I hope you don't mind the thick plumes of cigarette smoke absolutely EVERYWHERE. Shops, public transport, cinema, restaurant's... There was no escaping it.
@@stjohnssoup Of course. Many peoples on this planet are not capable of forming a functional society so they latch onto others who have already done so. Expectedly, those societies suffer.
I studied there in 1970. International House in Shaftesbury Ave.It was very much like in this video. Gosh,. it was 50 years ago. How I miss it. Thank you for this video.
@@LynneFowler-h1gthey’re not wrong. Every generation likes to view the past as better when they get older. Truth is things weren’t better then and they aren’t necessarily better now. It’s just 2 different eras both with their ups and downs
I know a bloke that's working on a plan to build something he calls a "site" to store vids such as this but he has no place to put it until someone else invents what another bloke calls the "internet." Bunch of bleedin' yokels if yer arsk me.
I was born in 1995 and it amazes and scares me how much things have changed since then and how more simper things were then even if at the time they did not seem so in the 1990's to early 2000's.I shudder to think what the world will be like and the state of humanity when I am 70 or 80 .
Ford Corsair, Austin Cambridge, Mini Van, Routemasters. young fit dolly birds in mini dresses who are 70 years old today ..... love these films ...oh for a time machine
@@NoosaHeads For what it's worth I think the decisions which lead to the ****hole that London is today weren't taken in the 1960s: they were taken from the late 1990s onwards. I'd say that from the end of WW2 to the 1980s London and the UK as a whole had what could be called organic/ manageable levels of immigration made up of people who mostly subscribed to the UK and western way of life and values. That changed from the 1990s onwards.
still like that here in Poland, they dress up just to buy a loaf of bread, it's funny, lots of the Polish who go to live in Britain become like British working class couldn't care less how i look People
Amazing to see how things used to look in Piccadilly Circus. I wasn't born until 1973, but remember fondly as a young lad my Dad driving me and my Mum around the West End and seeing the wonderful displays and neon lights of Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue. Loved going to see the Christmas light displays on Regent Street each year too. As luck would have it, I also ended up working at Lillywhites sports store in Piccadilly Circus in the 90's before Sports Direct eventually brought them out, but retained the name. Happy Memories 😊
1967 when this film was made I was working just off of Piccadilly Circus. I used the station almost every day. One thing I do remember was the birds in the early hours of the morning 'they did make a racket'. Wish I could go back in time and have a few words with myself.
Two things strike me; the amount of litter and the fact that you need to wear a suit and tie to inspect a subway. Mind you, my father used to do the gardening in a suit in the sixties.
@@stud105was like that then too. Every single generation believes the past was better but in reality things weren’t great then either. Standard of living is much higher today too.
That great colour film stock that you only got in the 60's, a nostalgic look back at the cars and people of the era and a fantastic amount of information packed into 10 minutes. The 'Look At Life' films should be considered a national treasure!
The look at life films I remember shown on the cinema screens when we paid to see a film.We did not have a colour TV back then.And there were some people I knew who didn't have a TV then .
Me too, my 74 year old neighbour moved up to Suffolk in the 70's, bless her she's never been back, and believes it's still like this. She'd be heartbroken if she ever went back.
@@mohammadusman6525 I am Canadian and visited with my parents. I have lived and worked in the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Colombia, France and Germany. Yes, I have had a very sheltered existence. 😂
Lovely to see a slightly older version of my old stamping ground. I used to live here, work here, and spend far too much time in the pubs here. There was always a buzz around Piccadilly Circus. Happy Memories 😊
Anyone who claims that the immigration open door policy over the last 40 years has not changed the appearance of London should me made to sit down and watch this film. Over and over again!
And all the Look at Life series for that matter. They also speak of wages, and when you compare those wages to the average house prices from the time you get an idea of how much better off everyone was before we had this huge unbalancing of the supply and demand both for jobs and housing. An air hostess back then could afford to buy a flat on only 2 or 3 years wages before any pay rises! Today you'd be looking at a 25 year mortgage. Our population has been unnaturally hyper inflated by immigration for economic reasons, but not economics that benefits the average Joe, it's a greater pool of workers so that wages get depressed and people fear more for their jobs. It's a greater population with a similar amount of housing, creating huge demand and always someone who will pay that bit more than the next person, pushing prices sky high today. Tony Blair opened the door to unlimited immigration in 1998, and today he has a property empire worth £38 million. He knew what he was doing. Back then you could live your life understanding everyone who lived around you almost automatically. You could speak and expect a certain type of interaction with someone (as continues to be the case in Australia); but today we all withdraw from one another, too scared you might offend someone to be able to live normally. I don't care for skin colour, but I do care for the environment I live in, and that's made up with people who are really not British, and it goes a step further, there are people who believe that we, having been born here with no control of who we are, should feel ashamed to be white and be apologetic to everyone who isn't white because of things that happened a hundred years ago. I literally went on a date with a girl who was half Indian, half British, who stated I should feel guilty for being white. Fuck that shit. I'm allowed to live and go about my life without people trying to shame me for who I am. We have neighbours of varying cultures who we live next to peacefully, but they don't interact with us like our few British neighbours. We have little sense of community anymore. London is a mess of everyone living side by side, but not interacting. People argue that it's great to have multiculturalism, but you're not exactly going to start living like a Bengali if you aren't one are you? No; you're just going to praise the food etc and that's about the extent of it. It is but tourism at home for champagne socialists. What's more, you have new inward looking communities that did not previously exist. Nepotism is alive and well in the UK's new cultures, take Tower Hamlets for example, and the previous Mayor Lutfur Rahman who promised, in Bengali on a Bengali TV station, that it was their communal/racial struggle to elect someone to a position of power and that he promised to redistribute wealth within the borough to the benefit of his race. He was later impeached following investigations into corruption, nepotism, and redistributing council funds to specific religious groups. The same thing goes on around London and the country but we white people dare not say anything for fear of being called a racist. There have been cases of people with white sounding names having spent years on waiting lists for housing, to then re-apply changing their name to a Somalian one and receiving housing the same week. I applaud the people who make an effort to integrate into our society as it is, I have some good friends who are migrants, but on the whole there are a lot of problems that are simply swept under the rug and anyone who dares discuss it is bullied into silence. The fight for equality is turning into a racist one, and that is only creating division. No, Layla, it has not changed for the better.
