What is poverty? | 1960s UK | 1960s Nottingham | St Ann's | Documentary Report | 1969
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2020
- An extract from the Thames Television special where we look at the St Ann’s ward of Nottingham and how poverty has driven people to desperate measures in order to make ends meet.
First shown: 04/03/1969
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Quote: VT60263
What a dignified woman. No dramatics just stoicism. I hope things improved for her and her family.
Indeed, and compare her to the foul mouthed chavs we have today
No entitlement
Bet the bank it did not and only got worse as she aged.
@@libraiis we just don’t know that. My grandparents lived like this, but they were then put in social council housing. They made sure their children got a good education (poor families had county scholarship for grammar school) and they all got good jobs. They were then able to help their parents in their old age, paying their energy bills, rates, even holidays etc.
Many of the residents moved to the new Clifton estate and retired after working at John Players , Raleigh , Boots factories and many others.. All closed down now.
Proof that class has nothing to do with money .. this woman was someone to admire
That's absolutely right.
Yes, her callused and bleeding fingertips prove classism is an awesome thing. Chains are to be admired.
@@churchofgod4016 Idiot
Wow that's ignorant
There was no welfare and this woman had no choice. Piecework was exploitation, the equivalent of sweatshop work. The employer paid no overheads and passed them onto those who took home the work. This generation came after WWII and some were children during the war. They grew up tough and self-reliant.
I was 11 when my family moved out of a house like that in 1955 - no electricity, no bathroom, one cold tap, outside shared loo and dry rot you could smell before you entered. Get behind with rent and you risked broken legs.
I regularly went hungry, especially once I grew old enough to realise the terrible cost to my parents of sending me to granny's for a meal. They were never allowed to forget her 'charity.'
But at least when my baby sister arrived, it got us a place on the council house waiting list, and we moved a year later. My Mum spent the first week wandering around the house in tears at the sheer luxury of it all. She had never known a house with a garden. Dad and I weren't the greatest gardeners, but within a year we were enjoying our own vegetables.
Ten years later we moved out of an area which, once beautiful, had degenerated into another problem housing estate, courtesy of people for whom new houses had proved to be pearls before swine.
The lady in this film reminds me of my Mum, even in appearance. Quiet (unless roused - oh dear!) dignified and never ever with idle hands. And with standards - even when alone after Dad died, she never had a meal without setting the table. When I visited her in my 50s, I still wasn't allowed to rise from the table without permission.
"Don't forget your scarf again!" she'd call out as I left. I'd once gone out on a winter's day without it - 40 years earlier!
What a beautiful recount. Thank you. True that the luxuries that bring some, like your wonderful Mother, to tears are just pearls before the herd. I lived in places like that. Whole areas become labelled, their troubles attributed to the swine. But sometimes you find genuine diamonds in the rough, the real people.
I never imagined that level of poverty existed in Britain in the 60s when Britain was still waging wars of colonialists illusion.
@@fahedal-ajmi4015
You need to appreciate that as many British people were as abused by their own governments as were colonials...
My father - like a million others - returned from WW2 to find that the "land fit for heroes" was as illusory as that promised in the first conflict. His living gone, his 'reserved occupation' taken by another.
I was born disabled, before the NHS. My Dad - a cabinet-maker - returned to find my my Mum had been forced to sell/pawn his tools to pay for my treatment. By the time he had recovered his trade, it was already history.
The world was ill-divided then. It still is. But the PR spin is better.
@@MrMcCawber I appreciate the difficulties of your personal experience, but consequents British governments intervention caused untold pains and damage to score of nations at times they could have taken better care of their own people.
@@fahedal-ajmi4015 several countries were initially grateful of colonialiam , wealth was brought to those countries , industrialism , and military protection from hostile neighbouring countries
People today don't realize how well off we are in comparison
I can assure you that people said the exact same when watching this in 1969 comparing it to the years of the great depression.
Poverty isn't just eternally defined by one era or generation; it changes.
Not being able to afford the rent on your Pye 13 inch TV from Radio Rentals has been replaced by not being able to afford the interest payments on your second hand telly from cash converters. Same issues, different set of clothes.
@Richard Devonshire Bullshit. If you live in a society (pre or post mod cons) where you are towing to make a decent existence for you and your family (in work or not) while your neighbor pulls up in a brand new car, then the notion of materialistic elements being branded as disingenuous goes straight out the window. So to make the comparison I made in my previous comment is completely fair because I provided the context to back it up. You just basically said "Well if theyve got food and a roof over their heads they should think themselves lucky!" which is a dickensian argument and one grounded in greed.
Don't be so stupid....standards are higher now as they should be. It's like you're accusing anyone today who lives above the minimal poverty line of Victoria England of not really being poor!
That's nonsense as poverty is relative.
Well of eh. Tell that to those who need the food banks
I don't think people back then spent half their net income on a mortgage or rent?
They probably didn't spend a further 10% on council tax.
They got to claim a state pension at 60 & 65
The country wasn't an overpopulated foreign owned mess, crippled by trillions of pounds of public & private debt.
Never mind old sport, Lord Sugar thinks you can't be poor if you've a telly and a microwave.
What a lovely manner this lady has, I loved hearing her speak.
Agreed. She had a lovely smile too. In fact I'd go as far as saying she was indeed a very good looking lady.
The attitude- 'I could give MY children a meal if they came home' (and not deprive someone more needy of free school meals)-and that her husband would rather work for less income than on 'relief'. I remember people like that when I was growing up- and old people who wouldn't ask for help because they could 'manage'.
That was the same attitude my West of Ireland mother had.
@Jack W Indeed. The amount of unclaimed benefits is around 16 billion annually, which dwarves the estimated 3 billion in possible benefit fraud. But that doesn't rile up right wing newspapers readers, neither pushes them to vote for parties with punitive measures against the poor (whilst turning a blind eye to tax evasion from our betters), so it's never mentioned anywhere. The demonisation of the poor and their characterisation as "chavs" has been so successful in this country, from comedy to fly on the wall documentary series or sensationalised articles, that at this point I cannot see it can be reversed. Divide and conquer, same old.
