Look at Life - Rising to high office, 1963
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ม.ค. 2025
- Posted by nostalgoteket.se U.K. Newsreel. A fascinating look at 1963 mod-looking corporate office technology-which wasn't very high-tech compared to today, but still lots of "cool gadgets." Punched card data processing centers. The complex infrastructure that supports London's biggest office that attracts visitors from all over the world, not just to see the view, but to study a mid-20th century development.
Just love the boundless optimism of these old newsreels, no downsides mentioned, the future's going to get better and better....
started working there in 1962 in the catering department worked with some fun people ,good memories
+Anthony Clode Was the pool green?
just like the pools at the Olympics in Brazil 2016!
Thanks for sharing - I have walked past this many times and can't believe that there once was a car park in the front of it! I would love to have changed places with you and go back in time to witness what England was like back then
Did you know Wendy ?
"Like this shop run by the blind." Points to KitKat she wants.
I'd imagine that between 1959 & 1969 (aprox. 500 films were made), that UK cinema audiences might have felt some impatience with these vignettes whilst awaiting the main feature. However, the Rank Organisation has left us with a fabulous archive of British social history and covering the broadest of topics. Thank you Rank - I love 'em! PS I'm working my way through all 500. They're sunny and optimistic duly reflecting a "sunny & optimistic" era. Full marks.
it was probably WAY more than just 500, that's like just 50 a year globally. i suggest you stock up on the popcorn.
@@Numptaloid In total, RANK made 500 of these and no more.
I miss the chirpy blithe optimism of these old newsreels
Tim Turner, Tim Turner, Tim Turner
Have only just started viewing these Fotoscenen uploads and being in my 60's, they are like relieving my youth.
Ive watched a load of these now and it amazes me how they managed to film everything on a nice sunny day!!
maybe there were more sunny days back then?!
Same reason it's typically sunny in Google Street View. Some things don't change. :)
Love these old nostalgic videos of life in Britain in the 50s and 60s
So do I, I absolutely adore it, it seemed like everything was kind of right with the country 🌸 ♥️
The Stag sculpture is now situated in a park by the River Medway in the Lockmeadow area of Maidstone, Kent
Good knowledge!
I worked in shell office on the mid 90s and they knew how to look after their workers.
I was there in early 80's, and you're right they did.
I’m there now and whilst it’s not the same they still make more effort than most.
certainly seems that way
We seem to have gone backwards in relation to how well workers are treated
I don’t imagine that office block still has a pool or a free canteen
You want your ventilation to only give you air 4 or 5 times an hour, if the tech running it remembers to toggle the switch for your section of the building?
@@rashkavar Exactly, I don't think we have gone backwards at all.
It's was for PR, just as today. Google offers that kind of service, but tries its best to destroy any attempt at syndication.
@@albertweber1617 Why would programmers need a union? They're paid very well and have all the amenities they need.
@@RampageG4mer if a programmer doesn't want to implement a dangerous algorithm (data mining, military stuff, privacy risk, etc), they have the choice between compliance or unemployment. A union allows them to stand their ground. This is just one of the thousand ways unions improve a company's actions.
"Fifteen minute breaks every two to two and a half hours.". Monsieur, you are really spoiling us!
and the staff room looked like a 1st class lounge
Oi! This is 2021. Back to work you scurvy knaves! 😉
What total luxury today
The workers have to go outside in the pouring rain
Wendy was one lucky girl
I love this old video. I had the chance to visit as an employee from US on multiple occasions in the late 2000s. It in decline at that point but you could see how it was once like a city within a city.
sadly Wendy was fired after nicking a kitkat and having an extended lunch break to get her hair done
along with the two "pervs" at 7.15
@@vincentdeguard4726 what’s the name of the pervert in the bushes it’s Russell
@@ianstewartorr8455Oi! 😂
nowadays wendy would be on a zero hours contract and the only ones getting free anything would be the greedy bastards that run the company and the blind shop would be replaced by a vending machine.
Office workers today are rarely on zero hours contracts but you carry on spouting bollocks for likes.
Wendy got paid a pittance and lived in a home without indoor plumbing and central heating doggy. Do you really think that the working class getting the shitty end of the stick is a recent phenomenon?
