Knees Up, Mother Brown (1964) | BFI National Archive
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- Опубликовано: 11 дек 2017
- 70 is definitely the new 20 in this heart-warming portrait of the Darby and Joan Club for elderly people in the Stepney Green area of east London. Sprightly septuagenarian Annie Wood heads to the club every Wednesday and Friday to meet her equally fun-loving friends, Lilly, Maud and Sarah - but not before downing a swift half in her local pub. All four women are surely worthy of 'national treasure' status.
The Darby and Joan Club was established to provide entertainment, social activities and support for Britain's elderly. The first club opened in Streatham, south London in 1942 and was staffed by the local Women's Voluntary Services (WVS). It was a successful and much-welcomed enterprise and many more clubs were opened across the UK.
This video is part of the Orphan Works collection. When the rights-holder for a film cannot be found, that film is classified as an Orphan Work. Find out more about Orphan Works: ec.europa.eu/internal_market/c.... This is in line with the EU Orphan Works Directive of 2012. The results of our search for the rights holder of this film can be found in the EU Orphan Works Database: euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en...
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I love that quote about keeping your troubles to yourself and not making other people miserable by complaining all the time. The polar opposite of most people's attitudes today.
The polar opposite, as you say. Today being a victim is a coveted thing. Shameful.
That quote stood out to me also.
...Meghan Markle comes to mind!
@@jorybennett5932 She has a personality disorder, that's the difference... neither is she old or struggling to make ends meet...
So true !
The really good old days... Wishing we could turn the bloody clock back on this messed up, upside down, back to front and dreadful life we all live now.
Yes ..get me a time Machine
Beautifully said, my dear beautifully, said, I couldn’t agree with you more
We do romanticize the past. My grandma, very conservative, used to say the only good thing about the good old days is that they're gone. She died a couple years ago. She lived a very hard life.
Are you watching a different video?
Me too
I love these old london ladies. They were born in the 1880s and 1890s and must have had a terribly hard life with two world wars and the great depression in between. Despite all these hardships they still managed to retain their cheerfulness and humour. It is sad to think that they are no longer with us.
They are much younger than that. They are in their seventies in the sixties. They just look older than we do today.
@@2SugarbearsCould be right there, football players from the sixties and fifties also look like they could be almost grandads whilst in their twenties.
Yet, the hardships of war and muscle work certainly made their marks (no washing machines yet, and someone had to bring up the coal for the stove, and even a push bike was a luxury. And medicine was in it's basics too.)
Well said. Today's lot cry over a broken fake nail nowadays.
No Cockneys left now sadly
@@2Sugarbears Mate, if you are in your seventies in the nineteen sixties then you were born in the eighteen nineties. How can you say that they are much younger?
Such a truly delightful film of a lost type of Londoner. What is so lovely is how cheerful and upbeat they all are, especially given the hard lives they had, undoubtedly, endured.
And they were so natural and confident
It’s all relative it amazes me how people now think there lives are hard.
They tell us it’s “white privilege “ now .. sad really .
Its called a mask
We should bring this back for the elderly and provide companionship and support. You can’t underestimate the strength of friendship
Would not be allowed we have to be solitary creatures now and wait for our universal basic income
They still have senior citizen clubs and day trips for them &lunch but i know what you mean peoples attitudes are different now
I was fascinated by the fact that the Darby and Joan Club enabled them all to earn extra money. Two hours work if they wanted it...per day...'clean work' so they were happy with that. Painting toys! This was such a great place for them.
All for the handy sum, then, of fifteen bob! A kid today, seeing seventy five pence laying on the pavement, probably couldn't be bothered to stoop and pick it up. A different world, long gone.
Yes, I was thinking what a good idea that was. I don't see why we couldn't do that now, I'm sure there must be places that would outsource work. Not only does it provide company and a little extra money, but provides a sense of purpose, people generally want to feel useful.
God bless these English people.
It is so good that they don't have to see what Britain has turned into.
I was born in 1933, so these are the old ladies of my era. Salt of the earth! The streets are just as I remember and played in.
Wow I'd say you have some amazing stories from your life.