What I think is tragic about that is the fact that, as now, pay was simply not enough. Whilst the bosses and shareholders made greater and greater profits.
This lady and her husband didn't question that gross unfairness and that they were being exploited shamelessly.
(I'm not anything like a socialist - I just want societies to be fair, decent and able to provide people with the means to reach their potential.)
@@iggle6448 You don't have to excuse yourself for being a decent human being with an ingrained sense of fairness and a natural rejection for social and economic injustice.
@@Basauri48970 What a kind comment, thank you! Long before social/economic justice was a thing, I once asked a self-made £multi-millionaire what he thought was the most important principle in sustainable social and community life. He was a trustee of the large non-profit org of which I was ceo. He simply said "fairness". Which is why he was giving his time and resources to what we were doing. His sincerity and simplicity has always been deeply inspirational to me.
What a lovely gentle and thoughtful lady. I hope she had a good life.
I'm sure this LADY gave her children good moral values also to be proud of. Salt of the earth worth her weight in gold
@@colin5064 She could still be alive as she is probably in her late seventies or eighties now.
@@letitiakearney2423 I hope she is and keeping well.
@@letitiakearney2423 Pretty much the youngest she could be is about 85. The program aired in 1969, she looks let's say about 35, which would put her birthdate at around 1935.
@@rheinhartsilvento2576 Without proper diet and vitamins I'm afraid the average lifespan was probably quite low.
Most people have a very missguided view of the 60s you know Carnaby Street, Twiggy, hippies, free sex, lots of drugs, haveing a great time, but that was for a few thousand,at most, mainly in London, what we see here is the real life of the working class, but for all they endured, they were a very special People.
100% correct.
The hippie lifestyle were the ones who did want to run from their reality isn't it !?
And yet, there are "anti-racist" organisations nowadays paid hefty sums to demonise such decent salt of the earth people.
@@stidesheaven1972 That doesn't make sense, what do you mean?
Not if you watch 50s 60s kitchen sink drama. It's pretty obvious that era wasn't one big party.
This woman has my total and absolute respect. She has pride and modesty and gets on with what is a very hard life.
Brings back memories.married in 64 .flat outside loo, no bathroom .Me showered at work .Her got bus to bathroom at her mums.Baby bathed in the sink .But i worked 2 jobs when i was on nights( Delivering in a van for a local shop when i got up from night shift ) so we did not have to worry . Always worked never on the dole. Never had much , never knew anyone who actually owned a house.Paid £4.50 a week rent for a empty flat with no bathroomand outside loo.BUT back then the council would give you a 100 % mortgage. Borrowed £70 for legal fees got a 2 up 2 down immac terrace house for £3000 ..Mortgage was £18 a month ( same money as the flat ) . It took me A year to pay a relo back that £70 borrowed money .Jeez those were the day .i am 80
.
It’s very interesting to listen to her articulation. Despite her being very poor and probably not having enjoyed a great education, she thinks before she speaks and gives very good answers.
No comparison to poor (and often even rich) people today.
They had poverty but the teachers of the day knew their jobs and taught well.
Today anyone would believe she'd had elocution lessons. Incredible.
@@phillipecook3227 It's incredible isn't it. I read as a child and my parents spoke to me and told me that if I was going to speak I should do so properly, and am, to reverse a phrase of Orwell's, upper lower middle class. Just for speaking relatively normally by the standards of a few years ago, and using a few polysyllables, I get no end of stick.
She was very serious throughout the interview but every now and then there was a hint of a gorgeous smile brewing, high cheek bones and a delicious overbite.
That was the first thing I noticed !
I was a young kid growing up in the 60's on merseyside. We were 3 kids and 2 adults. My Dad was a coalman and used to carry sacks of coal on his back. My Mum would knit jumpers, hats, scarves and gloves for neighbours to make some extra money.
Then mid 60's my parents got divorced so my Mum was single with 3 kids. She took a job with school meals to make money so that she could always be home when we finished school. My Dad gave her £1.50 a week for us 3 kids, not each, in total. He paid that every week tlll we left school and he never increased it.
My Mum remarried in the mid 60's to a bus driver and had another 2 kids (twins). Things got even tougher. 2 adults and 5 kids in a 3 bedroomed terrace house. Don't forget the 60's was also time of peak union power and quite often my stepfather had to go out on strike with minimal money sometimes none at all.
When I think back now we must have been poor but i never thought of myself as poor. I knew people who had it worse than us.
Thank you for sharing your story. I always fascinated by people experience. I wish I could be a time traveller and see the life of our ancestors. Being a fly on the wall, or just a ghost who can’t be seen but I would be there just to observe... I’m glad that you didn’t feel poor yourself. Wealth is not just money and I’m so glad that I had a big family and lots of friends that I never felt that anything missing from my childhood...
@@ababble1245 How old are you darling that can ask such a dumb question? 🤔
Anyway... Happy new year 🥳
@@ababble1245 it's from the days when birth control was almost unheard off.
Though if you're skint, you'll have very few pleasures in life, so a little bit of intimacy works wonders.
@@ababble1245 No, but I didn’t want to be too offensive and gave benefit of the doubt that maybe your tender age the reason why you ask such an ignorant question. Also got good education and learned etiquette and much more. Not always use it, because someone straight up @sshole then I give them their own medicine. 😉 @pintofkimberley answered in a very nice and understandable manner, so hope we could contribute to your education. Your welcome 🤓
@@ababble1245 You gaslight yourself. I won’t try to convince you that I’m not a boomer. You can think whatever you want, it doesn’t make it true or mean anything. You only exposed your poor education. With the same logic as you say that if someone can’t afford kids, then don’t have it, I say if you can’t understand things then don’t form an opinion and STFU!
I wish we were as well spoken as back in the day.
Rather a gross generalisation.
