And Love from Galway also , spent the very best years of my life in the East End, Spitalfields was my work place and Bethnal Green Rd for shopping and restraunts , the people were just salt of the Earth.
Hi....I was 7....same here... memories of the neighbours running out with shovels to collect steaming horse droppings for their gardens. Even the coal man came in horse drawn wagonI remember the first time a hawker in a beret came along our street carrying fresh garlic. My mum got excited & was one of the few who bought some. The English housewives thought it stank.
I was born at the end of 1960 but remember the coal man (delivered by lorry) and the milkman (milk bottles) who my Dad gave some raspberries to in my old baby bath - I think his wife made a lot of jam; my Dad only had 4 or 5 rows of raspberry canes but I think it was a bumper crop that year. Loved my old house and practically lived in the garden, very sad to see so many children so into computers and not in meeting real people/real life and nature, where so much companionship, contentment and peace can be found.
I was brought up in Leeds in a working class area in back to back housing. I can really relate to this short film. The community spirt was just the same, pubs were real pubs and everyone was hard working. My whole family lived within streets of each other, no bathrooms, everyone used the communal toilets in the street, and every housewife took it in turn to clean them. Coal was delivered every week or fortnight and the rag and bone man came round with his horse and cart. Kids, in general, did as they were told and everyone helped each other out in times of need. No one had enough money, clothes were handed down from kid to kid, and I know that our parents often did without so we could eat. But, to be fair, everyone we knew was in the same boat, and despite the hardships, we were happy….we all knew nothing else and had no idea we were poor, we just thought every lived like we did. Those days were innocent in comparison with today (2023). Crack was something you found in a mirror, spice was a bag of sweets and smack was something you got on your backside. Oh how things have changed.
I was also brought up in a back to back in Armley Running to the yard in the freezing cold to go to the Loo. As it goes im still in a back to back in Armley.
@@now591 well if u can't see that for yourself then goodness.. Watch the way they talk, it's wooden, scripted, for camera.. Surely u didn't watch this and think the conversations sounded fluent, natural and normal.. Im not trying to be condescending it's just i find it incredible you not see it yourself. They couldn't get more scripted with their talking..
@@Neil-Aspinall Now why would you say such a thing, almost like you'd hope it to be true? Aren't you tired of seeing people spread negative and hateful crap online? Why add to it needlessly. There's so much truly frightening things happening in the world that the more we support each other, as perfect strangers, the better
My family is from east London, I grew up there. I don’t live there anymore.....I don’t have to tell anyone why, because you already know why. My sadness and loss for the community I remember is almost palpable to those I speak to. We HAD a culture. People often ask me what that culture was.....I say you had to live it, to know it. 🏴🇬🇧
@@bigboyrambo2009 Brits didn't commit genocide lol that Zionist coynist indoctrination and colonization was for Jewish interest and elite rich interest
Why? Because all the old East Enders who could bailed on the shithole the East End was, & emigranted to Australia, or out to Essex, thinking only of themselves. They couldn't get out fast enough. And, no, it started before & was entirely separate from anything to do with immigrants.
I grew up in South London during the 1940s, 50, and 60s. We were poor, proud, and for the most part happy. Family counted, stuck together, and looked after each other in times of stress. We lost all that from 1970 onwards. Those days are gone forever. Sad! A great documentary and a pleasure to watch it.
@@colinluckens9591 what happened? The east end "slums" where cleared and tight families like this family were given flats in impersonal tower blocks miles away from family and friends that they had lived with all their lives . It was the end of cockneys and even londoners in the traditional sense. Working class , white, londoners who have been in London for generations do not exist any more. I used to wonder why foreigners and trendy hipsters that moved to east London with daddies graduation gift would stare at me and I've worked out its because they want to see "real" working class Londoners in a vicarious bout of "slumming it". Lol
@@colinluckens9591 they were forced out of the council properties from the 1970s on. For one they changed it to priority needs only, that meant you had to be teenage & pregnant, or a 3rd world immigrant. So families were forced apart, the elderley were left in their original council property but their offspring were forced out to Essex. There's no white families left in teh East End now.
@@Pstephen @Stephen Parkin Loads? No, there's not. The only ones left are too old to move. I'm an American and this is still very known to me. White working class Londoners -- and soon every major city in England -- are all but extinct. Stop your lies!
100% I was born and raised in East London im 54 now and it makes me cry when I think back how much fun as kids with only a dad working mum at home but we had everything my dad made a huge paddling pool from polythene flooded all the gardens when emptied but all neighbours kids were in it. Victoria Park picking up knockers Southend one Sunday if dad was flush or he'd stick a magnet on lekky meter so we could spend pennies. They have both passed now 2014 mum 2019 dad. Id sell my sole for those days
This way of life was common throughout Britain but only with the “working class” because that is what they did......work. If they wanted anything they would find a job, any job, earn a bob or two and it was theirs, only to be pawned later when they were short. I grew up in a rented terrace house, 1s & 3d rent each week, doors open all day, every neighbour was an aunt or uncle, every owd man was grandad. Parents went the pub, three minutes walk on Friday and Saturday, with a Joanna playing away in the corner, Mackeson stout mixed with Woodbine smoke. One dog in the street that walked in and out of every house, no one knew who owned it or where it slept but my guess it lodged with grandad Deakin at the last house by the air raid shelter. Bonfire in the alley, all the kids turned up, baked potatoes, treacle toffee and Parkin just arrived and fireworks galore. Everyone looked after the kids if there was trouble or sickness, nothing was too much trouble or an inconvenience. There was always some one to make, mend or repair, with no conditions or cost attached and hand me downs went all round the street. One old lady was an expert in “laying out” the corpse, it was a privilege for her to do it, her contribution to the community. I could go on for ages about life in the 50’s.60’s in Cheshire and how it change rapidly to what we have today. I now live in the country, just two neighbours, one household I barely see or speak with, the other changes hands so often there is little chance of developing a community spirit. I’m grateful for the isolation I enjoy today, the welfare of your neighbour doesn’t exist. With the advent of the motor car, travel became popular and with it distance........from the family and friends you grew up with. The way of life portrayed in this film wasn’t special to Laarndon, it was common to all working class communities up ‘ere in t’norf too. Real people with soul, leading a hard yet simple life. The commentator, very much out of place and a voyeur in many respects asked about the future and retirement.....pensions were short lived, these people were old at 50 and rarely lived beyond 68, arthritis, lung cancer, pneumonia or some other disease would see them off. They were hard times, ice on the inside in winter, those tin baths on Saturdays were horrendous and unhygienic, pity the poor sod that went in last. BUT....they were good times ...... when nostalgia blends with a whisky before bed. A good insight of life back then........when.......I’ll leave you to complete or add to the memory.....
@@juliastephenson173 it happens to everyone in every era. We all have to face up to the fact sooner or later that the world of our youths disappears. People get old and die, the world changes, and people want something different. It's always been the way of the universe, but it seems so few people seem to grasp it. They somehow expect everything to stay the same, always. It's physically impossible. You can either accept it and live in today's world, or give up and retreat into memories of a world that's gone and is never coming back.
@@th8257 It's good to be in a nostalgia group though isn't it? I get so much joy from my Derby groups now I'm in my 60's. Seeing things as they were when I left to go to Cumbria. These days I have my own washing machine, phone, car and tumble drier. Something my parents never had.We have better services and facilities now. The old buildings looked good, but we were usually poor as churchmice. I'm just now leaving the relatively poor realm, I think lol. We have had no war for 80 years, but we have lost our peace. Perhaps we get to a stage where we don't want to move on. Lower the retirement age and let us be.
Strikes me In this instant gratification world we live in now that these Londoners have a togetherness of warmth and humour we have sadly lost ,heartwarming g documentary.
What a gem, thank you., I was born in Bethnal Green Hospital (1953)., London, my home, my heart. The jewllers shop Attenboroughs., still there., I have a gold ring with a black ornyx base, with a gold K., bought for me at the great age of 7., By my dear auntie and uncle., a big girls ring! Bless them both. I have passed this on to my daughter Kelly., if my maths are correct, its now 58 years old... I was so lucky to be born with my family, friends a round me., I'm so very proud to be an Eastender. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
L porquai No need to resort to grotesque negative racial stereotypes.. And anyway you’re wrong for the East End of London anyway .For better or for worse it cannot be disputed that there has been a dramatic demographic shift in the East End of London Since the late 60s resulting in White English people being in the minority. Not saying it’s good or bad but It’s definitely the case and it doesn’t change anything to be in denial of it
I was born in Bethnal Green in 1961 and still live there today. It is quite sad to look back on how things were back in that time, the area was was full of character and neighbours looked out for each other. I still remember going to the Salmon & Ball pub at the weekend with my dad, kids weren't allowed inside so we would sit on the pub doorstep eating crisps and drinking lemonade, I briefly became the manager of said pub many years later. It has all changed here now and not all for the better. Attenboroughs Jewellers is still trading on Bethnal Green Road so is the Marquis of Cornwallis pub and Kelly's Pie shop - the last men standing as most of the shops now are bangladeshi owned as is the market place.
In 2016 I was in the area doing some work and went to the Salmon and Ball pub. I thought that the name was modern like The Slug and Lettuce etc. Nice pub. It was only after I researched it and found out how old it was and all about those poor two guys hanged outside.