@celtic whisper, there were non-White people in London when this was shot, some even appear in this clip, you may even notice how the two sewer guys were edited, the Black guy was literally edited out of the scene. it may look like only White people were in London but that wasn't actually the case.
Fascinating these old films of London... I do prefer the gorgeous old neon advertising signs that used to adorn the buildings around Piccadilly, the giant LED screens they have today are cold & charmless.
+Tattyshoes Shigure Yes, LED is a cold light. It seems to be tolerated because most people couldn't care less about aesthetic concerns and it links the punter with their home screen device and their mobile screen device being familiar in light quality.
Yeah those giant LED screens are an abomination. Probably the idea of some Muslim or other immigrant!! (got to point out this is parody because some nimrod will think it really was the Muslims).
@@ibelieve2779 😂😂 To be fair though, French were a staple community of Piccadilly/Theatreland areas, they're probably the reason why the area has such a strong cafe culture.
Life seemed so simply back then. You could actually go out and talk to people. Now its just CCTV everywhere. Its all about Facebook and staring at iphone screens. Sad times.
@@harleyhartley3168 how can you talk to someone with headphones on and if they haven't they think there so important with there heads in there phones. I love bumping in to these phone zombies that think you have to move out the way for them. It's even better if they drop there phones, hopefully they will start to have concidaration for others.
I don't think there were 15 year olds on mopeds robbing people, or stabbing each other, or large no go areas, or a large proportion of people who choose not to work. You can work that out how ever you want I'll leave that to you, but the simple fact is, life now is not as civilised now as it was 50 years ago, fact!
There wasn’t so many homeless people either. They used to be called tramps and they were very few of them compared to today. No worries about terrorism either. People spoke to each other because there were no mobile phones to look down into. Another thing I don’t like about modern Piccadilly Circus is the large screens instead of neon signs. I know times change, but the neons looked far nicer.
Nonsense. It's better than ever though we have to fight the creeping asset-stripping and gentrification and influx of the super-rich stealing our cultural centers. Piccadilly was a polluted dump then,
When London was leading the world in fashion and look at all the space, people lying down on steps enjoying the scenery, if you did that now you wouldn't be able to see much because it's so crowded
I remember it well. I was a 15 year old in 1967, although I'd been visiting Picadilly Circus since I was a young child. I haven't been back since 2014. It's too heartbreaking to see what's become of London. I've no desire to go back. I'll leave it to the current "inhabitants."
Saturday's, carnaby street, Oxford Street, spending our wages, and then Hyde park with our transistor radios listening to all of the groovy songs!!!!yes golden times indeed❤ I can get emotional if I see a paisley print😂
Ah 1967 ... the centre point of British rock nostalgia. Sgt Pepper, Days of Future Past ... wake up, go to work, in through the subway, out through the bus door, into the office, out of it, the subway, home, sleep and do it again tomorrow for ever and ever.
Happily the proposed redevelopment never took place and Piccadilly Circus is the better for it. I just wish the Westminster Council would go back to washing the streets again (as shown in this video). London seems to be alone amongst the great cities of Europe for abandoning this practice!
They did move Eros & pedestrianise one side of it, but nothing like the proposed plans here with traffic going underneath (would have been impossible with the tube trains!)
Stop bloody moaning, go do it yourself if it bothers you that much..? I suppose you scrub your doorstep as well haha, it’s just pointless...There’s things called rubbish bins 🗑
As an American, I cannot say that I know exactly how you feel, but I have a good idea what you mean. From comments I have read on TH-cam many people lament the loss of the London and the England they once knew. All I can say is that I still your country is great, and that London is a world class city though it has a lot of problems these days. Don't give up on it just yet!!
Looking at this clip i noticed how i missed people just walking around without looking down on their cell phones people were far more aware of their surroundings in those times. I google earth this same area and i noticed something striking and that is people on the whole were far more better dressed back then than they are today. A wonderful bit of social history captured on film which should be kept and preserved thanks for uploading .
I visited London in August and was totally surprised to see hundreds of women wearing burkas and some with weird metal things over their faces that looked like Groucho Marx masks complete with moustaches. I went into one coffee shop on Cromwell Road, Kensington and felt so out of place I left again. I was the only non-Arabic person in there. As for Harrods I might as well have been in a souk!
How about a majority white and a few none white mixed in ffs why is it so wrong for english people to want the uk to remainmajority white english. I tell what the silent vast majority in this country are staying silent and polite but for how much longer i am not so sure
I was 9 yrs old then but how simple and easy life was as opposed to all the violence and murder that happens today especially to young people, i would go back to that time in a heartbeat if only it was possible.I wish
I love these old reels of London. Sure has changed since I started going in the late 80’s. But then again I barely recognize the Philadelphia I grew up in today either especially South Philly.
From Wikipedia: "The Holford plan is referenced in the short-form documentary film "Goodbye, Piccadilly", produced by the Rank Organisation in 1967 as part of their Look at Life series when it was still seriously expected that Holford's recommendations would be acted upon. Piccadilly Circus has since escaped major redevelopment, apart from extensive ground-level pedestrianisation around its south side in the 1980s." Thank God!
@@andyfidler5022 The 2011 census clearly states that it is NOT majority English anymore you utter moron. Don't believe me then go and check for yourself. It's because of clueless virtue signalling bell ends like yourself that England will no longer exist in a few decades.
Used to go to the club's and discos every Friday and Saturday to the early hours. The Scean Big L. 100 club . The Marquee. Ronnie Scott's. Tiles. Etc...Friends, Girls , Dancing. 65 66.
