50s/60s Britain and Now

[Philou]

No no no ..... don't listen to him! That's ME in the photo!! I have a similar one but in black and white. I didn't develop any phobia fortunately.

 

@Joseph_Pestell Maybe you were a tall lad for your age!!!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Welchester]

On 07/05/2020 at 12:42, Oldddudders said:

Anent clicking balls - I'd worry if mine did that, at least very often. And St Enedoc's ref to y-fronts reminds me that during the Cold War, when nuclear attack was considered a possibility, y-fronts were touted as being a good antidote to fallout.

 

 

More recently than that Russians used Y-fronts to prevent Chernobyl fallout.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Bishop of Welchester
speling

[rockershovel]

Straying across from the “VE Day” thread, there wasn’t the constant harping on about “The War”, although it intruded into popular feeling at times. 

 

I remember my cousin coming back from National Service in Malaya, in 1960 or 1961. We all went down to Waterloo to meet his train; it must have been just about the last time my father’s family were all assembled. The tension amongst the Male family members, all WW2 veterans, was plain. Within a few years, anything achieved there had been dissipated amongst local factions. 

 

I also remember the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. My mother was inconsolable, taking to her bed for several days, crying “Oh God, it’s all starting again”; Czechoslovakia was just as much “a distant land, of which we know little” as it had been thirty years before, but she knew what she remembered. 

[62613]

On 08/05/2020 at 11:06, BernardTPM said:

Something like this?

Pretty sure I have something similar somewhere!

[Londoner]

On 04/05/2020 at 15:55, Reorte said:

 

I like the general trend of your post but some of those certainly aren't new. Worries about crime seem to be almost inversely proportional to how much there is, there was very little fuel use then that wasn't fossil fuel (although maybe the overall total was still lower as populations and general economic levels were lower). And people have always been depressingly consumerist, although as time's gone on they've had more and more opportunity to demonstrate it (often with no real gain). Wanting more stuff is a sensible evolutionary trait when you've evolved in conditions where getting enough is tough, so wanting more is hardwired in no matter how much we've got (is not as if having more than enough was a common enough occurrence for means to deal with it to evolve).

Worries about crime, I agree, is a given, but I don't remember anyone being really bothered about their personal safety. Levels of personal violence were small and usually not serious, (there's always been fights over arguments in pubs). What's new is drug fuelled extreme violence street crime and serious crime perpetrated by gangs. I live on the eastern edge of London and recently, a 17 year old girl was stabbed to death in a park by a drug dealer demonstrating how violent he could be. In the fifties, that crime would be national news and almost unbelievable. There wasn't much consumerism following WW2 for some time, & I can remember people complaining about 'utility' products.   

[Londoner]

On 06/05/2020 at 05:01, iL Dottore said:

I am pleasantly surprised at how this thread has taken off and I have greatly enjoyed everyone’s contributions.

 

Clearly, we have been looking back at the 50s and 60s and remembering it through childhood eyes; so it’s very interesting to look at old films from that period, films that are set in the real world (unlike, say, a western or a science fiction film) and compare what the film shows with what I remember from my childhood. Given that many of these films have been watched over and over again, it is easy to concentrate on the background rather than on the stars and story.

Some films that I would recommend for their detailed backgrounds include

> The Lady killers (the original Ealing Studios comedy - for 1950s postwar London)

> The Ipcress File (1960s London)

> Funeral in Berlin (1960s London and Berlin)

 

On a more exotic note, the early Bond films (pre-80s) such as From Russia with Love, Dr No, Goldfinger, Thunderball, etc., whilst fictional, nonetheless were/are excellent snapshots of “exotic“ destinations – such as the Jamaica,, Hong Kong, Tokyo - which served as background to the story. And in those days, on film, the transition between live location shots and studio shot material was not as seamless as today, so It’s very easy to pick out the authentic background details. As I have visited, as an adult, most of the destinations featured in the early Bond films, I find it interesting to compare what I observed and remember from my ”modern day” visits to the 60s/70s versions portrayed on film.