@@pommiebears .......I've seen him. The football world laughed at him. But while at Millwall he made it into the England B squad. So he had the last laugh. He is a great bloke also.
Modig Beowulf I don’t know if they laughed at him, tbh. I wasn’t that big a football fan. He looks a lot like my dads side, they have a strong resemblance..lol! I know they called him the gypsy. I also know he scared the life out of vinny Jones....lol!
I have a complaint about this video.....it was too short! I could have watched these wonderful people and their lives for hours on end. Thank-you for this look at an ordinary family in a long gone era. Greetings from the U.S.A.
Great family. London as it was, rent collector, bottles of milk on the doorstop, green shield stamps, football pools via collector agent etc. Life was so simple and good.
@@Celticcross688 Yes it was - I also remember how our front doors were always on the latch because our mums were in and out of each others houses all the time. We've lost the 'community' where everyone knew each other and looked out for each other. So sad!
@@spfbaits Sorry but England was built on the backs of immigrants therefore immigration helped build Britain. The UK's history is full of immigrants and their impact on the infrastructure within the country. Immigrants did jobs British people didn't want to do, why do you think the Jamaicans were recruited to drive the busses and other jobs around London. Indians, Pakistanis and Bengalis worked the mills up North doing the worse jobs in those factories. Even the English language is a mish mash of French, Latin, German and Norse....not exactly the original indigenous language of this Isle. You would have to go back to before the Roman invasion 43AD to find a true Britton.
This programme was filmed by the BBC camera man, Charles de Jaegar, who created the famous April Fools' Day joke of 1957 spoof documentary on the Swiss spaghetti harvest on the Panorama BBC show. You may recall that the spaghetti hanging off tree branches and workers collecting the strands in baskets. Sadly, Mr. De Jaeger died in May 2000. He was an outstanding documenterist and camera man.
I heard my husbands grandmother sing the words to the tune being played, it went like this :The more we are together together together the more we are together the merrier we shall be cause your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends the more we are together the merrier we shall be.
Wonderful...no entitlement attitude just work for peanuts...everyone happy with almost nothing...an era with an attitude that doesn't exist anymore...this is exactly how these people came through the blitz and years of rationing by having almost no expectation and caring for each other.
I was born in Guinness buildings Bethnal Green all my family lived there, Nans granddads aunts uncles. All very sad that it’s changed so much, people were tough but stuck together.
I'm bethnal green born and bred..I remember the Guinness buildings , and ravenscroft ..all gone sadly..Columbia road school was my introduction to the world.. god how did we let it all good... for progress?? I dont think so 🙄
What a special lady. She doesn't poke her nose in and take sides. I wish everyone was like her. Some take sides with family members just because of who they are
My daughters and sons in law know I’m not getting into their business. But my middle daughter always says if I needed to take a side,it would be her husband! 😂😂
This was truly lovely to see. I couldn't help noticing, how CLEAN everything & everyone was. Everyone dressed so nicely day and night...even the kids at PLAY! It used to be like that here in the USA, as well. Clean streets, clean people. No matter what anyone's financial status, always put their best foot forward at all times. Everyone has respect for each other and how they looked. Pride! Self esteem. And did anyone notice how SAFE it was for that BABY to be left outside the shop, with NO WORRIES from the mother? Nobody would have given a thought to taking that baby.
I don't know what world you live in but most people I suspect are far cleaner now than they were then, when people in the UK often only bathed once a week! The streets are generally cleaner too. Yes, people were more smartly dressed then, but often they dressed inappropriately, for example wearing heavy suits and ties in the Summer. Also it is highly unlikely for anyone to steal a baby, even now! I feel sorry for you that you find the modern world so threatening. Yes, I agree that some people have lost a sense of community and self respect, but please get a sensible perspective and stop looking at the past through rose tinted specs. Live was hard for many people. Enjoy what you have now.
@@simonrich3811 What a strange reaction to a fairly accurate statement. All you have to do it look around to see people took more pride in their appearance, including the state of their homes. We're talking bout lower to middle class areas like this. Rental or not, didn't wait and complain about lax landlords but more apt to fix up their own environment. As far as cleanliness, might not have been able to have full baths but the norm was to thoroughly wash face, neck, ears and "other" morning and night. Ride a bus to remind yourself that access to a full bath makes little difference. Call it apathy, loss of drive or hope as the gap between the haves and have nots has grown so far out of control. As a society we saw the world as an ever evolving towards better standards of living. Only to have a short period of prosperity then start to slump backwards. Homelessness, inability to feed and heat and many without a true living wage. Perhaps that's the big difference. There was hope back then that kids would do better than their parents. Parents would be cared for by their kids. Instead we now live in a world where kids can look forward to less opportunities to have a decent job, let alone be able to care for their elderly parents. The other thing I noticed is the lack of children dominating, running around yelling unintelligibly and out of control. Sure the intent was good to give kids a voice but it's gone so far overboard that adults must ask kids permission for everything. Example, if you watch medical shows, nurses and doctors always ask if it's okay to do anything. Take a temperature or pull a bean out of an ear, etc. Children ran and played outside,not hid in their rooms on computers and game comsoles because they weren't allowed to be lazy. Brought up with chores they "had" to do made for more respectful, useful adults The past wasn't all rosy. There was racism, lack of tolerance for people not like ourselves. Things that aren't acceptable in any civilized society. The good and the bad exist in any era but since the access to the internet, hate is spread at a much more alarming rate. Perfect strangers feel it's fine and their right to spew the most awful things at each other. If it's not something you'd march up to someone on the sidewalk and say to their face then it's shouldn't be said online. I'm a firm believer in community and it's ability to shame people into behaving themselves
I totally agree that people took pride in their appearance and made the most of the resources available to them. I wasn’t intending to make a sweeping statement about the past anymore than making sweeping statements about the present.
I clocked that but it wasn't normal. It was only because the BBC were coming, so everyone was in their Sunday Best & had just gone to the hairdresser. It's like the Billy Connolly old joke about how the Queen used to think the word smelt of fresh paint, because everywhere she went, everyone redecorated their houses & workplaces.
@@jonahwhale9047 True. Not everybody could afford to be clean. Many were worse off than this family. Bathing was a weekly thing and, even in this documentary, Streets were most definitely not clean
I was born some 6 years after this film was made just off Brick Lane in Chicksand House, Chicksand Street, I saw the last of this generation. Most moved away to Kent and Essex when times got a bit better. The cockneys near to the City have mostly all gone. Now full of Bengali's and middle class folks with money. Theres still some charm on Bethnal Green Road.... but this life is dead and gone forever....
,I was born in this proud City. in 57. I have just finished watching this old 58 film, and it had me immersed in London's nostalgic past, and I will watch it again, because its quality British Life at it best, and in some cases, maybe its worse, But we love it all the same ,But the biggest disappointment for me is, We have lost our true British way of life.Our Identity !
Amazing to see how the child was left outside the butchers in its pram with no fear whatsoever, how times have changed with all the crime on the streets now, thats something you wouldn’t dream of doing these days.
Thats it, I knew I was missing something ! My family are all miles away now, !! I'm just not happy wiv the way things are going , This was Thatchers doing , Life was simple you knew where you stood and who you were !! Not now...bleakness,poverty,destitution,
Ali Pa England should have never gone taking over all those countries which are referred to as The Commonwealth. As a result they have all come back home to roost from the colonies & beyond
@@angryjock3938 Only recently, Volvo have expressed a wish to relocate their Headquarters, due to skyrocketing crime rates. An entirely imported problem, and totally unprecedented in Swedish history.
the pub scenes made me feel very sad. ... after all they were the hub of the community. a place to see your mates, neighbours and family. a debating room and advice centre. also a good place to find work or a sub. all taken away now, imagine walking into a Witherspoon boozer and asking for a few pints till Friday !!
@@MsMesem Very few in comparison and the good ones need to charge a fortune just to stay afloat, even more so if they don't own the building unlike wetherspoons ect.
This was made by the BBC which was and still is very Middle class and class conscious to its core. its a documentary on the "amusing" working class and their behaviours which would have been as interesting to the 1950s middle class as us in 2019 watching a documentary on the mars landing is today. They had no idea how the working classes lived and is made in a patronising way by a very plummy narrator as if studying a amazon tribe.
"What do you do with these old rags?" "Well the good stuff goes to get sold at the sunday market; all the stuff thats had it goes to the poor countries; like Spain." That's classic.
I guess the rag and bone man was the equivalent of today’s charity shops/car boot sales.. that bit of life is still going in... many people (like me) still love to look for a bargain. When I’ve been hard up, the used/second hand trade has been my only way of getting things I need.
I love watching these things... I was born in 1983 so I kinda saw the remnants of this way of life before it faded away. Then technology started to become a bigger thing and this way of life seemed to dissolve. The only thing I have left, in regards to this way of life, is the way that my mum raised me to be. Always be a gentleman, always be kind, always show compassion, be grateful for the little things in life. Remember that, though your life may not be perfect, it's a damn lot better than a lot of people have it out there. My family wasn't rich but we made do with what we had and we were grateful. We created entire worlds using our imaginations. Cheap toys became main characters in our minds and we loved it.