Don't forget the producers of this documentary would not pick a person who could not articulate themselves clearly.
@@andiemorgan961 I think it's a generalisation with merit and nothing more. Along with spelling and handwriting I think it's very hard to deny.
@@andiemorgan961 so you’ve asked the producer? Or are you just presumptive
If you want to speak like this lady, then do it, rather than following the dumb masses.. LMMFAO
@@andiemorgan961 I look back on my grandmother's letters and her grammar and handwriting are of a high standard based on a general not exceptional education. Today on social media many people cannot even write a full sentence in the correct grammatical tense.
A very well composed video. The lady interviewed is a gem. Humble thoughtful,well spoken with no sense of self entitlement.
Agree. Notice how she says her husband would rather work than being on the dole, even if it meant being on less money. In the 70's and before it was shameful to be on the 'dole' if you could avoid it. Personal pride and self respect has been lost.
Unless she was an actor!
@@saxav88 Very true. The rise of 'reality' tv has a lot to do with how people think now. Playing the system is openly boasted about as if it was an achievement and it is then passed to the next generation. Britain has been broken for a long time now.
Not a professional victim like everyone is now
I am 70, and have lived through the sixties. Working people then had an acceptance of hardship and poverty, just as their foreparents did, and were a stronger breed, but today its all me, me, me, poor me and selfishness abounds. Take a look at this lady as she speaks and you will see a refined woman of strong character. The salt of the earth.
I lived through it. One fire when you had coal. Winters were soul destroying. I say this now whilst laid against a central heating radiator scanning youtube. Hard life eh?
Sounds bad. My mum was born in 1942 and said they were poor growing up in the north of England. Winter's must have been tough then, heck I complain now when I come down stairs on the morning and my kitchen is freezing, but I can turn the central heating on. My biggest problem is a battle for decades with depression and issues, the winter makes that worse.
I remember ice on the inside of the bedroom window. Sleeping with hat and gloves on. And trekking down the yard to the outside toilet in the snow. I never got used to the cold.
One fire and you counted every bit of coal you put on it.. Just a few bits a day. It was that or be freezing by mid week because you had none left so no fire. We had a paraffin heater ( damned awful things,smell bad and so unsafe) but that was not affordable either. Working poor is what most did back then even though they would not admit it or even say it. Ask them back then and they would say that ;working poor was someone else and not them. They got by on low expectations out of life. That was the key to survival. Still is.
@@libraiis So true and well said
@@truthmerchant1 Me 2, was just about to make the same comment. And going to school in shorts in the winter. Newspaper in the shoes to dry them out. That was in the north east. Dad got a much better job in the south and we moved, then life was much improved.
What I remember growing up: indoor plumbing was one cold tap in the kitchen; toilet was outside and was a tub that the council came and emptied once a week; electricity was one socket per room downstairs, one socket period upstairs; black mould on walls; a kitchen that we pretty much lived in because it meant only heating one room; kitchen walls that ran with condensation (my dad bought vinyl wall paper and had to - literally - nail it to the wall); being cold in the winter (no upstairs heating of any kind) because our house was exposed on top of a hill and caught all the elements. What else I remember: being a happy child at home, and never resenting my dad for working all the hours God sent, meaning that I hardly ever saw him; my mum always being there because she didn't have a "career" but devoted her life to bringing up her children. That was the 1960s, not the 1940s.
I remember sitting on the draining board with my feet in the kitchen sink being washed clean by my mum. We had no fridge, the phone was a shared 'party line', and you could hear the neighbours poking their fire in our semi-detached house.
I just realised I’m living in the 60s then minus the plug sockets and bathroom issues.
Amazing. Vivefying. These accounts I am reading... Thank you, all of you...
I challenge anyone to watch that interview with the mother and not feel sadness. Can you even imagine having your child suffer with respiratory infections because you can't afford to keep two coal fires burning 24/7 in order to stop the furniture going green with mold? And yet she never once complained that anyone should come and help her. What happened to this world I wonder.
Coming back to the UK after Brexit and Covid19.
volvos60bloke You have got to be a bot.
@Richard Devonshire well that woman's economic difficulties certainly wasn't the fault of immigrants.
@@GEricG Exactly, and this clearly demonstrates that the real enemies are the bosses and the political establishment at large (regardless of party). NOT polish fruit pickers!
@Richard Devonshire what about em? You implying Brits don't do this as well?
The woman is a hero. I salute you my dear. A common thread amongst folk in the midst of this lifestyle is we never considered ourselves as poor. We just got on with life.
The Swinging Sixties: it was just for a few, in a relatively little space. It's mostly an LP cover.
Yes, things like the Austin Powers movies are really a fantasy.
Can't say I agree, my auntie was a mod and had a whale of a time living in a terrace house , I shared her bed as a toddler at my grandma's and she used to walk home from town with her friend it was a happy time
what does LP stand for ?
@@lam5hunhu1 Long Playing record. Back then album art meant much more, because it covered the wider area of a record cover, not a postage-stamp-size thumbnail on iTunes.
@@lam5hunhu1 "Long player". 33 1/3 rpm. Thanks for the interest.
What a dignified woman!! Poverty does not mean lack of breeding, dignity or self pride.... this lady is prove of that. I sincerely hope her family and many like her have worked themselves out of that life.
My mother was like that...as a single mom raising three children, she’d rather work and go to night school than accept welfare. She rose up in the ranks of her job starting out as a computer programmer then designer working for the military industrial complex. When she retired she was making a six figure income. Very smart woman.
Amazing woman your mother, what a queen
What a great lady. Those with real drive can never be kept prisoner to adverse circumstances.
My dad had only a few years of school but was a born trader, borowed a bit of money of his sister for buying his first car. DIed on his 86st a millionair. I am so proud of him !
What a lovely lady Mrs Smith . I wonder how her and her family’s lives changed over the years since this. Hopefully for the better. Wonder if she is still with us.
They're watching Netflix right now.