The 'Ladykillers' is a true comic classic and a brilliant watch for anyone. It's also the best movie I know for a realistic reflection of central London in the mid fifties. Every time I see it I'm reminded  of cycling after school from East Ham to Kings Cross to see Sir Nigel's beautiful engines and cycling up York Road to try to get into the shed. When I now, occasionally, come down from the Angel I'm amazed that this can be the place I used to visit so often, a different world, I still think in many ways, a much better time and place than today. I was looking at IMDB and saw a question about the strange steel structure in the centre of the roundabout O/S the station, where all the shack like buildings were, and wonder why I can't remember it or the roundabout. More peculiar, I can remember going into the station one Sunday morning and finding 'Kingfisher' from Haymarket standing there when she wasn't one of that year's non stop engines.

 

[pH]

On 15/05/2020 at 09:42, Londoner said:

Worries about crime, I agree, is a given, but I don't remember anyone being really bothered about their personal safety. Levels of personal violence were small and usually not serious, (there's always been fights over arguments in pubs).

I don’t want to over-state it, but there was cause to be ‘aware’ as a teen in central Scotland in the 1960s. There were youth gangs who defended their ‘territory’ against others (Fleet, Toi, Cumby, Tongs etc.) and the violence sometimes spread beyond that. I personally knew two guys who were put in hospital with serious injuries as a result of nothing more than fairly innocent words to the wrong persons. And I was on the edge of potentially violent incidents a few times, though fortunately they did not escalate. I’m not implying that we were afraid to leave the house, but there were areas and places you didn’t go, and warning signs you knew to look out for (much like anywhere else, I presume.)

[Philou]

How about furniture of the 50s and 60s? I always seem to remember that beds and things like table and chairs were always second-hand - am I right? I think I might have been affected subconsciously as when I set out on my own I decided I wouldn't have anything unless it was new. Still loathe any retro-style furniture that comes from that period and I won't 'make-do-and-mend', though having said that I look around more for second-hand locos and rolling stock.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[The Johnster]

I'm not sure that it was so much second hand as old and well made.  My parent's furniture was most my father's parent's furniture as he'd inherited the house; he and mum were already living there anyway.  Grandfather had bought the house new when it was built in 1899 (Father was adopted late in Grandfather's life and there is thus a missing generation), and furnished it in good quality stuff that might have been tasteful at the time, but it wasn't art nouveau.  The house decorations were very much so, though.  

 

Solid, peak of Empire, Edwardian values were what were reflected, a lot of dark mahogany and elm panels, with plaster of paris mouldings on the ceilings.  The lamps were pretty 'nouveau' but everything else was politely restrained; we're BRITISH, dammit Carruthers.  This was the style that seemed to represent British tastes and aspirations right up to the end of the 50s, and there were echoes of it on the Queen Mary and the internal furnishings of the Festival Hall.  It was supposed to be tasteful, but it was stultifyingly boring.  It was built to last, though, and did, for far longer than anybody thought it was stylish.  It was heavy, solid, and difficult to get rid of, and most of it stayed in the houses it was put in for 60 or 70 years until woodworm or dry rot got it.  

 

Our parents generation was about the last one that simply took over their parent's home when they were bequeathed it, and they mostly just carried on as before.  It was regarded as wasteful and profligate to redecorate before the old paint and wallpaper were on their last legs, and if you had a new carpet after 40 years people wondered why the previous one had worn out so quickly.  Stuff like beds, sideboards, dining tables, armchairs, wardrobes (oh, god, the bloody wardrobes) just, lasted.

 

About 1958 there was a change to middle class housing, though it was led by the post war boom in working class housing.  New estates of semis and detached houses, similar in general to those of the 20s or 30s, appeared with smaller rooms, which needed smaller furniture, big windows that needed brighter paint and wallpaper.  This heralded the world we know now, where people change houses as often as their shirts, and redecoration is, for many, a continuous process like painting the Forth Bridge.  Furniture is designed to last about 10 years if you're lucky, and costs less in real terms.  Kitchen equipment is replaced at about the same frequency, and if you don't like the home you've got, you go out with your credit card and give it a makeover.  The word makeover did not exist in my childhood, not in middle class Cardiff suburbs anyway. 

