finally paid off in 2006. In 1945, Britain was practically bankrupt and the economist John Maynard Keynes hoped that America would give Britain a grant to recover from the war, so he was sent to Washington to try to convince the Yanks.