I said 13 years or so .but you were born 83 .so wouldn't know life until about 1990 .so your at least 20 years out fella ...completely different era altogether ...by 1977 I was 16 and caught the back end of that era .it had changed by 70 71 time
What a lovely simple life, I think that's what people miss now, the simplicity of life back then. Everything that was important to you was on your doorstep. I was born in 55, and lived in Forest Gate, but my Dads, young years were spent in Bow, and Limehouse, and he was surrounded by close family.
They were proper wives and mothers in those days, women who grafted all day and could turn their hand to anything, raising a houseful of kids and keeping a well managed home,.🙂🙂
What wonderful people. I'm a northerner but quarter Londoner blood on my paternal side, originating from Walthamstow, so something stirs in the soul when I hear the accent. The Cockneys have gone now, after centuries in their purlieus. Politicians are at the bottom of it all of course.
Martin Archer manzies pie n mash did too. I remember the sawdust in the butchers shops....and the smell. My mum would go shop to shop back then. Now....you go to Tescos.
I remember shopping with my mum in the Harrow road and walking into Sainsbury's seeing sawdust on the black and white tiled floor and seeing chickens, hams hung on hooks above the glass covered counter! Such a long time ago now.
Great. Reminds me of Newcastle in 1955. Was just like that. Used to help my grandad with his horse on his coal round. Came back black. Straight into a tin bath. Happy days. Better than today anyway.
Nice images of an earlier time, you've presented. I worked for a doctor from Newcastle in 1989-1992 in New York, the U.S. His name was Dr. Clive Caplan. I've always been interested in all things British, including watching old movies filmed in Britain so this video appealed to me. I've been to London and Bath a few times; the only New Years that I ever celebrated outside of "my own four walls" so to speak, was in the city of Bath in 1995 when my daughter was living in London. Your memories of childhood reminded me of my own memories of childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. I see my past as if it's an old movie, the scenes are in black and white when I think about those years in the early 1950s. I liked reading about your lovely memories of childhood.
Even though I lived in Essex, like everyone else we had a coal bunker until the late '60s - Must have been that GEC electric fire that stopped us using coal.
I loved watching this and loved how honest and hard working and inspiring these people were. Makes you appreciate everything you have and remember that if they enjoyed their lives as they were, why couldn't we? Thanks for this :)
It looks like a well ordered society, homogeneous and patriotic, where people get along. It doesn't look like there's tension as there is today. Folks got on and they took care of each other.
2 24 Mrs Gladden....what we used to call the salt of the earth. In just a few words she tells you how it was then. I know; I was 18 at the time. I know what we didn't have then but it's what we did have that Mrs Gladden exemplifies...a stoic determination to live the life we had.Today it seems people want to live the lives that other people have.....wannabe this, wannabe that...These Eastenders may have gone but the lessons to be learned from them haven't. Mrs Gladden shines like a beacon in the desperate , bleak world of 1958 London. Check out Whittaker's Almanac for 1958; you won't find her name in the extensive gong list....it should be.
yeah its a shame these people are still not living in rat infested slums with outside toilets living from hand to mouth just to keep your skewed view of the "cockney" in tact. Vincent you are a fool! I doubt that's the not the first time you have been called that though with your opinion!!
insert name here. Hard working people who live hand to mouth still exist, they may not live in rat infested slums but also generally do not have a place they can call a long term home within a solid community around them as they are largely ignored now by society.
Shane agreed, but some of the dreamers who mill about these 1950s/60s comment sections have no clue about poverty now let alone in the 50s and 60s. They watch Downton Abbey and have some romanticised view of the past. The poor and the working class have always been ignored by the government. The middle classes used to more overtly look down their noses at the working classes. It still happens now, but in a very covert way. This programme in fact was made for the entertainment of the middle classes as most working class people didn't own a television in the 50s. it was made with a sense of them and us and gave the middle classes something to giggle about in their drawing rooms. As someone who grew up in the 60s I can tell you things are much better for the average working person than they were. For the poor and destitute things have improved but only slightly.
@@insertnamehere5146 There appeared to be quite a lot of condescension going on with this show. Listening to the interviewer, amused by a man saying he never thought about the future and just lived for the day - I "I live for my pleasures," it seems like that may have been a script written for the amusement of these people's "betters." I could be wrong, I wasn't there, but that's how it came across to me.
My Mum still speaks just like this! she was 10 years old when this film would have been made, born in the East End and lived there until she moved out to Essex when we kids came along. Some of my extended family still live in London, the older ones also still speak this way. I love it!
Dad's family lived in Nicolas Road E1, by Charrington's brewery, Mum's family was from the Old Ford Road. Roman Road Market, Green Street, the Bishop Bonner were all part of my life from the 50s (I was 5 when this film was made) through the 60s, 70s and into the 80s. Although l grew up in Plaistow and latterly Essex, Mum always kept in touch with 'The Aunts'. Tuesday was BG (Bethnal Green) Day, Mum and Nan making rounds of the various Aunts every week. I am proud to have grown up Cockney, a dying breed in the face of the great grey swarm that are today's Londoners. For 23 years l have been in New Jersey, my family American. But I will always be a Cockney Boy. Even the local cops know me as 'Mate'-and I am proud of that. West Ham til l die Tom
Upstairs 39 Credon road, lived there till I was six then moved to Australia. Heard all the stories of life there but never experienced it myself, life is different in Australia. I have been back, the house looked so small.
Much like the film! It was a small Catholic school but whenever the hammers had anything important going on, the boys were brought out for a photo. Bobby Moore had his 100 caps photo done there.....only boys allowed though, none of us girls 😊
I grew up round the elephant in the late 80’s / 90’s with all my family close by my grandad always used to go on about the good old days of London. After watching this film I no he was right
ste bee community was strength back then. I grew up poor....but, I was happy. We were all poor really. It was a completely different place in the 70’s even.
STEVEN.J.L.87 England shouldn’t have gone taking over all those countries in the 1700’s & 1800’s, then their wouldn’t have been such a big backlash from all these Commonwealth nations moving in such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Nigeria plus lots lots more. Remember also a lot of ppl from the colonies were invited after the Second World War to help build back the country.
@@mrladnek5858 If you kill someone, should your child be punished for it? A lot were invited back, but were not needed. Japan rebuilt from a fucking nuclear bomb without outside help. Our people built it in the first place.
When did England stop being England? When did it even start being England? This idea of 'England' as something that's fixed and not ephemeral is ridiculous; if it can be defined as anything, England is and always has been a collage of peoples coming from other parts of the world. Anyone who isn't alert to this fact knows fuck all about our history.
@Mark Donald Why does this matter? These cultures were still quite distinct from each other, in many ways more distinct than modern day English and South Asian people, no thanks to us!
My parents were both born in East Ham, and I was born in 1958 in Ipswich. Between 1960 and 65 I spent a lot of time staying in East Ham (Monmouth Road and Gooseley Lane. Dads dad was a lighterman at the Royal Albert Dock and Mums dad worked at Woolwhich Power Station. Used to go to their allotments with them, and to watch West Ham UTD and enjoyed visiting Central Park and the baths on the High Street. Everything cost thruppence then.
It's an outpost of Bangladesh now. In 1940 My mother stood watching German bombers overhead and parachute mines dropping into the streets while Hurricanes and Spitfires fought the hun in the sky above with fired cartridge cases clattering down into the road.. A pity there is nobody fighting the invading hordes today.
ln the sixteenth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of France now'. ln the seventeenth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of Holland now'. ln the nineteeth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of Russia now'.
@@billythedog-309 I don't entirely agree with his sentiment but you have to understand the shear volume of migrants coming to london and the uk as a whole is beyond anything even centuries before. In 1983 London was 85% white and is now less than 30% Its not the peoples fault but how can cramping that many different cultures and languages ever get on? Show me a country where it has
@@mattiemclean9882 Are you related to Lenny McLean from Hoxton? He was quite a famous East End character! In the 1990s he became a TV actor before finally dying of inoperable brain and lung cancer at the young age of 48. I read his autobiography 20 years ago which was quite awesome.
Love this. I was born in the East End in December '58 so it shows me what the world i was born into was like more than programmes like Call the Midwife.
I wish I'd had this kind of close community around me every day growing up. I've got friends who grew up on estates in Herts, Belfast, Manchester and in rural towns in other countries who had this very connected kind of life. My family is multicultural and growing up my dad's work moved us around a lot, sometimes to different countries. So our family is scattered across the world, although we've got a lot of extended family in Herts who settled there after being evacuated from the East End. It's such a double edged sword. I love my rich cultural heritage (a true British melting pot mutt) and I'm grateful for the experiences my parents worked hard to give us each time they moved for new opportunities. But it certainly was lonely as a nuclear family who kept to themselves in a posh middle class neighbourhood. My friends who stayed put were always amazed at how much I had traveled - and I was equally fascinated by them having their nan down the road and cousins to play with, being able to go outside with lots of other children on the street, and friends they'd known since birth! There's this comfortableness about people that are used to living like that as well. You can call them up any time and it's like you just spoke yesterday. With people like my family and their neighbors, you can't just drop in, you have to arrange to "meet up" or "call for a catch up" and it's always a little stiff at first. I got a real taste of it when I went to university and suddenly had lots of friends around me to do things with. Always a door open, always people to eat with and laugh with. Couldn't get enough of it. I then worked in a few different cities in the UK after I studied - Bristol, London, Manchester - all great places and I still keep in touch with friends from there, but when you don't have time to put down roots the scenery doesn't count for much. When I moved to Herts (near to extended & nuclear family), got a job there and made some friends & got involved in the community, after a few years I finally have that connected life I was looking for. I'm even happy the pandemic crammed me into a house with my immediate family again! We definitely squabble but we've also supported eachother through some tough times, and I know this is going to be an experience I'll look back on fondly. Only problem now is staying here - like most people my age owning a house is out of reach for now but I'm going to keep working hard and hope I can give future kids the kind of permanence, extended community and "simple pleasures" they are enjoying here.