3:36 I've had to pause to comment, it's that good so far: All that rubbish having to be swept up is a shocker, the sighting of a nevermore spotted brown coated floor manager and then the realisation that we're not the best we can be in the present day. Certainly not when you see all those commuters all as smartly dressed as the next. Now press play and back to the past I go.
How absorbing and informative. We make hires gopro walk through's of contemporary London on youtube (no ads just to share) so it's great for us to see the comparison. London is still pretty spectacular. Thank you for adding it, we've subscribed.
Peak London traffic then could almost compete with normal suburban traffic now. And yes, London is a hole now. Not so much because of who lives in it but more due to its aesthetic and overcrowding.
Elegant people without smart phones... I am avoiding that area, the LED screen is causing a pain on my eyes, that luminosity is too bright, and honestly I find it gruesome and charmless. I miss the old London...
***** I mean it's like a zoo now, many people are moving out. Rubbish everywhere and one day you could wake up your building has been burned to the ground
Wylye_guy Hey, look at the title of this movie. I prefer real life than words. Quite a few neighborhoods in London look now a lot like a 3rd world country...
I was born in 1966, my family photos depict this very lifestyle, picnics in the park, beach's full of British people just relaxing, eating ice cream, talking, amazing, young people nowadays it's all about them, life now is depressingly dull, most of us are wealthier but bet we have missed something along the way, what a mess we are in nowadays, politicians to blame?, multiculturalism also to blame?, we ain't seen anything so far, when the worlds population hits 10 billion in 2040, this country will be overrun by the worlds effluent, then we will be finished.
I wasn't around in the 60's, but I love 60's fashion! So colorful and elegant, the ladies look lovely! I Bet there were no fatbergs in the sewers back then! Don't seem to be any fat people either. No CCTV cameras everywhere....and no need for them! No zombies glued to their smart phones. It's hard to watch footage like this and not conclude that our obsession with technology has damaged us. It's a shame, I hope it will not continue like this for ever, though I fear it will only get worse.
In 1967 I was working in Charles the second Street and Piccadilly Circus was a daily ritual , what a lovely place it was, sadly due to successive government policies it is now a hell hole.
For those who feel nostalgic, there are good and bad things visible here. The filth and litter is horrible in this film. People smoked everywhere, including on underground trains. Vehicles were noisy and polluting. On the other hand, there were independent British shops like Swan & Edgar, and people dressed more smartly. Contrary to what the description says, the architecture and street plan has not changed.
Indeed, it’s cleaner and better maintained than ever. But there are so many more people and even with congestion charging it’s always like Piccadilly Circus lol
Great video ... only if it were still like it today ... Piccadilly is still going strong but society then was relatively orderly as can be seen on the video ... very different from todays society ... this video comes from when it was Great Britain and not just Britain. Always good to look back just to remind us all of what was.
Reminds me of the film Brannigan (1975) watching these central London clips.... starring Duke (John Wayne). Especially the part where the then named Tony Robison played the bike courier picking up from the Post Box..
You obviously didn't live in my part of London because there were no stabbings or hard drugs amongst my cicle of friends. Maybe you lived in a rough area?
Wow! Truly Amazing. Never Seen This Video Before of Piccadilly of The 60's. So Beautiful So Clean. Is The Statue of Eros Still Being Cleaned Today In 2020 ,Iconic. Are The Flower Sellers Still Selling Flowers ?The Public In Those Day's Appear To Be Much More Calm and Composed Than Today It Seems. Fabulous Clear Film and Vivid Colours. Even The Sky Looks Clearer Than It Is Today. British Gibraltar, UK Overseas Territory 🇬🇧.
I agreed with you until you said the gender bit - Twiggy was revolutionary in 1967 for her tomboy crop and men started to wear long hair and colourful clothes - viva 1967! 🌈
52 years later in October 2019, and things were no better at the circus, I’m sure there are improvements for some, but for me, I have been using it since 1983, and can’t think of any...
@Mark Stevens Sadly Mark. Let me give you a story from 2 weeks ago. I am in an invidious position because my best friend ( who I am seeing tonight for over the 1,000th time ) is Black. She is one of 6 Babymothers by this Guy and his brother has "14 or 15" kids. She has met this new guy who has 5 kids and is one of 13 children.This Guys sister already has 12 kids. This is extreme but not untypical I'm afraid....We have no chance.....
This was done in the same year the James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice," was released into cinemas. Plus, this footage was shot 20 years before German-Vietnamese artistic gymnast Marcel Nguyen was born.
Thanks for posting this. I love looking at the cars. Compere them to the soulless lumps of metal we have today. Massive German things the look horrible and aggressive. Maybe the cars today reflect our bloated greedy characterless society.
@@_B.M_ so much of an embarrassment that they were popular all over the world and still would be today if the government and management hadn't killed it.
@@indiekiddrugpatrol3117 Its not really a question of German this or British that..... the trends for making everything bigger, heavier, more complicated and more vulgar are industry wide and have been for some time now. And yes, it is down to greed. Both on the part of consumers, who always want more, and always want the latest, and manufacturers, who are only too happy to sell us all kinds of unnecessary tech crap knowing it will be obsolete in a few years time.Though I hardly think greed, materialism and building things in obsolescence are a new phenomenon. There were plenty examples of it in action even in the 50's and 60's, albeit less brazen.
First thing I really noticed was the complete lack of erm...'multi cultureism'. Wonder what England would be like now if the ridiculous levels of immigration and social payment benefits had been more tightly controlled?
I’ve been reading the comments and I was born that year ,London now is such a rude place all people want to now is get people sacked from their job or make you feel guilty bec you had a chicken burger ,I’m a Londoner through and through but soo glad I wasn’t born any later ,what happened to the optimistic attitude we had then now we get guilty yuppies gluing them selves to electric yes electric trains ,goodbye Piccadilly goodbye our happy London ,why did we let it happen 😔
I wish I could go back in time to this place! I loved the energy and vibrancy of Swinging Sixties London!😃👍✨💖✨🇬🇧
Same here. A time it was and what a time it was.