Ayyy We're Listening Here! - ‘Central heating doggy’ - WOOF! 🐕
The people that run the company are entitled to have more - after all they created and founded the company, often with financial risk.
@@brunster64 I think none of those people who run Shell created anything or took any financial risk. At least not in any relation with the company Shell.
8:33 After all that I was totally expecting them to turn right around and go back through the revolving doors to enjoy an "evening on the town" in the building's night-life floor.
The Shell building was briefly the tallest building in Britain. It’s concrete exterior has a mix designed to bleach itself white as it is attacked by the weather (as does Waterloo Bridge).
They tried to pump the soap to the washbasins in the toilets, via long polyethylene tubes from a central tank, that didn't work for obvious reasons.
Unbelievable technology and that over 50 years ago. Pretty special. A city in a block!
3:15 commentator says about the clean & filtered air getting blown into the offices, then you see a man near a load of pipes lagged with asbestos in the plant room.
I bet thousands of people died as a result of constructing & working in that building.
@@jameshodgkins559 I’m 71 and I’m still here. Worked there 1972, on the ground floor, in Lloyds Bank. 😆
@@peteowen3539 , lucky you working in the Bank on the ground floor. You could’ve been on maintenance working in the plant room knocking asbestos off the pipes
I started work there in 1970. Worked in the downstream building on the Univacs (not the IBM's shown here).
Yes, it was pretty good then and you could assume a job for life... except a couple of months before I joined they had their first general layoff and early retirement RIF. They were already predicting the oil shock of the coming mid-70s at the graduate intake course I attended.
I'm a sucker for these old films. They are like cinematic Ladybird books. But nowhere to be seen is the idler, the moaner, the harassed middle manager, the viscious gossip, the executive shagging his secretary. They were there, of course. They have always been with us, and always will. I must also ask my current employer about the viability of an Archery and Air Pistol Range for staff. I'm sure they are "here to stay". Good luck, Wendy. The implication is clear. You work here, but hope to find and marry one of those young executives...who will one day be shagging the next Wendy who is 15 years younger.
2.11...The lift works at 800 ft a min....this means you can not only shag the next Wendy but anyone else who's willing, jump in the lift, and be out of sight before the coffee gets cold......and joy!...it works both ways!!
For the full 60s office experience try a guided tour of Newcastle Civic Centre, the most amazing time capsule I’ve ever been to. They even have the front desk and computerised telephone exchange from this video. Wendy would be right at home!
Good film and an insight into what office life was like 50 years ago (and Shell would have been a cutting edge company too).
I wonder how Wendy got on in life (she must be in her early 70s now).
Also, I'm interested in old cars but I didn't recognise the cream coloured car she got picked up in at the end of the film (looked like a good one though).
I think the car she gets into could be a Jowett Jupiter....
She'd be 72-73 this year.
Hi, I'm Wendy and I'm fine thanks. Only joking... Would be nice if she is still alive and has seen this recently
@barry rudge No, it's a Jowett Jupiter, just as ole Jed said it was. Spotting features are the raised line down the middle of the trunk (boot) and each fender plus the gas filler cover on the left middle of the trunk.
A workers utopia....
Today, you're just a number,
Oi! Number 134. Get back to work! 😉
Only the tower building of the Shell Centre survives today. The area is being redeveloped with new offices luxury apartments and "affordable" housing.
They're in a hurry to destroy london
Thanks. I wondered if all this still existed.
The headline news is never representative.
that tech was frigging amazing
"...and when Wendy is made redundant, gas is pumped directly to her station via the most modern of mechanisms..."
"...then it's off to a VIP tour of the building's state-of-the-art waste extraction system via a 'special' lift..."
"...that's right - Wendy sure is going places in this modern age !"
I worked there as a full time window cleaner back in 2001-2002 time. Great building, from what I was told it had 26 miles of glass but still took the job lol. Great job great times in a great building. I use to go to the viewing gallery at the top of the building at lunch, great views of London. I now carry out monthly maintenance checks on the new buildings where the shell centre once stood and it has changed a lot, all apartments now for the rich and famous pretty much how most of London is going. The blocks are now called casson square run by south bank place and prices range from 800-900k up to about £4-5million, so much for affordable housing 🤦🏼♂️
People really did seem to have a full lunch every day then. Somehow they managed to stay both slim and awake in the afternoon - how?