This moves me to tears. The sweet innocence of these ladys back then in their advanced years enjoying very simple small things with much enthusiasm and joy. Each of their faces demonstrates what must their hard lives had endured but the children in their souls nevertheless shined through their laughter and smiles. They turned simple things into their happiness dispite living effectively what was national poverty. This quality of human endurance is not particularly visibile today.I wish they were still alive to help us value all we have now that we take for granted and which they could only dream about one day they might have had for themselves. I sincerely hope and pray they are happy now as ever they were. This is such valuable footage and should be treated as heritage film. Irreplacable memories preserved.
It really moved me to i agree with all you wrote
Exactly well said. They had food a nice cup of tea and the occasional treat. They were happy with living a simple life. Too shame we don’t have the same mindset today.
"the children in their souls..." Beautiful.
Yes it did bring a tear bless them,rest in peace ladies x
@2Sugarbears Agreed, and we all have one.
A good old knees up warms up the cockles of your heart ! Bless these wonderful people. I was brought up by lovely people from Stepney who really knew the meaning "life is what you make it" they were such a grateful warm hearted bunch of people who were handed a rotten hand in life but never moaned. Shame on Tower Hamlets Council who broke up and moved an entire generation on people for GREED!
Whoever filmed this just did a excellent job
Cinematography skills. No fancy filters, no effects. Just angles, lighting and TALENT
But what about the painting scene at 3:34? It didn't look like there was any paint on the brushes
And Kodak or Agfa film to develop afterwards
Not a plastic shopping bag in sight. Wonderful days!
no we have delicious micro plastics in our fruit and veg, cull'd you believe it !
Or any trees or greenery. A great time to be alive
These old girls got on with life despite poverty & adversity! They felt no sense of entitlement & just got on with life. It's etched in every line of their lovely faces....God bless 'em!
I was born in 1960 ...there were lovely ladies just like these everywhere..I loved Saturday shopping with my mom and nan...and delighted in listening to the banter and laughter of the ladies and gents who were working the market stalls...sadly those days will never return
God bless these lovely old ladies. X
That was brilliant. Back in the days when we still had proper community and neighbourliness. I would always be sent to the shops to ‘run errands’ and was always told to “look in or old Mrs xx and see if she needs anything on the way”......... days of decay , slums and STILL with bomb damage evident, but bloomin’ ‘ell didn’t we have fun!
How the world has changed and some say not for the better? I see this and long for those years where we looked after each other and spared a thought for others. wonderful uplifting video
I love seeing the old folk of this generation.They had a start in the very different Victorian/Edwardian and pre war world,so different from the 1960s,and were the ones to witness the biggest changes.I just knew people like these as a little boy in the 70s and 80s when they were very elderly.
I’m American, not British but Happiness is universal. This brought me so much joy!
It is a great shame that there is nothing like this for old people nowadays
I thought this was a Ronnie Barker sketch when I first looked at the still image caption for the video ... wonderful old film. Shockingly I realised this was the era of my childhood ! My granny never left the house without a hat replete with hat pin and a large shopping bag. Nobody over 60 had their own teeth back then and outside WCs were normal. My god how the world has radically altered in just 50 or so years.
After my grandpa was widowed he joined a local Darby and Joan club. One day we came home to find an elderly lady wandering about on the landing. Grandpa had brought her home with him. He died aged 80 a few years later whilst on a dirty weekend in Accrington. He was 80 years old bless him.
He was lucky, he had a warm house to live in and family around him. The (mostly) ladies in this film would be widows, probably war widows at that, and most likely lived in cold damp low quality housing.
I was in Stepney today. I was thinking take any of those old dears there today and theyd wonder what their fathers brothers and kids died fighting for
It's lost on people today.
They fought to stop their country being invaded by hostile foreigners .
O , hang on ...
@@rogerlegends166 : Are you being serious? If you knew anything of the history of Stepney you'd know that it has always been the home of immigrants.
They're still about, they just live out further east now. My old man was born Stepney, I grew up in East Ham, and now my kids have grown up in Essex about 25 miles away from where their grandad was born. So it ain't like it's all lost.
@@freebornjohn6876 Dear oh dear, another deluded lefty in denial about the ethnic cleansing of Cockneys from London.
Wonderful, you just don't see these type of old ladies now ...
Cockneys born in the 1880s and 90s. Fascinating.
Although there was a lot of poverty, what shone through was the warmth and sense of community that sadly appears long gone. This was apparent in all corners of the UK.