Me too, and I was young and there then.
I hope you don't mind the thick plumes of cigarette smoke absolutely EVERYWHERE. Shops, public transport, cinema, restaurant's... There was no escaping it.
@@jdh6752
@@jdh6752 This is true, I know a tailor from that time along Savile Row and he said as much.
I just miss the old London , one cannot put the clock back I know. But London was wonderful .
Keith MacMillan the clock can be put back. When the time on your watch is wrong you put it back without hesitation. It’s time to go back
Time to call Doc Brown and hit 88 miles per hour!
Durian Durian It was nicer. Do you think it's because of race?
@@stjohnssoup Of course. Many peoples on this planet are not capable of forming a functional society so they latch onto others who have already done so. Expectedly, those societies suffer.
The past was great because you don’t have to live it.
I studied there in 1970. International House in Shaftesbury Ave.It was very much like in this video. Gosh,. it was 50 years ago. How I miss it. Thank you for this video.
Shaftesbury
What a name😂
Every ounce of charm has been cruelly revoked from this once-wonderful city. My London is nowhere to be found today. It shouldn’t have happened.
Is it all the immigrants 😢😂
So sad.
But diversity is our strength…
No it hasn't.
breaks the heart watching this
@@crispindry2815NO, JUST N.O.
@@LynneFowler-h1gthey’re not wrong. Every generation likes to view the past as better when they get older. Truth is things weren’t better then and they aren’t necessarily better now. It’s just 2 different eras both with their ups and downs
@crispindry2815 No they won't.
The quality of these is surprisingly good. These need to be preserved as they are a living documentary of how things used to be.
"these need to be preserved"; hence TH-camd?
I know a bloke that's working on a plan to build something he calls a "site" to store vids such as this but he has no place to put it until someone else invents what another bloke calls the "internet." Bunch of bleedin' yokels if yer arsk me.
If only there was a way of ensuring they could be preserved. Maybe even made available for anyone to watch... Ah well.
I was born in 1995 and it amazes and scares me how much things have changed since then and how more simper things were then even if at the time they did not seem so in the 1990's to early 2000's.I shudder to think what the world will be like and the state of humanity when I am 70 or 80 .
Gary Williams IN ORGINAL FILM IT SHALL BE
Ford Corsair, Austin Cambridge, Mini Van, Routemasters. young fit dolly birds in mini dresses who are 70 years old today ..... love these films ...oh for a time machine
This is the time machine.
Not just a time machine.. I'd like to take a video of what London looks like now and show it to the people making decisions at the time.
@@NoosaHeads For what it's worth I think the decisions which lead to the ****hole that London is today weren't taken in the 1960s: they were taken from the late 1990s onwards. I'd say that from the end of WW2 to the 1980s London and the UK as a whole had what could be called organic/ manageable levels of immigration made up of people who mostly subscribed to the UK and western way of life and values. That changed from the 1990s onwards.
Just look at how well dressed and slim everyone is. How well mannered and civilized. Now compare to today. There's no comparison.
still like that here in Poland, they dress up just to buy a loaf of bread, it's funny, lots of the Polish who go to live in Britain become like British working class couldn't care less how i look People
@@neonskyline1 interesting , what particular towns in Poland ?
@@jcc-ve8mo
Give it a rest Grandad
@@neonskyline1
Listen to you, you snob
Er you can tell how well mannered and civil people were from this video how 🤔
Amazing to see how things used to look in Piccadilly Circus. I wasn't born until 1973, but remember fondly as a young lad my Dad driving me and my Mum around the West End and seeing the wonderful displays and neon lights of Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue. Loved going to see the Christmas light displays on Regent Street each year too. As luck would have it, I also ended up working at Lillywhites sports store in Piccadilly Circus in the 90's before Sports Direct eventually brought them out, but retained the name. Happy Memories 😊
1967 when this film was made I was working just off of Piccadilly Circus.
I used the station almost every day.
One thing I do remember was the birds in the early hours of the morning 'they did make a racket'.
Wish I could go back in time and have a few words with myself.
Two things strike me; the amount of litter and the fact that you need to wear a suit and tie to inspect a subway. Mind you, my father used to do the gardening in a suit in the sixties.
It was just litter. Now it's mattresses, washing machines and general detritus left in the streets.
@@stud105was like that then too. Every single generation believes the past was better but in reality things weren’t great then either. Standard of living is much higher today too.
Denim became fashionable to wear in the 1980s
That great colour film stock that you only got in the 60's, a nostalgic look back at the cars and people of the era and a fantastic amount of information packed into 10 minutes. The 'Look At Life' films should be considered a national treasure!
The look at life films I remember shown on the cinema screens when we paid to see a film.We did not have a colour TV back then.And there were some people I knew who didn't have a TV then .
That's how I remember London in 1966, as a 10 year old visiting with my parents.
i think you should say this how you remember piccadily circus. Most of london was not neat and clean .i should know
Me too, my 74 year old neighbour moved up to Suffolk in the 70's, bless her she's never been back, and believes it's still like this. She'd be heartbroken if she ever went back.
What, you haven't been since
U must live a very sheltered existence
@@mohammadusman6525 I am Canadian and visited with my parents. I have lived and worked in the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Colombia, France and Germany. Yes, I have had a very sheltered existence. 😂
@pauldg837 indeed
U do get around
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing.Reminds me of missed opportunities. What I should have said and didn't. Loves lost forever.
Even nostalgia ain't what it used to be!
Don't you want to complain about Muslim grooming gangs? What are you, sick or something?
@ I dunno, what about that guy who thought he could jump off the Eiffel Tower with his home-made wings?
Lovely to see a slightly older version of my old stamping ground. I used to live here, work here, and spend far too much time in the pubs here. There was always a buzz around Piccadilly Circus.
Happy Memories 😊
Anyone who claims that the immigration open door policy over the last 40 years has not changed the appearance of London should me made to sit down and watch this film. Over and over again!
