1959, what memories! I joined the Navy in 1959 having worked at Paddington Station in the admin. offices for eighteen months. We belonged to London, London belonged to us. We've given her away and swiftly handing out the rest of the Country.
There are many reasons why I wish I could go back to those days. Mostly that life was simpler, slower, less crowded and we shared a common culture and pride in ourselves and our country. We swept the steps, picked up our litter and were polite and dressed smartly. Of course not everything was great, far from it. But I'd still swap now for then any day.
1967 I was 21 and did the skid pan test at Gunnersbury, London Transport's Training Centre. 9 x 8 hour days training took and passed my PSV Test first time. N86726 was my Badge Number. I started at Dalston Bus Garage, Shrubland Road Hackney E8 and then drove at different LT Bus Garages over the next 20 odd years, great times and a great era to live through. Would love to turn the clock back to those days, sadly, It's not going to happen
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”― Tennessee Williams
+ Tattyshoes Shigure We lost it because most British people bought Japanese, German and French cars, and British transport firms bought foreign made lorries rather than British built ones ... unlike the French and Germans that bought homemade products.
+ Philip Croft ... No more shite than French, Japanese and Italian built vehicles of that time, trouble is British people have never been patriotic and bought home made products, unlike the French, Germans and Italians ... that's why they have flourished and we "Great" Britain have nothing left, they are all strong patriotic European nations and us bunch of little islanders have opted out of Europe but still depend on the Germans, French and Italians for all our vehicles be they cars or trucks ... another wise move by the complaining British people, it seems we hate being European but make ourselves totally dependent on European made vehicles, its no wonder the Europeans see us as such a joke.
We used to drive our Land Rover's with their bumpy ride, and underpowered engines - then one day people here in Australia were seeing Toyota Land Cruisers going down the roads at 100kph instead of 60kph. It's no wonder we lost so much to foreign manufacturers. They Simply made a better product. Then the Unions of the 60's and 70's - who want's to do business with that? Crippling. We did it all ourselve's. I still love my Land Rover Series 2 -3 with Salisbury Diffs and an Ex Mil Defender is a car for life - but I drive a (30 year old) Landcriuser.
I’m from the U.K. but currently reside in the States. Im not sure I even want to visit my family in the U.K. anymore for fear of destroying all of my fond memories. I prefer my family come here instead. Oh how I miss Britannia! I miss the time before 1985. Before technology and 24/7 news destroyed everything
Watching these kind of film's and comparing with todays modern Britain you can see how peter hitchens is so correct when he says we are busy making the wrong decisions.
R D These films were propaganda. Regardless of what Hitchens may or not be right about, these films have little bearing on the whole picture. There has, as Hitchens would agree, been some erosion of social cohesion and character, and a lot of ideological interference that’s backfired, but there was a lot wrong that you’ll never find in films like this. Our establishment was decadent and too readily protected by a deferential press, and British business was still mired in the slow, inefficient decline that had begun as early as the 1860s.
Mark Lawton. You mean the effect of our essentially fascist trade union movement which opposed all innovation. That reality is still kept secret and hardly known about now. But in those days Britain was a much nicer place to live in. For one thing there was a sense of community, long gone now of course. You could go anywhere and feel at home. Now going into the next street can be like entering a foreign country - where you are not wanted. And not every road, every train, every school and every hospital an overcrowded dump. It was still a green and pleasant land.
Old Man The trade unions were only half the story; stop grinding your axe, take of your rose-tinted spectacles and look at the bigger picture. The country started to go into decline in the last half of the 19th Century when we found we couldn’t compete with the new European nation states. WW1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic that followed effectively destroyed the nation, and the green and pleasant you’ve invented in your own mind was on the threshold of revolution. We didn’t even have universal suffrage, even after fighting in the trenches, until the establishment saw which way the wind was blowing. The English are fools; they refuse to see that they were bred for the yoke, and they they’re only ever going to get scraps from the table until they burn the whole thing down. Take a look at the country since the end of WWII; for all but 17 of the last 74 years the UK has been governed by fiscally conservative administrations who’ve become increasingly laissez faire, by the most consistently right wing administrations in North-Western Europe, and it is a bankrupt dump with the highest levels of inequality in the developed world. Mass immigration is a tool of modern conservative economic policy, not some made-up and entirely self-contradictory folk devil called “cultural Marxism”. There truly is no future in England’s dreaming.
@@markofsaltburn Good commenting. You say "Mass immigration is a tool of modern conservative economic policy". Sounds like what I´m saying. It´s about playing off the domestic working and middle class in Europe and North America against poorer immigrants from 3rd world countries or Eastern Europe in order to make both of them compete and need to offer their labour force at the lowest price and claim less for their rights to be respected,. 2nd positive effect for the wealthy in this game is that the demand for housing is growing and through scarcity of flats rmakes rents go up. And thirdly: when poor fights poor the wealthy get out of the focus and "can go to the bank" as George Carlin once has put it. And another funny thing is that as the left wingers are against racism and against egoism and for supporting the exploited on the planet they´re caught in an ideological trap and have to be sort of confom with all that.
Glorious footage. I'm not especially proud of my nostalgia, but one can't help feeling it when faced with this sort of thing. I could do without the subtitles - I can have my own thoughts on the items. Such beautiful music was used to accompany the images.
Always be on guard against lunatics. One may escape from an asylum at any moment. You wouldn't be surprised if he said that next. Harry Enfield's Mr Chomondley Warner public service announcements were just like these lol
17:46: "This new light scooter has been designed with women in mind, but before it reaches the public it is man tested." Won't get away with that if it was shown today.
