It's just that it's not that simple. The british isles are a strategic possession, so even if the UK tried to make a point of neutrality during the war, it seems difficult to believe that nobody would attempt to occupy it. Plus, assuming that that's true, and no one invaded the UK, any nuclear strike in western europe would have affected the British Isles.
Avoiding war is an incredibly simple endeavour: have a powerful military, and don't declare war. If two people are wailing on each other with sticks and there's a third guy with an even bigger stick watching them, the third fellow isn't going to be attacked, assuming that either of the first two have an IQ above 70. It would be suicide for either of the warring parties to decide, for no reason other than 'The British Isles are nice this time of year!', to waste their resources on assaulting a non-party to the conflict. This is an incredibly basic idea that should not be difficult for you to understand. As for a nuclear strike: if you had read the OP, you'd know that there weren't any.
Also, since it's not clear yet under what circumstances each country ended up after the war,how can we say that the pound sterling was the international reserve for currency?
1. The pound sterling is already an international reserve currency. It's the third most traded financial denomination after the Euro and the U.S. dollar.
2. Europe was ravaged by war and the United States was ravaged by war so badly that it divided into thirds (or is it fourths?). When countries (or evil empires, in the EU's case) are under extreme duress like that, no one wants to touch their currency with a ten foot pole. That would leave the pound sterling the most likely new international reserve purely by consequence. Factor in that when money leaves one place it has to go somewhere else, and that Britain was a most excellent place for this freed up capital to go, and it seems like it would be a fantastical oddity for the pound sterling to
not become the post-war world's reserve.
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