And all the Look at Life series for that matter. They also speak of wages, and when you compare those wages to the average house prices from the time you get an idea of how much better off everyone was before we had this huge unbalancing of the supply and demand both for jobs and housing. An air hostess back then could afford to buy a flat on only 2 or 3 years wages before any pay rises! Today you'd be looking at a 25 year mortgage.
Our population has been unnaturally hyper inflated by immigration for economic reasons, but not economics that benefits the average Joe, it's a greater pool of workers so that wages get depressed and people fear more for their jobs. It's a greater population with a similar amount of housing, creating huge demand and always someone who will pay that bit more than the next person, pushing prices sky high today. Tony Blair opened the door to unlimited immigration in 1998, and today he has a property empire worth £38 million. He knew what he was doing.
Back then you could live your life understanding everyone who lived around you almost automatically. You could speak and expect a certain type of interaction with someone (as continues to be the case in Australia); but today we all withdraw from one another, too scared you might offend someone to be able to live normally. I don't care for skin colour, but I do care for the environment I live in, and that's made up with people who are really not British, and it goes a step further, there are people who believe that we, having been born here with no control of who we are, should feel ashamed to be white and be apologetic to everyone who isn't white because of things that happened a hundred years ago. I literally went on a date with a girl who was half Indian, half British, who stated I should feel guilty for being white. Fuck that shit. I'm allowed to live and go about my life without people trying to shame me for who I am.
We have neighbours of varying cultures who we live next to peacefully, but they don't interact with us like our few British neighbours. We have little sense of community anymore. London is a mess of everyone living side by side, but not interacting. People argue that it's great to have multiculturalism, but you're not exactly going to start living like a Bengali if you aren't one are you? No; you're just going to praise the food etc and that's about the extent of it. It is but tourism at home for champagne socialists. What's more, you have new inward looking communities that did not previously exist. Nepotism is alive and well in the UK's new cultures, take Tower Hamlets for example, and the previous Mayor Lutfur Rahman who promised, in Bengali on a Bengali TV station, that it was their communal/racial struggle to elect someone to a position of power and that he promised to redistribute wealth within the borough to the benefit of his race. He was later impeached following investigations into corruption, nepotism, and redistributing council funds to specific religious groups.
The same thing goes on around London and the country but we white people dare not say anything for fear of being called a racist. There have been cases of people with white sounding names having spent years on waiting lists for housing, to then re-apply changing their name to a Somalian one and receiving housing the same week.
I applaud the people who make an effort to integrate into our society as it is, I have some good friends who are migrants, but on the whole there are a lot of problems that are simply swept under the rug and anyone who dares discuss it is bullied into silence.
The fight for equality is turning into a racist one, and that is only creating division.
No, Layla, it has not changed for the better.
Calm down - there are still way more of your precious white folk running around..lol.
@John Salvage lol i actually migrated from London to live in Africa 5 years ago, best life decision i ever made !
@celtic whisper, there were non-White people in London when this was shot, some even appear in this clip, you may even notice how the two sewer guys were edited, the Black guy was literally edited out of the scene. it may look like only White people were in London but that wasn't actually the case.
@John Salvage I doubt if he knows his Mummy. He DEFINITELY won't know his Daddy....
Fascinating these old films of London... I do prefer the gorgeous old neon advertising signs that used to adorn the buildings around Piccadilly, the giant LED screens they have today are cold & charmless.
+Tattyshoes Shigure totally agree with you
+Tattyshoes Shigure
Yes. Neon signage is beautiful. It's way more atractive than characterless LED screens.
+Tattyshoes Shigure Yes, LED is a cold light. It seems to be tolerated because most people couldn't care less about aesthetic concerns and it links the punter with their home screen device and their mobile screen device being familiar in light quality.
Yeah those giant LED screens are an abomination. Probably the idea of some Muslim or other immigrant!!
(got to point out this is parody because some nimrod will think it really was the Muslims).
The signs were made by Franco Signs in Colindale.
I was 4 years old when this was filmed. London, when it was a city worth living in and where an Englishman felt he belonged.
But you are French
@@ibelieve2779 😂😂
To be fair though, French were a staple community of Piccadilly/Theatreland areas, they're probably the reason why the area has such a strong cafe culture.
@@ibelieve2779 check out 1066 pal, most of you south east Olde Engladers could be ha ha and you dont know it !
Jaques de Beaufort i live in london. I work in central london and feel like i belong. Such a weird thing to say
@@ibelieve2779 - It's not my real name :-)
No cellphone, No earphone, No tattoo, No obese, .....No Attitude.....just living LIFE the way it should be🌹
No, the way YOU think it should be. That's a VERY different proposal...
No grammar, either, on your side.😊
@@prosperusdoo4520 Funny that
@@Pixel1962 perhaps you dont like safety, fun , happiness;
absolutely sir unfortunately
Most of today's people are
Brainwashed by the mobile phone its no joke
Life seemed so simply back then. You could actually go out and talk to people.
Now its just CCTV everywhere. Its all about Facebook and staring at iphone screens. Sad times.
No it's not. People still talk - sad that you think they don't.
I take my mother round London in a wheelchair and people smile at her all day long and offer to help - London is a friendly city
It's only going to get worse.
People still talk, you’re just lonely
@@harleyhartley3168 how can you talk to someone with headphones on and if they haven't they think there so important with there heads in there phones. I love bumping in to these phone zombies that think you have to move out the way for them. It's even better if they drop there phones, hopefully they will start to have concidaration for others.
Those were the best days of my life, growing up in the 196s, I wish I invented my own time machine, I be going back every weekend at my parents home.
Wow...you're 1800 years old???
I don't think there were 15 year olds on mopeds robbing people, or stabbing each other, or large no go areas, or a large proportion of people who choose not to work. You can work that out how ever you want I'll leave that to you, but the simple fact is, life now is not as civilised now as it was 50 years ago, fact!
