My dear auntie Millie gave an interview in this programme at around 20.53. She passed away in 2011. She didn't like living on that estate. She felt vulnerable being almost blind. But it's great seeing her again. God bless auntie Millie. Xx
The lady at the beginning and the very end was Amy Brown. She was wonderful and soon after this documentary was made she went to live in Ethelburga Tower block, overlooking Battersea Park. She lived there very happily till 2015 till she died aged 94. She was loved by all in our community and I miss her daily even now!
So true her words, that when you live in a house you are free and in a flat your are not, especially with children .. or elderly people , at young age we usually busy working , but when we are kids or old we rely o our home to feel good ....
Your observation is correct, but more so than this being well produced (which it is) it's unfortunately the case that media today is choc full of uncessary production shite. Whether silly camera angles, music, lighting or other shit that the directors and producers use to make themselves seem so fucking 'cool'. This old film is great because all it has is well conveyed, well shot content, a classic case of function rather than empty form. It used to be dicks at C4 on Sunday mornings with the dumb production, but these days its every fucking outlet, just dire.
This was the rolling out of the human version of the "Mouse Utopia Experiment" (TH-cam it). This post war (and still ongoing) project was designed to destroy western society. Its astonishing listening to the lamentations of the folks in this video. If the mice in the experiment could have talked, they would have verbalised the exact same things: increased isolation, unhappiness, decreased social cohesion and increased friction and violence. Just astonishing.
It's really interesting to see how the residents immediately predicted how the estates would become slums within years. And how high rise living promotes isolation, delinquency and the loss of individuality. Excellent documentary for the time too.
The doco was great. I've watched it couple of times but it also had an agenda. How was the sense of individuality when people lived in terraced housing, sharing bathrooms in the middle of the street? The people in the doco made it sound like their old neighborhoods were idilic. They weren't. They were crime ridden, filthy slums. They moved those people from terraces into high ride flats and surprise surprise the poverty and crime followed them.....
Look at life in high rise apartments in more affluent areas in the UK, US and Asia. They aren't crime ridden slums. It's people not buildings that are responsible
@@realtruth4804 wrong. u understand nothing. the flats do not foster community because they lack communal areas. in a street with terraced housing the road was the communal area, and the kids of the homeowners would play together in the streets; people socialized with their neighbours. The design of the flats discourages community, and without community you have vandalism and delinquency.
@@BOZ_11 I understand nothing huh? Manhattan apartment buildings don't have "communal areas" and they aren't crime infested. These days regardless of where you live nobody interacts with their neighbour's anyway
The problem is, all the jobs are in the big cities, so youll end up going to uni (in a big city prolly) and then live and work there until you have children and they are school age and you move back ouf to the country.
@@garnhamr Yes they certainly do not care about people,cram them in mouldy concrete high rises and collect the rent knowing full well they would not live in such deprived squalor themselves,it makes me sick to see children pale and lifeless dossing around filthy landings .
Its your goverment and councils that set the building standards. Sadly your councillor can overide this to build bloody horrible things and they are never held to it.
Studied planning. Got a nice little degree that I don't use in work today - why? Because even though students are warned about what happened when people were crammed into flats without adequate social space, shops or places to go, the people who employ us don't give a shit. They want to keep on building soulless suburban housing estates and tiny little flats. I'd love to be able to do something about it, but it's going to take decades for recent crops of students to get into positions where they can actually sway decisions - and even then, you have to hope they remember this stuff instead of just chasing profits.
When that sweet lady said at the end, “You’d think they (the architects and planners) might have asked us ordinary people how we would like to live,” I broke down and cried.
Its the government fault.they are evil.the council are the other evil.they shovel people in those monstrosities....today its 2023.and the governnent is still chucking people into these monstosities.
The architects and planners she mentioned were pretentious ladder climbing idiots - whose only consideration was for their immense egos. Maintaining the social structure according to class. Disgraceful.
Oh I know. It’s so sad. No one cares for the average person. They want the image of something nice and geometric to hide away from the suffering of the average person and their mental state.
nothing ever changes somebody in mainland china is probably moaning about being forced from his home and moved to a flat right now even when you riot all you get at most is a little more money you still got to move
@Sara Many people were forced to live there - that's the point. Their terraced homes were considered to be slums and were subject to compulsory purchase orders, the tenants and owners evicted by the government and then given homes in these tower blocks, destroying their wel-established communities.
Thankfully my parents moved from Wandsworth in 1969, when I was 4 years old. I was fortunate to grow up in Wiltshire, still lived in a council house, but it was a brand new estate, a 4 bedroom house and a wonderful community. High rise blocks are so detrimental to communities.
Blame it on predictive programming, for which read: just about everything you see on TV. People copy what they see in programmes like Eastenders and Coronation Street, whose story lines are completely interchangeable: infidelity and murder are the norm. They adopt the attitudes, behaviour, language and even the dress sense. I believe that this is ultimately why these programmes are made, and to think that they are made purely to entertain, strikes me as very naive. Just look at how TV adverts have changed over the last 30-40 years. It's all part of the deliberate erosion of society and the community spirit. We're living in frightening times.
Totally agree,, The people who had jobs were safe,many boss's still of age that served during the war,,people lived with realistic aspirations and saved for things,,,,,I loved growing up in the 70s the toys,TV were great,,,,
Thats just what i always think too.I was born 1974 but knew lots of old folks,my Great Nan born 1885,Nan 1909 etc etc,and they were a different type.My Nan said to be genteel was what people wanted to be when she was young.I wonder if they said that about old folks that were dying in the 1900s being different?
The lady at the beginning and the end is typical of a lot of intelligent working class people of that time who never had the opportunities to improve their lot. Decent,kind empathetic & caring. The same goes for the bloke with the tash, all be it I'd imagine he was a union rep back then.
I agree this is likely (about the women) but it's also possible she was raised middle class & married into the working class (which my grandmother did) or fell into the working class through career choice or misfortune etc. Either way there are still barriers in the modern world when it comes to financial/social status but I'm glad things have & are improving
Just to let you know - her name was Amy Brown, and she was wonderful. She was in the Land Army in WW2. Thankfully soon after this documentary she moved to Ethelburga Tower block overlooking Battersea Park and she lived there very happily till she died aged 94 in 2015. She was loved by everyone here, and I miss her daily still.
So sad to see a community destroyed. Density could have been added gradually. Divide a house into apartments here, add another story to a house there. Maybe on the odd corner there would be room for a taller new building.
Felt so sorry for the 89 year old lady at 25:55 being left for 13 weeks to fend for herself with a broken hip and arm with no care from anybody. Horrific! Bless her. RIP lovely lady ❤️
@@julesdymond8728 There were community nurses, meals on wheels etc. But so often elderly people saw it as charity and they had been raised not to accept charity. It was a struggle to get them help because they couldn't see it as their right and entitlement, they just saw it as a handout or charity.
