Morning In The Streets 1958
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2016
- Original tx: BBC tv, 25/3/1959
Repeat tx: BBC4, 21/8/2008
One of Denis Mitchell's best remembered documentaries, made for the BBC in 1958 and transmitted in early 1959, it depicts working-class life in the back-to-backs of an unnamed northern city. Much of the shooting took place in Liverpool, but areas of Manchester, Salford and Stockport also make an appearance.
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whoever has recovered this film gave the world a gift!
You might like the novel, Jordy, Bounce, and Lilli. ...The story of a couple of little kids and their cat, growing up together in the post-war 1950s. I loved it.
I saw this on tv in the early sixties.
Why, to show how bad things were just 74 years ago. I find these type of films depressing beyonf belief. It just goes to show what people would put up with when they are un educated and ignorant. What pitiful lives they had and lead.
@@Neil-Aspinallthey seemed happier to me.
No woke pc bs.
The very ideas they have now if possited then would likely have had you sanctioned to the laughing acadeny, straight jacket and all. Which they should now. I'm a man and identify as a.... Man.. When l was a kid l wanted to be a fireman one week, a soldier the next, Superman the week after, never once did l want to be a girl.. Still dont they age badly and quicker😂
I was born in Salford in 1952. The memories of playing in the dirty streets and alleys are some of my most precious memories. Going to Buile Hill Park on those long summer days and spending hours playing footy, eating sugar butties and drinking a Jusoda. Collecting and stealing stuff for the Guy Fawkes bonfire. Coming in drenched from the rain and drying off next to the coal fire. Going out on a cold winters night to use the toilet in the back yard. Bubble and Squeak on Sunday morning. Christmas as it was back then was something special. Getting our goose from Cross Lane Market, tangerines and nuts on the sideboard and Mum's Christmas cake that lasted for weeks unrefrigerated, we didn't have a fridge either or a phone. Train spotting below the Weaste Bridge for hours. Sunday night bath whether I needed it or not. The Rag and Bone man with his horse drawn carriage. Vince's Ice Cream where you could have any flavor as long as it was vanilla with a Cadbury flake in it making it a 99'er. Wall's Pork pies. Getting caned at school for being a terror on the playground. Now I'm an old man living in California and I'm worth quite a bit of money, but I'll always be a lad from grimey Salford. Tears flood just remembering it.
That was vivid! Any ice cream flavour, as long as it was vanilla. What memories.....
Sunday bath night whether you needed it or not 😂😂
@dada Loved your comment and description of growing up. I’m 3years older than you, I was born at the end of September 1949. Yes, age has caught up and my Husband passed away in 2020. But never sat “old” - never say die! God Bless You. 🧡 This film brought back lots of happy memories for me too, although I grew up in Birmingham. Still live here!
What wonderful memories. Thank you for sharing that with us.
As I mentioned earlier. I was born in the south. My dad's army friend lived in london on the isle of dogs with his wife and daughters.We used to visit them.Dad would hire a car and we would drive to london to stay ,or they'd come out to the country to stay with us. A lot of buildings in london were still in the state the blitz left them ! Not much rebuilding happening. But we were just kids not noticing such stuff. We got a bus to greenwich, walked the tunnel under the river and came up next to the cutty sark and the maritime museum. When they came to us the girls wanted to see cows as their milk only arrived in their doorstep in bottles ! I used to listen to the ships honking in nearby docks, the smells and noises of london life. When they came to us they couldn't sleep as it was too quiet ! Us kids sleeping top to toe 6 in a bed ! Great days !
We had nothing in those days, but we had dignity, strength, compassion, happiness, and love, for our fellow human kind.
We had nothing! Look at that street scape,
Otherworldly!
Born 46...a big hug to all who have commented. Wonderful to share our memories.
Same as my mother - she grew up in Wraysbury. Left for NZ 1985.
We left UK for Oz in 58 I was 2/3yo my parents were teenagers during the war, they never talked about what it was like, even tho I asked lots of times, that's how it was😢
Thank you, born in 1959 and still feel more rooted in this time.
I was 6 at the time but never noticed how badly run down some places were, but I'd go back to that time in an instant if I could, all my family were alive then and I miss them.
I feel the same
@@user-qw6pb4ub8p ..it's a skam trev.
Yes Trev .. you REALLY DO need to be doing a bit of catching up I'm afraid !
@@darz_k.
It appears he is also confusing this channel with a dating site !
People are noticing that he is making all his ( NUMEROUS) posts👇
to females !
Getting rather creepy now !
AND has only JUST started his channel !
I agree Carole. we didn't have much but we were happy. Education was good, the country was recovering from the war, and as children we learned useful skills for life instead of being indoctrinated by the woke brigade who have brought about (in Scotland) a major mental health crisis in young people. I pray more simple days (dare I say Biblical) will return.
I was 12 in 1958. In a poor area of Manchester just like this. I loved every second of it. I feel so sorry for kids now. Having everything and being miserable.
So so true.
Born in such a street. We were incredibly happy as a family. Hard working and honest. Independent and made the most of our lives.
...doff your cap on the way out.
Happy??????? really??????? what would you do for enjoyment, entertainment, excitement, fun????? how boring.
Happy only in ignorance. This is as bad as Dickens times.
Happy in heart and soul and didn’t need technology because mobile phones or internet hadn’t been invented. People were kind in thought and deed. Playing games in the street, climbing trees Kids today do not know that kind of happiness or innocence. It’s a shame- they will never know that kind of freedom. They are glued to phones losing the art of conversation but I don’t blame them - they were born in a more technological time. 😢
I love reading the comments. I had a Merseyside childhood. My Mum was one of ten kids living in a two up two down and boy did she try and better herself. We had the 1930's semi but still lived hand to mouth. Dad worked at Cammell Laird shipyards. He was a lovely kind man. I never lacked love but had nothing. But oh those days of freedom. We didn't realise then of course. Bless all the parents who worked and got us all to adulthood. What a generation they were. And thank you everyone for sharing your memories ❤
My father grew up in Birkenhead
His parents home, overlooked Cammell Laird shipyards
When he joined the Navy in 1939, the ship sailed out of there
@@carolynellis387 Do you know where Carolyn? It sounds as if he possibly lived in Green Lane but I would be interested if you know the actual street.
@acechadwick
In my young childhood, dad drove us down to somewhere, and it was really back street slums as many places were in the 60s.
It had the alley ways between houses to take out the rubbish
Old tin dustbins! But people only had tins and ashes back then before major plastics overtook simple stuff.
When I was 10 his parents had moved to Hinderton Road.
I loved getting the bus down to catch the ferry over to Liverpool or we'd get the bus to Chester me and my 2 Nanas.
Dad played football Tranmere Rovers for a few seasons
He had trials for Everton but couldn't go further as war had broken out so he joined up. He spent a lot of time up in Scapa flow on Artic convoys..
@carolynellis2149 I know Hinderton Rd well! There's a high side (built into a quarry)and a low side. Probably looks exactly the same today as when your Dad lived there 😊
@acechadwick I did course in Liverpool in 2000, drove through the Tunnel into Birkenhead and got lost!
It was November and dark, tried to look for Hamilton Square but failed
I used to go to the Saturday markets there with the 2 Nanas
The farmers from Chester area used to come as I remember the red earth covering the potatoes!
I played in Arrowe Park and was born in the then Clatterbridge Hospital which is now Arrowe Park I believe?
But I loved Liverpool and its fabulous shops and great warmth of people who all had cracking humour then and now
Nice to see streets not cluttered up by cars.
Nor rubbish everywhere and the children so well turned out, despite no washing machines.
Noone could afford a car . Or enough to buy petrol for one .
@@doughoward6401I know, it’s crazy these people. I love my modern day medicine and hygiene standards. Central heating. Travelling the world cheaply. Mental these people want to back to these days just to avoid some immigrants 😂
So nice to see the children playing in the streets, socialising & getting exercise. I remember those days, you would mix with lots of different aged children, boys & girls. All you see now is kids walking along mostly alone staring like a zombie at their phone. Times may have been harder financially for a lot of families, including mine but we seemed much happier mentally & had what I call a real childhood & family life. All being well I’ll be 60 in a few months & I know where I’d rather be if I could choose. There was a sense of camaraderie & togetherness back then & neighbours were friends, even brought each other’s washing in when it rained. Hard, yes but wonderful too in many ways.
So very true, the social skills lost in the space of two generations is quite alarming.
I was eight in 1958, I remember being given a book to read at school extolling the virtues of working down the coal mine. I was brought up in Blackburn, a northern mill town. We all took the eleven plus, only about a quarter ever passed it, it was pretty much game over for most that didn't, I didn't but ended up getting a degree the hard way - and employing most of those that passed their eleven plus. Its easy to forget the rigid structures of society back then. They were hard to overcome, you had to have a lot of determination.
No distractions with electronic devices like the kids today
Idealizing those hard times is pure ignorance.
Don`t forget how many children died in those days, how much alcoholism destroyed whole families, how many fights people died in, and how many fatal illnesses tortured babies, children, and their mothers because of the conditions they lived in. It`s one thing to have little and another thing to live in a cold city without work, having no money for decent housing, coal, and food.