There wasn’t so many homeless people either. They used to be called tramps and they were very few of them compared to today. No worries about terrorism either. People spoke to each other because there were no mobile phones to look down into. Another thing I don’t like about modern Piccadilly Circus is the large screens instead of neon signs. I know times change, but the neons looked far nicer.
JAZZ MAN exactly! Miss the days before all the cats acted strange!
JAZZ MAN same people that allowed the country to become like this are the same people that locked away the greats like mr saville!
JAZZ MAN did you go to the march at Charlottesville 2 years ago, was very fun!
Mickey Chitty
That Satanic beast, Saville is where he belongs.
Very interesting. Piccadilly Circus still looked like this when I moved to London in 1986🇬🇧
Yeah, it was still the same (ish) in 2019. That pedestrianized dream never happened, but there is the underground passageways though...
Still looks the same today
The 1960's was the time to see London, it's gone down hill ever since.
Nonsense. It's better than ever though we have to fight the creeping asset-stripping and gentrification and influx of the super-rich stealing our cultural centers. Piccadilly was a polluted dump then,
wish I could turn the clock back everything gone now its not the same anymore the buz has gone for ever
...just make sure you don't accidentally hold a door open for a Feminazi.
@Ian McNally yes ...let's not let people in headscarves replace the people in this film ...erm...wearing...headscarves
Ah....
Said every old coot of every generation since the caves.
@@gordonbennett5638 shame on you
It's lovely to see the good old days! Thanks!
When London was leading the world in fashion and look at all the space, people lying down on steps enjoying the scenery, if you did that now you wouldn't be able to see much because it's so crowded
I remember it well. I was a 15 year old in 1967, although I'd been visiting Picadilly Circus since I was a young child. I haven't been back since 2014. It's too heartbreaking to see what's become of London. I've no desire to go back. I'll leave it to the current "inhabitants."
It's way better now.
Amazing...nostalgia to the core.Love it.
My old London ❤
sewer pipe inspector: shirt and tie required
indeed...sexist dress code
I noticed that too. Probably just for the camera I would think.
they most likely did it for the film..nothing is bu accident. Even back then , who will go down there with a good suit jacket?
ideahunter IKR 🤣 No hi-vis. No PPE
Vincent de Guard in 1967 they most likely didn't even allow women to apply for that job.
London has definitely changed far away from childhood memories late 60s to early 70s Golden times! 😇🙏
They used to actually CLEAN the place.
Saturday's, carnaby street, Oxford Street, spending our wages, and then Hyde park with our transistor radios listening to all of the groovy songs!!!!yes golden times indeed❤ I can get emotional if I see a paisley print😂
2:48 Shop window displays 1967’s fashions....that are back in style today, in 2018! Love it ❤️
Piccadilly Circus looked more alive then, there were more lights and neon signs. It's been greatly reduced now. Shame....
Ah 1967 ... the centre point of British rock nostalgia. Sgt Pepper, Days of Future Past ... wake up, go to work, in through the subway, out through the bus door, into the office, out of it, the subway, home, sleep and do it again tomorrow for ever and ever.
StartabandRoxy it's no different today
Happily the proposed redevelopment never took place and Piccadilly Circus is the better for it. I just wish the Westminster Council would go back to washing the streets again (as shown in this video). London seems to be alone amongst the great cities of Europe for abandoning this practice!
They did move Eros & pedestrianise one side of it, but nothing like the proposed plans here with traffic going underneath (would have been impossible with the tube trains!)
I rather think you'll need more than water to clean London's street now........
Stop bloody moaning, go do it yourself if it bothers you that much..? I suppose you scrub your doorstep as well haha, it’s just pointless...There’s things called rubbish bins 🗑
@@Roscoe.P.Coldchain
Its called reminiscing not moaning.
I remember it being like this.
As an American, I cannot say that I know exactly how you feel, but I have a good idea what you mean. From comments I have read on TH-cam many people lament the loss of the London and the England they once knew. All I can say is that I still your country is great, and that London is a world class city though it has a lot of problems these days. Don't give up on it just yet!!
That's a lovely comment ❤️🇺🇲🙏
Thankyou young lady ! God bless you !
What happened? We are an island for a reason. Such happy times.
Isolated from the world!
And defended it
@@_B.M_ the world looked to England we invented the industrial revolution
Thatcher happened.
@ Margaret would have allowed the dinghy day trippers, left the Falklands to the Argies? You are an idiot.
Looking at this clip i noticed how i missed people just walking around without looking down on their cell phones people were far more aware of their surroundings in those times. I google earth this same area and i noticed something striking and that is people on the whole were far more better dressed back then than they are today. A wonderful bit of social history captured on film which should be kept and preserved thanks for uploading .
I used that station many times in those days
a much much better time
How beautiful no burka in sight , when London was London
I visited London in August and was totally surprised to see hundreds of women wearing burkas and some with weird metal things over their faces that looked like Groucho Marx masks complete with moustaches. I went into one coffee shop on Cromwell Road, Kensington and felt so out of place I left again. I was the only non-Arabic person in there. As for Harrods I might as well have been in a souk!
Mate, what do you expect if you go to Harrods? Want to be entirely surrounded by white people? Move to RUSSIA!!!!
Pixel1962 thank you for your advice.
@@Pixel1962 or New Zealand or Gibraltar
How about a majority white and a few none white mixed in ffs why is it so wrong for english people to want the uk to remainmajority white english. I tell what the silent vast majority in this country are staying silent and polite but for how much longer i am not so sure
I was 9 yrs old then but how simple and easy life was as opposed to all the violence and murder that happens today especially to young people, i would go back to that time in a heartbeat if only it was possible.I wish
Nice to see the fountain at Eros actually working..it’s criminal it never is today!!
Envious of the gentleman who can open a spread of newspaper in the tube during rush hour. 7:32.
Ooh er, wanting to 'man-spread' are we? You criminal racist-sexist pig!!!
I love these old reels of London. Sure has changed since I started going in the late 80’s. But then again I barely recognize the Philadelphia I grew up in today either especially South Philly.