Proper old school nice to watch...hope they all rest in peace ✌ 🙏
Wonderful film...miss these old ladies from my childhood in the 60s ...people seem lonelier nowadays
Those ladies reminded me of my great grandmother ( Belle Reilly) . She was such a sweet old dear,so kind to me and my 3 brothers. She would have been 73 when this film was made so approx the same age as many of the old dears in the film.
sadly all those wonderful women are gone now proper people.
a wonderful, moving film. survivors of two world wars. may they live on in eternal memory.
People say oh the good old days were great, but I look at these women and they are really elderly at 70, today 70 is not that old and women look really different, much younger, I'm 71 and I wear modern clothes, makeup and have many interests, I think these poor women had very hard lives, they had been through a war, brought up families under very hard cicumstances, and worked their fingers to the bone to survive, I wouldn't go back to those days, we see them through rose tinted glasses, I agree that today's world is messed up, and dangerous to live in, and the cost of living is through the roof, but there is a lot to be thankful for also, I don't think of myself as old, just a girl who has lived a little, bless them all where ever they are.
Fun fact. My grandmother always used the phrase "Knees Up Mother Brown" as a euphemism for a yearly gynecology exam. I didn't understand back then that it was a song of the time, but now I can't see that song title without thinking of that...
All the ladies remind me of my Nanna. I was shocked at how old they all looked though. I'm nearly 74 and really don't look anywhere near as old....but then I realised, I'm fortunate not to have lived through two World Wars as these sweethearts did.
Climbing up all those stairs with buckets of coal. Handwashing clothes and drying them on lines outside etc. Tough when you are getting on.
Vain spiteful comment to make Dee.
Just plain unnecessary.
@@kellyedey8573 no it wasn’t.just a truthful observation!
A glimpse of a long gone and, in my opinion, much better world than the one that we live in today.
Yeah, this was intriguing to watch. Couldn't stop watching until it was over!!
Agreed
Yeah, much better. Scarlet Fever and Measles sorted the wheat from the chaff early on
@@duncefunce1513 At least we had vaccines that worked.
@@anthonygee2441 heh heh. I can't fault you there
I love this video. My granddad used to perform for the old folk, he was old himself bless him.
Just lovely. The women in the 1900s style dresses at the dance…wow
Heartwarming times, hard but people just got on with it and made do! Better times!!
Interesting and astonishing that our Queen was reigning then.
These women wern't afraid of hard work and getting their hands dirty,They had nothing in their purses but had alot to offer
Very nicely put mate
This is a fascinating snapshot of our elderly citizens who were the backbone of the UK back in the day. Thank you fir uploading.
Makes me remember my childhood..those old ladies of the 60s-70s were pure gold...they all got so used to having almost nothing that when they did get a tiny something it was like winning the lottery for them..we can learn an awful lot from these wonderful old girls..if we only realised it..oh and by the way for any young people 15 shillings is 75p....for five days work painting toy heads..bless em..
Filmed the year I was born, the white working class, long gone, most of these women were born during Victoria's reign, all gone now, my god what would they think of Stepney if they could have been transported in a time machine to modern East London from this time.
It ain't gone, cockneys just live out further east now. I'm not saying the mentality is the same, society has changed and probably for the worse, but the descendants of these people live 25 miles away out in Essex and Kent now and they ain't going anywhere.
The ladies in this video would have been adults during world war one, and would have also have been through the blitz of world war two, fully experiencing the death and misery of both world wars. The great depression of the 1930's probably made no difference to their lives, as from go to woe, they would have led a life of struggle and hardship on a daily basis. However, because they never knew any different, and no one ever told them, they just got on with things day to day without hardly a murmur and lived truly good lives. I knew many like this when I was a boy in the 50s and early 60s, they would share what they had with you and were never afraid to let you know if you did anything that they considered to be wrong. The salt of the earth. They were the generation who gave birth to the soldiers of the two world wars, brought them up and watched then go and die and/or come back maimed in mind and body. However, today, they are a truly forgotten generation, a generation who we owe so much to - so sad.
after fighting in ww2 they have EARNED their senior citizens club
These would have been WW1 vets if they were over 70 in the 60s they were born around 1890 and were already in their 50s by ww2 - but ww1 was maybe more brutal even than ww2 so they were a tough generation indeed!
These ladies would have been middle aged during the 2nd war, if they did war service it was in things like the WRVS on the home front. Many were spinsters or been widows from their 20s because their boyfriends and husbands were killed in the first war.
Bless 'em all!