The fact is that the Royal family and the upper classes were living luxuriously while the working classes were living in horrible and disgraceful conditions. It has always been that way and will probably always stay that way. The middle class had very little compared to our times but they had everything they needed without the clutter.
Every generation has its flaws and its burdens. But the hard-working laborers are always the ones to suffer, no matter in what period they live in. And that is unnecessary and wrong.
Yes, agree looking back it was a harder life than now - in some respects - but we didn’t feel it was hard, it was just normality for us. I was 6 in 1958 and never worried about anything, never heard my parents discussing money and I know now that we didn’t have a lot but we never felt poor.
I was a nineteen year old engineering apprentice when this film was made. We were one community, we had no idea how our country would be ruined.
My parents both grew up in this generation. I have nothing but respect for them all. Straight out of a world war and straight into another. They brought me up to be incredibly resilient and I’m grateful for it
I agree. This is a very moving film - people doing their best to support their families while the odds were stacked against them - very basic, and in many cases, unsanitary housing - widespread poverty (or just above the poverty line). Working really hard just to hold family life together - there were few things which lightened the load for them. My grandparents and great-grandparents were lovely people, but, by Jove, they worked incredibly hard, through two world wars. Much of what occupies some people's minds these days they would find unbelievably frivolous. I have the utmost respect for the generation who faced all this.
If you're resilient that's great. It's obviously due to your upbringing and good parenting. So many younger ones are always offended at the slightest and I honestly think that's such a disadvantage for them apart from it being a miserable way to live. Well done you!
@@mariawildman1299 I’ve got a BA in History and I did my dissertation on women in the military on the British Home Front. Interviewed some absolutely amazing and inspiring women from the WAAF and WRNS. I have nothing but respect and love for them. It’s devastating that they’re slowly leaving us 😔.
@@laratheplanespotter Ah bless you. You're right of course. They don't call them the greatest generation for nothing. My mum was Interned by the Nazis in Northern Italy for 3 years in WW2. A very brave lady. And well done also on your fabulous qualifications 🌷🩷
If your parents grew up in this time they didn't come straight out of a world war and into another.
I was born in 1951 and I can well relate to the chlidren's games I'm so lucky to have had a 50s childhood,we had fun and didn't need electronic gadgets,just imagination.
Me too. I had a brilliant childhood despite living in two rooms with no hot water or heating other than a paraffin fire until I was fourteen. I wouldn’t swap my childhood with the children of today. We played out until dark in all weathers and socialised with family and friends. Todays youth spend all their time on their phones in their bedrooms and have lost the art of verbal communication. They have everything but look so miserable.
Yes Janice I couldn't agree with you more. Hardly a car on the roads, no parking rages or stupid wokeness you could walk into the Doctors surgery without an appointment and talk to people face to face,lots of lovely shops to visit and post twice a day! Life is just an overcrowded bunfight now and I'm glad I'm reaching the end of the line.@@janicebarthram6759
so very true.
I'm sure children of now think they're lucky to be born now because they have fun with electronic gadgets and don't have to use their imagination
Not this again.
No one FORCES electronic gadgets on you
No one is STOPPING any of you from socialising
No one is FORCING you to own a mobile phone
These are YOUR choices
Yesterday was no different than today, so stop complaining.
I was born in 64 but watching this I find I feel more of a connection with seeing this documentary to my time as a kid in the 60s n 70s than I do to todays England , which I really struggle to understand it all seems so like another country now .
@tc030564
The whole collective West has gone mad, and how can a sort of normal person feel connected to anything, while all this madness is going on. Most people feel disconnected, misunderstood, helpless, disoriented, some even lonely, unhappy, hopeless, and as if they landed in a foreign world. That`s what those halfwits in the Western governments have achieved in the last 40 years.
And the people are doing nothing, while those in power are getting richer by the day and are doing everything to bring the curtain down.
God help us all!
Snap , I am a 1964 baby & agree with you...think it's time to leave the UK, not the same country anymore ! Rhodesia sounds good !
It is another country now & sadly will never go back to what it was then. I was 12 when you were born so i was going into secondary school. Now that was scary & you had to always be on the lookout in the playground as the older guys would always bully you. If you got through a day without at least one dead-leg you were lucky. But i do miss them. & seeing that little boy on the step playing with his soldiers, i did that every day,, they were my favourite toys. Boys were always fighting back then but they were fair fights, one on one & you made friends after. & seeing their clothes, yes sir that was us. Little ragamuffins, thats what we were.
Sally button.... yes yes yes!
I was born in 61 I grew up in the 60s and 70s the biggest threat to our way of life was punk rock, a never mind the bloody bollock's Tshirt it's all so laughable, now we have black gangs terrorists migrants taking over towns and cities that were once so very English, destroying our country, we built not migrants very sad.
I was born 2 years after this and as children we never felt afraid outside either with our friends or alone. Materially we might have more but we've lost community.
With a strong loving community you can weather all storms. Unfortunately we exist in a messed up realm that puts money and competition before the earth and all that inhabit it- plant, water, animal and human😢.
The kids I know don't feel afraid now either. Much better times now than when I was younger
Although the streets are messy, you can see a total difference in britain, how times change. So many happy children mixing and playing. A total different time
I was born in 1959 and had no idea how poor we were until years later. My parents protected us from it as much as they could. There were eight of us in a four bed Council House in the Midlands, overcrowded, underfunded. I remember clearly my Mum saving coupons for Plastic Daffodils from a Soap Powder box, looking back I weep for her. They had such a hard time of it. We benefited far less from the Marshall Plan than Europe simply because despite being Bankrupt we still had to pay back the 'Lease Lend' programme to America for providing us with Weapons and Food during WWII. I believe we finally paid that debt off in this century. We were in no position to Modernise our Industry the way Germany did so successfully. Ironic that we were Victorious but in many ways came out of it all worse off. The Working Classes as usual were always worse off, educated to be 'Factory Fodder' in lousy Secondary Modern schools that were not designed to lift people out of poverty but keep them exactly where they were and had always been. My own Education came as a Mature Student and despite being successful in that and a subsequent Professional Career, I have never really caught up with my more Middle Class contemporaries - many of whom inherited property and money from their parents. Those who become massively financially successful from Working Class backgrounds so often ignore all of the factors that keep the Working Poor in their place, lack of Education, lack of inherited Wealth via property, money or family businesses, lack of Networks that their children can benefit from, the list goes on and on. I can't see this ever changing unless the obscene Wealth of those few private individuals who now seem to own the majority of the Worlds Wealth is actually addressed. Getting them to pay the tax that they actually owe would be a good start. Having an open and honest discussion of the real reasons behind Class Stratification in the UK would be another starting point but Education would have to be significantly better to allow those conversations to take place. Those of us from Working Class backgrounds were not educated in the way the world really works, how could we be when our own parents never knew themselves? .
👏🏿👏🏻👏🏽👏🏼 You have hit the nail on the head. Thought I was alone. The poor blamed for being poor. Believe it or not, we are even worse off now. Parts of the NHS and education privatised, most people are completely unaware that this is the case. When I do express these views, I’m met with contempt. The younger generation 🤦♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏾♀️🤦🏿♀️
Born in 1952 ,I identify and agree with all of this ...
In a few generations (and I mean seven year cycles ) WWI and WW2 will be ,if not forgotten ,viewed through Hollywood's eye
And you can't learn from history if you never knew it ☹️
@@jacquiellison3440 worse off now absolutely load of crap, how can you even think that.
@@weareright2857 Clearly you have NO idea of what is REALLY happening. There is no point in remotely bothering with you.
unfortunately the people in the government are those very rich people who avoid tax, even the king has his money in offshore banks. the entire system is corrupt.
Have you noticed how smoothly and confidently they spoke back then. I don't mean posh English, but simply pacing themselves and not filling every gap between words with 'like'. Nowadays we're so unsure and awkward when we speak, regardless of accent.
You are spot on. I remember visiting relatives in the Wirrel and Liverpool in the fifties. A long six hour plus trip from the south. The regional accents stick in my mind and at the end of the visit I would have picked up the scouse tone. Later at school I remember being ticked off for not speaking plain english! It worked both ways too, when my cousins visited. Shopkeepers loved to hear them speak, especially the girl on sweets in Woolies. She had a brad country accent. Simpler times with less of everything except proper family and real community life.
How aptly put. I have been trying to speak better the last couple of years and never realised that this was why I couldn’t.
I think TV has had a lot to do with that?!
It will have been edited, the other thing is if you’re not self conscious because you don’t have a TV then it will come much easier. Scripted 😂 some of those accents are very smoothed off
I am often corrected or draw curious comments about my speech pattern or pronunciation of words or phrases I use. Sometimes it draws a laugh or two. Born in the USA but raised by first generation English Irish grandparents. A relative, who was an English teacher in Missouri, told my grandmother that she was astonished to hear my siblings and I speak such correct English. That her students were poorly spoken.
Even today, my pronunciation and phrases bring about quizzical looks and surprised laughter. My 30 year old granddaughter asks me, "Why do you say it that way?" I ask her, "Why would I change the way I speak?"
I say, "Would you like one of these?"....Not "these ones".