Indeed she was talking about the work houses for the poor which I guess would still have been a thing when she was growing up! She wouldn't have had electricity, running water, central heating, or any of the modern amenities, so for her generation the facilities in the flats would have been unimaginable! But even she remarked on how nobody seems to help each other in the flats and how there is no community. Proof that facilities alone are not enough. Community and friendship is a human need.
Amazing film. I am a council tenant living in a tower block that had just been built when this film was made. Now our council estates are coming down aka Regen aka Demolition, but not to make way for the poor but to make for the rich.
yeah all them people you see in that documentary took up their right to buy when thatcher came in 1979. they all bought their flats on the cheap and sold them to rich foreigners for a bundle so dont feel sorry for that old 1970s mob.
@@trinihammer Bullshit, a minimal portion did if they were lucky to have consistent employment, because without that they couldn't attain a loan (& only if you were a man as most women couldn't get loans & then only if they were working, married & had their husbands permission) this was a time of great social upheaval in poor & working class employment, when tens of thousands lost their jobs due to mechanisation, there were fewer women in the workplace to fill in financially because they had bigger families & so we're stay at home mums. Then later, Thatcherism swept in & as some of her fellow ministers recently admitted (after lying & denying it for years), she wanted to smash workers & their entitlements & the trade unions (especially in Liverpool) because they were making her government look ridiculous & ineffectual. Try again.
The old lady is so right when she says, 'You've got to make your own company.' If you're just thinking, how lonely I am, you're going to get depressed. Make the best of what you have and always be grateful. I love how she does an impression of the other old people who have 'gone like the horses'! She's definitely all there!!!
Most of those people were just moaners. The same people they lived with in the terraces lived with them in the flats. I bet they didn't really socialise when in the terraces. Just lazy, poor people complaining regardless of their situation
Zelda Fitzgerald fascinating to see people from that era alive and hearing their stories. My great great grandfather was born in 1882. Worked as a farm hand and in a coal mine until 1924 when he lost three fingers and a thumb in the mines. He lived until 1962 when he died. I have pictures from his funeral when my great grandmother and her sisters were crying. Such a strange tradition take pictures of people grieving.
No airs or graces, gratitude, realism is what she learned early on. A bath every day is a luxury and these so called small pleasures are taken for granted. Good solid inspiring soul she was!
Shout out to whoever at the BBC shot this; the photography is gorgeous. It looks like 35 mm film, (16mm was standard for this, video cameras barely existed) not a bit of grain. The lighting is amazing. To get this quality of image on location in apartments, at night in pubs and meeting halls, is a real stand out set of skills. It’s portraiture of working class people at a time and place and great work on BBC’s part to document this so carefully for history.
I have no people any longer. My mother was my last living family member and she passed 2 months ago. I have no close friends either but I am a generally happy person. I'm also disabled and use an electric wheelchair and I still managed to make everybody I come into contact with laugh. I expect that is a great gift. :-)
In 1971 I was six and growing up in a London flat. Ours were the old style 4 storey red brick but we knew people in those Battersea "tower" blocks. It's exactly how I remember it. Even the faded colour of the film is how the times looked. It seemed always to be grey and cloudy or raining. Education got me out of there, but I look at it now and think it was so much better than what regular working class people must live with today. And today, unlike me, if you call others "working class" they'd take offense and punch you on the nose, whereas back then we were proud of who we were and from where we came.
@@doctorsartorius You're asking a O'Brien. Big chance she was the daughter of Irish immigrants, but besides that yes people in that time already started coming in from former colonies and these were the projects they were placed in.
Susan O'Brien I was 11 lived in 509 France's Chichester way in 71 would walk to battersea county school never got taken in a car lol would be outside the eagle pub beginning of November with our guy asking penny for the guy 😁
I livved in Fulham and Southfields from 75 81. So many of my friends were in these blocks, they were so run down. I was lucky as my parents both worked and bought there own house at 18. My grandparents lived in one in Fulham
Exactly what I thought especially when they talked about the teenagers not having any where to go or things to do which then leads to anti social behaviour. 50 years on and the same concerns are raised by parents in social housing today. Its shameful that no progress has been made.
Their solution was to splash a bit of colour here and there and call it a revamp. Same problems & issues are still present, just looks a bit more colourful. It's all about saving money. Best way for them to do that is cram as many people into one space as they can. They wouldn't be seen dead living there themselves though. Disgusting really that nothing has really been addressed deep down 😩
This video is masterpiece of history should be put in TH-cam museum. Love the nostalgia! The sound the camera the way English was spoken even nowadays reporters can't talk this .
Stunningly shot documentary, way ahead of it's time, shining a mirror on such a negative period of social experimentation. Wonder why society is the way it is watch this they knew it would end badly from the very start. From the elderly lady who came out of hospital not being able to walk and never saw a soul for 13 weeks to the young mum who wasn't allowed to let her kids play, makes you want to cry.
The destruction of people's sense of community, humanity and decency towards wach other, was by design - social engineering at its most nefarious, slowly but surely over generations is how its done by stealth so that the people who are being subjected to it, dont even feel or notice what is being done to them or realise until it is too late and hey are living entrenched for a couple generations or so, in community breakdown and poor mental health and daily struggle, which is then normalised for each subsequent generation, who grow up not knowing anything different, because thats all they have ever had a chance to experience. These environments are just containment camps for the masses of low income or working class families, who are then squeezed and destroyed on the economic front through dead end hopeless jobs, which dont earn enough to live a a fulfilling life of hope and promise, the best they can hope for is just hand to mouth from one pay check to another, which causes demoralisation and social breakdown of families, through divorce due to financial pressure, which in turn leads to mental and social deterioration, which in turn leads to children growing up in a state of breakdown not knowing any better, and this in turn leads to generational dysfunction which gets passed on and gets worse from one generation to another, until you get a situation, where the dysfunction is so entrenched that anti social behaviour, crime and violence become a reality, because the disregard and breakdown of community values and togetherness has been deliberately broken down over many years by design. This is social priming of the masses so that later on, ie, now, when people are so broken down and hopeless, that they can be demonized and alienated by wider society, and then they are ready for even more social and totalitarian control, because their ability to resist tyranny and come together in their own interests and humanity, has become eroded and depleted over generations of policies and environments that have socially engineered their economic, social and mental dysfunction and human community values, by design.