@@Bongwater33 Yes look at how few men there were.
they're having a ball on the merry go round!
It is fab to be reminded of the uks social past. How sad the community feel today is no more.
Enjoy it watching. People were more contented. In those days.
These ladies remind me of my grandmother, she was a hard-working coal miner's wife from the North East of England. When my grandfather died she joined the over-sixties and the WRVS. She was tea total but that didn't stop her from enjoying herself. She took part in all the activities and loved entertaining and dressing up. She was a beautiful lady who I remember with deep love.
My granda worked "doon the pit" as well and my grandma worked in the bus canteen. They had the time of their life when they retired, moved out of a rented crumbling terraced house into a council bungalow and joined the over 60s club. They were so busy, my Mam joked we had to make an appointment to see them!
@@janespond922 They were honest hard-working people in those days. My grandmother did all her cooking on an open range. She baked her bread in the oven attached to the range There was no hot water on tap in those days, the water came from a set pot in a cupboard attached to the range. She had four tin baths to fill for my grandfather and his sons when they came home from the pit, then she would wash their clothes, clean their boots and put their dinner on the table. It must have been a tough life for the women in those days. When I stayed at my grandparent's house when I was a child I had to go to bed with a candle, as there were no lights upstairs and gas lamps downstairs. The toilet was an earth closet across the street from the house so we had to use chamber pots that were under the bed. When my grandmother eventually got electricity she wouldn't use it and continued to use candles.
I swear that was Les Dawson on the piano at 5:44! Lovely.... took me right back to what might look like the 'bad old days' but which were very good indeed! Bless them all. We won't see their like again.
Beautiful. What we’ve lost cannot be underestimated.
Being born in 64 in Coventry I just have memories of the last bomb sites being rebuilt that we still see here in London on this film.
God bless them all. I wonder what they'd make of the state of this country now in 2021
Maureen from Barnsley gave us a good clue.
I think we all know what would be though of the tra8tors that have very successfully ruined a wonderful culture and communities rich in its OWN CULTURE! NEVER FORGET THEIR FACES!
The opening music was also used for the 1960s BBC Radio adaptation of "Doctor in the House", starring Richard Briers.
What a lovely little film. I can remember both my Nans looking just like the ladies shown. My one Nan had very long hair and used to wear it in two plaits wrapped around her head!
Good night ladies, good night sweet ladies, good night good night.
T.S. Eliott Edward. Nor often remembered these days.
You definitely stood up when they came in the sitting room in the 60s 70s !
Have a cry in bed alone, I do this.good advice.
Youth culture was a big thing by then and this is when the generations failed to understand each other anymore and the thought of getting older despite having gained wisdom and experience horrified people.
To think all these old people are now no more but this videos helps their memories live on forever, thank you
wonderful old film, Much respect to the lady's and gents of days gone by
Wow this must be the white privilege I keep hearing about
Great lessons in this video. Biggest lessons for me: Stay active and enjoy and life.
Great film god rest all their Souls
Heart breaking.
What a great film
A beautiful film. Loneliness has always been inflicted on the elderly like a punishment. Even today they're still the butt of casual ageist comments everywhere by people who would scream self righteously at any hint of the same directed at other " minorities" . Most of these women were born in the 1890s. What stories they could have told if only they'd been asked.
Yes it is the only acceptable ism. I jump on people who talk about feral youth and some such nasty comments but older people are fair game. Apparently we are all tories and spent all the money that people should have today.
My grandfather left a tape talking about his life. He was asked to make it by someone from a local radio that was collecting accents before they all died out.
Marvellous little slice of life that film ,giving a good insight into the post war elder generation. I'm struck by how similar the women are to the old ladles I grew up knowing in the 60s and 70s in my hometown 500 miles from London in rural Perthshire. Only difference is the accent.
Look at the lack of litter on the streets! I think it's because junk food wasn't at all the norm.
It was because junk "people" wasn't all the norm.
I'm 68 and my elderly relatives in the 1950s and 60s used to have what we're called Darby and Joan clubs that they visited regularly. It was company, a cup of tea, bingo maybe?
People certainly look a lot younger today which is not surprising when you see the childhood some of these elderly people had to endure. Spitalfields Nippers was an eye opener
True , I am 70 and I know that I am not like the 70 year old's that were around when I was a child in the 50's . We obviously had it so much easier in that decade . They new how to be proper O A P 's , like the original old people in Coranation St . Perhaps it is a style that i should cultivate ?
these kind of interviews should inform government policy to a greater or lesser extent
20 years after the war and bombed out buildings remain. We often forget how much damage occurred and how long it took to clean up.