Automobile vs car
Television vs TV
Bicycle vs bike
Granddad vs Grandpa
May I vs Can I
How is it that you...? vs How do you...?
Quite important vs Very important
Not quite done vs almost done
Had I not...vs If I didn't...
If I had had ... vs I didn't have
And so many more
We were ACTUALLY happy. We had parents who adored us and a community who all stuck together.
I think this film mirrored all working class life across the uk. I was a 50’s baby, and to be honest, we didn’t know we were poor because everyone lived the same hand to mouth existence, we all naturally assumed that everyone, everywhere lived the same way. We played all those street games, we ate what was put in front of us, and we did as we were told. Domestic violence, unemployment and hardship were part of everyday life. Looking back, I think becoming adults made us much more appreciative of making the best of life, and trying to do better so that our own children had a better life. I hear this echoed down the generations… exactly the same stories handed down from my own mother, stories of hardship from times past. I think the children of the 50’s were the last generation to live this kind of street freedom… to go out all day and only come home when we were hungry, and t pop in and out of neighbours houses like extended family members, and not having to live through a world war. Those were the days when crack was something you saw in a mirror, and smack, was something you got on the back of your legs. Happy days?, yes mostly I think, but for me that sense of belonging has never been equalled.
How can you list the horrors of that age and then claim they were "happy days" with a "sense of belonging"?
I'd go back in time just to see my grandmother, uncle and my best friend Michelle. Everybody was friendly, great community feeling ,sharing .(harmonica playing fantastic)
@@Gary-Seven-and-Isis-in-1968 To us they were not horrors….just life for me and millions of other of my generation. You look back and view it with the eyes of someone who wasn’t there. Normal life for us. Horrors to you.
@@juliehubbard9752 Who says I wasn't there. How dare you presume to know me. Go and Troll elsewhere. If you don't like comments, don't make them.
@@Gary-Seven-and-Isis-in-1968 As a third person, it seems like you're the one stoking an argument.
All those ignorant folk today who say that the so-called 'baby-boomer' generation 'never had it so good' should be made to watch this film. Perhaps then they would see that we grew up in a postwar world of deprivation and hardship which in the following years we changed for the better but which the present generation is taking back to the dark ages.
And all that white privilege on display.
So true, I was born end of 1951 in Clydebank Scotland.They were still suffering with after effects of the war.👍🏴
Right but you also contributed to that as well no ?
@@Devghost no what?
@@lyndaoneill7813 that those born during the baby boom didn’t contribute to how society is today . The Op makes out like he stopped living after the war. Now these people are eating up taxes and filling up hospitals.
Not realising your era drove war and let it happen all for a flag. Your era is no different to the rest.
Point being , everyone likes to pass the buck , No one likes to take responsibility.
I was born in 1960.
In this old footage not only were kids outside and playing/physically active but not an overweight kid amongst them. The first bike I had was aged 10 and used to cycle for miles. I was lucky, born in the countryside with family owning gardens and grew fresh veg, we had a few chickens so fresh eggs and meat. Our water came from a gravity fed spring and we were lucky to have an indoor loo. One open fireplace and a three bar electric heater, ice on inside of windows in winter, lots of blankets (no quilts/duvets) on our beds and my dog sneaked in and kept me warm much to my mothers dismay = dirty paw prints on sheets!! So the Z- generation should learn some historical facts from us baby boomers, we had power cuts in the 70’s that lasted for hours sometimes days, we were self sufficient and upcycled, reused, mended, sewed and knitted our clothes, often unravelled old jumpers and used the wool to knit other garments. 🛑 blaming us for your quite frankly unfit overweight bodies and your indulgent power sucking phones, iPad greedy me me me behaviours⁉ Oh and I was 15 (1975) before we owned a phone and a black and white t.v 😂
An overweight kid then would be called slender today!
Yes I noticed there were no over weight children and very few over weight adults.
I was born in 61 , totally agree with you ,
@@colleeninprayer1498 Starvation will do that to you. These good times are rolling around again. I hope youenjoy them.
@@gordonbennett5638 that’s sad isn’t it? But they knew how to cook and it wasn’t a throw away society like it is in todays society.
I was born in 1950 and this film brought back so many memories. Not a mobile phone in sight, no game box, not a television in any of the houses, just making do with whatever you find. The boys on the soapbox made from old pram. Wheels, a couple of wooden planks and a few bent nails that were straightened with a broken brick or stone.
This film should be COMPULSORY VIEWING for this age!
Shows you how millions of people in the UK did not benefit from the wealth of the empire.
All this white privilege nonsense where is it exactly?
@@jemmajames6719 not in the poor working class neighbourhoods. You'll find it in the posh la di da areas.
Look where we are now in 2022
@@susanhowarth6670 2022 yea it's still 💩😄
In ‘58 the “empire” was as broke as the Uk is in ‘22, paying off the war debt to the USA then, now paying for the charitable donations for workers to stay at home during the pandemic. Divide the whole of the wealth of the nation equally to all of it’s citizens and within 6 months we’ll be back to square one, the poor will be poor and the wealthy taking advantage of the poor again.
I was born in Edinburgh in 1934 and feel so lucky to have lived through a time of so many changes. We lived in a tenement pre-electricity. And only had a gas mantle above the fireplace for a light. We went out to play in the morning and only went home when we were hungry, for a jeely piece ( bread and jam). We had good meals in spite of war rationing. My Mother was very thrifty. My Dad was unemployed for years. I have very happy childhood memories despite living in poverty.
I was born in 1958. Lived in about 4 different houses over the years before getting married. No central heating in those days, it was either coal fire or gas fires. Ice on the windows inside that was so bad you couldn't even see out in the winter. Walking to school in all weathers. No inside toilet/bathroom at a couple of the houses - we had to go to the bottom of the back yard for that. I used to play out on the street corner with friends. Was allowed to go to friends houses to play but my parents had to know who's house I was at and I had be be home by a certain time. We never had a telephone although an aunty of mine did have one and I can still remember her number to this day as it was the only one I memorized. I remember going on the odd caravan holiday and watching my dad change the gas mantle light. My grandma didn't own a fridge until my parents gave her one, thy used to store stuff in the pantry (the space under the stairs). They used a top load washer that had to filled by hand they had stored in a shed in the small back yard and used the old mangle to squeeze the water out of the clothes, then hung them up on the wooden clothesmaid using the pully system above the fireplace. I remember having milk at school every day and school dinners. For a time I went to my grandma's house for dinner instead of having school dinners and Wednesday was always may favorite as it was homemade mince meat pie, roast potatoes, veg and gravy sat at a small metal table that was attached to the wall that could be dropped down when not in use. She would make jelly that would take about a day to set and had one of those old retro kitchenettes with the glass doors, pull down workspace and drawers cupboards at the bottom. That and the old belffast sink and an oven consisted of her kitchen in the back room with the coal fire and a large sideboard.
Summed up my life totally with your reply
Wow, just like in Call the Midwife. I was wondering if it really was like that in the 60’s. Now I now it was.
I can remember the ice inside our bedroom window, scratching chelsea in it and squinting through the clear bit.
Asking mum and dad if we could put the one bar heater on, not tonight they would reply not cold enough boy. Same answer every night.
Getting washed in the kitchen sink using the next door neighbours tin bath , outside toilet slippery steps in winter to reach it.
But I’m glad I was brought up like that. Football coins in gas and electric meters when it run out, just the right size. Memories.
Makes my blood boil when these elitists keep saying the phrase white privilege.
You just described the lot of every working class subject in the UK. I was born in 1952 in Wishaw Lanarkshire Scotland. Conditions were equally as harsh for us with the extra burden most of us in the north have to live with . The bloody weather.
@@wolf828pack6 good point ! Its about time the world realized that living in a country like the UK does not include tea with the queen "now King " at Balmoral. Or tipsy weekends at Ascot. Or strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. Or pleasant walks through Oxford, Cambridge, Eaton. Or a day out watching the famous boat race. Or an afternoon playing polo with half the Conservative party backbench. Or imbibing in one of those vile fox hunt excercises with the Tory front row bench.
Here is my great grandmother referring to my great grandfather after the first world war. My Grandfather is Stephen born on Boxing Day. Salford, Liverpool, anywhere in Britain resonates to 2023. Beautiful to see my great grandmother here.
That is incredible!
I was born in 1957. At school we had a girls' playground and a boys' playground just like this. Wonderful footage of the girls playing the singing and dancing games - we did all that. Children were very independent compared with today - we lived in a separate world from adults. I remember feeling sorry for "grown-ups" with all their cares. Only years later I realised how much our parents went through in the war and afterwards, and what they did for us.
1956 here & yes we had separate boys & girls playgrounds at our north London school too. There was no Berlin wall between the two playgrounds so teachers would police the "no mans land" between the two to ensure no fraternisation took place. Paper planes acted as message transfers back & forth between interested parties. As kids we had far more freedom back then. On non-school days I would go out at 9am & not come back until tea time. Parents didn't worry because in the main there was not much to worry about back then. The local bobbies were very visible & kept an eye out. Times were tough but we knew no different. I'm not so sure the kids of today are any better off.