I lived in Jay court on the 15th floor. It still stands but it’s now been changed to private flats. Battersea has changed a lot now, it has become a playground for the rich. Great documentary
I hope that sweet old lady is enjoying a cup of tea with her friends as I am sure they are all together now. How sad that she was so alone. She had a great attitude though
I love the old lady who comes on at about 26 mins in. She's so independent and wise and she appreciates what she has. Wish I could have given her a hug! RIP
What a wonderful lady. Her Christmas Day story was so heartbreaking. Totally inspirational and very humbling. Hope you are living like the queen you were, in Heaven xx❤
Jason Coleridge I’m sure this is Amy Brown, and she was wonderful. She did live a good life, a couple of years after this documentary she moved to the newly built Ethelburga Tower, over looking Battersea Park, and she lived there almost till she died aged 91. She was a much loved member of our community and she is still missed by us all.
The heck? I live in a low rise flat with two tower blocks next to me, and I used to live in a ten floor block. All you need is greenery, local shopping, a few tennis courts a couple a sandboxes and a set of swings. It's parking lots and potheads that are pure murder... Don't build the first and evict (preferably via the balcony) the second.
This was so depressing but I don't remember life being like that. I was 14 in 1971, lived in east London in a house with no hot water, no bathroom an outside toilet and one coal fire. But we were all happy, had great friends, played games and football outside. And we loved playing our records, a fantastic time for British music. Wonderful memories.
I think no matter what era you are at 14 it is gonna seem "wonderful" , for me it was the 90s but , there were some very selfish people in this era it would seem but would be the same as any other era. People never change.
"Survership bias" drastically distorts what the conditions at the time were really like. This leads to overly optimistic beliefs and incorrect conclusions.
I lived in a high rise block in the north of England in the middle 70s to middle 80s, and I must say I loved it. It's not the same now I know, certain political policies have had a huge negative impact on living conditions - but back then it was a breath of fresh air. We had lived in a traditional semi detached in a cul-de-sac, but after my parents separation, my mam & I were offered council housing in a high rise that still stands today. We were skeptical at first - but soon grew to love our new home. Suddenly no more coke fires to build every day during the winter months - we had central heating and double glazing. My mam delighted in a large outdoor shopping centre, complete with public baths and library (plus a social club for a few pints) I had many more kids to play with on the estate compared to our previous house. I can honestly say I have fond memories of my time there and still dream of our old flat from time to time.
@@ObsoleteOddity I should have known. But I did say your voice reminded me of Australian TV presenter Steve Dunleavy. We always seem to end up where fate wills us do we not? (You could do worse than the Alps)
interesting to hear some balance in the comments section (most thought they were terrible) perhapsyou were just an optomistic kid... though I guess your reasons were sound
At age 10 we had no option but to move to a council estate. I was a bit of a shock for the whole family. My mother had been a housekeeper. Our family grew too large and we had to restart. I lived in council property until age 23. The concrete boxes were ugly, the rain made them even uglier. The heating didnt reach the 3rd floor....black mould did and ice on the inside of the windows. I survived. The view of the Regent Canal was a lifesaver. Im grateful that we had a home.
just like always, they ignore the people who directly experience these things in favor of top down planners who "know better" because of some abstract theory.
I mean, it's a pretty basic equation. You have a limited amount of land and an ever growing population. You cannot build more houses without destroying rural areas. So you have to build up. It's true though, they should have been better designed.
@WessexFox99 since the late 60's huh? That's a funny lie, since the late 40's would be far more accurate. Now why would Britain ask for large amounts of foreign labour in the late 40's. Maybe because of the war? You absolute cretin. And what are you babbling about with this "log cabins" shit, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds, you clearly have no idea what infrastructure is, or the mechanics required to provide people with basic living standards. How are there this many absolute morons on youtube? Where do you come from? do you actually exist in real life? Are you capable of feeding yourself? "Lets all build log cabins, because i'm such a conservative i want to go back to the iron age, before we invented building with fucking bricks."
It’s all about money , still is today !! The only thing I will say is if these new estates had been maintained and managed properly they would have stood the test of time ! Now they have become the slums and are being demolished , history repeating !! and the people are being moved on again only this time the replacement estates are posh and expensive and for sale !!!
Why would you choose to stay there? Move out of London and come up north, where you can get a decent semi detached ex council house with a nice garden and garage for less than 100k. Unless you work in a really specialised job role there really is no reason to stay in London
Most people are much better off now compared to then. In those days a lot of poor people looked about 20 years older than they actually were. That doesn't happen today even with the poorest people.
they could have built houses there instead, everyone wanted houses even back during post ww2 reconstruction, the areas may be poor today even if houses were built but nothing like what they are today as towerblocks and flats. And they should have built them in the 1930s style that is common across the UK which may have made the areas more nicer to live in
Tacitus Kilgore wasn’t she glorious? But then, seeing how she had to get out of bed, my heart broke. Old, lonely and proud...neglected by a generation that owed her’s so much.
1971 this was way before my time i was born in 1994 but it was a really well made documentary and the audio and video quality is really good quality to say it was the 70's. Bless the elderly lady she was sweet may she rest in peace wherever she's resting.
This is when yo7 allow the government I. Your house, and let them decide what’s best for you and your family. When you ask them to leave. They refuse. I’m so grateful in America we haven’t succumbed yet to this Marxist ideology that pretends to be virtuous to the common man. They are evil.
@@larkatmic what about the high rise housing projects like cabrini green and many others. But I do agree with you. In the USA there are many high rise housing projects for the low income , it's a shame , thank you great comment
The slums these awful flats replaced weren’t much fun either, no running water, a tin bath filled from a kettle, walk through snow and rain to an outside toilet, mould everywhere, freezing cold.
They knew what was being done to them. It was sad to see intelligent people having to struggle to fight the system. And as for the old woman, what a strength of character and wisdom. Shame on everyone of her "own people" who abandoned her, especially at Christmas.
What a lovely, intelligent lady at the start of this programme, typical of the type of person who lived in council houses of the past. The soul-destroying estates did exactly that! The estates contributed to the destruction of the old-school decency that was the norm in working class London (and probably other places who had these vile rabbit hutches on stilts inflicted on them). London has lost so much over the years ...
I lived in exactly the same type of Terraced house with a similar garden and though very young I sensed a Community near The Elephant and Castle and then came The Aylesbury and Heygate Estates and now 45 years later THEY are being knocked down !
Her name is Amy Brown, she was wonderful, she went to live in Ethelburga Tower, overlooking Battersea Park, soon after this documentary was made. She lived there happily nearly till she died, aged 94, in 2015. She was loved by everyone in the community, and I miss her now!
You people are so shameless and ungrateful, most of these people did not pay for these flats, they got to live in the for free, payed by the government, and yet you idiots still complained when there are people in this would with no shelter over there head at all and would only dream of living some where like this. Self entitled pricks, I'm glad your country is being taken over by minorities that's your punishment for being ungrateful.