Yes she could be around 80ish now if still here
Such calm and articulate personality that woman. Wish everything went well for her. We still have many poor people like her, only the TV stations don't interview them, they prefer the noisy ones.
All too true. The media beatifies the most extreme specimens and can't give them enough air time (cf. the Markle Debacle)
My friends went to school with cardboard in their shoes unbelievable but true that was 1963/64.
Me too, I remember it well. Or I had second hand shoes that didn't fit particularly well. Everything was second hand. My mum used to go on the second hand stalls on the market to get me kitted out. I use to dread going to school in case someone who's parents were better off said that what I was wearing had probably been theirs. Happy Days :)
And the misery is returning for the families, disabled, sick and unemployed along with many self employed.
@@billy1680 and most of Britain thanks to thatcher and now the tories and liberals brought it back. And round it goes
@@elaine58100 As much as possible everything in my house is second hand, including the kids clothes - but that's due to wanting to reduce waste in society and nothing to do with poverty. I appreciate there is a great deal of difference between choosing to do it and having to...
In the 70's we put cardboard in the holes in our pumps!
This was the reality of the everyday working class. Just money for the very basics, surrounded by bomb buildings.My grandparents didn’t have a bathroom until they were given a council bungalow in the late seventies when their house was classed as a slum and demolished.Most of what they owned was second hand and had been with them their entire lives. My Nana hated the couple of pieces of furniture she had, ugly Victorian she called it and it was. They had nothing, but was thankful for the little they had and couldn’t believe the luxury of the bungalow, ie bathroom and toilet, heating, and hot water. They scrimped on everything managing to save on their pension to pay for their funerals and to leave a few pounds to their three surviving children and nine grandchildren. They went without a lot to leave us all a little something.
She's poor, yet she won't seek a regular job.
LMB222 Its that easy is it?
@ Jemma James. Thank you for the insights. It sounds as if you spent time with your grandmother and got to know her well. Happy that their memories and lives are being honoured here by you.
@@LMB222 You do not know of this woman's circumstances so stop pretending you do. The reality is that the lowest earners have ALWAYS been taken for a ride by self proclaimed 'captains of industry' and the sooner the majority of folk realize this, the sooner we can actually try and address these problems before the establishment crack down on us proles!
The only time working class people in Britain ever had any major say in the running of their workplace and life prospects was via Trade union membership and activity. But, of course, striking miners and dockers would be considered "holding the country to ransom" all because they wanted a fairer crack of the whip. What subversive, destructive forces...not.
@@whatamalike agreed
Pride and dignity encapsulated
This is heartbreaking listening to her.
About the damp behind the timber panelling, and the furniture turning green, and her boy's bronchitis and ear infections - Yes
@@comealongcomealong4480 And She was actually a very bright person. Talked very articulated about the situation. Sorry. English is not my native language...
this made me cry
@@robertmorley9149 Big softie x
@@robertmorley9149 Me too 🥺
We didn’t have a pot to piss in..in the 70s dad earned peanuts and had 4 kids to feed...and they think they are in poverty today because they don’t have broadband and an ipad.
I know. As my dad would say 'they don't know they're effing born'.
When they have closed the school and you need broadband to learn something while it’s closed it is poverty.
I suffered extreme poverty & am far older than you - but note: keep family numbers within your financial means or tie a knot in it!
Yeh but we get penalised for not having broadband or WiFi. Todays expectations from the government is that we have WiFi or we don't get to do banking, shopping, even education now.
@Cian MacGana her children got to go to school. Today’s kids have to do school remotely. For that you need those things is my point. Some kids are going without.
Remember when we as a society would just get on with it. No demands, no entitlement, no blaming. Just gratitude for work. Back when family and religious belief in a higher power over ‘self’ reigned supreme. Being selfless, modest and frugal was what we did. There was no choice in the matter. It was the way we were raised.
Penalised for being hard working and working class. Nothing has changed.
We are just lucky that we got blue labour instead of labour
Exactly. All of these "anti-racist" organisations are doing the same thing now to ordinary working class people.
These people were profiting from their privilege, as they do today. They need to do more for others who had ancestors 400 years ago who were treated worse.
The only way the middle and upper class can keep the cash, is if they deny its about money and try to make these people the privileged too. Nice trick, guys.
Except today we actually vote for the punishment.
Yep nothing has changed
I look back at those days with great fondness. I had loving parents who told me what was right and what was wrong and to have only what I could afford. Some people these days should heed these wise words.
What a proud woman. Such strength
Poverty is a shifting concept. I remember the condemned houses of the 1940's. My mother did not taste chicken until I was 3 years old. I should hope even the poorest are not as poor as my family was.
Women in those days were so much nicer. Such a lovely soft spoken lady
Gosh, this brought back a lot of memories. I grew up in the 60's coal fire in the living room only, drafty windows, with gaps you had to plug up with old newspaper in the winter, to stop the snow coming in. Damp beds, we didn't even have duvets back then, you'd put your coat on your bed for extra warmth. No washing machine, wash by hand, and wring the water out with an old mangle, damp quarry tiles on the kitchen floor, no running hot water, very little food, the list is endless, I could go on for ever!
the story of my youth.
In 1969 I lived in a condemned house in Doncaster with my infant son.The gas cooker was roped off by the gas board as extremely dangerous.I had no hot water system or bathroom,& an outside lavatory.Thanks to a good,free education & social progress I am grateful that I went on to live a prosperous life.
Social progress and workers rights, brought about by unions.
What a bloody trooper! Also known as a regular working person from the 60s just doing what she needs to to make ends meet.
That poor woman, so dignified and well spoken, doing her best who deserved much better.
Thank goodness these times were documented. Utmost respect to that lady. Dignity & pride personified.
'Some of my neighbours are drawing more than my working husband'.... .Some things never change !!
Indeed. The whole system is screwed.
The benefit scroungers still sitting on their fat backsides today getting cash when theve never worked a day in their lives. All off on crappy Spanish/Turkish holidays. Getting extra cash for fake disabilities. Disgusting. Extra cash for covid. Still getting free school lunches.
