1975: Are PREFAB Houses FABULOUS? | Nationwide | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
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- David Taylor reports from Medway, where the local council is planning to erect 63 prefab houses on a clearance site.
Prefabricated houses enjoy many benefits over their on-site, brick and mortar equivalents - they can be built in a day and in use within a week. With much of the UK in the midst of a severe housing shortage, you would think that prefab houses were an ideal solution, but prefabs have something of an image problem in Britain - likely rooted in their association with post-war austerity. Is this reputation fair, or does it smack of snobbery?
For the residents of Excalibur Estate - an estate of prefab houses in South London - prefabs are the ideal living place.
Originally broadcast 24 January, 1975.
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My uncle and his family lived in one after the war. We were jealous. They had a hot water system, bathroom and indoor toilet. We had a rented terrace house, outside toilet and no hot water.
And don't forget they had the asbestos as well.
They were houses for the poor.
We were all poor. What’s the shame in that. We worked hard and got on with it.
Everyone I knew who lived in a prefab loved them. They were detached, you had your own private garden, and an inside toilet and bathroom, which we didn't have. They are now listed dwellings and rightly so.
I'd rather live in one of those than a tower block.
Yes, they look like they had land also, enough for a hobby garden and mini allotment!
@@museonfilm8919 They would not have had much land around them.
@@janetpendlebury6808 The ones I remember had substantial gardens.
I love towerblocks with lifts 😂😂
Lived in towers blocks for 25 years, London and Hull. Wouldn't live anywhere else, they're not what people think. Most are nice places.
I had a wonderful early childhood in a detached prefab in Hainault Essex.
We were never cold or damp, we had a huge garden, it was bliss. Happy days
Same here. Lovely memories
Was it a council house.
Lived in Finnimore road Hainault back in 1955,still remember shopping at the local store at the age of 8 happy days.....
It amazes me that similar types of houses are not utilised for the homeless or veterans. Obviously technology has moved on since then but the principle is the same.
There are lots of empty sites where these temporary homes could be erected! The government should be helping these people and this is one way to do it.
I think Park homes are a good example of what can be done today.
actually American has built this type of pre fab but are built with wood they are especially built for Veterans and Homeless
The government does not want to end homelessness. Homelessness is very lucrative for the landowning classes
The big construction companies are the ones controlling the housing market and the last thing they want is cheap housing
@Sue-vh5fc... Don't trick yourself into believing that governments give a toss a out mere people!
"These prefabs were made of asbestos and wood" - lovely
Asbestos is only a problem when disturbed. If the fibres are not airborne they are not a hazard.
Yeah, they were. Asbestos did a fantastic job, and many prefabs, despite being designed to last for a mere decade, are still here some 70 years later. It's not their fault that they hadn't found the health implications yet.
BBC chatbot rhetoric
@@skyrocketautomotive well these days we now know the implications of asbestos, so don't you agree 70 years later we should be finding an alternative?
@@dairylea2As skyrocket commented, asbestos left alone = no problem. Disposing of 'dangerous' asbestos is big business.
I spent the happiest years of my life in a prefab. I loved it. Fitted cupboards and wardrobe reduced the need for furniture. The coal fire heated the lounge and the water and blew warm air into the bedrooms and heated the airing cupboard very efficient and comfortable. Id go back in an instant but the council demolished them all and built crappy flats on the plots. We had a lovely garden too . Lovely memories of my time there
These folks just wanted their own place to live in, and to be comfortable.
Nowadays it's all about the perceived value of a property, which has nothing to do with living a full life.
Absolutely, I picked up on that, they were so grateful.
And you didn't "expect" to own your own home. I read now all about the "plight" and "agony" of young people who can't afford to buy their own home.
@@lewisner
How many hours a week did you average throughout your working life?
100% xx
I lived in an Asbestos one with my grandparents, it was great big gardens and backed onto a brook and allotments, absolutely brilliant for an 8 year old boy loads of adventures and fun!
The Prefabs around my area were very popular. They were a clever, short-term solution to a pressing housing problem. However, they were only ever intended as a short-term fix and were extended beyond their intended lifetime.
Yes. I lived in a house the same .. only put up as temporary for maybe 10 years but they are still standing and most are owned.