I do indeed remember those old style milk bottles as I used to deliver milk way back in the day. If you got 8mph out of the float you did well...up at 3am, load the float and out on the round by 4am...done by 7:30am and off to work at the factory after that....yip...they were the days....I miss them so much...so, so much...
My Mama & Papa moved us from London flat Walworth Road 1962 to a lovely council house 🏠 in Kent we was very fortunate ❤️although my Papa had 3 jobs to pay the rent ! 🥹we never went without we had the best mama & Papa LOVED❤️ so grateful so blessed I miss them every day since they passed 💔
I love ❤ watching these old documentaries from the early 70s - I time when I was a very small child..I’m learning so much about what life was like in those tough days 🙏 thanks to everyone who shared so much of their lives 👍
Oh those plastic ceiling tiles! I remember them being all the rage in the 70s until people realised that if there was a fire they helped it spread like crazy, and you also had hot molten plastic dripping on you to contend with... 😳
the old lady is a character, if I saw her in my day I would check in on her and listen to her stories of her workhouse days, i always love listening to old people they have great stories to tell, nobody seems to be interested in other peoples past these days unless their a celebrity, life is precious and we are all special, watching this I don't see any change for the better , we have the internet and new tecs but attitudes are the same now as they were in this documentary ,sadly not much progress has been made.
Me too! I could sit for HOURS listening to what went on before my time. Hence why I watch things like these. I'm only 20 and I'm more interested in what happened in the past than what's haopenig right now.
I’m from the Midlands but one of our houses we lived next door to an elderly woman and I always went round to see her in my early teens to listen to her stories. Fascinating!
The old bird who comes in at 26 mins brought a tear to my eye she thinks she's well off and lucky crawling around the floor on Christmas day not getting help or visits from any of her own ... nobody even brought me a 1/4 of tea she said ....... God bless her
@@Gadfly333and that's supposed to be funny?. As the expression goes, YOU don't know you're born!!!. Idiot. I bet this woman never had one carer visit her. She probably didn't live into the mid 1970s. My take is, she probably died alone. I hope this doesn't happen to you!.
My grandparents moved from a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom highrise flat in the 60s. The 1st tennants to get there keys , It was heaven to begin with, all modern and new. They knew everyone in the block. Fast forward 20 years it became hell. Lifts braking down . Due to their disability sometimes couldn't get out for 2 days until they got repaired. People they knew Started dying off has they got older and got replaced by people who didn't give a s!@te .
“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................................
Would love to see an update on the children that took part in this to hear their point of view. Obviously they will be adults now, nice documentary. Took me bk to my own childhood late 70s an the 80s...
gan9e The whole thing has a simplicity that is devoid in modern TV. Modern documentaries wouldn’t allow more than 30 seconds interviewing one person in fear of the viewer losing interest. Also graphics and music almost constantly would be barraging the viewer needlessly.
What a treasure that video. I have been, once again, moved and touched by their testimonies. I really do not understand how architects could design such structure and buildings, honestly, it looks gruesome, even at that time. Thank you so much for sharing that documentary.
Bless these people. I grew up working class on a council estate and I thought it was bad. We had a house, never lived in a flat and my parents worked extremely hard to get off of the estate (which they did) I'm so very proud of them and I never forget my working class roots.
Quite sad this really. They said at the beginning of the film that the same amount of people lived in the flats as did in the houses. I'm from the north of England where o grew up in terraced houses in the 80s. I knew all my neighbours and my mum would open the front door and let me out to play. I can't imagine how it must have been for kids growing up in these flats.
Yes, my son grew up with me in a terraced house in Brighton in the 80s-90s, it was lovely: we knew most of the people on the street and the kids played out together, a real community.
I grew up on the 5th floor of Rundell Tower in Stockwell. I had no idea there were playrooms. We wren't allowed to go downstairs to play out anymore after some psycho on drugs broke my dad's arm in the car park and the slightest noise echoed on the landings so that was out of the question.
What a brilliant documentary. I found it interesting to hear how london people spoke back then. They didn’t have the attitude of people today who all imitate other cultures, with their street slang. They were just down to earth, hard working people trying to survive the best they could. Not one mention of the dole or other benefits.
We still exist! Not all of us have morphed into that odd fakery you rightly describe! But the destruction of many poorer uk city neighbourhoods hasn't improved that much since this documentary, the poverty has moved though, places like Battersea are really upmarket now. I fortunately avoided tower block living, instead ended up in low rise on quiet estates. Always found tower block types bloody cold & creepy. Especially those damn metal lined lifts!
You should read the book "Londonstandi". I live in Portsmouth & half the kids talk like they're mixed race. Even blokes my age talk they're from the west indies when they've never even been there. It's just where their absent father's are from. I'm 42 btw,I was married to a Muslim man for 11 years & they used to look down on the way we treat our elderly & needy. They also found it embarrassing that white youths were copying their accents (half of our mosque were African). I find it quite sad that youngsters can't be comfortable just being themselves. I guess that's why they join gangs....to belong, be part of something 😔
I was only a baby when this was filmed , I feel so privileged to have grown up in a house in Surrey with a garden and open spaces , I really feel for people who have to live like this ❤️
Well Humans have got more weak as years have passed by,40 and 50s babies are stronger then 70 and 80s babies,70 and 80s babies are stronger then 2000 and 2020 babies and so on,Thats why its more rife with depression now,because the kids are being exposed too things too early and too quick that their mind don't develop at a normal pace......Bless
I remember the smell of urine in our lifts. My mum used to disinfect them weekly. Well, she’d disinfect ours. That’s if it was actually working of course. Lol!
Yes I remember that too, there were the minority that had been raised to take pride in their dwellings, but sadly as Lenin once said "all socialism leads to Communism" i.e you don't treat a hire car aswell as the one you bought with blood sweat and tears.
@freebeerfordworkers It is not normal to piss in a lift. It is a metter of education and upbringing. I've never met anthing like this in my country. If there is a needed people piss into a bush in park coz, you know, it is a nature and can handle it. But in a lift...?
Na Noid no more the people that came n moved in from all over the world laughed at the concept of leaving full milk bottles laying around, yet another easy picking from the land of milk n unny,
The meeting towards the end of the programme is great. Very dramatic - like a scene from a movie. The guy who organises it is impressive. Very moving documentary.
Very dramatic! I loved the young ones who were there to offer their voices. So typical that they were told they ought be home doing their homework and not participating in their community. Ugh. It was telling how they had to meet in a cold, dark, ugly basement. The designers had included no space for people to meet. Every part of the estate was about separating people and stifling their behaviour. Even the kids mentioned that the only place they could meet to socialise forced them to do sport or leave- they couldn't just sit and talk with each other in peace. This is class warfare in action.