Interesting and I can remember so much of it as my forebears worked in the rag trade. My stepfather a ticket collector for British Rail used to love to take me on a Sunday morning to Petticoat Lane Market and working class life was harsher in those days but there was a close knit community feeling and families all lived closeby. Loved that man's in the moment attitude towards the end of this documentary when asked about house ownership and bank clerk's lifestyle aspirations. How Society has changed since those days. It is a real sadness today to see how that old community spirit has broken down and today people prefer to live in bubbles.
I was born in Essex but my parents lived in London throughout the war (Dad stationed in Africa) But my Mum's Family came from Germany and were of noble decent. They lived in the East End for sometime before moving out to Kent. I married an East End Boy in 1973 (A very different Moorgate in the East End from the one today) Before my husband died we had become millionaires in the Shipping world and lived a relatively different way of life. But I can honestly say that those values we had growing up are still the same values that I have taught my sons as they grew up. I am extremely proud to say that they are good solid people of this age! They do, and I underline the word 'do' have the welfare of ALL those around them at their hearts. So I do not agree that those community spirits die, they can and do diversify but still remain strong and true.
A romanticised portrayal, but there were many good things in this film which you would struggle to find in modern Britain. Family loyalty, honest employment, community togetherness, jumpers for goalposts... But you can already see the signs of the rot. Dancing to rock'n'roll in the flat! Whatever happened to Knees up Mother Brown?
Lovely little film, Kelly's pie & mash shop and Attenborough's pawnbrokers are still trading in Bethnal Green Road, the street market at 23:53 is Cheshire Street (Club Row) runs from Brick Lane to Vallance Road, and at 0:37 the shop with the "Talking Budgie" sign was at the Bethnal Green Road end of Sclater Street, ( the building is still there it's now a hair dressers) I really enjoyed watching this, well done for finding it, Thank's.
Thanks for the information. I really wanted to know where it was all filmed. I'll definitely have a look at the locations as they are today. Thanks again.
It's criminal what the government did to London people and people all over England Hopefully one day it will be safe to speak out but will there be anyone left to do it?
I think most people were pleased to move into new accommodation, or even out of London entirely as my family did in the 60's. It's only in hindsight that they were able to look back and see what they'd lost. Now the communities that live in those areas are so transient, speak so many languages, have so many different ways of living, that they all seem to live as individuals. Surprising how much has survived from this film though - The Marquis of Cornwallis pub is still there, the pie & mash shop etc.
Wonderful trip back in time… loved every moment of this superb look at East London life late 1950s… magical capture on film. Thank you very much for this post… love it.
My God....England was so different in those days. Why can’t they invent a time machine.. I would love to see it with my own eyes!!! 😃 To experience different eras. (Without interfering with history of course) Like a tourist...But instead of going to a (place destination), going to a (time destination) Can you imagine? Dancing to Elvis and the Beatles songs while they are still alive and young 😃 Walking around piccadilly Circus in the late 1950s, early 1960s the old double deck buses,... Bumping into Jimi Hendrix in Canonbury Street in the 60s 🤣 I have always wanted to travel in time!!! 😁
I've moved to Australia. Here, the communities aren't as old...only settled since 1840 or so...but they're safe from change for some time yet. So it's a proper community...I'm a newcomer but they give you a chance.
I would rather watch this family than the Kardashians!
Twat what would you know
far better days
Who ?.
@@johughes5842 Thank you for your erudite and considered contribution to the debate.
I'd rather watch a dog dig holes than watch the Kardashians myself!!!🙄
What lovely people, God bless their precious souls.💖 Love from Dublin, Ireland.💖🇮🇪
And Love from Galway also , spent the very best years of my life in the East End, Spitalfields was my work place and Bethnal Green Rd for shopping and restraunts , the people were just salt of the Earth.
I was 6 years old in 1958 I remember milk delivered by horse drawn wagon, rag and bone man and the onion seller on his bike. So many happy memories
Hi....I was 7....same here... memories of the neighbours running out with shovels to collect steaming horse droppings for their gardens. Even the coal man came in horse drawn wagonI remember the first time a hawker in a beret came along our street carrying fresh garlic. My mum got excited & was one of the few who bought some. The English housewives thought it stank.
I was born at the end of 1960 but remember the coal man (delivered by lorry) and the milkman (milk bottles) who my Dad gave some raspberries to in my old baby bath - I think his wife made a lot of jam; my Dad only had 4 or 5 rows of raspberry canes but I think it was a bumper crop that year. Loved my old house and practically lived in the garden, very sad to see so many children so into computers and not in meeting real people/real life and nature, where so much companionship, contentment and peace can be found.
The rag'n'bone man used to have goldfish 🤣
I was brought up in Leeds in a working class area in back to back housing. I can really relate to this short film. The community spirt was just the same, pubs were real pubs and everyone was hard working. My whole family lived within streets of each other, no bathrooms, everyone used the communal toilets in the street, and every housewife took it in turn to clean them. Coal was delivered every week or fortnight and the rag and bone man came round with his horse and cart. Kids, in general, did as they were told and everyone helped each other out in times of need. No one had enough money, clothes were handed down from kid to kid, and I know that our parents often did without so we could eat. But, to be fair, everyone we knew was in the same boat, and despite the hardships, we were happy….we all knew nothing else and had no idea we were poor, we just thought every lived like we did. Those days were innocent in comparison with today (2023). Crack was something you found in a mirror, spice was a bag of sweets and smack was something you got on your backside. Oh how things have changed.
Haha great comment Julie I’m on Burley Rd 😂
what did they do with the rags.
I was also brought up in a back to back in Armley Running to the yard in the freezing cold to go to the Loo. As it goes im still in a back to back in Armley.
She’s got a to. That was a real luxury. They were very expensive. I was 10 days old when this was broadcast.
@@rubydawn1 lt was recycled as shoddy.
I feel so sad watching this beautiful little film of how London was..... Now sadly all gone 😭😭😭
This is fake as fake could be.sorry
Watch how london was before 15th century and you would be happy watching london now.
@@solcutta-zt9uw Care to explain why?
@@jhonsaxon876 What an absurd & irrelevant comparison.
@@now591 well if u can't see that for yourself then goodness.. Watch the way they talk, it's wooden, scripted, for camera.. Surely u didn't watch this and think the conversations sounded fluent, natural and normal.. Im not trying to be condescending it's just i find it incredible you not see it yourself. They couldn't get more scripted with their talking..
I wonder what happened to the 16 and 17 year old girls on the cusp of adulthood. In 2020 they’d be nearly 80 now. I hope they had happy lives.
Oh yea they had great lives..turned out Hollywood A Listers .
I also wonder if by any chance they might have caught this video and seen themselves as teenagers?
I am sure they had 6 kids each and their husbands left them and they had wretched miserable lives,
@@Neil-Aspinall Now why would you say such a thing, almost like you'd hope it to be true? Aren't you tired of seeing people spread negative and hateful crap online? Why add to it needlessly. There's so much truly frightening things happening in the world that the more we support each other, as perfect strangers, the better
@@Neil-Aspinall Not all did, I had a great life and travelled the world, have daughters and grandchildren who went to University.
My family is from east London, I grew up there. I don’t live there anymore.....I don’t have to tell anyone why, because you already know why. My sadness and loss for the community I remember is almost palpable to those I speak to. We HAD a culture. People often ask me what that culture was.....I say you had to live it, to know it. 🏴🇬🇧
Who do you blame for the genocide on your people?
Bigboy Ramboy government. That’s who I blame.
Bigboy Ramboy Fuck off, nazi rat.
@@bigboyrambo2009 Brits didn't commit genocide lol that Zionist coynist indoctrination and colonization was for Jewish interest and elite rich interest
Why? Because all the old East Enders who could bailed on the shithole the East End was, & emigranted to Australia, or out to Essex, thinking only of themselves. They couldn't get out fast enough. And, no, it started before & was entirely separate from anything to do with immigrants.
Brilliant ! We never hear the old London accent any more... so sad !
this is how london used to be,its lovely to watch, and things have changed and i cant say for the better
......especially the 'mass owning of cars'now - the poor old rag & bone man with his beautiful horse & cart gone.
My father was born and grew up in London.He left after it became unrecognizable and he was literally in tears when we watched this together.
The death of the family changed everything for the worse
so@@ronalddonner3396
Oh what a beautiful film, it reminds me of my childhood, I'm 70 now and wish I could go back
What, to poverty?
I'm 70 this year, and a yank,
I to wish
I could go back!
@@Neil-AspinallYou keep saying that, is that all you got from this?
What a sad little man you are.
@@Neil-AspinallMany are still in poverty. The closeness has gone but the poverty is still there.
@@chrissywales6575 Yes places like Liverpool are almost back to Dickens times.