Forget the prefabs, the old woman giving up her house so someone else who needed the space could have it, different times...
Yes, unthinkable in today's property value obsessed Britain.
If smaller properties were available, many older people would happily downsize. I was delighted to move from a three-bedroom property to my current one-bedroom place. The only thing I miss is the large garden but, even now, I have a small courtyard which gives me some scope for horticulture.
What was she going to do with 5 cold and damp bedrooms, lacking central heating?
I was born in one. I can still remember the huge lounge, where my parents danced to rock and roll records. A big American fridge in the kitchen. Indoor toilet and bathroom. Lovely place
I moved to Canterbury in 1963 and there were still hundreds of beautifully kept Prefabs in the Barton road.
Lived in one on Blackheath, from 1953 to 1960.My MUM, Dad,sister, and myself. Probably the best years of my childhood.
Comedy characters, the two men at the end. Remind me of how my grandparents spoke. The guy with the glasses would have made a good salesman.
Fascinating man. Lots of charisma.
I love watching these archived clips. So interesting. And seeing how things where all those years ago. 😊
Wasn't that long ago really 😂
I remember "prefabs" very well. There was a bombsite at the corner of Elgin Avenue and Shirland Road which was later filled in and became the site for four of them. My brother-in-law made me a "Prefab Doll's House", which my sister furnished, because I really loved them.
What town Anna? (We had them in Canterbury) best regards to you!
@philtucker1224 London, W9. The pre-existing bombsite they were built on had a fireplace with a picture above it, hanging on at first floor level, which fascinated me as a child.
I grew up in a prefab, many happy memories a great place to live
Back in my day we lived in a hole in the ground and when it flooded well we'd call that bath day and get on with it!
You were bloody lucky, me and my 17 brothers and 9 sisters lived in a sewerage farm and ate the same shite every day.
😂😂
@@nilsalmquist9424
Luxury !!!!
Having lived in one for the first 12 years of my life, I can say they were, very very damp, cold and uncomfortable.
At my primary school in the 80s and early 90s some of our lessons were held in similar buildings. They were cold a lot of the time.
@@ajs41 Do you mean the Portakabin-esque things, raised off the ground on concrete blocks or similar supports? I doubt they were made to the same standard as the houses in this programme, at least if we are to take the film at its word because they said the houses were well insulated, unlike the buildings they were making for industrial uses. I don't know if I'm right or not, but I would guess that the school ones were just something affordable that the school could get hold of, not insulated properly. We had one at primary school, and also at secondary school. I have fond memories of the one at primary school, life was very simple at that age and the teacher was nice :) I don't remember ever being cold in there, but then we only had morning lessons in it for what seemed a relatively short time. At secondary school I only had occasional lessons in one, although my brother and some of our friends had that as their form room so used it every morning.
The lower specification pre fabs were cold and damp but there were some built to a much stronger and higher specification.
Due to cost restrictions they could not be made financially viable so the government commissioned the lower grade pre fab dwellings from companies who built them.
But Pre fabs can be great if they are built right.
When I was in Primary School (aged 5 - 10) I had a friend who lived in a prefab sited within one row at the edge of our nearby open parklsnd... (Later they were sadly, I thought, demolished and the residents moved elsewhere... Another friend, after I married, lived in a ground floor flat but then was glad to be moved to a prefab on the Excalibur Estate in Catford (London SE6) and she loved it. She had no access to a garden in her old flat but had quite a large garden behind the prefab. I visited her often there, chikd-sitting too, and thought she'd made it very presentable and quite "comfy" ...not sure how it was in the Winter but I know she was happy there... (Until one awful weekend - as a joint friend of ours told me some time later, my dear friend suffered an almighty headache, was rushed to hospital, had had a bleed on the brain, and couldn't be saved...😢😢😢 That was the end of my friend and my association with prefabs too as her husband apparently returned to his homeland in Canada with their two sons...I doubt Canada has prefabs...too cccold in their Winters, I'd imagine.
My eldest daughter lives in Canada now, so in a way, the circle has joined up despite me losing my good friend.🇨🇦🏴🖖
Remember the Prefabs in Widnes.I had an auntie who lived in one. The got knocked down in the 70s.
I still live in one of these Pre Fab Bungalows in Leeds. Detached with lovely gardens. Love living in it.
