During the borefest that is the post-Christmas not-yet-back-to-work scenario, I was rooting around on YouTube looking for some interesting social documentary and I happened upon this little gem:
I absorbed myself in this 1964 BBC Archive documentary for half an hour, transported to the days of my childhood and the two channels of television we had back then. These were not 24-hours-a-day propaganda machines, and the programming offered was a mixture of well-mannered light entertainment, news and films. Those were the days, back when the BBC wasn’t a conduit for self-loathing and wearisome woke tropes.
I was 4 years old when this documentary was made, of the voices and images of working class post-war London. I lived in Sheffield, another place that had the hell bombed out of it during the Second World War.
My dad, after national service in the RAF, worked as both a steel worker and a cutler, and my mum was a part-time typist in a small local company. I had a similar upbringing therefore to the people in this film – the only difference being that we lived in a newly built house on an estate in the Sheffield suburbs. I am a product of post-war England, more commonly known as a “post-war baby boomer” – a label I wear with pride.
In 1957, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously remarked, “You’ve never had it so good!” Listening to the witness accounts in this film, of ordinary working class people, you can hear that same Macmillan-inspired optimism in their voices as they speak of their lives and their aspirations. It’s worth noting that this documentary was made just ten years on from the end of food rationing.
People knew where they were in post-war Britain, with politics and a lifestyle mostly generated by the aftermath of the Second World War. At this particular time, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was running the country. Back then you knew the difference between Labour and Conservative; even the parties themselves knew the difference – unlike now!
In recent years, these two old parties appear to have lost all sense of what they stand for, and are no longer fit for purpose. The Conservative Party in particular, is now a shadow of its former self; rudderless, leaderless and, in short, hopeless. Having survived a previous identity crisis in the mid-to-late 19th century, the party’s future looks more uncertain than ever.
One major reason for that is Reform UK’s challenge to the two-party system, which has dominated this country’s political landscape for over a century. Change is needed now and I sense it is coming, but I think it will take something politically calamitous before that happens. The current Mexican stand-off between Nigel Farage and Elon Musk over Tommy Robinson is worrying. However, I also don’t think this government will last until 2029 – or even until the end of this year! So we must be prepared, and sometimes that means having difficult conversations.
Who knows where the current situation is heading? All I know is that right now is not a time for political point-scoring and public rows. What all politicians need to do is return to the original idea of a government and opposition elected by the people, for the people, and among its ranks genuine representatives of the people.
What struck me about the BBC film is that it is working-class voices we hear on its soundtrack; most likely latter-day Labour voters (when the Labour party really did give a damn about the working-class). You can sense the gratitude, relief and joy of being free of the shackles of the war, which had ended only 19 years previously. On the whole, the people of 1964 seemed happy with their lot, despite the hard work and the poverty.
I sincerely hope a similar film can be made in the next few years showing how we have moved on from the catastrophic events of the early 20th Century, and the even more potentially dangerous and toxic 21st Century. To do anything less than improve the lives of all people who inhabit and love this country and its values would be an insult to all those who went before us; those who died fighting for our freedom.
We owe it to them to listen to each other, properly negotiate, communicate honestly, and above all to reflect some of the optimism espoused by those long-dead voices. After all, they had two catastrophic world wars behind them. What’s our excuse?
(Photograph: The original uploader was Sue Wallace at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Kim Rye is a former Fleet Street copytaker. She is a sub-editor on 007 Magazine & Archive.
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I find it hard to watch films like that because they are a forceful reminder of what we have lost. It is particularly hard to see because we know now that the loss wasn’t organic, it wasn’t an accident – it was a deliberate strategy by the post-war globalists to break us – and every other nation state with their distinct identities and strong culturally based high trust societies. You can’t impose one world governance without smashing the ties that bind – family, community, church, nation. All had to go.
No similar film will ever be, or could be, made because no one is happy (except the elite who, apart from pathetic ‘influencers’ and ‘celebrities’, have the sense not to flaunt their advantages NB celebrities now include the Royal Family) with their lot or is remotely optimistic. Also English language isn’t the language of an increasing % of the population anymore so subtitles would be required (also for the youf speak and patois now unintelligible to those of a mature age).
The UK landscape of 1964 is to the majority now sadly as alien as that of a primitive tribe on a remote island but critically most(?) would not wish to see it return which is yet another reason why Reform will never break through, in addition of course to alienating their natural supporters and others strongly suspecting it’s all a facade anyway.
I was also born just outside Sheffield at the end of the war. Almost everybody voted Labour because they thought they would help the working classes and Wilson brough more hope as a Yorkshireman. I was at Bradford University when he became chancellor. We never saw him. Then of course they had to devalue the pound and he came out with the pound in your pocket nonsense. All the Labour Party has done it to use wealth transfer from the middle classes to the working classes to get their votes. They haven’t done anything to improve their ability to support themselves. Now they have reached the limits of taxation and they are using debt to make up the difference, which is now at a level we cannot pay down.
There really was little difference between the parties. In a democracy they both tend to socialism which is how they get the votes and this is more obvious now. Socialism eventually tend to a totalitarian state which is now becoming obvious with the attacks on free speech.
The problem is democracy. It does not work and all our political parties support it, and that is because their only concern is power over us. Democracy is based on the false claim that the majority decision is correct. There is no common single view among voters and so the idea of a majority makes no sense. Further, what right does the majority have to impose their views on the minority? The two party system just creates division. We need politicians who work together, not in opposition.
There is only one political system that will work and that is a Republic much like the one set up in the USA in 1776. The constitution limited the power of the state and ensured individual rights for everybody and those right came with protection from the government. Now we have group right which make no sense and they are for minorities and guaranteed by preventing the free speech of the majority. This is how totalitarian states evolve.
Starmer is now taking about the “truth”. What does it even mean? How would he or anybody know truth unless it is something that can be measured? Is there a true level of taxation? Yes, it should be zero and we should be able to run our lives completely independently of the state interfering.
Interesting observations, but alas change won’t happen in any of our lifetimes because the population has been thoroughly infantilised by safetyism, dependency on benefits and belief in the sacred NHS plus all the other (still for now) optional woke/climate/gender nonsense.
Most people are unfortunately too lazy, or even too stupid, to think for themselves and prefer instead to repeat sound bites as though these are unchallengeable truths – like for example the death of tourism if the Windsors were dispensed with; there are many more similar widespread beliefs that hold sway, and of late it’s been amply demonstrated that it’s easy to generate unshakable adherence to clearly ludicrous new beliefs.
It will take an invasion, nuclear attack, massive disaster or the collapse of the £ and cessation of pensions and benefit payments to shake some sense into people – even then they’d expect someone else to sort it out and would die in vast numbers through being totally incapable of looking after themselves. Maybe that’s the kick up the arse needed?