My dear auntie Millie gave an interview in this programme at around 20.53. She passed away in 2011. She didn't like living on that estate. She felt vulnerable being almost blind. But it's great seeing her again. God bless auntie Millie. Xx
*....Bla bla bla bla....*
Steve Bano 🤣🤣🤣
Nice
@@Isleofskye his response was meant as a joke..... Yours? Nasty
Auntie Millie is the one bitching about the children? I bet nobody living there would miss her 😠
The lady at the beginning and the very end was Amy Brown. She was wonderful and soon after this documentary was made she went to live in Ethelburga Tower block, overlooking Battersea Park. She lived there very happily till 2015 till she died aged 94. She was loved by all in our community and I miss her daily even now!
It is good to hear that. She seems so wise and kind. I am glad to know her name, and to know she lived a good long life.
Aww bless her heart.
Love Amy Brown..Hope the Councils are watching.
So true her words, that when you live in a house you are free and in a flat your are not, especially with children .. or elderly people , at young age we usually busy working , but when we are kids or old we rely o our home to feel good ....
Fair-Play.👍 (RIP/Bless) + Can relate to her saying she never felt like she owned or the Flat was hers etc!
Anyone else impressed with how well shot and mic'd this thing is for 1971?
Your observation is correct, but more so than this being well produced (which it is) it's unfortunately the case that media today is choc full of uncessary production shite.
Whether silly camera angles, music, lighting or other shit that the directors and producers use to make themselves seem so fucking 'cool'.
This old film is great because all it has is well conveyed, well shot content, a classic case of function rather than empty form.
It used to be dicks at C4 on Sunday mornings with the dumb production, but these days its every fucking outlet, just dire.
This was the rolling out of the human version of the "Mouse Utopia Experiment" (TH-cam it).
This post war (and still ongoing) project was designed to destroy western society.
Its astonishing listening to the lamentations of the folks in this video. If the mice in the experiment could have talked, they would have verbalised the exact same things: increased isolation, unhappiness, decreased social cohesion and increased friction and violence.
Just astonishing.
@@happysunshinydays6349 Will have a look at that thanks...once I get through the queue of youtube things I've yet to view.
The cinematography are very well done, just judging from the first few minutes. Impressed.
No spacetimebrainless. Shooting and miking were being done to todays standards for longer ago than 1971.. Child.
It's really interesting to see how the residents immediately predicted how the estates would become slums within years. And how high rise living promotes isolation, delinquency and the loss of individuality. Excellent documentary for the time too.
It's not the buildings that cause them to become slums, it's the people who inhabit the buildings
The doco was great. I've watched it couple of times but it also had an agenda. How was the sense of individuality when people lived in terraced housing, sharing bathrooms in the middle of the street? The people in the doco made it sound like their old neighborhoods were idilic. They weren't. They were crime ridden, filthy slums. They moved those people from terraces into high ride flats and surprise surprise the poverty and crime followed them.....
Look at life in high rise apartments in more affluent areas in the UK, US and Asia. They aren't crime ridden slums. It's people not buildings that are responsible
@@realtruth4804 wrong. u understand nothing. the flats do not foster community because they lack communal areas. in a street with terraced housing the road was the communal area, and the kids of the homeowners would play together in the streets; people socialized with their neighbours. The design of the flats discourages community, and without community you have vandalism and delinquency.
@@BOZ_11 I understand nothing huh? Manhattan apartment buildings don't have "communal areas" and they aren't crime infested. These days regardless of where you live nobody interacts with their neighbour's anyway
My father took a lower paying job and moved us to the countryside rather than moving us into a tower block. We were fortunate.
u sound like hearded animals
The problem is, all the jobs are in the big cities, so youll end up going to uni (in a big city prolly) and then live and work there until you have children and they are school age and you move back ouf to the country.
you were indeed very lucky that he made the right choice.
My father put his fist down and told them he would not move unless it was another house. Another house we got, it just took a few months longer.
Just think, if your dad had moved you in there, and used Maggies right to buy, you'd be a fucking millionaire now.
I'm only ten minutes in and starting to feel depressed, thank god that mans tash cheered me up
TheGodParticle He looks very odd with that.
😂😂😂😂😂
It's a real doozie.
Vic Reeves the comedian
That's commitment! It would take ages to maintain it every morning
This should be required viewing for anyone involved in architecture or urban planning.
like they would care. It's more efficient to build flats so they make more money
@@garnhamr Yes they certainly do not care about people,cram them in mouldy concrete high rises and collect the rent knowing full well they would not live in such deprived squalor themselves,it makes me sick to see children pale and lifeless dossing around filthy landings .
Its your goverment and councils that set the building standards. Sadly your councillor can overide this to build bloody horrible things and they are never held to it.
Chalet N It’s the capitalists’ plan, yeah.
Studied planning. Got a nice little degree that I don't use in work today - why? Because even though students are warned about what happened when people were crammed into flats without adequate social space, shops or places to go, the people who employ us don't give a shit. They want to keep on building soulless suburban housing estates and tiny little flats.
I'd love to be able to do something about it, but it's going to take decades for recent crops of students to get into positions where they can actually sway decisions - and even then, you have to hope they remember this stuff instead of just chasing profits.
When that sweet lady said at the end, “You’d think they (the architects and planners) might have asked us ordinary people how we would like to live,” I broke down and cried.
Its the government fault.they are evil.the council are the other evil.they shovel people in those monstrosities....today its 2023.and the governnent is still chucking people into these monstosities.
The architects and planners she mentioned were pretentious ladder climbing idiots - whose only consideration was for their immense egos. Maintaining the social structure according to class. Disgraceful.
how soft can you be, get a grip lol
Give your head a wobble mate.
Oh I know. It’s so sad. No one cares for the average person. They want the image of something nice and geometric to hide away from the suffering of the average person and their mental state.
Wow, born 1882! What spirit she has. No one came to see her Christmas Day? But she has no self pity at all. What a girl!
She woulda been 100 years old in this filming in 1971!!!!
@@riri1995-k7q 89
@Adam Battersby how
And this last Xmas noone would have come to see her either!
@@corinlanser 💀💀💀💀💀💀
Goodness, nearly 50 years on and some of the comments from the residents were so prophetic. This is such a compelling documentary.
nothing ever changes somebody in mainland china is probably moaning about being forced from his home and moved to a flat right now
even when you riot all you get at most is a little more money you still got to move
Tory Britain
All planners should be made to live in their own creations as part of their contract
This.
Well said middle class planners haven't a clue!
That rarely happens, I wonder why? 🙄
@Sara I’m sure if they could afford it they would have bought a house somewhere nicer.