What's stupid is using one half of the population to test something that the other half of the population is going to use. Anyway I wouldn't be seen dead on a scooter. My 750cc Kawasaki sports bike is so much more fun.
It does me harm to see Ernest Marples opening road after road. He had a construction business which was involved in the road building and thus had a vested interest in developing the road system and cutting the railways. It was he who instructed Richard Beeching to trim the railways. Today, we find that we are needing those lines that were closed because the roads cannot cope with the traffic. Such is man's wisdom!
@@lewisner The roads were so empty then, compared to now. It was lunacy to close the little Branch lines. They are now looking to re-open some of the once pretty little branch line stations, but the Victorian buildings have long gone, to be replaced with hideous concrete monstrosities compared to the attractive wood and brick station buildings in dark green and cream.
Nothing to do with Marples (the Minister for Transport) being a director of a major road building company and prioritising roads over rail. Oh no, never!
@@Oakleaf700 If you mean by "they" the current government although I voted for them I never believed the stuff about reopening closed railways and stations. I will cut them some slack because of the chaos this year but I don't think it will happen.
As a Nigerian Anglophile, I love Britain to bits. It saddens my heart to see many give their country away to please people who dont actually like the country or its values. Here in britain we who love britain are seen as enemies and traitors and a white british man once told me I shouldnt have been let into britain because I loved the country. I had to ask "so he means to tell me he would only let people who hate the countey in"? It pains me. Britannia, U successfully ruled the world for a reason. Dont let people tell U what right or wrong is. Stand ur ground.
FOOL! Do you know how much pillage etc was done in order to obtain and keep colonies? There many things to be embarrassed by regarding the British Empire- as well as other Empires. Your comment is unbelievably naive and ridiculous. Not to mention an absolute disgrace.
@@tdonovan4735Sadly these days.unlike the fifties,we're never far away from the lefty apologist.Why don't you bang on about the slave trade while you're at it,or how we should apologise for having any history at all? It's pricks like you that made this Country into the nanny-state laughing stock it is today.
@Houston's mccaine We brought civilisation to many countries and brought about the end of the slave trade. That is why many commonwealth countries fought for us on World War II and still like Britain today. You've been brainwashed.
I seem to remember an episode of 'tomorrow's world' (or similar) featuring the stacker car park; seemed like a great idea. Some years later I saw one in Kuala Lumpur that was attached to a hotel I think. I wonder if that one survived longer than a year.
Yes, I can remember when airplanes had delicious meals served by attractive smiling air hostesses. Flying was a pleasant adventure in those days. Now it's something to be avoided at all costs if there is any other was to reach your destination.
Well, they could just charge double and then everything that you remember can be re-created. However, I suspect you wouldn't want to pay twice as much just for a smile.
@@horsenuts1831 Right. I once had seen a Lufthansa advertisement in an early 60s magazine offering flight tickets from Frankfurt to L.A. for about DM 4,000 each. That´s adjusted to inflation 6000 EUR or 6700 British Pounds.
@@paulbrookes5365 Sure. I remember in the midseventies having seen a car carrying inside a mobile phone device. For us kids that was far out. Someone really important that must had been. Today you see school kids from social welfare backgrounds with stuff hundred times more sophisticated than that, needing a new one when x-mas arrives. : D
Planes had delicious meals? They were famous for being appalling by the time of my first flight (in the late 1980s). I imagine it was extremely expensive in the 60s however, so you’d expect to be treated finely. Though it’s definitely better if you can avoid it just for its environmental cost.
To think that a lot of companies, be it land, sea or air, had their own catering divisions where chef, cooks and steward worked as a team with absolute pride... now what do we get, pre-packaged sandwiches, pasties and tepid liquid in a paper cup all outsourced from barely regional warehouses.
I remember back in the day how boring I used to find 'Look At Life.' Typical, unaware young stupidity on my part; I treasure the series of DVD's issued and am glad to be temporarily transported back to the time when we trusted the media and were proud of our magnificent history that gave so much to the rest of the world.
Watching this makes you reflect, all this rubbish we hear from politicians about "Progressiveness " as I look at the once beautiful landscape of Worcestershire disappearing under frightening levels of concrete, you just think, what's it all about! Progress? Really? Politicians need to start talking about and addressing the " Population Crisis ", and fast.
10:21 is Junction 27 on the M6 looking north down the sliproad. Lived there for the first 30 yrs of my life. Amazing to compare it to now where all the embankments, verges and even the fields in the distance are massively overgrown with undergrowth and trees these days. It looks so clean and tidy back when it was first built! Compare it to google streetview to see what I mean...
While it's very sad to see them go, the reason that makes them special today is that there are only a handful left. If they all got saved, people today would think nothing of them.
On the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, they did save some teak ones. Now having to spend thousands in repair after some vandals smashed them up. Some kids today think nothing of them.
Dave Briffa, there are plenty out there still which have survived, stored for 40 years in lock-up garages because people were too attached to them just to scrap them. See www.TROCltd.com for a collection of Triumph Renowns, for example, which you can pick up for £1,000 - £3,000... and then spend up to £10-12,000 getting it back into good condition. The parts are available; the expertise and guidance are there. It just needs more people willing to live the dream, instead of JUST dream.
One man saved the Flying Scotsman for posterity.It spent some time in America ,yet it was here in North Wales a few weeks ago and crowds turned up to see and photograph it along the whole of its route.