 

We expected to leave our parents homes and set up our own when we got married, and the handmedowns were disposed of as quickly as possible as a matter of pride; they were only 'to get you started, they'll do till you get proper stuff' anyway.  Now leaving your parents home takes place prior to marriage, and is an even more 'throwaway' concept.  It's almost gone full circle; you go back to live with (and off) your parents when the relationship fails and the furniture is repo'ed from the rented apartment.

 

Home life is one of the biggest differences between then and now, and the throwaway furniture and regular makeover redecoration is symptomatic of it.  Remember Barry Bucknall, telling you to rip out your fireplace or box it in with hardboard so you could have a modern. clean, electric fire?  He was a sign of the times, as much as the garden decking craze.  If your parents leave you a house, you don't live in it because you can't afford the council tax and running costs; you sell it and buy a smaller one of your own.

 

Just read that back; I sound just the same sort of miserable old git as my dad!  Result!!!

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 It was heavy, solid, and difficult to get rid of, and most of it stayed in the houses it was put in for 60 or 70 years until woodworm or dry rot got it.  

 

Or, it ended-up in our hallway.

 

The one piece of hand-me-down furniture that I have is cupboard, now used for shoes, but originally a small sideboard, I think. It began life with my great grandmother, who was apparently very proud of it, and had six thick bevel-edged glass panes in each door, until my father broke one door with a football in about 1935, so each door now has repair panels, leaving only the top third glazed. It has lasted very well, but is really in need of thorough refurbishment, which would probably cost twenty times its worth! I keep it mainly because the shallow drawer (cutlery?) in it was where spare carbon brushes for the Hornby Dublo lived when I was a boy, which only adds to its multi-generational sentimental value.

 

Back nearer topic: I can't recall a single newly bought piece of furniture in our house when I was a boy. Every single thing was either handed down, bought secondhand, or made by my father from secondhand material (he would be called an "up-cycler" these days).

[Reorte]

I ended up with a few pieces of second hand furnture when I left home but they've gradually gone over the years; most of them weren't anything special in the first place (nowhere near as old as the stuff we're talking about). I'm down to a beureau that I believe was my great aunt's, which I've no intention of getting rid of at any time, and a very ordinary chair that's still kept because it's handy. I admit though to wanting the makeover, it'll happen some day when I can overcome the intertia I think that'll have to start with trying to make the cellar vaguely inhabitable - railway room territory! I don't think next door uses her cellar but I must resist the temptation to tunnel through!

 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Or, it ended-up in our hallway.

 

The one piece of hand-me-down furniture that I have is cupboard, now used for shoes, but originally a small sideboard, I think. It began life with my great grandmother, who was apparently very proud of it, and had six thick bevel-edged glass panes in each door, until my father broke one door with a football in about 1935, so each door now has repair panels, leaving only the top third glazed. It has lasted very well, but is really in need of thorough refurbishment, which would probably cost twenty times its worth! I keep it mainly because the shallow drawer (cutlery?) in it was where spare carbon brushes for the Hornby Dublo lived when I was a boy, which only adds to its multi-generational sentimental value.

 

Back nearer topic: I can't recall a single newly bought piece of furniture in our house when I was a boy. Every single thing was either handed down, bought secondhand, or made by my father from secondhand material (he would be called an "up-cycler" these days).

I have a cutlery canteen which was a wedding present for my Mum and Dad in 1950, built by (Great) Uncle Will who was a cabinet maker. It still has the original cutlery in it, complete with ivory knife handles.

[Philou]

@St Enodoc  There you go, ivory handles and probably steel blades in the knives, that will go nowhere near hot water or a dishwasher as the ivory will deteriorate/split and the steel on the blades will rust and will need cleaning with a cork and Vim - how do I know?

 

Vim - does that still exist? I remember when I was 7 or 8 getting a right bollo .... sorry, telling off, as wanting to show myself useful I washed the dishes with Vim - there wasn't even 'Squezy' in those days - I mean - how was I to know Vim wasn't used for dishwashing?

 

There's a canteen of cutlery around here that seems to be made of similar. Never used now, as it is such a pain to clean and the housemaid we had, we had to let go because of her knee ................