I love looking back on the days gone bye. Thanks for posting it
From Wikipedia: "The Holford plan is referenced in the short-form documentary film "Goodbye, Piccadilly", produced by the Rank Organisation in 1967 as part of their Look at Life series when it was still seriously expected that Holford's recommendations would be acted upon. Piccadilly Circus has since escaped major redevelopment, apart from extensive ground-level pedestrianisation around its south side in the 1980s." Thank God!
Ah yes, I've heard that London used to be English.
Hard to believe that now.
What a shame.
London is still English. You, however, are a half-wit.
@@andyfidler5022 The 2011 census clearly states that it is NOT majority English anymore you utter moron. Don't believe me then go and check for yourself. It's because of clueless virtue signalling bell ends like yourself that England will no longer exist in a few decades.
@@andyfidler5022 he's a racist twat, I'm not going to reply to him, M probably stands for moron.
Used to go to the club's and discos every Friday and Saturday to the early hours.
The Scean Big L. 100 club . The Marquee. Ronnie Scott's. Tiles.
Etc...Friends, Girls , Dancing. 65 66.
3:36 I've had to pause to comment, it's that good so far:
All that rubbish having to be swept up is a shocker, the sighting of a nevermore spotted brown coated floor manager and then the realisation that we're not the best we can be in the present day. Certainly not when you see all those commuters all as smartly dressed as the next.
Now press play and back to the past I go.
I miss the neon signs at Piccadilly Circus, its not the same with the giant ad screens.
Greed Instead of looking at a Dozen Adverts They can Zap a thousand at you an hour
How absorbing and informative. We make hires gopro walk through's of contemporary London on youtube (no ads just to share) so it's great for us to see the comparison. London is still pretty spectacular. Thank you for adding it, we've subscribed.
Peak London traffic then could almost compete with normal suburban traffic now.
And yes, London is a hole now. Not so much because of who lives in it but more due to its aesthetic and overcrowding.
SwanSongRecords London's population needs to be halved.
tackling *illegal* immigration would half the population of London! The rough estimate of foreigners who shouldn't be here is 1.2 Million
Watching this makes me want to cry.
Elegant people without smart phones... I am avoiding that area, the LED screen is causing a pain on my eyes, that luminosity is too bright, and honestly I find it gruesome and charmless. I miss the old London...
so you posted this comment using a non LED potato did you ?
Her - Bak so negative...
@@georgiamurphy5799 As opposed the unbridled optimism of the original post !
Her - Bak 👏👏👏
@Qwerty123 I agree as well.
Tea at Fortnum and Mason, a real reason to go to Picadilly Circus
And now we see everyone stare down at their phones all day long
Lorenzo Irrera you are literally looking at youre phone reading this
@Mr. Thomas A. Anderson evidently
@Qwerty123 I said good morning to someone and they were absolutely frightened
@SavageArfad I look at people on my phone while looking at other people
@@browndeutch so are you though. this generation will never be the same tbh. unless all our phones self-destruct and kill us lol
London was quite civilized back then...
what do you mean?
***** I mean it's like a zoo now, many people are moving out. Rubbish everywhere and one day you could wake up your building has been burned to the ground
***** I think you should change your newspaper; London's civilized now too!
Wylye_guy
Hey, look at the title of this movie. I prefer real life than words. Quite a few neighborhoods in London look now a lot like a 3rd world country...
What rot! You obviously don't actually live in London.
Swan & Edgar became Tower Records.
(Swan & Edgar went the same way as Derry & Toms and Bourne & Hollingsworth and so many other departmental stores)
+bootsamou And thenTower Records folded. Remember spending a lot of time in their classical department browsing late in the evening.
@@youtubister I loved browsing, often it was the only place to find some artists
@@youtubister And the classical department in the old HMV Oxford Street. Both sadly missed nowadays.
I was there in the 90s. It was lovely then. I am sad now.
Kevs, the noughties ? with skinheads, punks all over the place ? thank god the next decade made those scums disappear.
I was born in 1966, my family photos depict this very lifestyle, picnics in the park, beach's full of British people just relaxing, eating ice cream, talking, amazing, young people nowadays it's all about them, life now is depressingly dull, most of us are wealthier but bet we have missed something along the way, what a mess we are in nowadays, politicians to blame?, multiculturalism also to blame?, we ain't seen anything so far, when the worlds population hits 10 billion in 2040, this country will be overrun by the worlds effluent, then we will be finished.
This is the London I remember.
I wasn't around in the 60's, but I love 60's fashion! So colorful and elegant, the ladies look lovely!
I Bet there were no fatbergs in the sewers back then! Don't seem to be any fat people either. No CCTV cameras everywhere....and no need for them! No zombies glued to their smart phones. It's hard to watch footage like this and not conclude that our obsession with technology has damaged us. It's a shame, I hope it will not continue like this for ever, though I fear it will only get worse.
The fatbergs were seeding back then.
In 1967 I was working in Charles the second Street and Piccadilly Circus was a daily ritual , what a lovely place it was, sadly due to successive government policies it is now a hell hole.
Fab footage! Thanks for the upload
Well dressed white and not a overweight person in sight sounds like paradise compared to today.
1960s films of the public - no obesity!
+hkharnelian Or tattoos.
Or islamists.
In those days we had films...Now our American Masters ordered us to say "movies"...
I order you to say "moving pictures"!
Exactly right my Friend. In those days people actually used their legs.
How beautiful were the girls in those days!!??? And well dressed and cute
wish these were on a bit longer.they're very interesting.
For those who feel nostalgic, there are good and bad things visible here. The filth and litter is horrible in this film. People smoked everywhere, including on underground trains. Vehicles were noisy and polluting. On the other hand, there were independent British shops like Swan & Edgar, and people dressed more smartly. Contrary to what the description says, the architecture and street plan has not changed.
Their is all ways A keyboard looser !
Indeed, it’s cleaner and better maintained than ever. But there are so many more people and even with congestion charging it’s always like Piccadilly Circus lol
I like my vehicles noisy and polluting
No traffic in early hours of Central London, with no congestion charge. How is that even possible?!