@@colingoode3702 I feel sorry for kids today as they can't play outside all day and roam for miles like we did. It's partly because there are so many more cars now and they're a lot faster, but also the absence of bobbies on the beat etc. I think we had the best time as kids in spite of being poor!
@@dianastevenson131 Hello Diana, how are you doing today, hope you’re fine and safe from the Virus??
@@colingoode3702 I was part of that schooling. I remember being caned or slippered for silly things like forgetting the PE kit I never had,( Iwe had to share what kit there was between the 3 boys in the family) or touching snow in the playground!
We used to skip with two long ropes.
when you hear old people saying there was no good ol' times, it's better now, and see how they live... Makes you think.. Yet they still had a social life, the streets were alive and safe. We've improved our material comfort, but lost so much on the human community..
Yep you've hit the nail on the head there! I was born 1965 & this existence is preferable to my life in 2022, sad but true, just got to invent a time machine to go there....
Materialism has made us all community poor & isolated, I don't call that progression!!
More privacy back then, now we have a big brother state watching us everywhere we go, CCTV cameras everywhere (and I mean everywhere), in schools, pubs, nurseries, kids parks, swimming pools, on buses and trains, many of them now are equipped with facial recognition where they can scam your eyes and face and track your movements. Yeah wonderful world we have now. Next will be a cashless society, where you will be credit scored.
@@elisedeadman8117 Agreed, I miss people taking time to talk to each other, Yet i also enjoy having a computer the internet. Yet hate the way everyone only has time for their phone now.
I never hear people say that
@@cleocatra9324 they say that in the video
This film and its production values was years ahead of its time, and there is no wonder it has elicited such a response. I was born in 1956 and remember cold houses, ice on the inside of bedroom windows, freezing night-time trips across the yard to the WC, which could easily ice up. Coming downstairs in a morning to see my dad kneeling at the grate, trying to coax a fire into existence, with a double sheet of newspaper across the aperture. The film makes me feel a great sadness at the level of poverty which these people endured, and the fact that they had to work very hard just to stand still. Much of what occupies some people's minds now would have seemed utterly frivolous to these people, for whom I have great respect. But there is a cheerfulness and an awareness of community evident here, which has now been lost - or is not present in the same way - in many places today. The people in the film had hard lives in many respects, and some of them had lived through two world wars, maybe losing family members. Times have changed; the world is now a different place, but it is good to be reminded what a daily battle some people (a large number, in fact) faced. I can understand why some commentators on here would like to return to the simpler, less self-centred, world of the 1950s.
Children playing safely in the street - and hardly any cars. Amazing. I remember my mother used to go to the baths to do her washing. Sometimes she would do some of her washing in the scullery, and one time, when my brothers got in trouble and I was tiny, she fainted dead away on the floor. I just stood there staring. She got up and just carried on. Somehow this film just brought it all home to me and I'm crying. Dad worked 7 days a week in a London power station and was asleep in the chair 10 minutes after getting home. One Sunday he fell asleep and mum - who was never satisfied with him being so quiet, must have got beyond a point..... she threw a cup of scalding tea over him after finding him asleep again. He got up, and for the first and only time, hit her. He picked a chair up and smashed it down on the kitchen table, and walked out. So many difficult memories.
Sadly some things don't change. mums and dads working long hours can put a strain on the family even now in this very rush rush world.
The three little girls on their skates so touching it brought a tear to my eye.
Me too
I loved my roller skates
@@patriciameany1238 I loved my roller skates. I have the scars on my knees to this day! hee hee
The whole thing made me cry.
@@laurencetitusoates6328 yes, same here x
Lived in two up two downs for twelve years, laid in bed at night you could always hear the railways, and in the north, the hum of heavy industry. When you woke up, you knew when it was windy out in the mornings, because you could hear it, for there was a cacophony of sound from the bin lids clattering down the streets. Ahhhh the whiff of nostalgia, cancels out the grim reality of hard times, backbreaking jobs, smogs as thick as bags and your grandad laid in a bed downstairs dying of pneumoconiosis and spitting his lungs up. Yes we never had it so good and after all, most of our families had lost a loved one or two, in either of the previous two wars and had then endured ten years of food rationing, yeah we had it good alright. All that said, I did enjoy growing up in the endless streets of two up two downs, the chippy on the corner, the shop on the other corner and the pub in between, surrounded by all my relations.
“..smogs as thick as bags..” 😆
@@KinEllKokabel my late fathers favourite saying.
However hard it was, all the children looked happy !
I was born 1953 in the East End of London where we had an identical way of life . As a child i knew no different and only came to realise how poor we were when i became an adult. My family escaped to the new town of Harlow in Essex in 1958 and after the East End i thought i was in paradise. The girls singing their playground songs and skipping bought back some great memories, sad that playgrounds no longer ring to their tunes.
The streets aren’t safe anymore for kids
@@lesleycooper7544 They were only marginally safer then. There was just a lot less fear.
not a black face in sight, lol
@@1919mum
No one welcomes people like you on this channel, please leave.
@@1919mumlol I don’t get what that proves these were the days when white people would chase down black people for what there skin colour? I guess that’s the good old days glorifying racism and violence instead focus on the good films people dressing well etc etc racism is simply unnecessary
I was born in 1947 and grew up in Portsmouth in a terraced street. Wonderful community spirit and I would spend all my time outside playing with my mates. We may have been poor but life was great. Just a radio to listen to and simplest of toys.
I used to stay with my gran near Portsmouth in the 60’s !
@@Embracing01 Buying the things that they are told will make them happy and yet it never does. That is a nationwide mentality and has been for a very long time.
@@Gary-Seven-and-Isis-in-1968 Like things such as 3 or 4 cars per household, but they will just say that they need them. I suppose if people didn't work so far from home and having to travel miles and miles to get to work where other modes of travelling are out of the question, then people wouldn't need so many cars, but sadly local work places like in the olden days when you just worked down the road in the mill or factory are long gone. Front gardens are now being replaced by tarmacked or blocked driveway because people have so many cars. And things like Sky TV, Netflix subscription etc they don't need, with the exception of the internet as I think I don't anyone could really live witout now, in some ways it's replaced the telephone.
Born in 49 had the most beautiful childhood the perfect parents beautiful life Christmas was magical but there was no central heating no in door toilet etc etc I wouldn't have changed a thing I wish I could have those days back
@@Embracing01 I really hate that as well. there should be a restriction of one car per household.
This is why I feel blessed to have been born when I was, I got to experience freedom to play and have fun. Not like today, I feel bad for the kids who dont have fun like we did.
Hello Andy, how are you doing today, hope you’re fine and safe from the Virus??
I never caught it, luckily. Hope you are safe too.
@@Andy13april64 That’s good to know that you’re safe from the Virus. Well I’m also safe from the Virus too. Hope you’re having a nice and a wonderful day today??
There was nothing like tramway avenue in 1954 as in the address trams going up and down all day two telephone boxes at the top of the road also a troth to water the horses who made deliveries coalman coal fire playing out in the street so many happy chidren knock down ginger was our worse crime ha ha concers marbles scrumping oh i had great happy times life is not just what you make it you make the wonderful friends and memories along the way
For most of them today fun is pressing buttons in front of a tiny screen, taking drugs, or being trouble making scumbags that need a good thumping! Zombies, and to think they are the future generation to run this country..god bloody help those who will live through it all..those are the ones i really feel sorry for.
I was born in 1957 and this video has rekindled so many memories of school life and the living conditions. Children were far happier in the 50s and 60s, playing outside, using their imagination and learning to be streetwise. When I was born my parents were living in a totally unrestored Elizabethan (yes, Elizabeth the 1st) cottage, there was no electric or running water. All cooking was done on an oil stove, lighting from paraffin lamps, water obtained from a well with a hand pump. My mum is still alive and is a treasure trove of stories about village life after being evacuated from London to Somerset as a child. Her father died when she was 6, her mother left London to be with her and they never returned. Instead they rented the cottage that I was taken home to after being born in the local nursing home. In 1959 my parents and grandmother moved to a newly built modern house, where my mother still lives.
How wonderful would itl be great if any of the children from this film came forward now and told us of they're lives now !
What a fantastic film ! I was born in 1951 in the industrial Midlands, and this
is EXACTLY as I remember things !
The whole thing made me cry.
I was born in the UK in 1954 and this was my childhood, I even spotted my dolly and teddy I had when I was little. I remember it all, the old buildings, the signage, the retro tv and furniture. Thank you for taking me back to my childhood. I have lived in Australia all my adult life and had not thought about my early years for such a long time.
Hello Janet, how are you doing today, hope you’re fine and safe from the Virus??
@@user-qw6pb4ub8p What virus?
@@user-qw6pb4ub8p Hello Trevor, how are you doing today, hope you're safe from the Trolling morons on RUclips??🤡👆
Sane here, diffeent town, same life.
I'm born on 1987 and this was my childhood too
Brings back memories .We didnt have much .But one thing we did was respect for one another..look how clean the streets where kept.. I would go back there in a heartbeat that live in todays world.