@Sara Many people were forced to live there - that's the point. Their terraced homes were considered to be slums and were subject to compulsory purchase orders, the tenants and owners evicted by the government and then given homes in these tower blocks, destroying their wel-established communities.
Thankfully my parents moved from Wandsworth in 1969, when I was 4 years old. I was fortunate to grow up in Wiltshire, still lived in a council house, but it was a brand new estate, a 4 bedroom house and a wonderful community.
High rise blocks are so detrimental to communities.
People back then, had a certain quite and noble dignity that seems to be lacking in society to day.
Blame it on predictive programming, for which read: just about everything you see on TV. People copy what they see in programmes like Eastenders and Coronation Street, whose story lines are completely interchangeable: infidelity and murder are the norm. They adopt the attitudes, behaviour, language and even the dress sense. I believe that this is ultimately why these programmes are made, and to think that they are made purely to entertain, strikes me as very naive. Just look at how TV adverts have changed over the last 30-40 years. It's all part of the deliberate erosion of society and the community spirit. We're living in frightening times.
Totally agree,, The people who had jobs were safe,many boss's still of age that served during the war,,people lived with realistic aspirations and saved for things,,,,,I loved growing up in the 70s the toys,TV were great,,,,
And those are the working poor from areas deemed to be ghettos.
Thats just what i always think too.I was born 1974 but knew lots of old folks,my Great Nan born 1885,Nan 1909 etc etc,and they were a different type.My Nan said to be genteel was what people wanted to be when she was young.I wonder if they said that about old folks that were dying in the 1900s being different?
leigh pierce I agree even the way they spoke. Proper English. Pleasant polite manner.
The lady at the beginning and the end is typical of a lot of intelligent working class people of that time who never had the opportunities to improve their lot. Decent,kind empathetic & caring. The same goes for the bloke with the tash, all be it I'd imagine he was a union rep back then.
I concur. She articulated with accuracy, brevity and depth. Sad she never reached her full potential.
100% What a marvelous, dignified lady
That will always be the case
The geezer with the 'tash looks like a he could be a Vic Reeves character.
I agree this is likely (about the women) but it's also possible she was raised middle class & married into the working class (which my grandmother did) or fell into the working class through career choice or misfortune etc. Either way there are still barriers in the modern world when it comes to financial/social status but I'm glad things have & are improving
The lady in the beginning was wiser than any city planner of the time.
Just to let you know - her name was Amy Brown, and she was wonderful. She was in the Land Army in WW2. Thankfully soon after this documentary she moved to Ethelburga Tower block overlooking Battersea Park and she lived there very happily till she died aged 94 in 2015. She was loved by everyone here, and I miss her daily still.
they did it to the people on PURPOSE you clearly are MISSING that!
The City planners are destroyers of spirit. On purpose.
So sad to see a community destroyed. Density could have been added gradually. Divide a house into apartments here, add another story to a house there. Maybe on the odd corner there would be room for a taller new building.
@@laural3267 Go away fool
The old lady is such a beautiful soul. She expressed so much gratitude for the things she had, and she tried to make the best of everything
Yes , she made me quite tearful. Managing all alone so sad
Felt so sorry for the 89 year old lady at 25:55 being left for 13 weeks to fend for herself with a broken hip and arm with no care from anybody. Horrific! Bless her. RIP lovely lady ❤️
That was very sad.
That was terrible 😢 weren't there nurses in those days or social workers to help the lady?
Tory Britain 2023 is same
@@minixtvbox 💯 true. Don’t get me started on them 🤣
@@julesdymond8728 There were community nurses, meals on wheels etc. But so often elderly people saw it as charity and they had been raised not to accept charity. It was a struggle to get them help because they couldn't see it as their right and entitlement, they just saw it as a handout or charity.
That old lady is incredibly resilient. God bless her.
Frazzle Face She must have been born in the 1880s.
1882 if she was 89 in ‘71.. same year I was born (71 that is) ;)
She’s got First World War photos on the wall. She’s the type of Brits I loved best. Two world wars, disease, no pot to piss In, and no complaints
Indeed she was talking about the work houses for the poor which I guess would still have been a thing when she was growing up!
She wouldn't have had electricity, running water, central heating, or any of the modern amenities, so for her generation the facilities in the flats would have been unimaginable! But even she remarked on how nobody seems to help each other in the flats and how there is no community. Proof that facilities alone are not enough. Community and friendship is a human need.
Bless her soul. She reminded me of my Nan, resilient cockney lady.
Amazing film. I am a council tenant living in a tower block that had just been built when this film was made. Now our council estates are coming down aka Regen aka Demolition, but not to make way for the poor but to make for the rich.
...that was likely the long term plan
yeah all them people you see in that documentary took up their right to buy when thatcher came in 1979. they all bought their flats on the cheap and sold them to rich foreigners for a bundle so dont feel sorry for that old 1970s mob.
@@trinihammer
Bullshit, a minimal portion did if they were lucky to have consistent employment, because without that they couldn't attain a loan
(& only if you were a man as most women couldn't get loans & then only if they were working, married & had their husbands permission)
this was a time of great social upheaval in poor & working class employment, when tens of thousands lost their jobs due to mechanisation,
there were fewer women in the workplace to fill in financially because they had bigger families & so we're stay at home mums.
Then later, Thatcherism swept in & as some of her fellow ministers recently admitted (after lying & denying it for years), she wanted to smash workers & their entitlements & the trade unions
(especially in Liverpool) because they were making her government look ridiculous & ineffectual.
Try again.
They built hundreds of these blocks in the 1960s ..nothing but blocks of Concrete and an Eyesore ..should never have been built !
The old lady is so right when she says, 'You've got to make your own company.' If you're just thinking, how lonely I am, you're going to get depressed. Make the best of what you have and always be grateful. I love how she does an impression of the other old people who have 'gone like the horses'! She's definitely all there!!!
I agree. She was amazing, and her faculties were intact
She sounds just like my mother.
Most of those people were just moaners. The same people they lived with in the terraces lived with them in the flats. I bet they didn't really socialise when in the terraces. Just lazy, poor people complaining regardless of their situation
Can’t afford to be self centred .
Amazing yes
Should not of have had to suffer.Not everyone as strong as her too
The old lady at 25:52, God bless her soul and may she rest in peace. What a legend of a woman.
Truth Hitman porridge n boring mornin telly🤗
Said she was 89 so born in 1882
Agree 100% she was a precious soul
That wee boy nearly took off on that rocking horse.
Randal P McMurphy hahahaha
That was quality.
Hahahaha
See him springing off through the window.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
That old dear at 27:00 would have been born in 1882. God bless her. People like her have long gone from working class communities.