6:11 love characters like that , could listen to them all day 🙄
I lived in a pre-fab in Paisley in the early 50's and loved it, we even had a
'fridge, which very few people had in those days.
We live in a step-up from the old prefab that was on our plot of land, a timber framed brick skinned Bungalow. The prefabs here were demolished in the mid 1960's and replaced with the terrace of bungalows we now live in in 1969, the only difference being that we have one more bungalow on the street than before, making the gardens a touch smaller. We are incredibly warm, cosy and do not have a single damp problem which is more that we can say about our 6 years in a mid-war flat, in which we had no end of problems. Our community now is the same, many of the people who lived here before were re-housed here and we are Blessed with a strong community who looks out for each other. There are many houses within 12 miles of us in the Valleys which are pre-fabs, they're still very popular xx
I was born in 1959 when we lived in a prefab. As far as I remember it was/is concrete and my earliest memory is waking up seeing the condensation on the windows. It still exists and is valued at £107,000.
There’s still a close of about 40 of them in Peterborough (2023), Welland Close. My wife’s uncle lives in one. Been modernised a bit with angled roofs but still standing.
I was born in a prefab in 1971 and lived there until 1977. All I remember was that it was very cold in the winter.
Damn right, I was born in one, too. Used to get ice on the inside of the bedroom windows in winter.
I lived in brick built council house with one fire in the front room and all the other rooms were cold didn’t kill me
@@craftforfun36What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Bit o cold makes the body work, most people use to frow a coat on the bed when cold, n have your strides pressing under the mattress
@@pen2199 Those were the days, we were poor but we were happy. They don't know they're born these days.
My aunties were still living in prefabs in the 60s , we were moved out of London to Langley they loved living in them we didn’t mind Langley as all our neighbours were fellow Londoners
My parents lived in a prefab in Louth.Lincs..it was fabulous..so roomy.light..loads of storage.easy to heat.built in w/robes with deep drawers..wrap around garden..I would live in one even now..
Chatbot's don't need accommodation
My Nan and Grandad lived in a prefab in North London. They were grateful and happy. There was a great community spirit. I don't see why the same principle can't be used nowadays to provide housing for people.
" grateful &happy" ????
Yes, grateful and happy. Grateful to be given the chance of a home and happy to make their home there with their family. 🤷♀️
1975 In Plymouth there was a large group of 'pre fabs' built after the war, as temporary accomodation for the bombed out people of Plymouth and Devonport their supposed life had expired and the time had come to replace them. The occupiers refused to leave,
Same in Bristol, they were happy living there in their pre fab
Are you referring to Deerpark?
We live in one of the concrete and prefabs built after the wall fabulous 3 bedroom house big rooms and huge gardens ❤❤
Whereabouts?
2:13 they’re talking on the site of a demolished health centre by the intersection of White Road and Haig Avenue in Chatham for anyone curious. It seems his plan never came to fruition, or it did and they’ve since been since replaced: the houses on that plot now look mid 90s era now. Great video
Did wonder where that was. Bet the kids where playing in there back in the day. Explore as now, Just not filmed then!.
Thanks. I was going to ask if they ever got built (but doubted they did, too radical?).
I live in Medway and wondered where it was.
I wonder if they weren't actually there, then got wiped out for the mid 90s stuff.
that yellowbrick terrace there now was built in the late 00s, there was something else there when I was very young but I just remember it looking dilapidated and overgrown
back when people were happy with everything they had
I also spent my childhood in a Canadian prefab on a large estate in Kensal Rise N.W.10. There were four prefabs to a lane, we had two bedrooms bathroom/toilet lounge kitchen and a large garden that went around the prefab, my dad's pride and joy oh happy memories.
in 1966 I watched the world cup final in a 1946 prefab, it was great, very warm, airtight, no draughts, no dampness which all houses back then, the people who lived in them loved them, they got pulled down in the 1970s and replaced with link villas with boards for cladding between the downstairs and the upstairs windows which were freezing, the damp got into the cladding and it burst open and it fell off exposing Rockwool with no internal walls, just a wooden frame with insulation and wooden boards on the outside and plasterboard inside, a bit like a shed, the people who live in them hate them, they have been refurbished about 5 times since they were built and they are still crap,
People can say what they want about temporary housing. Some of these early prefab buildings still stand. We could do with 50,000 of these built around Britain, right now. Minimum rents and `0` carbon (as possible). I call them `PREtty FABulous`.