Bollocks, this is a propaganda film, nobody was happy slaving in pits, ship yards, steel etc, they had to or starve while a small percent were living it up, just like now
@@richardkelly5409 some people weren't happy. There was a lot of domestic abuse and child abuse which was systematically covered up.Policing could be brutal by modern standards.
@@neonskyline1 I feel sorry for you that you have such a tiny understanding of the world. But then again, they do say ignorance is bliss, so maybe your tiny mind is better off being ignorant.
I about died when they said " But there is nothing much to do with old woodwork but this" just before burning it all. What I wouldn't give to have some of that "old woodwork" today!
Nemo of Erewhon So true! I grew up near Doncaster, the planners flattened everything of any age or architectural interest, and still try their hardest today to thwart any restorations of what's left. As a result the town is dying on its feet.
i rode a motorcycle in the sixties which were the most dangerous time to be on the road, with adverts for drivers like [please dont have that fifth pint] i have no desire to be wrapped in cotton wool like lots of people today, even kids wear helmets on their three wheelers . climb a tree no way !!!
I like nothing better than being able to dine out while watching the cars go by! I liked the scenes of the rail workers, with not a bit of stupid "hi-vis" or a hard hat in sight.
2019, Heathrow handled 80 million passengers, Gatwick handled 47 million passengers. What percentage of those 130 million people _really_ needed to fly? Good times make weak & lazy people. Weak and lazy people make bad times. Bad times make strong people. Strong people make good times.
What percentage of people really _need_ to do anything? Just stay indoors and exist, that's my moto. Do as little as possible. Do I really _need_ the internet? Nope. That's gone.
I remember the debate about whether it was worth the cost to put crash barriers down the central reservations of all motorways. Some sections of motorways were built as two lanes only. They were then rebuilt only a few years later to three lanes which including demolishing and rebuilding numerous bridges. Very short sighted planning.
Yes, but it wasn`t all great by any means. Overall it was bad food, bad service and could be very unfriendly to outsiders. Of course there were better things as well but every era has its good and bad.
Interesting, Ernest Marples, motorways and destruction of the railway system are on the same film.. He had a vested interest in building motorways as he owned or had directorships in the big civil engineering contractors.
Look at Life was a regular British series of short documentary films of which over 500 were produced between 1959 and 1969. 30 out of 500? I've been using the dvd list to see if I can locate them on YT en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_Life_(film_series)
The UK was late with their implementation of diesel trains then and they are late on electrification of railways still today (2015: #20/29, behind Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.).
yeah---we're only good at inventing great things, and creating great ideas, then having spent billions on R&D, hand it all over to foreigner's, who know how to promote and sell greatness.
Very interesting stuff, especially interesting to see the M4 and Hammersmith Flyover being built as I'm local. Guessin these were broadcast in B&W back in the day? Anyone know?
+Rocktecho These 'look at life' shorts were shown at cinemas as part of the programme with the two films and the ads…great value for the money…and in colour, naturally. They weren't, as I recall, ever shown on TV.
That was in the days when Britain had a culture. Today the politicians promote a 'multiculture' which is of course an impossibility. A nation is a people sharing the same humor, the same art, the same goals..... the same CULTURE. A multiculture simply is a way for politicians to divide and conquer. There is no more comfort and security in being 'British.'
Totally agree. A multiracial society is good, a multicultural one is not. Pride is important too. A demoralised nation with looser and looser cultural ties will die. Perhaps that was the objective all along. Break the ties then we'll believe we need to hand ourselves over to a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels.
You could buy a house at this time for about 1.5 year's salary, or 9 months combined salary for a working couple. Mortgage payments would be about 10% of your take home pay. Now a house costs 7 or 8 times annual salary and mortgage payments are more like 70%.
It's ironic to compare the positive tone of the documentary with the fact that many steam locomotives were scrapped after 10 years service and replaced by diesels which themselves were scrapped after 10 years service. My local railway was resignalled with new steel upper quadrant signals in 1962 then closed in 1967 with most of the signals being torched.
Another Happening by Neil Richardson. He also used the name Oscar Brandenburg, he wrote the Mastermind theme. Check his back catalogue out great composer sadly no longer with us.
This is a promo film, set to nice cheery music. The reality was very different. The food was pretty bad, trains were unreliable & slow...& try sitting in a carriage where half the people are smoking pipes. & that's just the women.
Indeed - I saw it on iplayer the other day. Was about to reply to point it out. Good to see it back. I think you can get the original Look at Life on youtube. Thanks.
No helmets, high vis jackets but loads of smiles. What a contrast to today. Guess about the only good thing i can see about today is that we are living longer but yet less free.
Just one point of detail the programme got wrong: the name of the steam engine 4472/60103 is "Flying Scotsman", not "The Flying Scotsman". The latter is the name of the London/Edinburgh 10:00 a.m. express train.
Making stress traffic free providing there is a back entrance to provide goods to shops or close off a street for a set time every day so deliveries can take place.
I had a feeling that foolproof automatic multi-story parking garage would've had problems - and as the onscreen title said, it did, and didn't even last one year. Oh well.