I was born in 1950 In inner city Liverpool. By today’s standards we were poor but we didn’t know everyone was the same. I do however have very happy memories. We did appreciate everything we received x
I was born in 1956 it was lovely. I was the 5th child of 8 born to Irish, Welsh parents. We were a happy family growing up in Nottinghamshire. Best days of my life. ❤️ 😍 💖 ❣️
I was 5 in 1958 and can remember going out to play by myself
im 0 yrs old in 2002 but i would time travel to document and see the life of the old days
I turned 6 in 1958, July, in Sydney, NSW.
It was much the same here then, a lot of cool English cars around, although I didn't notice them till I was older.
My mum was born 1952, so she was a similar age. She came to London to stay with my evil 👿 great aunt in 1961 for eight months. Then my mum returned to the UK to stay since 1972. She passed away in July 2021 😢
i am the same age born 1953 . spent all my days playing in windsor great park .
True 👍
My family emigrated in 1968 to Australia. It was the best gift they could’ve given us seven kids. Once we arrived in Oz I never was sick or hungry again. I will be forever grateful to my adopted country. Best country in the world to live and I’ve been fortunate to have been to most of them!
Me too - 5 children, so grateful to Mum and Dad for making this fantastic choice.
Jenifer Where were you born?
Yes you could fly out their for 10 pounds. I remember the offer!
We in Oz are clearly the master race.
@@coopsawright7225 Convicts more like.
I was married at 19 in 1958, my kids say now that was the best era and I agree with them, 1958 to the 70s, it’s gone down hill since 💯
I was born in 1939, but in Walworth London SE17/ . Even as a young man all the kids mixed with each other my late wife ( teenager at the time along with her friends along with my mates) were not boy/girl friends but just mates. but by the time she was 18 her parents let us get engaged, but still had to get her home by 10.30. We were married by the time she was 20, spent the next 54 years together still friends until I lost her to cancer. I wish those time would come back. I do notice that this seems to show the North South died?I had a brand new Triumph motor cycle £350: A good well paid job, and a nice flat until moving to and buying our first home. Would give it all up for one more day of 1960 h
Finally someone around my neck of the woods mate. Born bred in Walworth in the 50s, 7 of us but we moved around from home to home.
I always have a quick gander round all the places that used to be there and things change so bloody rapidly dont it? Schools i went to are now apartments? But at least Baldwins is still around. Really taken back to see someone who's been around my area before my time must have some good stories mate 👍
Ttony Payne. "Would give it up for one more day of 1960." Your sentiment cuts deep. Maybe when we pass we will have the opportunity to return to the people, time and place that we loved most.
love it.
I note all the children playing happily in the streets without parental supervision. As someone born in 1955, I can tell you how much changed in the mid-1960s after the Moors Murders case. The attitude of parents towards children being out on the streets shifted very quickly, and, as I recall, things were never quite the same again.
You might like the novel, Jordy, Bounce, and Lilli. ...The story of a couple of little kids and their cat, growing up together in the post-war 1950s. I loved it.
Yes,I was born in derby in 1955,and we were stopped from playing footy or bike rides when this all kicked off.
It was the Thatcher years that put a final stop to the freedom of children.
Aye I was born in 1956 played were we liked then 1 day our world changed we had to stay on our street near our house we complained but mum said stay in our front or come inside lol. Then a couple of years later we were allowed to play were we liked again we had no idea why. Years later when I was grown I heard about the moors children and knew why everyone had to stay near home.
I lived on the same street as one of the victims, until the houses were demolished. I would call for one to go to the park. The mum was very very protective. One of the boys lived around the back. Sad
What today’s people should realise that those hard times produced a wonderful quality of person because they had little which created so much appreciation. Appreciation is something that is sadly lacking in today’s society.
I was so fortunate. Born in 1952 but with miles of open countryside less than 12 ft from my door. Fields were my playground and we spent all day playing, walking, picking mushrooms, flowers, out all day and home for tea. We were never bored, we had everything we needed
I was born in 1972. I was told to come home when the street lights were on. What an angry world we are today. Sadly
I agree, I grew up in the 80s and at the back of my house was a field and some overgrown grass we used to play in. The field is still there but the overgrown part has been built on with a car park. Alot of the fields now are disappearing due to housing development, too many houses and people are being crammed into towns and cities, every single piece of green area, even if it's a very small area no larger than a small car park, are being built on with more and more apartments and flats.
I was born in 1934 and lived in Maine, USA by the ocean. I had fields of flowers, fields of daisys , and then the beach, all to myself, every summer day. I miss it so much. Every day was pleasant and happy for me. I was kept from all grown-up conversation and all serious happenings were kept from me.
Now children are all cooped up with the internet and all adult discourse and they absorb all those negative vibes.
we always played in the streets when i was young ..im glad i was born in 1950
I was born in 45 in a terraced house in a very long street. We played outside in the street most of the times. Had lots of friends who I grew up with. However I would hate living in one of those terraced houses again where we could only afford to heat one room with coal. I feel sorry for my parents who went through two world wars.
I feel sorry for people who had to go through such hardship as well. We, here in Australia had it way better even if it was just a warmer climate & not needing much heating.
That must have been Christmas! I remember my Mum coming home from work, going out to the shed, chopping wood and bringing in coal to lay the fire for us to have heat after school for a couple of hours. I remember how I felt... I was sad she had so much to do. We had school dinners and if we opened up a small tin of spaghetti and heated it poured on toast divided up between three of us, Mum would say she believed we would be the only family to have a hot tea! I know my neighbour friend had bread and marg and jam.
Yes what is considered poverty nowadays is nothing compared to those days. No food banks then
Don’t forget the depression in between.
Yeah, they had it rough. That being said, so did every generation before them. While things are never perfect, your generation, in general, has probably lived through the best stretch since time began. In terms of overall quality of life, and peace.
But anything can happen at any moment. The world can change pretty quickly.
I was four when this was filmed, I dont remember it being so grim we were by no means wealthy but the step was scrubbed and whitened, alway a good cooked dinner and everyone in the yard and street helped each other and of course Friday bath night in a tin bath by the fire in the back room - I enjoyed my childhood.
They used donky stone on the steps and sharpend knives on the steps
You were lucky having food on the table.
I can't watch this without feeling upset at what the old folk had gone through during the war, homes being bombed, the loss of loved ones and then to come back to slums. Slums and hard times, unemployment, rationing. The government of the day deserted them. Whilst the wealthy went back to their 'castles in the sky' and carried on as before. Sad times indeed.
Just think all these children will now be grandparents themselves which includes me. I was 12 yrs old in 1958 and can relate to these children
Yes, I was 4 and still remember how poor most people were. Post-war rationing was worse than during the war itself and even if you had money you could not spend it as the shops were empty.
I was 9, born in 1949, I never thought the so called swinging sixties were all they were cracked up to be be, maybe in London but not in the Yorkshire industrial town I grew up, it was austere to say the least
Not all of them. Some of us never have that privilege.
Great grandparents
I never realised what a tough life I had growing up yet I had lots of love from Mum Dad Grannie Grandad Aunts and Uncles. Perhaps that is why. I wouldn't change a thing.
The children seemed happy
@@shirleyhunt8769 I’m sure the children mostly were. I expect it was different for the adults. All the women looked worn out
Oh WOW wasn't that just fantastic. Best thing I've watched for years.
The Kids are so resilient. They are amazing. Bless them all.
You might like the novel, Jordy, Bounce, and Lilli. ...The story of a couple of little kids and their cat, growing up together in the post-war 1950s. I loved it.
Op poop poop poop
Look how clean and tidy those streets are! No rubbish littered everywhere, no bins/recycling containers hogging up the paths. Kids being kids without hate and attitude. Man, how did we fall so far?!
Happy days
The air pollution looks a bit like New Delhi though.
I remember Britain in 1958. It was dreadful in many ways.
How happy the child looks.
Immigration
I was born in 1957. I used to play in the street with my brother and the children felt safer in the old days, I'm sure. Now you don't see children playing out because parents are scared of them being abducted. I think even though people didn't have what they have today, children lived in safer times, friendlier times when there was more of a community spirit and neighbours knew of each other. We didn't just go inside our homes and cut ourselves off. Now we have 6 ft fences and everyone wants their privacy! No wonder people suffer from loneliness.
Felt safer; weren't safer.
I was born in 1972 and I played in the street with my little friends up until it was dark - we all looked out for each other it was a proper community - my memories are of the street party for the golden jubilee in 1977 - happy times x
There was plenty of domestic violence it was just a taboo subject like sex and your old man's wages
There was more than enough bullying and gangsterism about.
So true. I was born in 1958 in Australia and we never had any fear of anyone kidnapping us or any danger coming to us. Life was so simple back then.
A lovely film. I was born in 1952.
I was born in Liverpool.
I was not involved with others very much. Few children lived in my street.
My earlier years were more involved but everyone was very bright. There was little hatred though there was poverty those I had contact with were not suffering as far as I can recall. No one was rich either. The children were loved.
Always a sensation there was something wrong in the background.
This film reminds me of the hardship that I did see glimpses of in the 50-60s. I presumed war had caused this. I found it unbearable that people were to suffer so much. My family was poor. We did suffer but not as those of this film . I miss people too. I welcome many good changes but suffer very much from changed that have not helped and have led to a different type of suffering.