I don't think the problem in that case was that welfare was too high - it says something good about the state that it would give people in need the bare minimum to get by. What is disgusting is that the employers don't pay their hard-working employees enough. If welfare is higher than salaries, then employers are exploiting their workers. A fair system is : if you can't find a job (disability, old age, a large family in case of single mothers etc.) you shouldn't starve. If you have a job and work hard at it, you should be allowed some level of luxury (a vacation once in a while, a run at the pub or at the cinema on the week-end). Trickle-down economics work, but only if you look at it as an inverted pyramid : when the majority has money to spend, the economy is healthy because there is demand. When you give the wealthy and the corporations tax cuts, they don't invest it back in production (less than 2% goes into that) but rather invest it in the stock market (easy money).
I think the generations of "benefit scroungers" were born out of the 80s. When you took hard-working people's jobs away - who'd been in production all their lives - and left them at 40 with no skills for the new service economy developed under Thatcher. That meant that there was nothing else for them but to stay on the dole, and when your children grow up on the dole, too - well they just get used to it. A man's pride is his job. When you take it away from him, he becomes depressed, alcoholic, frustrated, violent - he lets himself go. And his kids won't have known any other way, they'll follow suit.
Long story short : basically the "working" class became the benefit class under Thatcher, and this was done by design, to destroy them. What has changed between then and today ? Between that working housewife and her husband - proud and articulate - and their would-be peers from today ? Well, pride. A lifetime of pride (being born to a proud father) vs a lifetime of vicious cycles (born to a father who could no longer provide and had lost his self worth).
@@Isnt-it-Lovely You sound like one of those extremists who would go outside and push someone over in a wheelchair to prove they are indeed disabled if you could get away with it.
Talk is cheap online.
And this is classism that tragically defines every so-called democracy and "free" nation. Free. From what or for who?
Remember the outside bog and no bath, the electric meter took shillings.
That was when you had any to feed it. Tin bath that hung on a nail in the yard.Brought it in Friday nights and heated the water in pans on the gas stove. Every one use the same water and just added some fresh to heat it up.
@@libraiis Yep, sounds familiar. One winter we even contemplated eating my pet rabbit. Can't say any of this makes me feel nostalgic.
And the phone - press button A,. Then when they answer press button B...
Yes, so would the gas meter, and it would always run out while cooking on the stove!
our electric meter also took washers and my mother used to make sure that i as a child was at home when the meter was emptied and all the washers fell out the money box. It just meant we did not get as much back as a rebate - these meters were always fixed against us. All of this a very long time ago.
Simpler times ❤ that lady is such a hard working Mother. So much respect to that generation
I joined the RAF in 1969, my wage, after 2 years training, was going to be 13 pounds 17 shillings and 6 pence 13.75 in decimal. I was still 15 at that time, I had asked my dad if that was good money before I applied to join, he replied that it was more than he was earning, (he was a builder) so it was a good idea to join. I served 25 years.
Per ardua ad Astra! I left in 96. 🫡
I wonder how they got on, the couple and their children? Hope life became kinder. The researcher suggests it's one of the first discoveries of the "working poor".
These people would be horrified to see the food and stuff thrown out at our dumps. Outrageous
I know. And the number of toys a kid of a new working class family who have just made dozens of working class family friends receives on a birthday.
@K90_ 2019 No here come the realists, go outside and look around.
paperchain 123 That is so true! People today are so spoiled!
Yes, modern people generally don't know true poverty. Our standard of living is higher than ever, but our landfill sites are fuller than ever. Supermarkets should be flogged for what they throw away.
@@jennytaylor3324 Absolutely. I once worked in a supermarket and I had to just look the other way. Terrible. waste
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
They? Exactly who?
Nothing has changed exactly 👍
Dont talk to bish
Are you kidding me?! 🤣 Poverty today means not having the latest iPhone. Thanks for the laughter 😄
@@jeperstone I agree but in general nothing changes the poor kept poor the rich getting richer ,was the point .
This is why my parents got out of England
We had 5 children and very decimated for having 5 children. Not only by society, but family too. I called it the bowls of England. They immigrate in 1967, to California, and never looked back! My dad was a very hard worker. I just lost him last month. He gave us a wonderful life. The woman in this video was very humble.
She reminds me of my mom!
All moms are humble, it's what they do, bringing up families selflessly, it's in their DNA, they are the undervalued underappreciated heroes of the universe actually!
@@paulcolville5972 thank you for the kind words. My mom is in hospice. My parents were together 63 years. Their bond was beyond words.
And to think this is where I came from. It mind blowing!
Many British families also immigrated to Australia and Canada in those days. They also built far better lives and security for themselves by doing so.
Following British entry into the EU and living standards improving that immigration dropped dramatically.
Then when Britain went through one or two economic down turns leading to large unemployment many men were able to go work in Germany, Spain and France and send money home thereby avoiding immigration to Australia and Canada or even the USA.
However, now we have left the EU we won’t have that opportunity in the next economic downturn and recession which due to the present covid-19 pandemic and the billions of pounds it’s costing us is not far away.
Therefore, I guess immigration to Australia, Canada and the USA will be on the up again?
However, it’s more difficult these days to immigrate to those countries then in the 1960s and 1970s.
Those countries will also need take care of jobs for their own citizens because of what covid-19 has done to their economy.
We will be reliant on Social Security.
How tragic.
We grew up with very little in those days. We were grateful for what we had and didn't expect the government to pay for everything. Our parents worked hard and somehow we grew up in a very happy way.
Wouldn't the UK would be a far better place if poor people these days were like her?? She seems like a brilliant woman to me.
Quite humbling.
My mother would have been her age around that time and in similar circumstances.... it was known as the respectable poor.
@@churchviewwishart8873 very respectable it seems...! I’m on a vintage Nottingham Yourube journey now... Next stop, the Players factory... Worth a watch!
This lady had values and pride, we live in a different world today.