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Gopher]

19 hours ago, Philou said:

How about furniture of the 50s and 60s? I always seem to remember that beds and things like table and chairs were always second-hand - am I right? I think I might have been affected subconsciously as when I set out on my own I decided I wouldn't have anything unless it was new. Still loathe any retro-style furniture that comes from that period and I won't 'make-do-and-mend', though having said that I look around more for second-hand locos and rolling stock.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

My childhood bedroom furniture was good old utility furniture.  I had it all the time I lived at my parents, and some of it inhabited our spare bedroom when we first got married. It was dark (veneered I think), and bit bland but well made and lasted years.    I think my parents got it new after the War.  

[rockershovel]

My mother had a Utility wardrobe and dressing table. It passed to my sister when she died in the 80s and I remember seeing it go on the moving van, when she sold the house and moved in the early 90s. For all I know she still has it.... we have a bureau we bought from the local paper when we first set up house in the early 80s, it’s a dark wood (mahogany?) and was ancient then, I’d guess that it was Edwardian although I’ve never been sufficiently interested to find out. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by rockershovel

[The Johnster]

17 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

complete with ivory knife handles.

Oo, yeah, ivory cutlery handles!

 

Oo, yeah, and Vim!

[Philou]

Maybe due to the rubbing of those steel knife blades with a great deal of effort and a cork comes the phrase 'with Vim and Vigour' ............. or something ................

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Now what else did we have much of in the 50s and 60s that we haven't much nowadays ................. rickets, polio, scarlet fever, scarlatina, measles, mumps, chickenpox, smallpox, tuberculosis, miner's lung ............ good starter for 10 there, I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited May 25, 2020 by Philou

[TheQ]

We have several pieces of SWMBOs mothers furniture , and her grandmothers singer sewing machine made 1904 it's  still in use.  I can't have my parents furniture.. They're still using it. 

Much of the inherited cupboards and chests of drawers are now in the model railway shed under the layout.. 

[Philou]

Now as there wasn't much TV in the 50s, let's see (or should that be hear) what's on the radio ......... choice of Home Service, Light Programme and the Third Programme. I didn't listen to the Third Programme when younger as it was all 'blah blah' and highbrow music and I only 'rediscovered' it much much later.

 

Sunday afternoons: 'Clitheroe Kid', Jimmy Edwards, naughty Mr Kenneth Horne, 'Navy Lark'. In the evening 'Sing Something Simple for You and Me' or in the late 60s my mostest favouritest programme 'ISIRTA' with its awful puns ('Euripedes, I'll ripadoes') and Professor Prune and the Electric Time Trousers etc .........

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Philou]

Ooh ooh and 'Wakey wakey' with Billy Cotton, The Goons and 'Much Binding in the Marsh' that I understand was based on Moreton-in-Marsh and its (now ex-) RAF airfield that is now the Fire Brigade's training HQ ............

[Fat Controller]

'The organist entertains'; I always thought the question-mark was missing.

Horne, I used think, was an innocent abroad beside Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams .

[pH]

1 hour ago, Philou said:

Now what else did we have much of in the 50s and 60s that we haven't much nowadays ................. rickets ...

Rickets has made an occasional comeback. My sister-in-law was a teacher in the old mining districts of Cornwall. Staff in some schools were amazed/appalled to see the odd case of rickets appearing in the early 2000s.

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Philou said:

probably steel blades in the knives

Sheffield's finest stainless actually.

 

G (crown) R

JOSEPH RODGERS & SONS

CUTLERS TO HIS MAJESTY

SHEFFIELD * + ENGLAND

 

STAINLESS

 

X - SS

 

Not sure whether that's George V or VI. Logically it should be the latter as I can't imagine that the cutlery was already fifteen years or more (and a World War) old when the canteen was made.

 

You're right, they never see the inside of a dishwasher. Hand-hot water and liquid detergent after they've been used, although that is not often.

[Nearholmer]

33 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The organist entertains'

 

Having assumed that it was quietly forgotten with the passing of Reginald Dixon, I was amazed, astounded, and so forth to discover that it didn't wheeze its last until 2018!! That is eighteen years into the twenty first century!!

 

True Public Service Broadcasting that, making a programme every single week for the benefit of just one very old person, which is who I assume the audience had consisted of since about ......... well, since it started in 1950 probably.

 

Who where they? I think we should be told.