In Mossley Nr Manchester there’s still people living in pre-war prefabs and love them. It’s Wakefield Rd (Blackrock)
The very early prefabs were mostly asbestos sheets.
I lived in a prefab as a child for several years .. great houses ❤❤❤
'He'd leave his penthouse and live in one of these' 😂
I doubt that 100%
I love their personalities. They're such characters. I'm a bit surprised this is in black and white as late as 1975. Although I'm sure there were plenty of B&W sets still in use, so those people saw what they always saw.
BBC still did black and white broadcasts until about 1980.
@@ajs41 No, full colour broadcasts commenced in 1976.
they still had not much exposure to gmo fake processed foods back then..
Some regional news studios where b&w for a long time. (405 b&w microwave links/ b&w telecine, film processing units etc.) The last BBC regional studio to convert was BBC Bangor in 1978. On ITV, Border TV still did invision continuity in b&w till the beginning of 1979!
(405 line feeds came to the main studio and where upscaled by electronic line converters, sometimes you had dirty mixes when cutting to a 625 conversion, the picture would have a big thick line going down the screen for half a second or so. This is very noticeable in the surviving 1970, Feb&Oct 1974 BBC general election coverage, for op outs or two way interviews to rural regional studios, you can view this on YT btw, there are quite a few studios still in monochrome in 1974, by the 1979 election its all Colour)
@@fidelcatsro6948 No GMOs allowed in Europe or the UK matey
6:19 the prefabs in Camden in Longford street, I used to walk past them on the way to school in the 1950s, they were better than some of Pre war housing estates as the had bathrooms, unlike the the crown estate in which not many of tenants did not Bath rooms until the the Late sixties, thanks to the generosity of the Crown.
Why can’t we do this now to help the homeless?
Denvale Estate, Tonge Moor, Bolton, Lancs. Incredible how things change.
A magical childhood in a prefab ….
Gavestone Crescent
21 years man and child..
Probably not so magical for your parents
i love those two blokes at the end!
We moved into one in 1953. Asbestos ? Yes, but it was warm and had a refrigerator something no other family members had in their homes! Two years later another move into a three bedroom Council House that was freezing in Winter and didn't we have hard Winters back then like 1962.
It’s a disgrace we have people liveing on the streets god help them
There's still a small prefab estate in my town - and their residents still fight any attempt to redevelop them.
My grand parents lived in an asbestos prefab, it was cold and damp. They were so grateful when the council built a housing scheme with central heating in 1968.
I was born in wooden temporary house (that's still standing) in 1960.
I think they used to 'pebble dash' some prefabs.
I lived in a prefab back in the late sixtys happy days 😊
I lived in a prefab from the day I was born (1963) whilst we waited for a council house. I was 18months old when we moved into our new council home & my mother said she loved the prefab & didn’t want to move particularly but the prefabs were eventually demolished once the tenants had been rehoused. Our prefab was in Burnsville, Great Clacton, Essex.
I was raised in a prefab bungalow , they had fantastic gardens where my grandfather grew potatoes, cabbage , beans, suede, red currant, black currant bushed, strawberries, mint in an old ceramic basin , this lovely home had all mod cons , built in steel wardrobes , steel drawers , a fridge run by gas and in the hallway and electric metre where you would feed it shilling pieces to pay for the electric, when the electric was paid there would always be money returned because you would put in more than what was used, 3 little bungalows in a row , the coal men would come every tuesday and deliver a bag or two , with quite often. My grand father complaining to harry the coalman , I don't know what coal you sold me last week but it was spitting at me blo-dy rubbish harry . My grandad father would then scrub the pathway cleaning up the debris of coal , we had a milkman , a costera delivering veg and a neighbour who was a barber . My grandfather would say I've cleaned from top to bottom my house is like a little palace , my grandmother would brasso the brass on the bottom of the front and side door every week , oh such happy memories of a bygone era .
The idea using the technology of the day to provide housing was good in its way providing homes for many . Early ones were poor but some later ones are still standing & people liked them. Most had little gardens all on ground floor so ideal for elderly. far better than many high rise flats. Most of those who still live in them are very happy people who love these.