My conclusion in reading the comments here is that deep regrets and complaints hits the English population at age 60 plus LOL !! I was born in 1954 in London and in many ways my life today is way better than the late 50's and 60's but the one complaint is that it makes me feel soo damned ancient watching all these vids !! beyond Victorian LOL. But the 70's were soo cool and as for comments here on "no hope for the future" then I'm planning on many years to come .. and if my kidney cancer / sigmoid colon of 2014 had of happened in the 1950's 60's UK I'd probably have been buried there and then. Good times, bad times, I think EVERY generation looks back to younger years with fond memories as their graves draw nearer. Life's what you make of it mostly and I'm older than my father and grandpa ever were, but NOT my dear old Mum and Nan ! Hope yet !! Great to look back but with ALL hope for the future as HOPE is all we have that keeps us moving forward. I still feel old !! Thanks for the upload, gratitude and subbed ~ "LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS BUT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS" ~ Søren Kierkegaaard
1959, what memories! I joined the Navy in 1959 having worked at Paddington Station in the admin. offices for eighteen months. We belonged to London, London belonged to us. We've given her away and swiftly handing out the rest of the Country.
There are many reasons why I wish I could go back to those days. Mostly that life was simpler, slower, less crowded and we shared a common culture and pride in ourselves and our country. We swept the steps, picked up our litter and were polite and dressed smartly. Of course not everything was great, far from it. But I'd still swap now for then any day.
Going with you when you discover how :-) Happy times :-)
1967 I was 21 and did the skid pan test at Gunnersbury, London Transport's Training Centre. 9 x 8 hour days training took and passed my PSV Test first time. N86726 was my Badge Number. I started at Dalston Bus Garage, Shrubland Road Hackney E8 and then drove at different LT Bus Garages over the next 20 odd years, great times and a great era to live through. Would love to turn the clock back to those days, sadly, It's not going to happen
@@donalkinsella4380 Who Sir? me Sir? How very dare you, I've never been so insulted in all my life!!! ;-)
Im kinda glad I was born after, so don't have nostalgic feelings
@@robotello You will one day in the future
@@robotello Wait long enough and it will happen.
I started watching these to get my mind off of being sick. Every once in awhile I go back and rewatch them.
I pine for those days.
Get well soon.
The scooters designed to withstand use by mum - even if she was 'a heavyweight!' So non-PC, it's priceless!
oh how I larfed
So non-PC it's funny!
These films must have inspired this: th-cam.com/video/7UJPjULCa9Q/w-d-xo.html
PC = Pretentiously Constipated.
There weren't that many porkers about then. If you saw one you'd point and take the piss out of it!😂😂
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”― Tennessee Williams
Almost all the vehicles in these fascinating films are British made... makes you regret what we have lost.
+ Tattyshoes Shigure We lost it because most British people bought Japanese, German and French cars, and British transport firms bought foreign made lorries rather than British built ones ... unlike the French and Germans that bought homemade products.
martin Webb---but was it becauise they were all shite?
+ Philip Croft ... No more shite than French, Japanese and Italian built vehicles of that time, trouble is British people have never been patriotic and bought home made products, unlike the French, Germans and Italians ... that's why they have flourished and we "Great" Britain have nothing left, they are all strong patriotic European nations and us bunch of little islanders have opted out of Europe but still depend on the Germans, French and Italians for all our vehicles be they cars or trucks ... another wise move by the complaining British people, it seems we hate being European but make ourselves totally dependent on European made vehicles, its no wonder the Europeans see us as such a joke.
+ Stephane Aderca ... You said it, summed it up nicely. 😊
We used to drive our Land Rover's with their bumpy ride, and underpowered engines - then one day people here in Australia were seeing Toyota Land Cruisers going down the roads at 100kph instead of 60kph. It's no wonder we lost so much to foreign manufacturers. They Simply made a better product. Then the Unions of the 60's and 70's - who want's to do business with that? Crippling.
We did it all ourselve's. I still love my Land Rover Series 2 -3 with Salisbury Diffs and an Ex Mil Defender is a car for life - but I drive a (30 year old) Landcriuser.
I’m from the U.K. but currently reside in the States. Im not sure I even want to visit my family in the U.K. anymore for fear of destroying all of my fond memories. I prefer my family come here instead. Oh how I miss Britannia! I miss the time before 1985. Before technology and 24/7 news destroyed everything
Why are you living in the States? Did something happen?
1985 the dreadful Margret Thatcher destroyed Britain
I would never set foot in America. Mass shootings?.
Loving these old films. Thanks so much for posting them up.
Watching these kind of film's and comparing with todays modern Britain you can see how peter hitchens is so correct when he says we are busy making the wrong decisions.
R D These films were propaganda. Regardless of what Hitchens may or not be right about, these films have little bearing on the whole picture. There has, as Hitchens would agree, been some erosion of social cohesion and character, and a lot of ideological interference that’s backfired, but there was a lot wrong that you’ll never find in films like this. Our establishment was decadent and too readily protected by a deferential press, and British business was still mired in the slow, inefficient decline that had begun as early as the 1860s.
Mark Lawton. You mean the effect of our essentially fascist trade union movement which opposed all innovation.
That reality is still kept secret and hardly known about now.
But in those days Britain was a much nicer place to live in. For one thing there was a sense of community, long gone now of course. You could go anywhere and feel at home. Now going into the next street can be like entering a foreign country - where you are not wanted.
And not every road, every train, every school and every hospital an overcrowded dump.
It was still a green and pleasant land.