We had won both wars we had reason to be happy to be alive. We celebrated and gave thanks in many ways without actually putting this into many words. We were glad to be alive and tried to be worthy of this gift.
The state of accommodation never allowed some to forget war. Seems if the poor forget war they will only be punished by more war. Many poor people had fought and helped each other ,had respect and regard for others.
My father missed those he had met during war two. He missed many things which were taken àfter war. It miss many things that I could learn to love to hat were then taken from everyone especially the ferry
boats, so much demolition left terrible wounds in another way.
I miss many things about life then but at the time much caused depression and pain and suffering. There was time to realise that the government would never assist very much . And still so very sadly many suffer such hardship whilst huge amounts of money are wasted building new structures in city centres that we do not need at all . Where we had a city to love someone began changed we could never love or appreciate. The heart was taken in many places to the point of the obscenity that the rich had perhaps found in the poorer situations. This did not has not led to greater intelligent enjoyment of life. How can a people enjoy shopping in a new arcade that costs so much to build when over the invisible fence so many millions suffer such poverty even malnutrition.
Good Bless everyone.
Well said.
The current Labour Party, a party set up to alleviate poverty, fight injustice, organise and assist labour and resist war has degraded into a bunch of self-interested, ignorant, petty-minded metro-sexual extremists who spend most of their time promoting the Woke agenda, which has nothing at all to do with ordinary people or their struggles. Today, in 2022, due to the belligerence and stupidity of the so-called 'Conservative Party' ordinary people, right now, are suffering hardships which really should have been relegated to the past; something seen only in a documentary like this - freezing in winter because of fuel costs which have gone through the roof thanks to their idiotic Net Zero targets, roaring inflation due to reckless borrowing and participation in a proxy war in Ukraine which has nothing at all to do with the UK, or NATO ... Ukraine, a small extremely corrupt country which is not part of the EU or NATO. Yet precious treasure is being given to that effort. Neither the Conservatives or Labour give a DAMN about ordinary people.
I think those of us born in Liverpool have more of an affinity with those in that film, I was born in 1958 and remember all of the war damaged area's and so many derelict and semi derelict houses, so many would not survive those conditions today.
Thank you Frances. If I (born 1948) had to live as they do in MANY places in the UK today, I would willingly swap places with the happy kids in this film! Today, kids know REAL SUFFERING. Kids subjected to the lockdown crazes - the worst scandal of our entire history. Few kids today have TWO loving parents, they are brought up in insecurity. - Those old tenements were cold, damp and wet - but they were a far more secure roof over your head than the 6 month shortholds of today. Jobs were much easier to find, and if you worked well could offer regular work and a chance for improvement - not like working for amazon! Then there's the drugs. Now we have a worse war than WWII on the horizon. 2023 NO THANKS!
Quote - I miss many things about life then but at the time much caused depression and pain and suffering. There was time to realise that the government would never assist very much . And still so very sadly many suffer such hardship whilst huge amounts of money are wasted building new structures in city centres that we do not need at all .
That's exctly what is happening now, so nothing has changed even since the 50's!!! There's still hardship, pain and suffering around. I walk into town and see lots of downtrodden people with lesser intelligence of enjoyment of life. The funny part is the natives are all supportive of 'Great' Britain, it's an absolute joke!! There's nothing 'Great' about Britain!!!
Oh my goodness i remember this well when i was a child playing in the streets and it was safe
A time when there were communities that looked out for their neighbours. Good times.
Now everyone in the street is terrified of everyone else, if they're not then why is everyone obsessed with having a two or more home surveillance cameras outside their front door. Everyone's closing themselves in, probably due to all the mainstream news with all its fear mongering about crime. People need to turn off the TV and stop reading news. To think back then people would often leave their front doors open, now we have big brother "protecting us".
And men beat their wives, while the neighbors turned away.
Now everyone is terrified of their property, fancy status symbol car on the drive getting robbed, so they have to have some stupid (and probably as useless as a chocolate guard when it comes to evidence) security camera attached to the rear or front (or both some in some cases) of their house and outdoor their front door. All this is helping to fracture the community, which I think is what the govt wants, they want zero trust with everyone, plus it is normalising big brother where, once the digital ID tracking system is rolled out people won't bat an eyelid and will think it's normal like they do in China.
In Morocco we still have this I'm born in 1997 and we played outside all day till 11 pm and I was only 4 no restrictions and we have strong community it's normal for us till now
There was more social cohesion then because of less immigration
Love seeing these kids playing outside, using their imagination! I remember being 10 in 1975, living in Australia - all the kids in the neighbourhood played in the street, getting off the road when a car came, ballgames, hopscotch, skipping, riding your bike, going to different houses, playing on different lawns, jumping through sprinklers. Everyone had to be home when the streetlights came on or you'd be in trouble. It was an idyllic time of childhood, pretty sure our parents didn't know where we were half the time! No technology except a tv you might watch at night. But no kid worth their salt would waste time inside watching tv in the daytime. Too much to do outside, playing with anyone who was around. We weren't rich, but we were basically happy and healthy and very social. I reckon with every generation since, kids in any country have missed out on the freedom of those things we did, and socially have been restricted because someone wants to know where they are at all times, and technology tracks them so they're never out of contact....
Not to forget today when kids go to school they are watched by CCTV cameras. The people running those schools should be ashamed of themselves. "Oh, they are there to stop kids being taken". My kids school looks like a prison from the outside, locked gates everywhere. Think ourselves lucky though when the chinese social credit system comes here, cash will be gone and we will have a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) controlling every aspect of our lives.
I was a child of the 1980s, even we were much more active, watched the Saturday morning cartoons and that was it
@@taraelizabethdensley9475 Yep same here, got up to watch all the morning cartoons but that was it, spent most (not all I admit) of the weekend outside and we were never bored and wanting to go into the kitchen to pinch a chocolate bar before dinner or tea time. Now my kids have X Boxes, Switch's, tablets, internet, Netflix and they are always bored and often hungry. Boredom causes people to be hungry.
I was 10yrs old and the whole street was full of young families. Kids all played outside, only went home for a bandaid after you'd come a cropper. Have lunch and in summer down the local swimming pools till it closed. I loved my childhood.
Yes me too I played a lot on the street I'm born in 1997 in Morocco we still play outside not like westerns sadly they are like zombies
Some of this film takes me back to my childhood.....how life has changed! My grandchildren want more than one present at Christmas and by Boxing Day they want another! I told them, we were lucky to get one doll and oh, how she was treasured. As for my trike, it was second-hand, my mother painted it in bright blue and red colours, I rode it up and down the pavement of the road we lived until.... until it broke in the middle from rust! I loved that trike. Mum went to work, she gardened. One time she dug a big hole in the grass so when the Ice-man delivered a big block of ice, it could be put in this metal container with thick sides and keep the milk and butter and cheese cool. Mum would knit our clothes and sew our clothes....home=made delicious meals.
Buti did miss the meat, getting a cheap NewZealand breast of lamb was such a treat despite it being almost all bone.
I was born in 58...tough times but our parents just got on with it...great memories,innocent fun and even though we didn't have much,all we did have was treasured and looked after. Throw away Britain was not an option. Ty for this film💕
This was my childhood - I was born and brought up in Liverpool, so the street signs were particularly evocative. The thing is that we’re looking back on these days with the eyes of knowledge and experience. At the time we just got on with it - it was our life, but the sense of community was certainly at the forefront. You didn’t have much, but you shared it.
You might like the novel, Jordy, Bounce, and Lilli. ...The story of a couple of little kids and their cat, growing up together in the post-war 1950s. I loved it.
I miss glass milk bottles and seeing children outside playing, big prams being pushed out, little corner shops, straight forward chat and women on street talking. You don't see that now. I would love to go back to those days, simple lives, hard work and people knew their place. Even the hospitals were better then.
Hospitals by a mile better!
When you went in there there were no germs .. as thoroughly cleaned......illness got looked at properly by doctors there.....apart from less wealth thing seemed more civilised and things worked better generally all round....the old systems used saw to that...
Rarely any mess ups...
Me too. I was born in 1956 so remember all those things as well as doing my paper round 7 days a week & a Saturday job in a hardware store cutting glass & operating electric saws at 14!! We've recently switched to getting milk delivered in glass bottles just the old days. Have to get them in quick or the birds will peck through the caps to get at the cream tops! However, the milk is not delivered by an electric milk float as it was back in the 50 & 60's, & horse & cart before that. 70 years on & electric vans are making a comeback! Things have changed for the worse in my view.
Not sure 'people knew their place' is a positive.
Well said love those days hard times but peacefull times nice and kind people caring people all that is been taken away damn this modern world damn thoooooo.
I still get glass bottles
I was born in 54 very nostalgic watching this documentary ,I live in Spain now and it's like living in tn 70s the Spanish are 50 years behind the uk it's brilliant
Bravo merry Christmas to you, enjoy the sun
SOUNDS Great g
@@geoffreycarson2311 I was a fifties child and believe me my memories of it still cause me heartache
Damp bedding, damp walls, rats in house, no food..only free school dinners and foraging saved me from malnutrition.. happy days? Bah! Humbug!