As a younger man, I managed to visit every pub in South Central Manchester City. There were quite a few pubs like the one where the old lady was enjoying her pint. Since then, such pubs have either been knocked down or turned into plastic palaces for young yobs.
There is so much they have taken away from us. Who was it who started turning all the pubs into these cold looking wine bar type places that seem to close down after a few years? I met all the people I knew locally in my local pub but now I hardly know anyone in the local area. The only people who still seem to have old style pubs that act as a social centre are those in the countryside towns. They did it on purpose so people would not stick together like they used to!!!!!!!!
Yes....I remember the tail end of proper pub culture in Camden and Hackney back in the early 90s when there were still a very few left. They went along with gentrification didn't they? The old people went...then their kids went...then it was all incomers with cash.
@@slydoll7877 cash and no soul
@@mindblast3901 Yes...I suppose I should be happy that at least I experienced a bit of those times. Pubs where everyone knew one another and we even sang round the piano.
I first moved into my area about 12 years ago. There were about 5 pubs within walking distance. Now there are none. One is a restaurant and the rest have been knocked down for housing.
It does make me wonder honestly! I bet the same proportion of these people lived to a good age even though, God forbid it now, they went out socialising in pubs and clubs, drinking and smoking and all the things we are being frightened into stopping now, can't be having a social life when you are at the bequest of work.
Brilliant x
A wonderful little glimpse into the recent past.
what a great snapshot of Londoners a year after I was born. they lived through two world wars, very likely lost friends and family in both.
These Grannies would laugh in the face of CoNvid 19
Yes all having a great time! They all look like real old characters, I'd love to have heard their life stories. They didn't have an easy time somehow I think but their spirit saw them through two wars and a depression.
Ah bless them all!
Salt of the earth....❤❤
Wonderful
I love the scarves!
What brilliant wee film. These women remind me of my nan who loved her Guinness!
My grandfather went into hospital for the first time in the 1970s in his 80s and went on hunger strike because they wouldn't let him drink Guinness.
A consultant came to see him and said 'what's the problem' and when the nurses told him, he said 'well let him have it', so he won.
@@joananthony6323 Excellent! Guinness was thought to be a tonic. My mum was told to drink it (and Mackeson) after giving birth to my brother because it contained 'iron' which was thought to be good for anaemia.
Thank you so much for posting this. I could write forever about these ladies and their surroundings. Suffice to say when I walk in Stepney, Poplar, Mile End, Bromley By Bow, Mile End, Plaistow etc despite the areas having little or in some cases almost no evidence of these fine peoples' era, I can still sense their presence all around me.
I miss that generation!
I really would have loved to be about in these times,, the people look so nice,
X WONDERFUL TIMES. X
A beautiful snapshot of sixties Britain.
They don't make em like that anymore.
Sadly..............
They were essentially more INNOCENTS than we are ,this was their main source of HAPPINESS ,,,,🎉🎉🎉
Lovely. Made me nostalgic for a time and place gone. Long gone. Grommet sighting @ 3:40 possibly.
I don't think the BBC would allow this to be shown today. Where are all the ethnic minorities?
Depends where you go
Whites are ethnic minorities in Bradford Rotherham Oldham Rochdale and parts of London
In their own countries.
@@christopherbywater8005 actually lot of the ethnic minorities were in England when this was filmed cos large population of south Asians and Caribbean’s came during the 50s and 60s
Wah wah I live in a country with cultural diversity and it upsets my little racist brain wah
For all those who want to go back. Look how old those people look. They were only in their 70s. That says it all...
God bless them all wonderfull ladys xxx
Wonderful film.
Lovely little film of days not that long gone by .folk didn't want for much to be happy.
8.50 Now that’s what you call a real true cockney accent . Reminds me of my great grandma she sounded exactly the same
What GREAT BRITAIN'S they all are, just like the family that we have lost🥺🎬💯😇
People left alone, that will get out get together and be of good cheer🇬🇧🆘😱☠️🗣️
I smiled the whole time 😂
I miss the wisdom of our passed👍🙏👁️💥👁️🤔🧐
BFI, great historical art😍🇬🇧
THANKS London loves it 😍🇬🇧🙏💯