Old Man The trade unions were only half the story; stop grinding your axe, take of your rose-tinted spectacles and look at the bigger picture. The country started to go into decline in the last half of the 19th Century when we found we couldn’t compete with the new European nation states. WW1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic that followed effectively destroyed the nation, and the green and pleasant you’ve invented in your own mind was on the threshold of revolution. We didn’t even have universal suffrage, even after fighting in the trenches, until the establishment saw which way the wind was blowing. The English are fools; they refuse to see that they were bred for the yoke, and they they’re only ever going to get scraps from the table until they burn the whole thing down. Take a look at the country since the end of WWII; for all but 17 of the last 74 years the UK has been governed by fiscally conservative administrations who’ve become increasingly laissez faire, by the most consistently right wing administrations in North-Western Europe, and it is a bankrupt dump with the highest levels of inequality in the developed world. Mass immigration is a tool of modern conservative economic policy, not some made-up and entirely self-contradictory folk devil called “cultural Marxism”. There truly is no future in England’s dreaming.
@@markofsaltburn Good commenting. You say "Mass immigration is a tool of modern conservative economic policy". Sounds like what I´m saying. It´s about playing off the domestic working and middle class in Europe and North America against poorer immigrants from 3rd world countries or Eastern Europe in order to make both of them compete and need to offer their labour force at the lowest price and claim less for their rights to be respected,. 2nd positive effect for the wealthy in this game is that the demand for housing is growing and through scarcity of flats rmakes rents go up. And thirdly: when poor fights poor the wealthy get out of the focus and "can go to the bank" as George Carlin once has put it. And another funny thing is that as the left wingers are against racism and against egoism and for supporting the exploited on the planet they´re caught in an ideological trap and have to be sort of confom with all that.
@@kulturfreund6631 Thanks.
Anybody like to join me in my time machine, back to a civilised Britain?
Rosida Andriyana Excellent. I’ll let you know when it’s finished!👍🏻😀
Paul B and just when will that be? It certainly wasn't in.the past.
Paul B No.
Count me in please.
FFs you'd need a machine big enough to take 17.4 million.....
Glorious footage. I'm not especially proud of my nostalgia, but one can't help feeling it when faced with this sort of thing. I could do without the subtitles - I can have my own thoughts on the items. Such beautiful music was used to accompany the images.
“The other driver may not be sober or even sane!!”😂😂😂
Yep. I laughed at that bit too!
Always be on guard against lunatics. One may escape from an asylum at any moment. You wouldn't be surprised if he said that next. Harry Enfield's Mr Chomondley Warner public service announcements were just like these lol
I'm quite often neither when driving......and bally good fun it is too.
Everyone was so optimistic back then. Today, there is no hope for the future.
OK boomer.
@Seymour Butts 🤣
Hope is the future.
Your never optimistic with a misty optic, an old Glasgow drinking proverb, lol!!!!
Like the prospect of nuclear war
17:46: "This new light scooter has been designed with women in mind, but before it reaches the public it is man tested." Won't get away with that if it was shown today.
Another device designed with women in mind is the Apple i-Ron, hasn't been tested by men yet.
To hell with them it's freedom of speech if words kill you then snowflakes can't live in the real world!
What's stupid is using one half of the population to test something that the other half of the population is going to use. Anyway I wouldn't be seen dead on a scooter. My 750cc Kawasaki sports bike is so much more fun.
@@melanierhianna didn;t this video say that 40% of scooter riders were female. Who were the other 60%?
A time when Sports wear was worn only when actually doing sports.
Ha ha yes. Any time someone says they are wearing trainers, I think “ are you practicing for when you get real shoes?”.
Yes, the good old days. Before sports wear, and people wearing pyjamas in public.
And workwear like jeans for manual work !
It does me harm to see Ernest Marples opening road after road. He had a construction business which was involved in the road building and thus had a vested interest in developing the road system and cutting the railways. It was he who instructed Richard Beeching to trim the railways. Today, we find that we are needing those lines that were closed because the roads cannot cope with the traffic. Such is man's wisdom!
replacing rail with road was the dumbest idea ever
Absolutely stupid decision. Bloody Beeching eh.
13.23
The problem "Our towns are saturated with road traffic"
The solution "close all the railways"
What could possibly go wrong ?
@@lewisner The roads were so empty then, compared to now. It was lunacy to close the little Branch lines.
They are now looking to re-open some of the once pretty little branch line stations, but the Victorian buildings have long gone, to be replaced with hideous concrete monstrosities compared to the attractive wood and brick station buildings in dark green and cream.
Nothing to do with Marples (the Minister for Transport) being a director of a major road building company and prioritising roads over rail. Oh no, never!
@@Oakleaf700 If you mean by "they" the current government although I voted for them I never believed the stuff about reopening closed railways and stations. I will cut them some slack because of the chaos this year but I don't think it will happen.
As a Nigerian Anglophile, I love Britain to bits. It saddens my heart to see many give their country away to please people who dont actually like the country or its values. Here in britain we who love britain are seen as enemies and traitors and a white british man once told me I shouldnt have been let into britain because I loved the country. I had to ask "so he means to tell me he would only let people who hate the countey in"? It pains me. Britannia, U successfully ruled the world for a reason. Dont let people tell U what right or wrong is. Stand ur ground.
FOOL! Do you know how much pillage etc was done in order to obtain and keep colonies? There many things to be embarrassed by regarding the British Empire- as well as other Empires. Your comment is unbelievably naive and ridiculous. Not to mention an absolute disgrace.
@@tdonovan4735Sadly these days.unlike the fifties,we're never far away from the lefty apologist.Why don't you bang on about the slave trade while you're at it,or how we should apologise for having any history at all?
It's pricks like you that made this Country into the nanny-state laughing stock it is today.
@Houston's mccaine We brought civilisation to many countries and brought about the end of the slave trade. That is why many commonwealth countries fought for us on World War II and still like Britain today. You've been brainwashed.