Lived in one in the 80s it had a rayburn fire and storage heaters , it was pretty cold during the winter , full of damp and black mould , they were knocked down and a new housing estate built on the land
Fascinating footage
I had family lived there. They loved it and only left when they all passed away 🙏
I lived in a Prefab in Wanlip Rd. Plaistow E13 for meny happy years with good friends, now I'm stuck on the second floor and no garden. Not happy.
Nice view ?
@@davepowell7168 I'm blind.
Prefabs are great for societies where councils provide lots of affordable social housing, where rents are controlled and renters are protected by long leases. They are not great for capitalist, post-Thatcher societies where everyone has a "right to buy", where landlords can evict at short notice, where everyone has to have a mortgage and where property becomes an investment not just a home.
I interviewed on film an old lady in 1998 who had lived in Ivydale rd since 1964. The closed coal fire had heating ducts across the ceiling to both bedrooms,and bathroom with heated towel rail. No sign of damp with garden and cycle / coal shed. Two storey versions were made.
Initial designs from USA ( Tennesee Valley Authority -TVA - properties failed in ten years as not able to take British weather.)
Those prefab houses are still all around where I live.
Nothing cheaper than a 'normal' house.
The home I helped buiild with prefabbed materials like what is on this video was a 1,350 square foot bi-level with large basement windows beneath the first floor all which had to be framed with wood prior to the upper floor and roof applied to that basement. I had to help carry 2 by 10 joists to frame for the first floor.
This concept could be used now with better technology - look at Huff houses from Germany. Love the two two ladies - "I've had five break outs" 😊
2:15 I grew up on that council estate! While I don't know for sure if the houses on that particular patch of land did end up being prefabs, they were getting quite dilapidated by the 2000s and were replaced with a yellowbrick terrace some time around 2007-2011
Edit: someone mentioned prefabs being pebble dashed and oh my god all the "nice bungalows" on the estate that got torn down in the early 00s (excluding the one a classmate burnt down) were probably prefabs
3 Greenwood Close, Lower Farnham Road, Aldershot, Hampshire.
A little beauty.
I remember the prefabs around the pub I grew up in Prescott Street Liverpool 1970's. They were 2nd world war. One day they brought along of low loaders and took them all away. With the communities that lived in them.
I remember asbestos prefabs in the 80s.after the war thy said thy was tempery for ten years.
My Granda was a miner and the prefabs belonged to the pit, my Dad grew up in one and they are still up today and selling for a good price, done very well for short term houses
Remember my father buying a job lot of flooring sections from demolished prefabs. He made him self one very impressive garage amd workshop with little more than a black and decker drill and circular saw attachment. Had the job of applying creosote every year, stunk of the stuff for days afterwards.
Answer to our housing
Problem build modern prefabs
With affordable rent
This can be STILL a solution for homeless and down and out people.
I checked the location on Google streetview. Most of those houses stood until around 2014. Then came the rennovations.
wow!
Ha I did the same. There’s a still a lot of them still in use around that area it seems.
There the comment. Baudwin Road SE6. I did too. Did not take the timeline back. 2015. All gone but one that had a temp fence around for a few years (TH-cam explore!) then now a nice enclosed garden, fence. 1 still stand, flats the rest. Around the corner I noticed first as of lasted streetview. Still in Persant Road. Cheap I expect. Original windows. Unefficient energy but a home. A or B energy rating that. Not.
I lived in one and as far as I can remember it was very warm and comfortable ❤❤❤
A very early memory is seeing prefabs near my grandparents flat in London. I thought those people were on holiday 😊
Still a few in Craigour crescent in Edinburgh. Used to be the whole estate back in the 60 s, but slowly removed and new houses erected.
I grew up when prefabs were quite common.
People had grown up in slums, and had the option of moving to a detached, inside-toilet and bathroom two-bedroomed bungalow, with its own garden. No wonder most took up the option.
There is a prefab at Duxford museum that shows what they are like. I say _are_ because we still have them, Grade II listed, here in Brum, in Wake Green Road.
We had them in my village and they where nice inside, i saw one it was strong cosy did its job and a close community that looked after each other
Made with the latest building technologies - *Asbestos and wood* How delightful.