David Panton I was thinking the same thing! must be the pool or racquetball after work...now they’d have their phones in their faces
They didn’t stuff their faces bc they either clearly remembered the depression or had parents who did.
I hate to even say this but I get dumb struck everytime I go around in town or especially to some form of theme park or the likes and they are slam full of obese people with obese kids (which is awful) and they have no shame to sit and stuff their faces with even more crap.
As for staying awake in the afternoons, I expect people were more alert in general due to getting a proper night's sleep. After all, TV broadcasts stopped before midnight, and there was no internet nor any mobile devices to distract us. You might have read a book for a while, but other than that you may as well switch off the light and get your head down!
People hardly snacked back then. Three square meals, maybe some supper or afternoon tea, maybe the odd pack of crisps. Now people literally graze oin their graze boxes and there's aalways some birthday cake.
The work and infrastructure alone that went in to that internal mail delivery method, the design, installation and maintenance, I wonder how long before it became made redundant and all ripped out ? Replaced by probably the fax machine and then e.mail
Tom Smith,
I'd say at a guess, before E-mail came on board. Faxes would have been used early 90s and E-mail around mid 90s. So there would've been redundancies going around mid 90s or so ???
I bet they got a decent redundancies back then 4 times their wages possibly. They were generous back then.
Now, you'd be lucky to get 6 months.
Back when companies really looked after you and invested in there staff.
Ben Kay not anymore especially South western railway at clapham junction
True today if you work for Google or Facebook or Netflix.
their
Their
That's a popular myth. Companies have never looked after anyone but their top executives.
I use to work up town in the 1960's loved it, couldn't now .
Susan. You were lucky. I worked there in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. 70's were fab (a 60's word?) but 80's and 90's not so due to the foreign invasion and other factors too.
This is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
P.S.
Now-a-days, the "Shell Building" refers only to the tower; the u shaped building around it, and the rest of "the site", sold off, twenty years ago, are all apartments.
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The building in question is Portland House viewed from Stag Place, 20 Palace Street viewed from the same location is at 0.24
I can't believe the lovely park opposite the London Eye used to be a huge carpark. Well, actually I can...
Good spot!
I get fed up of people posting on these videos that everything, particularly London, was much better in the old days. Yes, in some respects they are right - but they ignore the buildings blackened by pollution, the slum districts and the general lack of amenities. Not everything has changed for the worse - not by a long shot.
@L Bukem. Very often, the car parks were bomb sites for years before the redevelopment boom.
Dear Colin,
Thank you for your response.
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Thanks for your information and the times.
I did hear/see what your report.
I found that slight gap between the mentioning of the other buildings and then again the Shell building.
Because I live a half mile from the Shell building, I was intrigued as to the fact.
So much so that I was going to ask the lobby staff, one day when passing.
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If I find out for sure, I'll let you know.
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Cheers.
from,
del-boy.
Nice thought for me that my late grandfather would have been looking out of his office window in County Hall at the plane flying overhead there...
I can't believe that people think this is a true reflection of working in a 1960s office. Just as Google, Facebook, and so on have certain work practices today, it doesn't mean that every office is the same. Shell was just as much of an outlier then as Google is today.
The 1960s was no Shangri La for ordinary people.
Oh man that is so high tech, you would never believe it possible!
Man them days must been good for those office workers.
Wendy is 74 in 2017!
Sadly, Wendy died three days after swimming in that green pool.
Or 81 in 2024!
@@WillScarlet1991that if she still alive
@@WillScarlet1991 I'd like to see her naked . . .
Poor Wendy was killed by an errant arrow in the archery gallery.
My first job was in Portland House not so long ago (shown shortly into the film). Great views.
I lived in the shadow of that tower in the opening shot I called it the stingray building
Love those pneumatic tube delivery systems - pretty fascinating!
'Three-course lunch free on the firm'... those were the days.
nakedmambo were still doing that in the late 1990s. Awesome
Shell were still doing that 3 years ago!
@@jmj1 . About time it stopped. Free meals? Good Grief, they’ll be expecting a decent wage next! How’s a poor CEO going to get his/her mega bonus if we keep this nonsense up? 😉
No fat people in the 60s!