@@tdonovan4735 pure lefty nutter!
@Houston's mccaine silence lefty nutter we don't need maoists telling us how to live!
Great stuff....12 minutes 56 seconds in shows Brentwood High Street just as I remember it. Tim Blake.
The great, clear narration by Tim Turner, who also provided the voice for Jason in 'Jason and the Argonauts'.
I seem to remember an episode of 'tomorrow's world' (or similar) featuring the stacker car park; seemed like a great idea. Some years later I saw one in Kuala Lumpur that was attached to a hotel I think. I wonder if that one survived longer than a year.
Loving this! Thanks!
Yes, I can remember when airplanes had delicious meals served by attractive smiling air hostesses. Flying was a pleasant adventure in those days. Now it's something to be avoided at all costs if there is any other was to reach your destination.
Well, they could just charge double and then everything that you remember can be re-created. However, I suspect you wouldn't want to pay twice as much just for a smile.
@@horsenuts1831 Right. I once had seen a Lufthansa advertisement in an early 60s magazine offering flight tickets from Frankfurt to L.A. for about DM 4,000 each. That´s adjusted to inflation 6000 EUR or 6700 British Pounds.
@@kulturfreund6631 That was years before the 'package tour' crowd took off in the seventies onwards. Early air travel was for the well heeled.
@@paulbrookes5365 Sure. I remember in the midseventies having seen a car carrying inside a mobile phone device. For us kids that was far out. Someone really important that must had been. Today you see school kids from social welfare backgrounds with stuff hundred times more sophisticated than that, needing a new one when x-mas arrives. : D
Planes had delicious meals? They were famous for being appalling by the time of my first flight (in the late 1980s). I imagine it was extremely expensive in the 60s however, so you’d expect to be treated finely. Though it’s definitely better if you can avoid it just for its environmental cost.
To think that a lot of companies, be it land, sea or air, had their own catering divisions where chef, cooks and steward worked as a team with absolute pride... now what do we get, pre-packaged sandwiches, pasties and tepid liquid in a paper cup all outsourced from barely regional warehouses.
I remember back in the day how boring I used to find 'Look At Life.' Typical, unaware young stupidity on my part; I treasure the series of DVD's issued and am glad to be temporarily transported back to the time when we trusted the media and were proud of our magnificent history that gave so much to the rest of the world.
Watching this makes you reflect, all this rubbish we hear from politicians about "Progressiveness " as I look at the once beautiful landscape of Worcestershire disappearing under frightening levels of concrete, you just think, what's it all about! Progress? Really? Politicians need to start talking about and addressing the " Population Crisis ", and fast.
Yes, metioned on the news today, the population of the UK will be close to 70 million in 10 years time!
Most Humane Answer...Is Birth Control..They Should have Dealt With This Issue Back In The 80s...Great Film's Anyway.
Politicians just talk, nothing else
@@charliegoody2070 Family planning sounds more attractive than birth control, but you've an excellent point.
Yes CORK THE STORK.
10:21 is Junction 27 on the M6 looking north down the sliproad. Lived there for the first 30 yrs of my life. Amazing to compare it to now where all the embankments, verges and even the fields in the distance are massively overgrown with undergrowth and trees these days. It looks so clean and tidy back when it was first built! Compare it to google streetview to see what I mean...
Can we go back please.
paul cooper No.
What I would pay to get back to those lovely days. So glad I was born in the early 60s. Everything was fun and uncomplicated.
If we went back we would not be commenting here...
@@lesrogers7310 good, I'd rather be living it without, than watching it with.
so sad to watch that, the engines. carriages being destroyed. great video though but damn if i had a time machine i would save them all
While it's very sad to see them go, the reason that makes them special today is that there are only a handful left. If they all got saved, people today would think nothing of them.
On the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, they did save some teak ones. Now having to spend thousands in repair after some vandals smashed them up. Some kids today think nothing of them.
Dave Briffa, there are plenty out there still which have survived, stored for 40 years in lock-up garages because people were too attached to them just to scrap them. See www.TROCltd.com for a collection of Triumph Renowns, for example, which you can pick up for £1,000 - £3,000... and then spend up to £10-12,000 getting it back into good condition. The parts are available; the expertise and guidance are there. It just needs more people willing to live the dream, instead of JUST dream.
One man saved the Flying Scotsman for posterity.It spent some time in America ,yet it was here in North Wales a few weeks ago and crowds turned up to see and photograph it along the whole of its route.
Probably the most British thing I've ever seen in my life!
Nice to see shots of the original 59 Motorcycle Club.
And here in 2020 I am still a member.
Most of us back then were skint but I would say happier than 2019.
As long as you didn't get cancer then you would have snuffed it you were only happier then because you were younger
Bollocks, this is a propaganda film, nobody was happy slaving in pits, ship yards, steel etc, they had to or starve while a small percent were living it up, just like now
ancietman , I agree , everyone was broke , but we were happier , what have the politicians allowed to happen ?
@@richardkelly5409 some people weren't happy. There was a lot of domestic abuse and child abuse which was systematically covered up.Policing could be brutal by modern standards.
@@neonskyline1 I feel sorry for you that you have such a tiny understanding of the world. But then again, they do say ignorance is bliss, so maybe your tiny mind is better off being ignorant.
excellent presentation. thank you
The new motorways looked so clean and fresh with no safety barriers.
And our roads are still overcrowded, nice one politicians.
@@martin2466 I live in Canada and haven't voted for anyone for 20 yrs. That aside what else can people do?