I grew up in South London during the 1940s, 50, and 60s. We were poor, proud, and for the most part happy. Family counted, stuck together, and looked after each other in times of stress. We lost all that from 1970 onwards. Those days are gone forever. Sad! A great documentary and a pleasure to watch it.
But why??? What happened after 1970?
@@colinluckens9591 what happened? The east end "slums" where cleared and tight families like this family were given flats in impersonal tower blocks miles away from family and friends that they had lived with all their lives . It was the end of cockneys and even londoners in the traditional sense. Working class , white, londoners who have been in London for generations do not exist any more. I used to wonder why foreigners and trendy hipsters that moved to east London with daddies graduation gift would stare at me and I've worked out its because they want to see "real" working class Londoners in a vicarious bout of "slumming it". Lol
@@colinluckens9591 they were forced out of the council properties from the 1970s on. For one they changed it to priority needs only, that meant you had to be teenage & pregnant, or a 3rd world immigrant. So families were forced apart, the elderley were left in their original council property but their offspring were forced out to Essex. There's no white families left in teh East End now.
@@user-wt7zz7gd1e - There are loads of white families in the East End. It's silly to say there aren't any.
@@Pstephen @Stephen Parkin Loads? No, there's not. The only ones left are too old to move. I'm an American and this is still very known to me. White working class Londoners -- and soon every major city in England -- are all but extinct. Stop your lies!
100% I was born and raised in East London im 54 now and it makes me cry when I think back how much fun as kids with only a dad working mum at home but we had everything my dad made a huge paddling pool from polythene flooded all the gardens when emptied but all neighbours kids were in it. Victoria Park picking up knockers Southend one Sunday if dad was flush or he'd stick a magnet on lekky meter so we could spend pennies. They have both passed now 2014 mum 2019 dad. Id sell my sole for those days
Knockers 😂
This way of life was common throughout Britain but only with the “working class” because that is what they did......work. If they wanted anything they would find a job, any job, earn a bob or two and it was theirs, only to be pawned later when they were short.
I grew up in a rented terrace house, 1s & 3d rent each week, doors open all day, every neighbour was an aunt or uncle, every owd man was grandad. Parents went the pub, three minutes walk on Friday and Saturday, with a Joanna playing away in the corner, Mackeson stout mixed with Woodbine smoke. One dog in the street that walked in and out of every house, no one knew who owned it or where it slept but my guess it lodged with grandad Deakin at the last house by the air raid shelter.
Bonfire in the alley, all the kids turned up, baked potatoes, treacle toffee and Parkin just arrived and fireworks galore.
Everyone looked after the kids if there was trouble or sickness, nothing was too much trouble or an inconvenience. There was always some one to make, mend or repair, with no conditions or cost attached and hand me downs went all round the street.
One old lady was an expert in “laying out” the corpse, it was a privilege for her to do it, her contribution to the community.
I could go on for ages about life in the 50’s.60’s in Cheshire and how it change rapidly to what we have today.
I now live in the country, just two neighbours, one household I barely see or speak with, the other changes hands so often there is little chance of developing a community spirit.
I’m grateful for the isolation I enjoy today, the welfare of your neighbour doesn’t exist.
With the advent of the motor car, travel became popular and with it distance........from the family and friends you grew up with.
The way of life portrayed in this film wasn’t special to Laarndon, it was common to all working class communities up ‘ere in t’norf too.
Real people with soul, leading a hard yet simple life.
The commentator, very much out of place and a voyeur in many respects asked about the future and retirement.....pensions were short lived, these people were old at 50 and rarely lived beyond 68, arthritis, lung cancer, pneumonia or some other disease would see them off.
They were hard times, ice on the inside in winter, those tin baths on Saturdays were horrendous and unhygienic, pity the poor sod that went in last.
BUT....they were good times ...... when nostalgia blends with a whisky before bed.
A good insight of life back then........when.......I’ll leave you to complete or add to the memory.....
Wow you said it all how refreshing to bring back all the memories. You should write a book 😀😊😀
Thank you. I just feel sad at how much we’ve lost.
@@juliastephenson173 it happens to everyone in every era. We all have to face up to the fact sooner or later that the world of our youths disappears. People get old and die, the world changes, and people want something different. It's always been the way of the universe, but it seems so few people seem to grasp it. They somehow expect everything to stay the same, always. It's physically impossible. You can either accept it and live in today's world, or give up and retreat into memories of a world that's gone and is never coming back.
@@th8257 It's good to be in a nostalgia group though isn't it? I get so much joy from my Derby groups now I'm in my 60's. Seeing things as they were when I left to go to Cumbria. These days I have my own washing machine, phone, car and tumble drier. Something my parents never had.We have better services and facilities now. The old buildings looked good, but we were usually poor as churchmice. I'm just now leaving the relatively poor realm, I think lol. We have had no war for 80 years, but we have lost our peace. Perhaps we get to a stage where we don't want to move on. Lower the retirement age and let us be.
@@th8257 I know you’re right ...doesn’t stop it being sad though
Strikes me In this instant gratification world we live in now that these Londoners have a togetherness of warmth and humour we have sadly lost ,heartwarming g documentary.
What a gem, thank you., I was born in Bethnal Green Hospital (1953)., London, my home, my heart.
The jewllers shop Attenboroughs., still there., I have a gold ring with a black ornyx base, with a gold K., bought for me at the great age of 7.,
By my dear auntie and uncle., a big girls ring! Bless them both.
I have passed this on to my daughter Kelly., if my maths are correct, its now 58 years old...
I was so lucky to be born with my family, friends a round me., I'm so very proud to be an Eastender. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I know Attenborough's jewellers. I bought a chain from there years ago. E. Pellici cafe not far from there either.
How do you feel about the genocide on your people?
A lovely slice of London life that's gone forever.
andy oliver you might enjoy a documentary called we was all one on you tube all about Bermondsey in the early 70s
Thank you, I'll look at it now. Much appreciated.
Lovely slice of England if you didn't have to actually live there at that time. That is poverty by today's standards.
Tbh, I think that poverty is about there not being a community or without love and kindness! You can keep all the loneliness of so called 'wealth'!
Shame
London will never be the same. It will never go back to being British!! Proper talking!!
This what the Spain must feel like with all the brits over there.
40 years later you'd think you were on a different continent!
Don't talk daft ....pal you'll always have you're beer bellied,red faced ,stella drinking types they'll never be outnumbered
Chin up
I thought I saw Charles Kray at 23:30..
I completely agree and I don't drink Stella to have a Pot belly.
L porquai No need to resort to grotesque negative racial stereotypes.. And anyway you’re wrong for the East End of London anyway .For better or for worse it cannot be disputed that there has been a dramatic demographic shift in the East End of London Since the late 60s resulting in White English people being in the minority. Not saying it’s good or bad but It’s definitely the case and it doesn’t change anything to be in denial of it
@borderlord I 100% agree! Many parts of the UK have been taken over by foreigners. This country is loosing its identity.
So much charm gone forever.
Can you imagine how fantastic Christmases would have been.
I remember the salvation army in the pubs, everyone coughed up..... respect
I was born in Bethnal Green in 1961 and still live there today. It is quite sad to look back on how things were back in that time, the area was was full of character and neighbours looked out for each other. I still remember going to the Salmon & Ball pub at the weekend with my dad, kids weren't allowed inside so we would sit on the pub doorstep eating crisps and drinking lemonade, I briefly became the manager of said pub many years later. It has all changed here now and not all for the better. Attenboroughs Jewellers is still trading on Bethnal Green Road so is the Marquis of Cornwallis pub and Kelly's Pie shop - the last men standing as most of the shops now are bangladeshi owned as is the market place.
In 2016 I was in the area doing some work and went to the Salmon and Ball pub. I thought that the name was modern like The Slug and Lettuce etc. Nice pub. It was only after I researched it and found out how old it was and all about those poor two guys hanged outside.
That was a fantastic pie and mash shop. I lived near Broadway Market and loved getting pie and mash there when I went to Tesco.
Growing up in Bermondsey in South East London I can relate heavily to this documentary. A strong working class community spirit. All now gone.
We got genocided by banksters
Dorian Graye my cousin used to play for millwall! Terry Hurlock.
@@pommiebears .......I've seen him. The football world laughed at him. But while at Millwall he made it into the England B squad. So he had the last laugh. He is a great bloke also.
Modig Beowulf I don’t know if they laughed at him, tbh. I wasn’t that big a football fan. He looks a lot like my dads side, they have a strong resemblance..lol! I know they called him the gypsy. I also know he scared the life out of vinny Jones....lol!
@@pommiebears Wow! He scared Vinney? Lol ... it was the football media that took the piss. Never any fans. Thanks for reply.
I have a complaint about this video.....it was too short! I could have watched these wonderful people and their lives for hours on end. Thank-you for this look at an ordinary family in a long gone era. Greetings from the U.S.A.
Great family. London as it was, rent collector, bottles of milk on the doorstop, green shield stamps, football pools via collector agent etc. Life was so simple and good.
Gollyfats It sure was, its getting more evil by the day.
A fine community..
Life was shocking and these people were happy with it.
Spot the Ball
@@Celticcross688 Yes it was - I also remember how our front doors were always on the latch because our mums were in and out of each others houses all the time. We've lost the 'community' where everyone knew each other and looked out for each other. So sad!