Depende en qué parte vivas de España es muy diferente el norte del sur o de las islas.
Se haya pasado mal en los 50 o no tan mal, tenemos algo que en la mayoría de los casos de la "élite poderosa" no tenía el buen recuerdo y el sentimiento de nuestros padres y entorno❤️
It’s my dream to spend some time in Spain. I’m in America. They make us work 5 days a week. The two days off are spent cleaning, grocery shopping, fixing the house, and no rest. Then back to work again on Monday. Our wages have been stolen by the rich owner class. It’s awful. Everything is so expensive and we don’t get paid enough to even pay regular monthly bills. We are dysfunctional. Spain sounds wonderful.
I was born in 1962. I remember being nothing but happy. The accents bring back memories. My Mum had a favourite saying 'we've not much money, but we do see life'😂😂
I was born in Wigan, Lancs. I had no clue until looking back, much later, at how little we had BUT we were happy. The man singing reminds me of my Dad. My Mum and Dad were always singing. We emigrated to Australia in 1970. I was 8, my brother was 6. I can understand why, blue skies and sunshine, a new developing country. So I different for us kids. I didn't know what a cubby was and schools had trees and grass to play on!!! Such a simple time.
We left all our family behind. I remember everyone crying and mum saying they'd been cutting onions!! Why is Aunty Irene crying? Oh, she's been cutting onions...but why is Uncle Paddy crying? Oh, he's been helping!!! EVERYONE had been cutting onions😂😅 That was so we didn't know how sad they were, but happy for us at the same time.
I'm now 61 but I still remember then with fond memories, no matter how 'poor' we were.🧡😊
So many memories after watching this film. Hardly a car in sight. Just as I remember it in the 1950s - and we weren't as badly off as some of the folk in the film. Fortunately, we had a garden and my parents knew how to grow things. Apart from the rare occasions we had fish and chips, all our meals were home made.
It was a brilliant film and brought back to me what it was like then , i was born in 1955 in Middlesborough it just shows how life has so much changed , they are memories, but you can't say they were the good old days ,sometimes you wonder how we all survived the winters ,ice on the windows outside and inside ,coats on the bed to keep warm and hot water bottles, kids now would not believe it
We don't get the winters like we did back then. I was born in the 80s and I remember those kinds of winters, what winters should be like. Now, from about Nov and until March all we get is a deluge of rain, so much that entire fields, public paths, woodlands etc are completely saturated with mud due to the amount heavy and constant rainfall.
Reminded me of the slum clearance that took place around Cannon Street area of Middlesbrough in the late 60's early 70's. It was just the same.
@@mrgonk3060
Yep lot of houses vanished along with the characters. I lived near boro at Guisborough, it was an adventure going to some of the places in boro, Dinmys tattoo over the border before moved into linthorpe Road. The Sinbad Tattoo Artist as the other bloke styled himself, The Star and Garter pub, Cannon St was infamous for villains and fighting. Used to go to a pub in the arcade downstairs in mid 70s to meet with some mates to go to Ayresome Park, recall The Bishops were hard lads ( won't say the first of their name as its frowned upon today, let's just say the Noir Bishops. We all went to footy after a few pints skinhead gear on. Met some nice birds down there from all over boro. Liked the old bus station better, Baums store with its own plastic money, eyes ears nose n throat hospital all gone now. Stewart store for clothes, Ben Sherman shorts. STA PREST trousers, Doc Martens, Brutus round collared shirts, Fred Perry's, Wranglers and Levies. And so much more
I realize one thing, they all have different accents.
I grew up in the 1970s with ice inside my bedroom window and black mould kept growing on the wall. Dad kept buying anti mould paint and Mum kept washing it off with bleach but it always came back. Council houses those days had no central heating, no loft insulation, no wall cavity insulation and winters were colder as well in general. At 54 I still can't shake off the feeling that central heating is a luxury and have mine on as little as possible. Aside from that it's far too expensive to have on all day! I wear lots of layers, and manage to keep warm enough because of the insulation in my flat means no iced up windows, and winters are milder, even if at the moment we've had a bit of snow.
This is such a touching video. My parents emigrated from England to Canada in 1952, with us three kids. Although we grew up without relatives around, I am so glad they did. Whoever directed, shot, and edited this film did a really masterful job. Thank you for posting it.
millions left this small dirty island back then if they had anything about them. My aunt, uncle and cousins went to Australia, my Father's cousin went to South Africa. Nothing much has changed in the UK, those at the top think that those at the bottom *deserve* to be there because god decided it should be so. Those with the most, don't like paying what they're supposed to pay in taxes which would help the poor. While the Tories are in charge and now we left the caring eye of the EU, we're running backwards to these times again because people decided they *liked* life back then.
@@PhyllisGlassup2TheBrim Well said.
They made the right choice to leave. I presume your parents had a good standard of living in Canada and achieved more than they could have dreamed about had they stayed in England.
@Nicky L Yours is a comment full of conceit. Perhaps "You Forget" millions did not, could not, move onwards and upwards.
Whaching this video iwas born 54 and lived in north london i can honestly say my parents were hard working dad was a french polisher mum worked in wallworths on the edmonton green i adended a second moden school and people were very friendly i had a wonderful up brining iwas from a family of 3 chidren and the youngest workerd in factorys have my own house had two children and our daughter is a foster carerer our son is apainter and decorater has two chidren this video a lot is how it was and it is the truth i would still choose england over any country in the world after all look how many have lost there lives trying to get hear
I just love seeing the schoolgirls singing songs together in their games. Its so absolutely gorgeous! So unaffected, jolly, free and enjoying themselves and laughing and smiling. You dont see children like that at all anymore. It's a crying shame!
At the start I thought this was going to be a big laugh, but by half way through I couldn't stop crying.
The production values in this documentary/video are 50 years ahead of their time - riveting.
Explain
@@barefootedqueen710 Watch other old documentaries and you'll get it.
Agreed! A story in every shot. The children and their sweet faces. Men and women of all ages. In the 1970s I had a neighbour who recalled using the “wash house” as shown in this film. The new laundromat which she called “The Bendix” was a gift from heaven for big things. She still did a lot of hand wash and hung them up on the clothesline and finished the final part of the drying in the airing cupboard,
Lovely memories of stories I was told about their memories.
The little girl and the little dog made me let out the biggest 😌 sigh.
Better than the diverse woke drivel the BBC turn out now!
It's the Beeb
I was born in 1959 but I just wish we could go BACK TO THE 60' A MUCH BETTER LIFE. GREAT VIDEO CLIP.
51!!
@@rosheaheather98551951 I loved the 50s and 60s, great time to be young!
I think people were happier and more content in the earlier years. Neighbours helped each other. Not so much now. It’s all politics, inflation, strikes etc. Maybe the youngsters get too much now. Susie
It was great to see children outdoors playing.
@@susanlaird5154 I basically agree, but there were politics, inflation, strikes etc, but not woke and PC and fear of what we can say. Materialistically we are far better off now.
Oh my goodness, this is so wonderful
I was born in 1957
Watching this, the years fell away
So nostalgic and moving
How have we really progressed?
Hardly at all
A wonderful film. I really enjoy this type of film about the ordinary working people and their families, and the places in which they lived, worked and grew up. They are so much more enjoyable, interesting and meaningful than tedious films about the aristocracy and the bloody royals.
But there is also a sense of sadness that time has moved on and so many things have changed, some have vanished forever, and so many of the lives shown have come to an end.
The girl at 33:24, her bright young hopeful face with her life ahead of her and so much yet to come, work, marriage, children, grandchildren and retirement, good times and bad times. Now as we look back from this point 65 years into her future, those stages of her life have run their course. Hope all went well for her and so many others in this film.
Born in 1952 this has brought very happy memories back. We had a lot less but had the advantage of being able to play in the streets. Very few cars. Cosy coal fire in living room which heated the water. No heating in any other room making the whole family stick together by the fire. Bath on a Sunday night to last the week. Were we smelly? Still not sure but we were all the same.
I was born in 1954 and can relate to this video. We were poor but compared to today's world where you can have everything , we were lucky we appreciated the small things I feel rich compared to the children of today. Feel sorry for them really do.
Hello Susan, how are you doing today, hope you’re fine and safe from the Virus??
@@user-qw6pb4ub8p looking for an older woman with money, as you have left various messages for various woman. There are dating sights for this 🤷
@@margaretgill4330 lol. Either he's a very lonely pom trying to make a friend or a scamming Nigerian.
@@margaretgill4330
👍Yes .... just noticed this too
Margaret . . . Odd ?!
Seen someone behaving in a similar way on another channel too !!!
Press on his profile pic ... to the left of any of his posts ... Will take you to view content on his channel.( comments made etc )
He has only JUST started the channel ... date can be seen.
@@lynnepostings yes I've seen on other channels. Normally they are fake photos. Or Scammers using these places to find vulnerable women.
I saw one recently supposed to be a pilot.😅 As women like men in uniform.
If it was an odd comment to one woman. But I counted 20 posts from same person. BEWARE,!
Nice to watch at 74 yrs old. Brings back nice memories....