Try fitting a three course lunch into the measly half hour we get today.
half hour?!? If I had 30 minutes break I'd be able to finish my damn sandwich and biscuits, but I only get 15 minutes break every 165 minutes
@@blabla-rg7ky Save them up and take an hour!1
@@annother3350 don't tempt me :)
@@blabla-rg7ky . 15, minutes! That’s far too long - I want you back in the office in 10, minutes - no excuses! 😉
You have to pig everything down
The telephone typing thing was started by British Rail building on older systems utilised by the prior rail companies from pre-war, at Waterloo in the eighties you could ring a extension, dictate ones letter and 5 to 10 mins later it would be on your desk in an envelope waiting for signature etc and I believe the one in Euston house was even quicker. Incidentally nice shots of Hungerford Bridge and Charing Cross's long long gone signalbox, it was a much nicer world back then :)
I started off wanting to scream at the prospect of working in such a place, but actually it looks pretty good especially for the time.
I didn't see anyone smoking, which would have been unusual then. Wonder if it was banned in the building?
When I worked there back in 2001-2002 they still had a smoking brake room lol. How times have changed.
‘“And a restroom where the only numbers are pretty ones” 🙄
So casual the sexism. Oh well
A time when people had manners and the world was sane and civilized.
I actually used to have swimming lessons with my school in that underground pool when I was a school kid in the 90s. Every Tuesday morning
Looks better than today.
A Lovely old post..... I bet you don't know that the first office block ( near earls court ) is called the Empress state building
The Downstream Building on the other side of the railway track was sold off and turned into apartments in the 1990's. The site of the Upstream Building is currently being redeveloped and only the tower will remain of the original complex seen in the video.
And imagine that was in 1963. I wonder how it is now in 2020
Now days you're expected to work 110 hour weeks at your desk with no time to clean your clothes because you can buy shirts from vending machines. They even turn a blind eye to coke snorting to keep working even though you're burnt out.
Charles Macgilchrist Isn’t progress wonderful?!!
@Kilo Byte When someone without any higher education from a third world country can replace you at your job, it is maybe time to invest in your education.
Wendy is 20 years old, now in 2022 she's 82 if still alive. Think of that...
If she was aged 20 in 1963, she would be 79 years old in 2022.
@@roydidlock1867 Think i had an off day, it was late at night and i was drinking when watching these :)
Dear me.,
You are quite right.
I am unfamiliar with that ancient scene as today there are new building around it; what happened to that stag sculpture?
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It must have been removed from the site.
Stagg is the name of the street nearby.
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A river ran adjacent to the site; the site, or next door was the location of a famous brewery which closed probably 200 years ago.
Supposably.
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Thank you for your message.
.
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Cheers.
from,
del-boy.
I bet people got more work done then now without distractions of emails, texts, social media etc.
Oh that unbridled upbeat optimism of the early 60s.
Shooting and Archery in your lunch break! lol.
"Workplace shootings" were a lot different back then.
At 6:17: "The architecture of the commerce in the 1960's has been criticized". Building design in that era was so ugly they apparently already knew it was bad when it was new in 1963!
I worked shell tower. full of asbestos. staff were well looked after though
Robbie Crosbie I worked for Shell in south manchester many years ago, and a huge perk of the job was everyone got free dinners, and I dont mean a pack of sarnies. Three course lunch, self serve. Unbelievable really, as the cost must have been huge to have provided it. And this was only about 17 years ago. Didnt realise they had always done that for staff.
Simon George same here. free vending machines. free meals. use of the gym and pool etc. they really do look after their staff
Robbie Crosbie That’s because it was built at a time when asbestos was widely used, as long as it was sealed it shouldn’t be a risk
@@oddities-whatnot Well, I worked for Union International in the 80's, part of the Vesty Group and we also were given free 3 course lunches.
@@user-lx6bl2wd8g That can't be true. British socialist survive off the idea every company is run like a nazi concentration camp and everyone that wears a suit is a rich capitalist oppressor. Good examples of how Britain became place of pound shops and mosques.
Look how nicely dressed people were ,collar and tie the norm .
Why is the pool green????
Proof once again that life was better back then. My parents really had it good.
You really can't tell what life was like from these chirpy propaganda films.
Certainly the sixties were a happier and more prosperous time than the fifties for most people - I'm much happier to be living in the present day than in the fifties.