Makes me so sad how England has changed for ever in such a short space of time 😕
Politics
All by coincidence too who would of thought...
@@BellogsTheChicken immigration*
@@spfbaits Sorry but England was built on the backs of immigrants therefore immigration helped build Britain. The UK's history is full of immigrants and their impact on the infrastructure within the country. Immigrants did jobs British people didn't want to do, why do you think the Jamaicans were recruited to drive the busses and other jobs around London. Indians, Pakistanis and Bengalis worked the mills up North doing the worse jobs in those factories. Even the English language is a mish mash of French, Latin, German and Norse....not exactly the original indigenous language of this Isle. You would have to go back to before the Roman invasion 43AD to find a true Britton.
When has the world not changed???
This programme was filmed by the BBC camera man, Charles de Jaegar, who created the famous April Fools' Day joke of 1957 spoof documentary on the Swiss spaghetti harvest on the Panorama BBC show. You may recall that the spaghetti hanging off tree branches and workers collecting the strands in baskets. Sadly, Mr. De Jaeger died in May 2000. He was an outstanding documenterist and camera man.
Excellent film
Loved everything about it. Thanks.
I love this thank god we can still see this film.
I heard my husbands grandmother sing the words to the tune being played, it went like this :The more we are together together together the more we are together the merrier we shall be cause your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends the more we are together the merrier we shall be.
We've been very short changed in this country. Makes me very sad and angry 😠😡
Wonderful...no entitlement attitude just work for peanuts...everyone happy with almost nothing...an era with an attitude that doesn't exist anymore...this is exactly how these people came through the blitz and years of rationing by having almost no expectation and caring for each other.
I was born in Guinness buildings Bethnal Green all my family lived there, Nans granddads aunts uncles. All very sad that it’s changed so much, people were tough but stuck together.
I'm bethnal green born and bred..I remember the Guinness buildings , and ravenscroft ..all gone sadly..Columbia road school was my introduction to the world.. god how did we let it all good... for progress??
I dont think so 🙄
What a special lady. She doesn't poke her nose in and take sides. I wish everyone was like her. Some take sides with family members just because of who they are
My daughters and sons in law know I’m not getting into their business. But my middle daughter always says if I needed to take a side,it would be her husband! 😂😂
This was truly lovely to see. I couldn't help noticing, how CLEAN everything & everyone was. Everyone dressed so nicely day and night...even the kids at PLAY! It used to be like that here in the USA, as well. Clean streets, clean people. No matter what anyone's financial status, always put their best foot forward at all times. Everyone has respect for each other and how they looked. Pride! Self esteem.
And did anyone notice how SAFE it was for that BABY to be left outside the shop, with NO WORRIES from the mother? Nobody would have given a thought to taking that baby.
I don't know what world you live in but most people I suspect are far cleaner now than they were then, when people in the UK often only bathed once a week! The streets are generally cleaner too. Yes, people were more smartly dressed then, but often they dressed inappropriately, for example wearing heavy suits and ties in the Summer. Also it is highly unlikely for anyone to steal a baby, even now! I feel sorry for you that you find the modern world so threatening. Yes, I agree that some people have lost a sense of community and self respect, but please get a sensible perspective and stop looking at the past through rose tinted specs. Live was hard for many people. Enjoy what you have now.
@@simonrich3811 What a strange reaction to a fairly accurate statement. All you have to do it look around to see people took more pride in their appearance, including the state of their homes. We're talking bout lower to middle class areas like this. Rental or not, didn't wait and complain about lax landlords but more apt to fix up their own environment. As far as cleanliness, might not have been able to have full baths but the norm was to thoroughly wash face, neck, ears and "other" morning and night. Ride a bus to remind yourself that access to a full bath makes little difference. Call it apathy, loss of drive or hope as the gap between the haves and have nots has grown so far out of control. As a society we saw the world as an ever evolving towards better standards of living. Only to have a short period of prosperity then start to slump backwards. Homelessness, inability to feed and heat and many without a true living wage. Perhaps that's the big difference. There was hope back then that kids would do better than their parents. Parents would be cared for by their kids. Instead we now live in a world where kids can look forward to less opportunities to have a decent job, let alone be able to care for their elderly parents.
The other thing I noticed is the lack of children dominating, running around yelling unintelligibly and out of control. Sure the intent was good to give kids a voice but it's gone so far overboard that adults must ask kids permission for everything. Example, if you watch medical shows, nurses and doctors always ask if it's okay to do anything. Take a temperature or pull a bean out of an ear, etc. Children ran and played outside,not hid in their rooms on computers and game comsoles because they weren't allowed to be lazy. Brought up with chores they "had" to do made for more respectful, useful adults
The past wasn't all rosy. There was racism, lack of tolerance for people not like ourselves. Things that aren't acceptable in any civilized society. The good and the bad exist in any era but since the access to the internet, hate is spread at a much more alarming rate. Perfect strangers feel it's fine and their right to spew the most awful things at each other. If it's not something you'd march up to someone on the sidewalk and say to their face then it's shouldn't be said online. I'm a firm believer in community and it's ability to shame people into behaving themselves
I totally agree that people took pride in their appearance and made the most of the resources available to them. I wasn’t intending to make a sweeping statement about the past anymore than making sweeping statements about the present.
I clocked that but it wasn't normal. It was only because the BBC were coming, so everyone was in their Sunday Best & had just gone to the hairdresser. It's like the Billy Connolly old joke about how the Queen used to think the word smelt of fresh paint, because everywhere she went, everyone redecorated their houses & workplaces.
@@jonahwhale9047 True. Not everybody could afford to be clean. Many were worse off than this family. Bathing was a weekly thing and, even in this documentary, Streets were most definitely not clean
can't believe this is only 60 years ago, looks more like 600, they just got on with it and worked hard
Good proud people! And British God bless them, they gave their all.
It makes me sad to see this and what London has become today, we are being sold out.
I was born some 6 years after this film was made just off Brick Lane in Chicksand House, Chicksand Street, I saw the last of this generation. Most moved away to Kent and Essex when times got a bit better. The cockneys near to the City have mostly all gone. Now full of Bengali's and middle class folks with money. Theres still some charm on Bethnal Green Road.... but this life is dead and gone forever....
,I was born in this proud City. in 57. I have just finished watching this old 58 film, and it had me immersed in London's nostalgic past, and I will watch it again, because its quality British Life at it best, and in some cases, maybe its worse, But we love it all the same ,But the biggest disappointment for me is, We have lost our true British way of life.Our Identity !
Amazing to see how the child was left outside the butchers in its pram with no fear whatsoever, how times have changed with all the crime on the streets now, thats something you wouldn’t dream of doing these days.
It was pre Moors Murders I guess parents felt safer.
My mum left me outside Woolworths and went home. She forgot me. When she ran back I was still in my pram outside. England is horrible now.
@@fasthracing oh those murders were horrible! All those poor children/what a desolate resting place!
@@karenjoslyn4051 Indeed. I live in the area.
@@deborahgonzalezknight168 Not all of it, I live in a lovely little community.
A bit poorer, a bit dirtier, but no rape gangs or acid attacks. Soap and water are cheap.
Bunne ..i think you will find these people were spotless and very clean .....they even used to scrub thier doorsteps
@@HUMPTYNUGGET That's good to know, I think the "dirtier" was more due to industrial smokestack particles and that's difficult to keep up with.
@@BunneRabb And don't forget the asbestos.
A bit dirtier? I don't see it.
Looks a lot worse than new york even in the 1920s!!
We are so spoiled today. The humility of these folks is what comes across. We expect so much today . Thanks for these memories. John (Australia)
As hard as it was, these were wonderful days to live. I can't even go out after dark now ! What a way to destroy a community and social cohesion.
it's called enrichment and apparently diversity is our strength.
Thats it, I knew I was missing something ! My family are all miles away now, !! I'm just not happy wiv the way things are going , This was Thatchers doing , Life was simple you knew where you stood and who you were !! Not now...bleakness,poverty,destitution,
@@mummybunny331The Demographic Replacement Plan was already on the cards long before the Milk Snatcher.
@@basketcase1285 I can believe you...xx
Lovely good old London.
nah!
When london was london.
Ali Pa England should have never gone taking over all those countries which are referred to as The Commonwealth. As a result they have all come back home to roost from the colonies & beyond
@@mrladnek5858 fuck off you genocide pushing rat
nah
@Mr S Gee Can you explain why Sweden is turning into a 3rd world country?
@@angryjock3938 Only recently, Volvo have expressed a wish to relocate their Headquarters, due to skyrocketing crime rates. An entirely imported problem, and totally unprecedented in Swedish history.
the pub scenes made me feel very sad. ... after all they were the hub of the community.
a place to see your mates, neighbours and family.
a debating room and advice centre. also a good place to find work or a sub.
all taken away now, imagine walking into a Witherspoon boozer and asking for a few pints till Friday !!
Are there really that few family owned pubs?
@@MsMesem Very few in comparison and the good ones need to charge a fortune just to stay afloat, even more so if they don't own the building unlike wetherspoons ect.
"Forced migration as ethnic cleansing" - E MIchael Jones
If only I had a time machine!!!