It was her generation that started to stand up when things became worse, if you don't stand up and speak up, nothing improves. Looking down your snout on social media improves nothing.
It's striking just how different the conduct and demeanour of poor people was in those days compared to today.
Agreed, NO entitlement that we see today!
I would disagree. Many poor people today work just as hard for just as little compensation and with very little hope of improving their situation. All while the very rich continue to suck the government teat through tax cuts and business subsidies.
Society has gone down the toilet, not got better
@@voice.of.reason ABSOLUTELY
@@michaelt3308 poor people aren’t entitled. You might feel that way because now they have a voice and they are using it🤔
not much change then, some people on benefits 'earning' more than someone who works full time
Put wages up then
Was thinking the same! Nothing learned
@@darrenalway4687 exactly-if benefits pays more than wages then the wages are shit not the benefits being good
@Sarah JLA Saran Jesus Christ we are in the middle of a Pandemic and the acconomy is wreck where are all these jobs then
This lady is wonderfully articulate and anxious to make the best of her situation for the good of her family; no anger at her lot, just frustration that others could be better off by drawing "assistance". It is heartbreaking that she regards it as normal that her son "suffers terribly" from bronchitis and recurrent respiratory infections because of the appalling damp. Many of the current generation have little idea what deprivations people faced in almost all aspects of their lives on a daily basis. Huge respect to that former generation. I really hope that things eventually improved for this woman.
The phenomenon of the hard working poor is still very real. This is why a liveable minimum wage is vital - with accompanying laws about adequate shifts. Incredible that many of our politicians still argue against it.
Grew up in the neighbouring area of Sneinton. Don't want to go on too much because I would sound a boring old fart but a lot of younger people really haven't a clue what times were like. The guy in the video with the glasses if I'm correct is Ken Coates who went on to be an M.E.P. and wrote lots of books on social deprivation and was a leading light in the Labour Party in the 70's and 80's.
Lewis Hamilton should watch this to show how we didn’t have a privileged upbringing like him
Too bloody right!
My Niece went to the same School as him, she said he was a prick back then too.
Who's we?
Its a great video, but its not like everybody in the UK was living on the breadline in the 1960's is it? My parents don't stop going on about how good things were in those days!
And what was that out white privileged?
The date might change but the issues never do
And governments keep closing down services and get more stingy with public health.
And why is that? Where is all the money going?
to churchofgod and iggle6448, if you notice the lady shown wasn't bitching about not having money and the government not giving her money she and her husband quietly got on with LIVING with what they had and trying to improve their own lot, not expecting anyone else to GIVE them anything,. This is exactly what my parents did, they both worked hard to provide the best they could and brought up 3 boys who became well educated and success full in their own lives. We all have children who are for the most part better off than we were at their ages. Too many people today moan about the government when it is often simply their own life choices that are the problem.
This was the economic situation of much of the country when I was born!
Heading back that way thanks to 40 years of neo-liberalism.
What a sensible analysis by the opening speaker. As true today as it was then.
My treat on a Saturday as a child in the late 50s was a sugar sandwich. Now kids squeak about being hard up if they have to tolerate a 3 yr old smart phone! Just look at how poor people really look. We are all well off compared to post war uk
That's not necessarily true. That's a very black and white way of looking at it. The days of your sugar sandwich was a time when you could live without Internet access. You can't now!
I used to lay awake at night in the 50s dreaming about being able to afford a sugar sandwich..
My family had to drink gravy out of an old boot for a Saturday afternoon treat in the pouring rain.
@@shane25094586 .......and you think you had it hard !! Me and my 5 sisters used to dream of drinking gravy out of an old boot in the rain. You were spoilt !!!
Actually, you don't see them on telly but there are plenty of poor people in rich countries like the UK and the USA.
We are all well off until you factor in the greed of landlordism. If renting these days you pretty much hand over half your wages in the south
There are still desperately poor people on the UK. There are just fewer of them and they are perhaps less visible now.
@Richard Devonshire There were race riots in Nottingham in the 50s. You're writing bollocks.
Probably senior citizens.
There are very poor people all over the world suffering.
The statistician with the glasses being interviewed speaks the most sense I have *ever* heard on poverty.
Such a dignified, classy, lovely woman. Her family must be so proud of her ❤️
Sad situation..They are so honest and innocent...
Being materially poor hasn't robbed these people of their dignity and self respect. Bless them all. ❤
I remember during the miners strike in 1972 having to go and live at my Nannas house because my Parents didn’t have any money to feed me and my sister.We had a black and white Telly and no carpets.
Wow... Were you reunited with your parents?
@@churchofgod4016 yes after a couple of months the strike was finished and we went back home. Then in time we got new carpets and eventually a colour Tv.
This lady reminds me of my mum. Grew up in the Meadows, met my dad from Arnold. We moved to Australia in the 70s and had a good upbringing but my mum never felt at home there. We had opportunities that the working class in England have never had, even today. It's like take this and stay out of trouble.
We are back here in the UK, because a part of us never left. You can't determine where you come from, only where you belong.
@@gofigure_1 Australia is a great place to live if you like the heat, and sitting in traffic for a couple of hours a day. I liked neither. Never liked Cricket or Rugby so no great loss.
amazing i was born in 53 and grew up in v comfortable middle class suburban london i thought everyone lived like we did and had no clue about the world that was why my life has been such a train wreck i was a spoilt brat who felt entitled to everything i wanted. it has effected every facet of my life. i married a lady from the far east whom lived in poverty and worked her way out of unimaginable conditions .
Yep...the working poor are always the worst off. Unfortunately nothing has changed!
Spot on.
@@jeremystone6641 I know someone who works and has a council house. There was a problem and the council kept changing the day that someone was going to visit the property. When my friend complained that the constant rearrangements were causing trouble at work, the council's attitude was "How dare you live in a council house if you're working?"
@@gilgameshofuruk4060 Sick world. I was brought up in a council house and can honestly say 95% of the people on our estate were decent, hard working people. My parents always worked; we were, I suppose, the decent working class. This was back in 70s. How times have changed and not for the better. What happened?