Zelda Fitzgerald fascinating to see people from that era alive and hearing their stories. My great great grandfather was born in 1882. Worked as a farm hand and in a coal mine until 1924 when he lost three fingers and a thumb in the mines. He lived until 1962 when he died. I have pictures from his funeral when my great grandmother and her sisters were crying. Such a strange tradition take pictures of people grieving.
very proud lady....
My grandfather was born in 1888.
@CARDEAN ROSS shocking is it not darling, going from a slum to a high rise , the poor should be gratfull. Ugly bitch.
No airs or graces, gratitude, realism is what she learned early on. A bath every day is a luxury and these so called small pleasures are taken for granted. Good solid inspiring soul she was!
Shout out to whoever at the BBC shot this; the photography is gorgeous. It looks like 35 mm film, (16mm was standard for this, video cameras barely existed) not a bit of grain. The lighting is amazing. To get this quality of image on location in apartments, at night in pubs and meeting halls, is a real stand out set of skills. It’s portraiture of working class people at a time and place and great work on BBC’s part to document this so carefully for history.
@@elizabethclaiborne6461 It wasn’t actually BBC - not the end of Part 1 section some way in.
I have no people any longer. My mother was my last living family member and she passed 2 months ago. I have no close friends either but I am a generally happy person. I'm also disabled and use an electric wheelchair and I still managed to make everybody I come into contact with laugh. I expect that is a great gift. :-)
How are you now?
God bless you ❤️❤️
Take care thinking of you.
How are you,4 years later,Elizabeth?
A God given talent for sure! You inspire and uplift others in your life and you are blessed now and in the future:)🤗
In 1971 I was six and growing up in a London flat. Ours were the old style 4 storey red brick but we knew people in those Battersea "tower" blocks. It's exactly how I remember it. Even the faded colour of the film is how the times looked. It seemed always to be grey and cloudy or raining. Education got me out of there, but I look at it now and think it was so much better than what regular working class people must live with today. And today, unlike me, if you call others "working class" they'd take offense and punch you on the nose, whereas back then we were proud of who we were and from where we came.
Susan O'Brien lovely words Susan. Bravo - let you inspire future generations!!
Did you live with minorities or were your neighbors actually British?
@@doctorsartorius You're asking a O'Brien. Big chance she was the daughter of Irish immigrants, but besides that yes people in that time already started coming in from former colonies and these were the projects they were placed in.
Susan O'Brien I was 11 lived in 509 France's Chichester way in 71 would walk to battersea county school never got taken in a car lol would be outside the eagle pub beginning of November with our guy asking penny for the guy 😁
I livved in Fulham and Southfields from 75 81. So many of my friends were in these blocks, they were so run down. I was lucky as my parents both worked and bought there own house at 18. My grandparents lived in one in Fulham
50 years on and every issue in this documentary is VERY relevant today 🤔
Except perhaps that the "men are at work all day". Probably not so much any more.
Exactly what I thought especially when they talked about the teenagers not having any where to go or things to do which then leads to anti social behaviour. 50 years on and the same concerns are raised by parents in social housing today. Its shameful that no progress has been made.
No better idea except gentrification
Yeah probably because people are living in the exact same grotty flats to this day.
Their solution was to splash a bit of colour here and there and call it a revamp. Same problems & issues are still present, just looks a bit more colourful. It's all about saving money. Best way for them to do that is cram as many people into one space as they can. They wouldn't be seen dead living there themselves though. Disgusting really that nothing has really been addressed deep down 😩
This video is masterpiece of history should be put in TH-cam museum. Love the nostalgia! The sound the camera the way English was spoken even nowadays reporters can't talk this .
Stunningly shot documentary, way ahead of it's time, shining a mirror on such a negative period of social experimentation. Wonder why society is the way it is watch this they knew it would end badly from the very start. From the elderly lady who came out of hospital not being able to walk and never saw a soul for 13 weeks to the young mum who wasn't allowed to let her kids play, makes you want to cry.
The tenants all display an old school decency that has been all but lost...
Couldn't agree with you more
@Mike J Very true.
@Mike J spot 9n mike
The destruction of people's sense of community, humanity and decency towards wach other, was by design - social engineering at its most nefarious, slowly but surely over generations is how its done by stealth so that the people who are being subjected to it, dont even feel or notice what is being done to them or realise until it is too late and hey are living entrenched for a couple generations or so, in community breakdown and poor mental health and daily struggle, which is then normalised for each subsequent generation, who grow up not knowing anything different, because thats all they have ever had a chance to experience.
These environments are just containment camps for the masses of low income or working class families, who are then squeezed and destroyed on the economic front through dead end hopeless jobs, which dont earn enough to live a a fulfilling life of hope and promise, the best they can hope for is just hand to mouth from one pay check to another, which causes demoralisation and social breakdown of families, through divorce due to financial pressure, which in turn leads to mental and social deterioration, which in turn leads to children growing up in a state of breakdown not knowing any better, and this in turn leads to generational dysfunction which gets passed on and gets worse from one generation to another, until you get a situation, where the dysfunction is so entrenched that anti social behaviour, crime and violence become a reality, because the disregard and breakdown of community values and togetherness has been deliberately broken down over many years by design.
This is social priming of the masses so that later on, ie, now, when people are so broken down and hopeless, that they can be demonized and alienated by wider society, and then they are ready for even more social and totalitarian control, because their ability to resist tyranny and come together in their own interests and humanity, has become eroded and depleted over generations of policies and environments that have socially engineered their economic, social and mental dysfunction and human community values, by design.
@Mike J he has a good life in Surrey. Wants more multiculturalism. Says it all.
People back then seemed much more humble.
YNWA probably because they were!
@I'm sorry About that! Probably due to being allowed to have their european culture and not being shamed for it.
YNWA they don't take themselves so seriously which is a good thing
👍
Depressed**
I lived in Jay court on the 15th floor. It still stands but it’s now been changed to private flats. Battersea has changed a lot now, it has become a playground for the rich.
Great documentary
I hope that sweet old lady is enjoying a cup of tea with her friends as I am sure they are all together now.
How sad that she was so alone. She had a great attitude though
@davidoffon wow - that would have made her close to 90 when this was filmed
And she was living in her home and in good spirits!
They don't make them like her anymore. 🤧
@@Azimuth8687 so?
Hopefully though in heaven we are all young again and no pain in the joints or mind!
Wow, this documentary is such a great find. Watching it is literally like opening a time capsule..
& not a knife in sight.
well you're not supposed to take them out
The people in the film are so eloquent and fascinating. The city planners so cold and thoughtless.
Agreed!!! And I bet the planners got plenty of back handers in the process
Not that, in order to push an agenda, the film producers would advise people on what to say?
I love the old lady who comes on at about 26 mins in. She's so independent and wise and she appreciates what she has. Wish I could have given her a hug! RIP
What a wonderful lady. Her Christmas Day story was so heartbreaking. Totally inspirational and very humbling. Hope you are living like the queen you were, in Heaven xx❤
This is still relevant today.