This was made by the BBC which was and still is very Middle class and class conscious to its core. its a documentary on the "amusing" working class and their behaviours which would have been as interesting to the 1950s middle class as us in 2019 watching a documentary on the mars landing is today. They had no idea how the working classes lived and is made in a patronising way by a very plummy narrator as if studying a amazon tribe.
Shows him cadging a subsidised council house/flat & expecting it until 'kingdom comes' - selfish non-tax contributor.
i must agree.still great to watch during this time.
The Salvation Army lady going into the pub to collect. Love it.
"What do you do with these old rags?"
"Well the good stuff goes to get sold at the sunday market; all the stuff thats had it goes to the poor countries; like Spain."
That's classic.
I guess the rag and bone man was the equivalent of today’s charity shops/car boot sales.. that bit of life is still going in... many people (like me) still love to look for a bargain.
When I’ve been hard up, the used/second hand trade has been my only way of getting things I need.
That's what I thought poor countries like Spain in Italy. They're rich than what we but what a lovely little film
I love watching these things... I was born in 1983 so I kinda saw the remnants of this way of life before it faded away. Then technology started to become a bigger thing and this way of life seemed to dissolve. The only thing I have left, in regards to this way of life, is the way that my mum raised me to be. Always be a gentleman, always be kind, always show compassion, be grateful for the little things in life. Remember that, though your life may not be perfect, it's a damn lot better than a lot of people have it out there. My family wasn't rich but we made do with what we had and we were grateful. We created entire worlds using our imaginations. Cheap toys became main characters in our minds and we loved it.
The remnants of this era finished by 1970 ....your about 13 years out
I said 13 years or so .but you were born 83 .so wouldn't know life until about 1990 .so your at least 20 years out fella ...completely different era altogether ...by 1977 I was 16 and caught the back end of that era .it had changed by 70 71 time
Great days ,better than the throw away world we live in today.
What a lovely simple life, I think that's what people miss now, the simplicity of life back then. Everything that was important to you was on your doorstep. I was born in 55, and lived in Forest Gate, but my Dads, young years were spent in Bow, and Limehouse, and he was surrounded by close family.
They were proper wives and mothers in those days, women who grafted all day and could turn their hand to anything, raising a houseful of kids and keeping a well managed home,.🙂🙂
We didn't have to bring another full time wage in too then, we were able to just run a home and bring up a family
A hard but simpler life; just appears less complicated!
What wonderful people. I'm a northerner but quarter Londoner blood on my paternal side, originating from Walthamstow, so something stirs in the soul when I hear the accent. The Cockneys have gone now, after centuries in their purlieus. Politicians are at the bottom of it all of course.
I forgot the butchers used to have sawdust on the floors, memories thanks for sharing
Martin Archer manzies pie n mash did too. I remember the sawdust in the butchers shops....and the smell. My mum would go shop to shop back then. Now....you go to Tescos.
I remember shopping with my mum in the Harrow road and walking into Sainsbury's seeing sawdust on the black and white tiled floor and seeing chickens, hams hung on hooks above the glass covered counter! Such a long time ago now.
Jennifer Archer me too I come from the Midlands but I remember the sawdust and the fishmongers.
Me too. I just remembered the smell. Blood and damp sawdust.
Now London is gone
I was born in 1957 in Australia 🇦🇺 we didn’t get television until I was around 9 or 10 . I was shocked when I saw they had t.v. .
Great. Reminds me of Newcastle in 1955. Was just like that. Used to help my grandad with his horse on his coal round. Came back black. Straight into a tin bath. Happy days. Better than today anyway.
Nice images of an earlier time, you've presented. I worked for a doctor from Newcastle in 1989-1992 in New York, the U.S. His name was Dr. Clive Caplan. I've always been interested in all things British, including watching old movies filmed in Britain so this video appealed to me. I've been to London and Bath a few times; the only New Years that I ever celebrated outside of "my own four walls" so to speak, was in the city of Bath in 1995 when my daughter was living in London. Your memories of childhood reminded me of my own memories of childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. I see my past as if it's an old movie, the scenes are in black and white when I think about those years in the early 1950s. I liked reading about your lovely memories of childhood.
Even though I lived in Essex, like everyone else we had a coal bunker until the late '60s - Must have been that GEC electric fire that stopped us using coal.
We had so much character, a back bone and a can do attitude with a classy humour back then.
I loved watching this and loved how honest and hard working and inspiring these people were. Makes you appreciate everything you have and remember that if they enjoyed their lives as they were, why couldn't we? Thanks for this :)
and tother way round
So bang down to earth in them days no superficial nonsense!!
It looks like a well ordered society, homogeneous and patriotic, where people get along. It doesn't look like there's tension as there is today. Folks got on and they took care of each other.
It was all those things and more! It was full of character and a bustling environment.
2 24 Mrs Gladden....what we used to call the salt of the earth. In just a few words she tells you how it was then. I know; I was 18 at the time. I know what we didn't have then but it's what we did have that Mrs Gladden exemplifies...a stoic determination to live the life we had.Today it seems people want to live the lives that other people have.....wannabe this, wannabe that...These Eastenders may have gone but the lessons to be learned from them haven't. Mrs Gladden shines like a beacon in the desperate , bleak world of 1958 London. Check out Whittaker's Almanac for 1958; you won't find her name in the extensive gong list....it should be.
It's a shame those days have gone
It's a shame those people have gone!
yeah its a shame these people are still not living in rat infested slums with outside toilets living from hand to mouth just to keep your skewed view of the "cockney" in tact. Vincent you are a fool! I doubt that's the not the first time you have been called that though with your opinion!!
insert name here. Hard working people who live hand to mouth still exist, they may not live in rat infested slums but also generally do not have a place they can call a long term home within a solid community around them as they are largely ignored now by society.
Shane agreed, but some of the dreamers who mill about these 1950s/60s comment sections have no clue about poverty now let alone in the 50s and 60s. They watch Downton Abbey and have some romanticised view of the past. The poor and the working class have always been ignored by the government. The middle classes used to more overtly look down their noses at the working classes. It still happens now, but in a very covert way. This programme in fact was made for the entertainment of the middle classes as most working class people didn't own a television in the 50s. it was made with a sense of them and us and gave the middle classes something to giggle about in their drawing rooms. As someone who grew up in the 60s I can tell you things are much better for the average working person than they were. For the poor and destitute things have improved but only slightly.
@@insertnamehere5146 There appeared to be quite a lot of condescension going on with this show. Listening to the interviewer, amused by a man saying he never thought about the future and just lived for the day - I "I live for my pleasures," it seems like that may have been a script written for the amusement of these people's "betters." I could be wrong, I wasn't there, but that's how it came across to me.
What a great film. a real snap shot of ordinary peoples lives in the East End before everything changed.
My Mum still speaks just like this! she was 10 years old when this film would have been made, born in the East End and lived there until she moved out to Essex when we kids came along. Some of my extended family still live in London, the older ones also still speak this way. I love it!
Dad's family lived in Nicolas Road E1, by Charrington's brewery, Mum's family was from the Old Ford Road. Roman Road Market, Green Street, the Bishop Bonner were all part of my life from the 50s (I was 5 when this film was made) through the 60s, 70s and into the 80s. Although l grew up in Plaistow and latterly Essex, Mum always kept in touch with 'The Aunts'. Tuesday was BG (Bethnal Green) Day, Mum and Nan making rounds of the various Aunts every week.
I am proud to have grown up Cockney, a dying breed in the face of the great grey swarm that are today's Londoners. For 23 years l have been in New Jersey, my family American. But I will always be a Cockney Boy. Even the local cops know me as 'Mate'-and I am proud of that.
West Ham til l die
Tom
Upstairs 39 Credon road, lived there till I was six then moved to Australia. Heard all the stories of life there but never experienced it myself, life is different in Australia. I have been back, the house looked so small.
Ironsssss
Went to St Edward’s primary school in the shadow of the Boleyn ground!
@@Janeybjournals Wow.. amazing! What was it like??
Much like the film! It was a small Catholic school but whenever the hammers had anything important going on, the boys were brought out for a photo. Bobby Moore had his 100 caps photo done there.....only boys allowed though, none of us girls 😊
I grew up round the elephant in the late 80’s / 90’s with all my family close by my grandad always used to go on about the good old days of London. After watching this film I no he was right
ste bee what do you mean by elephant?
John Ezeanochie Elephant and Castle it’s a place in London !
ste bee community was strength back then. I grew up poor....but, I was happy. We were all poor really. It was a completely different place in the 70’s even.
Yeah I was born in Homerton in the early 90s, me Nan would take me down the Roman for Pie and Mash at Kellys.
What a great film! You can really feel the warmth emanating from these lovely people :)
Tattyshoes Shigure
Loved it , because this is just how it was . It was like looking at a family you knew down the street .
Back when you could say this is England.
STEVEN.J.L.87 England shouldn’t have gone taking over all those countries in the 1700’s & 1800’s, then their wouldn’t have been such a big backlash from all these Commonwealth nations moving in such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Nigeria plus lots lots more. Remember also a lot of ppl from the colonies were invited after the Second World War to help build back the country.
'This is England
This knife's of Sheffield Steel
This is England
And this is how we feel.'...J. Strummer.
@@mrladnek5858 If you kill someone, should your child be punished for it?
A lot were invited back, but were not needed. Japan rebuilt from a fucking nuclear bomb without outside help. Our people built it in the first place.