I think "politicians" want to seriously restrict "personal transport" and will use "electric" to achieve it.........
Massive increase in car ownership.
@@gavinreid5387 Massive increase in "car" sizes too........
10 million people too many, the answer to a majority of our problems.
Stanstead looked like that in 1964 when I landed there coming back from Spain. I remember these films from school "Film Club".
In 100 years from now the people will watch it and think how excellent the year 2020s was, im dreading to think what awaits 2120 in the UK
i;m dreading what this year will bring
I about died when they said " But there is nothing much to do with old woodwork but this" just before burning it all. What I wouldn't give to have some of that "old woodwork" today!
yep--high quality mahogany and oak
Brutalist, Left wing architecture had no time for the beauties of the past . Town planners did more damage than the Luftwaffe .
Nemo of Erewhon So true! I grew up near Doncaster, the planners flattened everything of any age or architectural interest, and still try their hardest today to thwart any restorations of what's left. As a result the town is dying on its feet.
@@forthfarean but ended up using that material created by the Romans....... concrete......
Oh dear god, where do I start with this? Maybe, thx for posting :-)
I want a scooter lol !!.....really interesting piece of film..thanks for uploading.
At 4:29 - wooden frame railway carriages. People are nostalgic for these death traps ?
i rode a motorcycle in the sixties which were the most dangerous time to be on the road, with adverts for drivers like [please dont have that fifth pint] i have no desire to be wrapped in cotton wool like lots of people today, even kids wear helmets on their three wheelers . climb a tree no way !!!
I was born in London in 1959. I remember going to Dover on a steam train in the early 60s.
I like nothing better than being able to dine out while watching the cars go by! I liked the scenes of the rail workers, with not a bit of stupid "hi-vis" or a hard hat in sight.
These films were narrated by Miles Cholmondley-Warner.
26:02 - 8 million passengers a year at Heathrow in the early 60s, and they were struggling with capacity. It's now over 80 million.
Air travel now is astonishingly cheap compared to then.
Theme tune so good.
It was Great Britain in those days;
2019, Heathrow handled 80 million passengers, Gatwick handled 47 million passengers.
What percentage of those 130 million people _really_ needed to fly?
Good times make weak & lazy people. Weak and lazy people make bad times. Bad times make strong people.
Strong people make good times.
well put
What percentage of people really _need_ to do anything? Just stay indoors and exist, that's my moto. Do as little as possible. Do I really _need_ the internet? Nope. That's gone.
Britain when it was Britain.
Is Britain not Britain anymore? I must have missed the memo!
Pipe down boomer
I used to live very near to Farthing Corner services in Gillingham. It looked so much nicer back when it opened than it does now. Very run down now 😡
7:04 that guy can't get out of that chair fast enough!
I remember the debate about whether it was worth the cost to put crash barriers down the central reservations of all motorways. Some sections of motorways were built as two lanes only. They were then rebuilt only a few years later to three lanes which including demolishing and rebuilding numerous bridges. Very short sighted planning.
Britain was more humane then.
@sam mark Just to comfort you: Not only in the UK
Yes, but it wasn`t all great by any means. Overall it was bad food, bad service and could be very unfriendly to outsiders. Of course there were better things as well but every era has its good and bad.
Interesting, Ernest Marples, motorways and destruction of the railway system are on the same film.. He had a vested interest in building motorways as he owned or had directorships in the big civil engineering contractors.
in the end had to go on the run from the taxman......
"Living in a caravan on the edge of tomorrow" You'd think they were describing something exotic, not the families who were building motorways.
Well, it is what they were doing isn;t it? They were part of the future in a way. Whether the future was positive or not is up for debate, of course
Such a good series. I thought it just stopped for the tennis. :(
atm no sign of further broadcasts - we have been left with the series unfinished
Look at Life was a regular British series of short documentary films of which over 500 were produced between 1959 and 1969. 30 out of 500? I've been using the dvd list to see if I can locate them on YT en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_Life_(film_series)
The UK was late with their implementation of diesel trains then and they are late on electrification of railways still today (2015: #20/29, behind Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.).
yeah---we're only good at inventing great things, and creating great ideas, then having spent billions on R&D, hand it all over to foreigner's, who know how to promote and sell greatness.
The beggar nations more advanced than Britain?
@@alphonsozorro7952 Yes, you don't see the homeless sleeping in high streets over there.
@@alphonsozorro7952 In some cases, yes.
Very interesting stuff, especially interesting to see the M4 and Hammersmith Flyover being built as I'm local. Guessin these were broadcast in B&W back in the day? Anyone know?
+Rocktecho These 'look at life' shorts were shown at cinemas as part of the programme with the two films and the ads…great value for the money…and in colour, naturally. They weren't, as I recall, ever shown on TV.
@@nostromoau They were, about 3 years ago, but like the dick 'eads the BBC are , on a late night slot.
What´s the name of the title music?
High time these reels were all re scanned at at least 4K resolution before it's too late.
28:25 put a belt on the front seat passengers but neither rear seat passengers, then stand on the anchors!
Episode 6 is now uploaded
ModifiedMethod
26.36 Was that kid eating wrigleys spearmint gum, ???. I had half pint of mild ale before bed when i was his age, an a woodbine.
16.18 brings tears to my eyes..
After watching this, I've realized I've never driven a car correctly once in my entire six years of driving.
so--that was YOU was it?
That old way of steering was eventually done away with.