Great video ... only if it were still like it today ... Piccadilly is still going strong but society then was relatively orderly as can be seen on the video ... very different from todays society ... this video comes from when it was Great Britain and not just Britain.
Always good to look back just to remind us all of what was.
Reminds me of the film Brannigan (1975) watching these central London clips.... starring Duke (John Wayne). Especially the part where the then named Tony Robison played the bike courier picking up from the Post Box..
Piccadilly Circus my favorite place of London
The London of my youth, safe to walk around on a Saturday night. No drugs or noisy yobs a pleasant place to live.
You say that like its specific to only London. Same in all major cities worldwide. Times change. People have to adapt.
It is safe. In 1967 there were drugs. And gang warfare.
You obviously didn't live in my part of London because there were no stabbings or hard drugs amongst my cicle of friends. Maybe you lived in a rough area?
Wow! Truly Amazing. Never Seen This Video Before of Piccadilly of The 60's. So Beautiful So Clean. Is The Statue of Eros Still Being Cleaned Today In 2020 ,Iconic. Are The Flower Sellers Still Selling Flowers ?The Public In Those Day's Appear To Be Much More Calm and Composed Than Today It Seems. Fabulous Clear Film and Vivid Colours. Even The Sky Looks Clearer Than It Is Today. British Gibraltar, UK Overseas Territory 🇬🇧.
It's a mess now.
It makes me weep to see how it used to be. No tattoos, no fatties; women looking like women and men looking like men. Progress today? No.
I agreed with you until you said the gender bit - Twiggy was revolutionary in 1967 for her tomboy crop and men started to wear long hair and colourful clothes - viva 1967! 🌈
all gone now.
There's nothing wrong in being proud, white and British as any other culture would so
Exactly. Nothing wrong with being any other colour or culture either.
@@_B.M_ That's what I said
Some cultures aren’t very nice
@@BB-qp9ri Lot's of people feel that way about the British...Hardly a country in the world you haven't invade, imposing your culture by force.
Brexit has done our country's international reputation no favours.
Look at Life Now - Goodbye, London, 2019
A few of us moved Eros a few yards to the south east in 1984.
Imagine all of this less than 30 years after the Blitz.
The thing I remember most growing up after the war was playing on the bomb sites.....lots of them.
52 years later in October 2019, and things were no better at the circus, I’m sure there are improvements for some, but for me, I have been using it since 1983, and can’t think of any...
Que lugar incrível, que época incrível !! Queria ter nascido nesta época e nesta cidade !!
Spanish is beautiful , well I am from here and thank you with all my heart !
Picadilli looks wonderful in those days 😊😄😀
No foreigners. Magic.
pwwatson8888 Nothing wrong with 'foreigners', it's which countries they come from and how many they are letting in thats the problem.
not in their millions and there were houses and schools enough then because it was controlled now it's just chaos
There's one at 2:21.
No Muslims you mean. Foreigners are fine as long as they respect the country.
Rather a foreigner, than a whining Brit ...
Nice to see a part of London that hasn't changed that much.
When Britain was great
not necessarily great but *British* - thats all I want - for us to be allowed to have our own identity
@Mark Stevens Sadly Mark. Let me give you a story from 2 weeks ago. I am in an invidious position because my best friend ( who I am seeing tonight for over the 1,000th time ) is Black. She is one of 6 Babymothers by this Guy and his brother has "14 or 15" kids. She has met this new guy who has 5 kids and is one of 13 children.This Guys sister already has 12 kids. This is extreme but not untypical I'm afraid....We have no chance.....
@@grai Engish is my identity, and you can't be English unless you are white.
When Britain had British people.
@@grai Tell the Tories...
How slim everyone was!
Old London, old England, come back St George and save us…….
This was done in the same year the James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice," was released into cinemas. Plus, this footage was shot 20 years before German-Vietnamese artistic gymnast Marcel Nguyen was born.
Many more stylish people that you'd see there today.
Thanks for posting this. I love looking at the cars. Compere them to the soulless lumps of metal we have today. Massive German things the look horrible and aggressive. Maybe the cars today reflect our bloated greedy characterless society.
German cars may look horrible and aggresive .. but at least they work! British cars were a bloody embarrassment. Truly awful.
the people got bigger and the cars did too!
@@_B.M_ so much of an embarrassment that they were popular all over the world and still would be today if the government and management hadn't killed it.
@@indiekiddrugpatrol3117 Its not really a question of German this or British that..... the trends for making everything bigger, heavier, more complicated and more vulgar are industry wide and have been for some time now.
And yes, it is down to greed. Both on the part of consumers, who always want more, and always want the latest, and manufacturers, who are only too happy to sell us all kinds of unnecessary tech crap knowing it will be obsolete in a few years time.Though I hardly think greed, materialism and building things in obsolescence are a new phenomenon. There were plenty examples of it in action even in the 50's and 60's, albeit less brazen.
To be fair I'm sure people from the 1930s and 40s likewise hated the boxy 'no frills' cars of the 60s!
First thing I really noticed was the complete lack of erm...'multi cultureism'. Wonder what England would be like now if the ridiculous levels of immigration and social payment benefits had been more tightly controlled?
Really shit at sport.
Mark - the 100m I'll give you but apart from that ???
Wonder how the countries England invaded might be like now.....
not in massive numbers, loom at the film - film any street in London today and see how many British people you see
worse off by far
I’ve been reading the comments and I was born that year ,London now is such a rude place all people want to now is get people sacked from their job or make you feel guilty bec you had a chicken burger ,I’m a Londoner through and through but soo glad I wasn’t born any later ,what happened to the optimistic attitude we had then now we get guilty yuppies gluing them selves to electric yes electric trains ,goodbye Piccadilly goodbye our happy London ,why did we let it happen 😔
There's something very different about London back then. Can't quite put my finger on it.
No internet
I was so young but I wish I could remember if I went there then.