When did England stop being England? When did it even start being England? This idea of 'England' as something that's fixed and not ephemeral is ridiculous; if it can be defined as anything, England is and always has been a collage of peoples coming from other parts of the world. Anyone who isn't alert to this fact knows fuck all about our history.
@Mark Donald Why does this matter? These cultures were still quite distinct from each other, in many ways more distinct than modern day English and South Asian people, no thanks to us!
My parents were both born in East Ham, and I was born in 1958 in Ipswich. Between 1960 and 65 I spent a lot of time staying in East Ham (Monmouth Road and Gooseley Lane. Dads dad was a lighterman at the Royal Albert Dock and Mums dad worked at Woolwhich Power Station. Used to go to their allotments with them, and to watch West Ham UTD and enjoyed visiting Central Park and the baths on the High Street. Everything cost thruppence then.
It's an outpost of Bangladesh now.
In 1940 My mother stood watching German bombers overhead and parachute mines dropping into the streets while Hurricanes and Spitfires fought the hun in the sky above with fired cartridge cases clattering down into the road..
A pity there is nobody fighting the invading hordes today.
AH was fighting to keep Europe white.
We defeated him now look at the mess we're in.
ln the sixteenth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of France now'. ln the seventeenth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of Holland now'. ln the nineteeth century your equivalent would have been saying 'it's an outpost of Russia now'.
@@billythedog-309 I don't entirely agree with his sentiment but you have to understand the shear volume of migrants coming to london and the uk as a whole is beyond anything even centuries before. In 1983 London was 85% white and is now less than 30% Its not the peoples fault but how can cramping that many different cultures and languages ever get on? Show me a country where it has
We want our country back now.
Grow up.
@@marymary5494 we want our country back now.
Idiot.
Even the “common” east end accent was spoken nicely in those days
ROO MULLAN my family are all from the East end, both my grandma’s spoke very proper and never ever swore!
Some of my ancestors lived in the East End and ran a tailoring business there. They were immigrants from Poland in the late 19th century.
@@angusmeigh5141 and?
@@mattiemclean9882 Are you related to Lenny McLean from Hoxton? He was quite a famous East End character! In the 1990s he became a TV actor before finally dying of inoperable brain and lung cancer at the young age of 48. I read his autobiography 20 years ago which was quite awesome.
@@angusmeigh5141 Yes I am. So what?
Love this. I was born in the East End in December '58 so it shows me what the world i was born into was like more than programmes like Call the Midwife.
Call the midwife is filmed in Chatham dockyard in kent.
What do you think today?
We didn’t have much in those days but we were happy god bless all x
I just saw this for the 1st time. I love watching stuff from England! So cooooool! Over here watching in Boston Massachusetts. Subscribed 🤗
I wish I'd had this kind of close community around me every day growing up. I've got friends who grew up on estates in Herts, Belfast, Manchester and in rural towns in other countries who had this very connected kind of life. My family is multicultural and growing up my dad's work moved us around a lot, sometimes to different countries. So our family is scattered across the world, although we've got a lot of extended family in Herts who settled there after being evacuated from the East End.
It's such a double edged sword. I love my rich cultural heritage (a true British melting pot mutt) and I'm grateful for the experiences my parents worked hard to give us each time they moved for new opportunities. But it certainly was lonely as a nuclear family who kept to themselves in a posh middle class neighbourhood. My friends who stayed put were always amazed at how much I had traveled - and I was equally fascinated by them having their nan down the road and cousins to play with, being able to go outside with lots of other children on the street, and friends they'd known since birth! There's this comfortableness about people that are used to living like that as well. You can call them up any time and it's like you just spoke yesterday. With people like my family and their neighbors, you can't just drop in, you have to arrange to "meet up" or "call for a catch up" and it's always a little stiff at first.
I got a real taste of it when I went to university and suddenly had lots of friends around me to do things with. Always a door open, always people to eat with and laugh with. Couldn't get enough of it. I then worked in a few different cities in the UK after I studied - Bristol, London, Manchester - all great places and I still keep in touch with friends from there, but when you don't have time to put down roots the scenery doesn't count for much. When I moved to Herts (near to extended & nuclear family), got a job there and made some friends & got involved in the community, after a few years I finally have that connected life I was looking for. I'm even happy the pandemic crammed me into a house with my immediate family again! We definitely squabble but we've also supported eachother through some tough times, and I know this is going to be an experience I'll look back on fondly.
Only problem now is staying here - like most people my age owning a house is out of reach for now but I'm going to keep working hard and hope I can give future kids the kind of permanence, extended community and "simple pleasures" they are enjoying here.
Love your post😊
Poor as they were, you see them dressed up for a Saturday night and they're smarter than I am going to a wedding. Excellent piece of social history.
Brought a tear to my eye ok a bit earlier than when i was around but remember the family unit so well so lovely Thank you for sharing
Its enough to make people feel so upset the Lost times forever that we can never get back
Interesting and I can remember so much of it as my forebears worked in the rag trade. My stepfather a ticket collector for British Rail used to love to take me on a Sunday morning to Petticoat Lane Market and working class life was harsher in those days but there was a close knit community feeling and families all lived closeby. Loved that man's in the moment attitude towards the end of this documentary when asked about house ownership and bank clerk's lifestyle aspirations. How Society has changed since those days. It is a real sadness today to see how that old community spirit has broken down and today people prefer to live in bubbles.
I was born in Essex but my parents lived in London throughout the war (Dad stationed in Africa) But my Mum's Family came from Germany and were of noble decent. They lived in the East End for sometime before moving out to Kent. I married an East End Boy in 1973 (A very different Moorgate in the East End from the one today) Before my husband died we had become millionaires in the Shipping world and lived a relatively different way of life. But I can honestly say that those values we had growing up are still the same values that I have taught my sons as they grew up. I am extremely proud to say that they are good solid people of this age! They do, and I underline the word 'do' have the welfare of ALL those around them at their hearts. So I do not agree that those community spirits die, they can and do diversify but still remain strong and true.
This seems like a more appealing lifestyle to me than what I have in working class America.
What a great production. I hope we all get to socialise again soon. I’m quite emotional seeing all those people together having a really nice time.
Like walking to grandma’s house for Sunday dinner with smell of roast beef, potatoes and cabbage coming from every house.
A romanticised portrayal, but there were many good things in this film which you would struggle to find in modern Britain. Family loyalty, honest employment, community togetherness, jumpers for goalposts...
But you can already see the signs of the rot. Dancing to rock'n'roll in the flat! Whatever happened to Knees up Mother Brown?
In 2010 we still used them for goal posts
Lovely little film, Kelly's pie & mash shop and Attenborough's pawnbrokers are still trading in Bethnal Green Road, the street market at 23:53 is Cheshire Street (Club Row) runs from Brick Lane to Vallance Road, and at 0:37 the shop with the "Talking Budgie" sign was at the Bethnal Green Road end of Sclater Street, ( the building is still there it's now a hair dressers) I really enjoyed watching this, well done for finding it, Thank's.
Thanks for the information. I really wanted to know where it was all filmed. I'll definitely have a look at the locations as they are today. Thanks again.
Pie and mash - my favourite meal!
I love them. So down to earth.
I remember the Sally Army coming in the pubs with the paper.
It's criminal what the government did to London people and people all over England
Hopefully one day it will be safe to speak out but will there be anyone left to do it?
It was pulling down all the houses and building those horrid flats that did it. Criminal.
What's that got to do with working class Londoners?
Where are you from btw?
I think most people were pleased to move into new accommodation, or even out of London entirely as my family did in the 60's. It's only in hindsight that they were able to look back and see what they'd lost. Now the communities that live in those areas are so transient, speak so many languages, have so many different ways of living, that they all seem to live as individuals.
Surprising how much has survived from this film though - The Marquis of Cornwallis pub is still there, the pie & mash shop etc.
speak out about what?
Which government and what did they do?
Wonderful trip back in time… loved every moment of this superb look at East London life late 1950s… magical capture on film. Thank you very much for this post… love it.
My God....England was so different in those days.
Why can’t they invent a time machine.. I would love to see it with my own eyes!!! 😃
To experience different eras. (Without interfering with history of course)
Like a tourist...But instead of going to a (place destination), going to a (time destination)
Can you imagine? Dancing to Elvis and the Beatles songs while they are still alive and young 😃
Walking around piccadilly Circus in the late 1950s, early 1960s the old double deck buses,...
Bumping into Jimi Hendrix in Canonbury Street in the 60s 🤣
I have always wanted to travel in time!!! 😁
Me too, but I’d definitely interfere with history.
Rebuild lad, not a rehash of the past.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, but sadly they have.
brilliant it is a piece of history
This is so depressing, east Londoners gone forever.
I've moved to Australia. Here, the communities aren't as old...only settled since 1840 or so...but they're safe from change for some time yet. So it's a proper community...I'm a newcomer but they give you a chance.
Pommie bears The Empire Strikes Back
Mr S Gee Britain is the empire, not the people the empire colonised.
Thank Christ! the east end was nothing more than a unhealthy slum. East Londoners have all gone out to Essex
@@pommiebears - If we didn't want immigration we shouldn't have had an empire.
That way of life is long gone sadly gone with it is the respect people had for each other
I was five in 1968 just starting school . Things hv changed so much no longer recognise as England sadly 😢
England was good back then