I was born in Liverpool in 1959 and this film is unlike where I grew up. We had gardens front and back and much better conditions. If the filmmaker ventured just a few miles from the city center to Childwall, Woolton, Gateacre, Calderstones, or other areas they would have seen a different city. Liverpool is often portrayed as an awful place but it isn't. It's full of great people and many nice locations.
Yes, I was born in Liverpool in 1954, lived in Liverpool 8. I too remember the lovely areas of the city - they're still there.
Lovely areas wouldn't show us the hardship of post war Britain. Nice houses and gardens would direct attention away from government neglect of the war-time generations. Like it or not, this film reflects reality, and we should not forget the miserable poverty, even if history appears to have taught us nothing.
Living in those slums was horrendous, vermin, damp lack of light, overcrowding. Everything was hard.
I was born in 1960,we were not poor but not rich either.Dad worked really hard and we always had a touring caravan holiday to Devon where dad would make us a kite from pillowcases and a pair of mums tights.We had lovey Christmases and always had a party at home for our birthday.We went out to play and came home when we were hungry.I can’t just remember the winter where it snowed for weeks and dad carrying me as the snow was going inside my wellies.Wonderful childhood,thanks mum and dad xx
The youth of today don't know or realize just how lucky they are in life. I was birn in 1957 and so know what life used to be like. It was tough but also we had a very wholesome simple life. I feel totally blessed to have been born in that era and have seen the remarkable changes in our world and our lives and how the changes and inventions of incredible people changed our lives forever.
Besides kids playing in the street what I miss about today's neighborhoods is the place where the retired men used to sit and gossip. I remember we had a small corner near a park with a couple of benches and every morning between 9 and 11, the old men would sit or stand there and gossip. They show up after breakfast and then leave in time to make it home for lunch. It seems today that people just sit alone in their houses.
True 👍
Those lovely innocent girls singing that skipping rhyme at the end ... very toching
I was born in east London in 1956 . My dad was injured in the war and my mum worked 3 jobs to keep
us going. Never noticed that we were poor as it was the norm in the area.
There was about 20 other kids down our road and when I was older we would all play together in
the street and in and out of the houses. Looking back I think we had a good childhood, I think people
we’re happier with what they had then . My parents had 3 kids including me and my Nan lived in the
house as well so I shared a bedroom with my older brother.
"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough."
William Shakespeare
I really loved watching these examples from a vintage time of life. I was born on Galveston Island, Texas in 1957, but I easily related my childhood experiences in an alongside personal-flavor recollection. Kids, they're the same creatures all over the planet, mostly anyways. Show me a kid who doesn't want to play and I'll eat the whole moon... twice. Ok, my advice for a happy life is to "be thankful in everything". It could always be much, much worse than it is, unless a cruel illness is involved, or something traumatic like that is. This advice isn't for them though, it's for people who dwell on their sorrows until it hurts them, and they wished that it didn't. One bit of advice is to be glad to simply get to keep on breathing air in and out; what human doesn't hold oxygen at a high value even if it is out of their conscience mind, a pleasure easily taken for granted? Sleep well, but it's also important to wake up well and good, too, maybe even MORE important because it sets your day up. Live well by laughing often. Include 'love much' to the mix and you'll have a very decent, happier life no matter what. Pat a tired telephone pole on it's worn back, "Tree- hugging" is so, so common it's kind of pathetic. Those telephone poles, once upon a time ago, in a little forest, used to be living trees too, until we humans came along and desired to have them, like we did for every single wooden item in our possession right down to a discarded toothpick. Yes, be thankful we were not born trees for the use of prosperous people... or otherwise!
That was just me trying to sound fun knee, I meant funny. Ok, If I, perpetually "broke as a joke" can still remain loving and thankful I going to wager that anybody feeling hopeless and/or abused can. I was an innocent little boy who, in 1966, was violently raped from behind by four men at age eight, while being held by my own mother, while being cruelly taunted by my two close-in-age sisters and also a very cruel 'aunt', and all as I was screaming and pleading for it all to just stop. Later, they told everybody they could, at all our schools even. My life was destroyed on purpose in many, many cruel ways until I was able to leave home at age eighteen, but I found a way to stay 'myself'. That way was to never be like sly, sick evil people, but also to try to learn whatever 'good' I could from them because no human being is 100% pure stinky, rotten garbage. I never lost my love for my family, or for society. I never wanted to. I learned to have very few desires, what came my way I could be very thankful for. No, I never threw in the love towel and went the opposite direction. Some people are just sick is all. Many sick people have 'gotten better'. It doesn't have to be "In for a penny, in for a pound" Compromise isn't a glue, it can come off, if a person wants it removed. It could also be fed like a feral, diseased dog though. It's easier to feed dogs than remove glue, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done.
Maine, USA says to say, "Hello".
The film was made in Liverpool and Salford. I remember watching it when it was first shown, and going round some of the places next day with my mother in1959. In those days, most of those bombed sites had still not been built on.
There also shots taken in Stockport,at the start of the film, much of what was filmed has now disappeared,like most of the housing shown..but I still live on the road featured, albeit, much improved, but only half of the road remains..
Yes, I was born in 1949 and remember that playing on bomb sites was common. We also had three round ponds that were allegedly bomb holes. Health and safety wasn’t much of a consideration! Mind you I remember playing with a gang of kids in the woods and having a lurking man pointed out. We were advised by the older kids to stay away from him, he was “funny”.
Being a child of the 60s I really enjoyed this, more simple times in many ways, people were less shallow, Brilliantly put together and thought provoking, very important footage thank you , I don't think neighbourhoods will ever be close like this again sadly
And kids had to use their imaginations to play not like today with game consoles everything done for them encouraging violence etc
@@user-qw6pb4ub8p you've swallpwed the propaganda then .
@@agemoth You've uninstalled spell checker then.
@@Gary-Seven-and-Isis-in-1968 I’m dyslexic! But thanks for pulling me up so kind. I had a career of being a RN for 45 years. So didn’t totally hold me back. More important things than my difficulties.
@@ladylaois8184 Your spelling is much improved now. An RN with dyslexia with the power to administer drugs . Now there's something to think about..🤔
I was born in 56 and I enjoyed every minute of it was out all the time after school playing was amazing wish I was back there for a wk before I die lol 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏☘️🌈🙏🏻
Born 1951 full of fond memories. Personally I'm so glad I loved in The 50's. I don't know we was poor I thought everyone lived like us.
I was born in 1949 near Newcastle , the fields , streams ,gardens ( allotments ) were our playgrounds oh and not forgetting the pit heaps , we went out to play and took a bottle of water and jam sarnies for the day , we walked to school and back even at lunch time no school buses to take us in those days , my dad had an allotment he kept hens I sometimes collected the eggs in the morning for our breakfasts , he grew his own veg, I had an idyllic childhood , all cousins ,aunts ,uncles lived in the same village, happy days
Happy days indeed..happiest of my life.We had nothing and wanted for nothing Born in '49.
Yes I,m a 1949er….born outside Newcastle too…Hebburn…happy days growing up.
I was born in 1941 and remember these conditions very well. It’s hard to think that food rationing still existed in the 1950’s. I find it hard to understand people in today’s society complaining about poverty and hardship. I wonder what they would think if they could experience the life that my generation had to endure. Outside toilets, no central heating, no personal phones, no food banks and no Government handouts. Just to name a few examples. Bliss!
My grandfather joined the merchant navy in the 1950s after finishing secondary school in Egypt. He came from a large business owning family but he wanted to travel the world. His home port was Hull; when he arrived, he was devastated to witness the poverty. He imagined Britain to be place of high culture and learned people.
Agree with all the comments posted from Northern Light. Well said. I was born in the mid-50's in Scotland and was raised in the same situation. I don't have that many fond memories of my childhood. I knew I was poor and was not happy most of the time, despite having many friends. I watched my father get his check from the "brew" every Tuesday because he could not find a decent job. He never spoke about his service during WWII much, but he was bitter about the life he lived. I watched my mother count out pennies on the kitchen table to make sure that even every half penny was accounted for regarding what we could afford. The term "penny pinching" was serious business. I remember being covered in coats at night because we had few blankets, and bottles filled with hot water to keep our feet warm. We would sit around a coal fire to keep us warm during the evening and sometimes shared food from one big bowl that fed us all. I recall Thatcher cutting our school milk to save money. She was made of iron all right. Also resented my father spending the money he got from the Government on drink and cigarettes at the time, but looking back, what else did the adults have to escape their misery. Watched women compete and talk about who kept their stairs the cleanest. One of the worst things we experienced was the separation of children based on religion (by choice). I don't think that was something England had, but in parts of Scotland, you were either Catholic or Protestant, and schools were segregated. We were very divided on who we could be friends with. Horribly divisive. This was a great film. Based on reality for so many in the UK. I emigrated to the US over a half century ago and have lived a happier adult life, thank God. I rarely look back. This was a great film.
I was born in 1958 my late father was an army officer in Pakistan Army we enjoyed the perks of being the privileged and segregated community but our parents were very strict and as a girl I was taught every skill sewing embroidery cooking baking and we did household work despite having servants I am very sad and heartbroken because I have lost my buddy my loving brother in 2020 and now I have no one to share the memories of good old days
Memories, Fawzia.