@@jeremystone6641 I remember when moving into a council house was "Going all posh". There were terrible problems in the seventies, but it was the eighties when we were told "There is no such thing as society" and the greed is good philosophy took hold. It was also the virtual end of manufacturing in this country. There's more job satisfaction and self respect in helping to make a useful product than in answering 100 calls per day from people who can't be bothered getting off their backsides.
@@gilgameshofuruk4060 Agreed. They have robbed working people of any pride and it's sad to see folk let it happen without as much as a whimper.
I’m 70, and I can seriously empathy with this video.
Poverty today, can’t afford internet or Netflix?
Food banks are extremely busy, of course they are, when it’s free, there’s always a demand, that’s not saying there isn’t a genuine need, except it’s abused.
You see the line up, and a lot of the “customers” are smoking, and have a can of beer in their hand.
Very true. Our children particularly don't know poverty, and I'm a single mother of two teens. We have a small three bedroom house, a fairly reliable car and never go without food or electricity. We are very blessed.
smoking, 20 cigs now cost 14 quid for 20, I have been told.and you can pay more.
Absolute drivel.
I lived in the south in a new council house on a small estate. None the less we were still always short of money. We have five of us kids in the family and as someone else mentioned a sugar sandwich was a treat. Sometimes we had to hide when the provident man can to collect his five shillings (25p) because mum could not afford to pay it. We even found a washer that was the correct size to fit the electric meter so that we could have electricity for lighting. The down side to this was that we got the rebate in washers. One of my jobs as a young lad was to clean out the boiler and prepare it ready for heating water for the day. I used to do this before I went out to do my morning paper round so was up around five in the morning. Imagine kids doing that today.
My dad used to find things that were made of tin and cut out tin circles to put them in meter. The electricity board went ape all the time and had to pay the bill eventually.
I lived 2 miles from this area. I remember it well. Gas and electricity cut off because my parents couldn't pay the bills in winter. My father earned £7 a week as a builder. Often meals were missed, I was a skinny kid. Used clothing was common to me. Winter nights were cold but we luckily had a rented TV so enjoyed ATV and BBC.
I remember my father getting his first banger for work so he didn't have to carry tools on the bus. Saturday night my grandfather bought me and my siblings a pack of Rolo,s..lovely.
In the 70,s we had a phone in the house. Things began to look up!
Nottingham lace is famous, my mother was a haberdasher from London and always said if it was Nottingham lace it was quality 👍
5:08 when people chose work over benefits. I hope things improved or this lovely lady
There were no benefits,my father had a bad injury at work he was off for 3 months the men at the factory had a collection , apart from that there was nothing
There were benefits then, this video is from after the creation of the welfare system.
@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380 Claiming benefits was often seen as shaming, so a lot of people wouldn't claim what they were entitled to. That attitude disappeared in the 1980s when unemployment went up to 4 million.
@@gilgameshofuruk4060 That's true, but the option was there for those who were desperate.
Now there is a lack of jobs because they have been shipped abroad.
In the mid 50's my mother recalls wind coming through the cracks of their front door in the winter. She recalls my uncle who was a baby at the time being very sick. At 8 yrs of age it occurred to her he could die. Waking up in morning to find a glass of water next to your bed had frozen.....
Wow....we are so blessed nowdays, even in this time of Covid and lockdowns.
We should clap for the hard working people in the 60's on how they survived on a few quid a week 👏👏👏.
The money was different then. It didn't equal a few quid today.
My dad got 9 pounds a week in 1963 and my mum was at home with me and two sisters. She started to work in 1966 in order to give us to have a decent standard of living. Wonderful parents.
We have climbed through education and good jobs.
My sister was a nurse, midwife and soon to be vicar. My middle sister works hard and I am a phd candidate in Sweden. We were lucky . Others not so.
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
I am 71 up to I was 15 I lived in one room with my mother father and sister we shared the kitchen with my Nan who had the rest of the flat my sister would sleep on a mattress the world be rolled up at night.My mother and fathers bed was a 3.6 feet wide I had a single bed I was the youngest so I had the bed in the winter we had frost on the inside of the window,there was about 3 feet between my bed and my parents bed and we lived like that from when I was born in 1949 till 1965. My mother and father worked full time .
Wow, what an amazing story, John Adams. Thanks for sharing!
Her name was jean morriss , she died about a year after this filmed . My gran knew her , dont know how but
A wonderful lady, I lived and still live in Middlesbrough and remember the housing stock as being very poor but we got by. Perhaps we had a better quality of life then and were able to appreciate what little we had. It seems in 2021 the good things in life are taken for granted. Stay safe everyone.
Always well spoken
We're golden years back then
Proper England
❤❤❤
Not much money
People were loving
Value for money
When spending back then
Love these videos always memory
My time 1960
Newcastle
We were poor
Normal
But child happiness
Great parents ❤
Sad today
England been sold
Nothing left
Still no money
Nothing working
Sad
Am glad I was 1960
Thank you parents ❤❤
We lived in the Meadows an equally deprived area close to St Anns in Nottingham and to supplement income my father made a machine operated by hand with a handle which meant separating the lace was made easier and quicker and the income was welcome in a family of 6 children. We took it in turns turning the handle very fast. Looking back my father was very clever in inventing such a machine at that time as the lady in the video is using her hand and separating the famous Nottingham lace row by row which would have taken her hours whilst my fathers machine could separate about 20 rows in one go in a matter of 20 minutes. Those were the days. My parents have passed a long time ago but those days were so tough growing up but surprisingly happy. Those lace separating days stay with me and my siblings and we thank our parents in instilling the need to educate ourselves to escape that poverty. We are all professional now but those memories will stay with us forever and I am proud that my past made me who I am today.
@@lolakauffmann Hi yes it comes in a big sheet like a double bed sheet with a hundred rows of lace which need to be separated line by line. My fathers invention managed to separate the lace easily. He was ahead of his time but caught in poverty but we were happy.