That was in the days when Britain had a culture. Today the politicians promote a 'multiculture' which is of course an impossibility. A nation is a people sharing the same humor, the same art, the same goals..... the same CULTURE. A multiculture simply is a way for politicians to divide and conquer. There is no more comfort and security in being 'British.'
Totally agree. A multiracial society is good, a multicultural one is not. Pride is important too. A demoralised nation with looser and looser cultural ties will die. Perhaps that was the objective all along. Break the ties then we'll believe we need to hand ourselves over to a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels.
You could buy a house at this time for about 1.5 year's salary, or 9 months combined salary for a working couple. Mortgage payments would be about 10% of your take home pay. Now a house costs 7 or 8 times annual salary and mortgage payments are more like 70%.
It's ironic to compare the positive tone of the documentary with the fact that many steam locomotives were scrapped after 10 years service and replaced by diesels which themselves were scrapped after 10 years service. My local railway was resignalled with new steel upper quadrant signals in 1962 then closed in 1967 with most of the signals being torched.
at 21:03 - what a brilliant name for a driving school!!
The Intro music! Any hints? Specifically composed for the series?
Another Happening by Neil Richardson. He also used the name Oscar Brandenburg, he wrote the Mastermind theme. Check his back catalogue out great composer sadly no longer with us.
+dave nightingale it's amazing, I can actually hear the blueprint for mastermind in this music
Love films like this!
21:12 that's way better than driving lessons today!!!
At 13:45, that is a lot of discussion about the pedestrianisation of Norwich City Centre.
Could not help thinking of Alan Partridge when they mentioned the pedestrianisation of Norwich.
this is about 1967. the ann mcewen segment about norwich and bath
Does anyone know were the soundtrack for these can be found?
wtf for ?
just use clipgrap then a conversion software.....https ://www .bitchute .com/video /Vm72RWpFUMyA/
It's Another Happening by Neil Richardson.
Does anyone know what the song at 2:23 is?
No--it's probably just a clip from some 'Library Music' that Film & TV producers use for infil like this.
I can just about remember some of this. We are today in a different country.
Where oh where did it all go wrong?☹
This is a promo film, set to nice cheery music. The reality was very different. The food was pretty bad, trains were unreliable & slow...& try sitting in a carriage where half the people are smoking pipes. & that's just the women.
@@zivkovicable I do remember, I'm a child of 60's.
@@zivkovicable - the weather was constantly sunny then too, judging by these clips!
Everybody was well dressed
It's still like that here in Poland, most won't go out unless they are well dressed, don't go off the one's there, they turned British lol
@Raw Engineer this is true, the fanny content in our city is astounding, it's like one big catwalk parade in the summer, they are posing mind
@Raw Engineer no, my family are from there, we live in Bydgoszcz
Sportswear was just for sport. Casual wear meant a gentleman would loosen his tie.
Indeed - I saw it on iplayer the other day. Was about to reply to point it out. Good to see it back. I think you can get the original Look at Life on youtube. Thanks.
I'm a train and I approve this video!
25.15. Elevenses. I haven't heard that for eons.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s I used to listen to ‘listen with Mother” when Mum had elevenses. It didn’t have to be at eleven either it seems.
19:06 - The original '59 Club'. With the Reverend Bill Shergold.
Fascinating!
No helmets, high vis jackets but loads of smiles. What a contrast to today. Guess about the only good thing i can see about today is that we are living longer but yet less free.
Battersea heliport is still up and running.
Just one point of detail the programme got wrong: the name of the steam engine 4472/60103 is "Flying Scotsman", not "The Flying Scotsman". The latter is the name of the London/Edinburgh 10:00 a.m. express train.
Not a foreigner in sight , should still be that way , but , unfortunately it's quite the opposite . When Britain was , our , country . . .
You do know that Britain has been invaded 73 times since 1066? We're all descended from 'foreigners'.
14:27 Nothing short of beautiful
Absolutely, Bath is such a beautiful city and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 20 years after this video.
14:13 - Snap. I have that exact style Harris Tweed jacket.
Fab intro music ! Who is it ?
All those lovely cars. If I had a time machine...
Pretty cars, sadly rust-boxes with very short lives
Making stress traffic free providing there is a back entrance to provide goods to shops or close off a street for a set time every day so deliveries can take place.
I had a feeling that foolproof automatic multi-story parking garage would've had problems - and as the onscreen title said, it did, and didn't even last one year. Oh well.
Anybody know where this can be found in its 35mm glory rather than youtube's 360P ?
My conclusion in reading the comments here is that deep regrets and complaints hits the English population at age 60 plus LOL !! I was born in 1954 in London and in many ways my life today is way better than the late 50's and 60's but the one complaint is that it makes me feel soo damned ancient watching all these vids !! beyond Victorian LOL. But the 70's were soo cool and as for comments here on "no hope for the future" then I'm planning on many years to come .. and if my kidney cancer / sigmoid colon of 2014 had of happened in the 1950's 60's UK I'd probably have been buried there and then. Good times, bad times, I think EVERY generation looks back to younger years with fond memories as their graves draw nearer. Life's what you make of it mostly and I'm older than my father and grandpa ever were, but NOT my dear old Mum and Nan ! Hope yet !! Great to look back but with ALL hope for the future as HOPE is all we have that keeps us moving forward. I still feel old !! Thanks for the upload, gratitude and subbed ~ "LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS BUT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS" ~ Søren Kierkegaaard
The voice of reason amongst a sea of bigots.
Looks like an Eclair Cameflex in the opening titles; they could shoot both 35 mm and 16 mm film.