I know this is an old comment. But you are right. I met some old timers from Shell once when on holiday . They had been there since the 70s. They said they used to have coffee carts delivering freshly brewed coffee and afternoon cakes to the desks! The building also had a travel agency and bank. Everyone spoke with such fond memories.
@@mike18699-e propaganda or not, life was still better then compared to the present time. If you were already an adult during the early 1960s you would realised that.
Is Shell Centre still hiring? I can get used to the free lunch. Shooting archery after work, I'll pass on that. The swimming pool looked lime-green. What were they swimming in? Jello?
Algae - good for the skin
@@serenityinside1 😀
Why is the pool green?
A green man pissed in it.
The Hulk hard it at night .. and yes, passed gallons into it .
"where the only numbers are pretty ones.......". That would go down like a lead balloon today!
I'd love a swimming pool at the Council depot!
Dear colin.,
Thank you for your response.
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Can you say where, in this video, at what time on the clock, the speaker says that the forty elevators are in that Shell building, please?
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Cheers.
from,
del-boy.
42 lifts in the building I worked there..
I expect at some point in the last 7 years you'll have found what you were looking for or ceased to care, but just in case... it's at 1:50. :)
is this whole video of Shell centre?
Yes.
Next team meeting I am asking for a fencing court or shooting range to be added to the office.
1:38 I spy a ‘Tiffin’ chocolate bar! Who remembers them, filled with biscuits and raisins 😋
🎶🎵🎶We've come a long ways, baby!!!
🎶🎵🎶
It's still there in a much lesser form. They closed all the staff facilities shown and sold the downstream building. They also degraded the once public spaces and enclosed them as foyer space.
whats rthe building at 0.37
At the end Wendy heads off in a Jowett Jupiter
The pool has a spectators gallery! You mean a perverts gallery!
Well, at least the guys know what the girls in secretary pool are working with before they hit on them... Maybe I'm just looking at it with modern eyes and that's not how they meant it
The days when cafeteria food was good and cheap. Now companies cause their cheap bastards took away these conviences from the worker.
It's because Gordon brown started a benefits in kind tax that they got taken away.
Many thanks for these.
A 'boomer' 👍 🇬🇧
I guess the tech companies (like Google) were not the first in offering all the mod cons to its employees.
JEEZ... that pool is green; I'd pass on that, it looks like straight algae.
Working from home is 100% better than working in an office
Good stuff
@nakedmambo You're absolutely right actually. Luck doesn't have anything to do with why I get a free three course lunch on the company. Thanks for the pep talk man :)
Large corporations of today would NEVER look after their staff in this way.
The only important thing is PROFIT.
The wellbeing of the staff is just not considered
Audio typing.
Me: oh wow!
Women huddled in room on the other end of the line.
😂😂😂😂
They were still around up to the early 2000s!
Worth noting that the Shell Building on the south bank was one of the very few high quality new office buildings constructed in London during the 60´s and 70´s - most were pure junk and fortunately many are coming down now as they`ve outlived their usefulness and not worth restoring.
15 minute break every 2 - 2 1/2 hours - not bad! proper lunch hour, free three course lunch. free leisure amenities!
0.37s what is this building?
Its the Shell building and right in front of it now is the London Eye.
notice how many jobs there were to do
London looked a nice place then
Look at the vast spending, in that era.
'office pool', 'office cantine to give free meal 3 times a day' 'jousting for free/sport for free'.
What the actual f*ck.
Not a single normal firm has their own private pool where workers can just swim in it, even after hours.
Nor do can they get 15min breaks every 2 hours.
Lol.. its like holiday working.
“Including a shop run by the blind”
But there’s no scissors or sharp instruments to be found in the shop. 😎
What a conditioned space. Almost like they want you to live where you work.
I’ve seen the future in this video
Sounds like promise gone asunder.
Dear Colin,
On reviewing the video, there is a shocking picture of the site at 2.15 (2:11); shown soon after reference to the millions of lifts (elevators).
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I now think that the high number of lifts "in the building" refers to the entire site.
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In 1963 the "Shell Building" may have refereed to the entire site, which is so big that it could easily contain 40 lifts.
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Cheers.
from,
del-boy
Its seriously depressing how bland life became