I lived on the estate at the same time this film was made. We did OK. We survived and made do
We went to Australia in 1968 we were living forest fields suburb of Nottingham
i was born here in 62 we had little but we were happy kids
@@Tolpuddle581 I'm Australian. My oldest sister moved to the UK in the 80's. She's in her late '60s now and lives in Derbyshire!
I remember my mum using a mangle to dry clothes in the 1960’s. I had an aunt with no bathroom and outside toilet. We had coal fires, no central heating. My mum and dad both worked really hard but we didn’t have much. My dad had an allotment and was down there as much as possible growing vegetables for ourselves and our neighbours. People were much tougher back then they just got on with it.
I recall my aunt's harrowing stories of poverty which she encountered during the 60's as a Salvation Army officer in postings such as Speke (Liverpool) and Fishponds (Bristol).
I lived in St.Ann's at the time this was made, I was four years old at the time
Wow,
And thinking rich people didn't share their wealth.
The royal family is always doing fine when meanwhile people suffer.
Sad isn't it !?
Apparently, on a walkabout some years ago, Her Queenship was horrified to encounter people who couldn't even afford their own helicopter landing pad...
The Queen could end world poverty with the bullion she sits on.
What's sadder is the number of forelock pullers still around.
@@churchofgod4016 Jeff Bezos could make everyone in the world a billionaire and still be worth 230billion that’s crazy
This context of this film is a little deceptive. When this film was made (circa 1968) this area of Nottingham was still in the process of slum clearance, hence the demolished houses / fires etc. The houses shown do not exist today, replaced by ‘new town’ style dwellings. Here is a brief history of the area:
Here, all the houses were pre-Public Health Act terraced houses, on a gridiron plan arranged around courts of ten houses. These were later demolished under slum clearance legislation of the 1960s.
The St.Anns estate was a town within a town; the local constabulary refused to enter St Ann's estate, so policing was managed by the residents relying on 'family affiliation'. It was an area of hard work and low pay that culturally was separate from Nottingham. It was also an area of 10,000 houses where only 9% had an inside toilet, and 50% had no hot water system - many of the yards had shared toilets and open sewers leading to endemic dysentery and cholera. Infant mortality was three times the national average. Clearances of houses such as these started in 1930, but because of the war 'New Town' continued until 1970. The houses were flattened and the residents dispersed.
Reminds me of a 30 year old Duvet I got from my mother. It is so thermally insulated I can't sleep under it in 12C weather, it is too hot. Guess back then without heating it would have been a life saver.
I was born in the 60s and I suffered from bronchitis my mum said- now I know why
So much of my family died of TB at the turn of the century (1900). It was rampant in the slums, even if they were farm slums. One family in particular, they lost 5 of the six kids, between 6 and 15 years. The only child who lived was sent away to Edinburgh and lived to a ripe old age. We take so much for granted now.
This was filmed one yr after we left nottingham for toronto. we went from coal to central heating. neighbour hood pool for the kids. good schools and lots of nature. Sad to think this could have been my family`s future. I would like to know how this family`s future unfolded for them.
I lived in St Ann's for a while as a kid after returning from overseas - it was after the slums had been cleared and replaced with a huge amount of modern housing. Unfortunately, as the Council moved more and more dysfunctional wasters in, and especially after another Nottingham slum tower block was demolished and its residents transferred to St Anns, it soon turned into a modern day slum. I drove through in the mid 90's and it looked like Beirut on a bad day - garages with their doors ripped off or hanging by a single hinge, roofs covered in bricks and old tyres and the roads were like obstacle courses. My parent's well kept cottage-like garden was just a rubbish-strewn pile of mud with a wheelie bin thrown across the bottom. That part of the estate was less than 15 years old at that time. My parents were of the same mindset as this lady and her husband and had long since pulled themselves up the housing ladder through hard physical work and scrimping and saving. As a friend always says: you can take people out of the slum, but you can't take the slum out of some people.
I just can't imagine living like that. The lady is so composed and well spoken. True beauty. I was raised with anything I wanted and feel bad that not everyone had that or at least the very least they needed. I hope things improved for her into the 1970's.
Make sure you vote to reflect that attitude bro
@@jimbojohnson7360 im getting very cynical labour tories 2 different cheeks if the same backside why dont labour come out and back the strikers bunch of cop outs big up mick lynch a proper working class hero
@@anthonymitchell8893 Ultimately, they're all snakes but voter apathy benefits nobody especially with the current farce of a government we have. If you're not going to vote for a Labour rep in your area, at least vote for one in a party based on their voting history, policy, ideals and what have you, that you feel would benefit the generation after you the most.
I don't vote for myself these days, I vote for my two kids.
@@jimbojohnson7360 Whoever you vote for makes no difference. Its just the illusion of choice.
Thank your blessings, no matter how small.
When sounding posh was the norm
Yeah. Sound like that now and they mock you. Innocence has gone along with virtue.
People need to see this today. Too many take things for granted
What a lovely she was. The kind of woman that put the great in Great Britain as it used to be. Sadly I do not think things have improved much. I still know people who are better off on the dole than working.
what a charming lady.
What a lovely, lovely lady. She's annoyed but not angry. I admire that, but at the same time it bothers me! Perhaps she knows thst anger would change nothing and just eat at you. Such dignity and such pride for a man to choose to go out and work to earn less than he would get on the dole. I hope their lives improved.
Wish we could know what happened to her
My grandparents during the time they were both together (both alive) never owned their own house, never had colour television, never had a car (apparently they did when I was really little, but I don't remember that). They never had a washing machine or a dryer (except a spin dryer) or central heating or a freezer any bigger than the icebox in a fridge. But I never saw them as "poor" and they certainly weren't miserable. I loved staying in their house better than anyone else's.
Poverty is relative. Many that claim poverty today have luxuries expensive mobile phones Large TV's etc and claim benefits. Their priorities are completely messed up.