I might never have taken a great interest in Mesothelioma, if I hadn't swept up so much rubbish on demolition sites in my youth.
The blokes who do the same thing now, many years later, dress up like astronauts, for good reason!
@@jasonayres Did it affect you at all?
@@4seeableTV Thankfully, no.
But I heard numerous reports, and testimonials, saying that it can sit in the body for many years before it makes people sick.
I'm not losing sleep over it, just more aware of it than before.
@@jasonayres Good to know.
@@4seeableTV 🤝Thanks
Well I never, I worked at Medway Buildings in Strood making these back in the early 70's just after I got married, they were great little places made in two halves on a portable steel frame the only drawback I could see was that they were too well insulated with a tendency to sweat unless a window was kept open and the walls were lined steel sheet, I did see quite a few of these go up around Strood but they never took off here but were really well liked in the middle east where they sold well.
My gran lived in one for a few years
My grandad's prefab Costa Rd, Peckham, sold for a million. Hard to believe I know, but check it out it was in the newspapers. They obviously just wanted the plot, but still a million for a prefab.
With today's technology prefabricated houses would be cheaper to build than brick houses. Most new brick houses today are timber framed and plasterboard.
Factory built houses should be the future.
I grew up in a pebble dash prefab in Sheffield which was built post war supposedly by German POWs.They were before their time with fitted kitchens and were very cosy.
I was rather astonished, but nevertheless, pleased to discover that some still exist along Mill Road, Ecclesfield, near Sheffield. It was a chance diversion off of the main route that I was following, and there they were, a short row of them. Fully resplendent and clearly occupied and well maintained.
They were a mixed blessing. Post war they gave many people a facility for modern living. They were not good in winter but there was no immediate alternative. Many exceeded their design expectations by 15 to 20 years. For the local authority in later years they consumed too much land when the flat boom of the sixties housed hugely more families for less land mass and infrastructure. If your only sewering two blocks of flats instead of sixty pre fabs think of the saving. This applied to other utilities and public transport. For local authority finances it was in modern terms a ‘no brainer’. Their architect’s designs were full of such features, why are the roof of pre fabs low angle, they consume less material. In Norfolk the Taylor and Green designs for traditional council houses had low angle tile roofs which saved 15% of costs on traditional angles and some rooms ran into each other saving on doors and wall space. In Norwich just pre and post war council housing was designed on floor and a half walls so bedrooms had dormer windows and slightly extended roofs. This was a cost saving on brickwork. Prefabs were cheap because the number of building trades was limited and only assembly was done on site so pre construction could be done under cover.
They tried to extend this to multi-storey tower block flats but the Ronan Point disaster was a stopping point and more traditional methods had to be used.
When my dad when is In the army we spent a lot of time in them, they were great. Really warm and cozy. I love them. They would solve the housing crisis In a crunch
Just after WW2 an uncle & aunt lived in one. It was made of asbestos & wood. Had a solid fuel stove in the kitchen. My brother & l liked to visit because it was much warmer than our brick built semi.
I have lived in one I love it
these days people would literally just peal the wall off and steal everything, i cant imagine houses like that would hold up very well to high wind or heavy storms
You've never actually dealt with these have you. The rivets are absolutely huge and you ain't just going to "peel back" the wall
They are literally just a tincan mate you can get in that with a tin opener 😂
I was only 5 after the war. Our friends stayed in prefabs and we were jealous as we stayed in a tenements . 6 in a two room.
Imagine that now.
7.5 grand for a new house !!! I’m laughing but I know my parents bought their first “brick house”, which was a new build too, for £9k in the early 70’s
I lived there until I was 4, I was born in 79. I have memories of there too.
Those people interviewed were probably only in their late 30's lol
I knew friends who lived in Prefab house and they were lovely
Static houses are lovely too for living not just for holidays
I'd have a prefab, myself.
If he was to come darn 'ere, h'ed leave his penthouse and come n live in one of these @7:05 😂😂
I love watching video of the “Pepperpots”.
As far as I know there are listed pre-fabs like those at the end in Hall Green, Birmingham.
Hand-built in Britain during the 1970's.....Mmmm....quality craftsmanship assured, then. I did enjoy listening to the people who lived in them though. The old ladies were delightful and the two geezers at the end were proper characters lol. Love it.