Laura Molony More than ever, probably.
not at all
What a lovely, honest and caring woman she is at the beginning, I hope she found happiness and had a good life.
Jason Coleridge I’m sure this is Amy Brown, and she was wonderful. She did live a good life, a couple of years after this documentary she moved to the newly built Ethelburga Tower, over looking Battersea Park, and she lived there almost till she died aged 91. She was a much loved member of our community and she is still missed by us all.
@@tishsimonnet5376 awwww! Bless her, sadly missed this character of person.
How right this lady was.... flats would destroy community spirit.
Not so. Visit Park Hill, Sheffield.
In that case David Sherman, the government failed.
The heck? I live in a low rise flat with two tower blocks next to me, and I used to live in a ten floor block. All you need is greenery, local shopping, a few tennis courts a couple a sandboxes and a set of swings.
It's parking lots and potheads that are pure murder... Don't build the first and evict (preferably via the balcony) the second.
That's literally what they're designed to do...
@basil fawlty All the same to me.
This was so depressing but I don't remember life being like that. I was 14 in 1971, lived in east London in a house with no hot water, no bathroom an outside toilet and one coal fire. But we were all happy, had great friends, played games and football outside. And we loved playing our records, a fantastic time for British music. Wonderful memories.
Same here I grew up in Columbia rd Bethnal Green through the sixties loved it
I think no matter what era you are at 14 it is gonna seem "wonderful" , for me it was the 90s but , there were some very selfish people in this era it would seem but would be the same as any other era. People never change.
"Survership bias" drastically distorts what the conditions at the time were really like. This leads to overly optimistic beliefs and incorrect conclusions.
That's the point. A house on a street, not a box in the air.
@@alexfenton229what's wrong with tower blocks? Theyre lovely.
I lived in a high rise block in the north of England in the middle 70s to middle 80s, and I must say I loved it.
It's not the same now I know, certain political policies have had a huge negative impact on living conditions - but back then it was a breath of fresh air.
We had lived in a traditional semi detached in a cul-de-sac, but after my parents separation, my mam & I were offered council housing in a high rise that still stands today. We were skeptical at first - but soon grew to love our new home. Suddenly no more coke fires to build every day during the winter months - we had central heating and double glazing. My mam delighted in a large outdoor shopping centre, complete with public baths and library (plus a social club for a few pints) I had many more kids to play with on the estate compared to our previous house. I can honestly say I have fond memories of my time there and still dream of our old flat from time to time.
Well Oddy, from a high rise in the UK to Switzerland, a long winding journey no?
@@znentitan4032 It was indeed a long winding journey, because I went via Australia when I went to seek work and settled there aged 18 :)
@@ObsoleteOddity I should have known. But I did say your voice reminded me of Australian TV presenter Steve Dunleavy. We always seem to end up where fate wills us do we not? (You could do worse than the Alps)
@@znentitan4032 Fate with a little impetus and willpower from ourselves :)
interesting to hear some balance in the comments section (most thought they were terrible) perhapsyou were just an optomistic kid... though I guess your reasons were sound
Play for Today, 40 Minutes, Arena - these fly-on-the-wall documentaries were ahead of their time.
You're right. My Dad worked on the Man Alive Report and 40 Minutes. Now fly-on-the-wall means Love Island and Big Brother. What a waste.
That old lady is an inspiration to us all! The breed of people we've got now can never matched her.
I love watching real working people leading ordinary lives more than modern obsession with celebrities throwing their money away. Great video!
"Apparently material things are worth more than children today to these people in authority." True in 1971 and still true now.
things don't change
Except it's even truer now than ever.
I am from Canada. I just watched this. THIS WAS SO DEPRESSING.
This is the Britain the outside world doesn’t see, and it’s still the same today.
We have plenty of middle class & rich areas don't feel too bad.
Yeah about to top myself.
Yea, we don't all live in stately homes or castles and have butlers
like the Americans always portray us.
@@kaneramsey8191 The truth is not racist
At age 10 we had no option but to move to a council estate.
I was a bit of a shock for the whole family. My mother had been a housekeeper. Our family grew too large and we had to restart. I lived in council property until age 23.
The concrete boxes were ugly, the rain made them even uglier. The heating didnt reach the 3rd floor....black mould did and ice on the inside of the windows.
I survived. The view of the Regent Canal was a lifesaver.
Im grateful that we had a home.
Kids and adults all well spoken, compared to today. I don't mean in a posh way, but in their vocabulary.
Even all the kids hanging about smashing windows and breaking into things?
One of the most fascinating pieces of social history I have ever watched. Thank you.
just like always, they ignore the people who directly experience these things in favor of top down planners who "know better" because of some abstract theory.
watch some john b calhoun mouse utopia
They do know better pretty sure the effects you're seeing are intentional
I mean, it's a pretty basic equation. You have a limited amount of land and an ever growing population. You cannot build more houses without destroying rural areas.
So you have to build up. It's true though, they should have been better designed.
@WessexFox99 since the late 60's huh?
That's a funny lie, since the late 40's would be far more accurate. Now why would Britain ask for large amounts of foreign labour in the late 40's.
Maybe because of the war?
You absolute cretin.
And what are you babbling about with this "log cabins" shit, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds, you clearly have no idea what infrastructure is, or the mechanics required to provide people with basic living standards.
How are there this many absolute morons on youtube?
Where do you come from?
do you actually exist in real life? Are you capable of feeding yourself?
"Lets all build log cabins, because i'm such a conservative i want to go back to the iron age, before we invented building with fucking bricks."
It’s all about money , still is today !! The only thing I will say is if these new estates had been maintained and managed properly they would have stood the test of time ! Now they have become the slums and are being demolished , history repeating !! and the people are being moved on again only this time the replacement estates are posh and expensive and for sale !!!
As old as this documentary is it’s fascinating. Gives a real insight into the negative impact of this type of living.
It's not that old. I used to spend a lot of time there in 90s. It had improved a lot by then.
@@LilySaintSin its happening again now
Meanwhile the "honorable" architect that knows what is "best" for people, with HIS children lives in a victorian mansion.
This came up on my TH-cam feed 2020. I live here! The walls are so thin, my neighbour and I can here each other clearly 🤦🏼♂️
@@LonDonTaylor. I live in a town in the south and the blocks where I live are getting demolished
So those building are all still up?
@batty grrl oh ok thank you
You can add soundproofing. Look it up.
Why would you choose to stay there? Move out of London and come up north, where you can get a decent semi detached ex council house with a nice garden and garage for less than 100k. Unless you work in a really specialised job role there really is no reason to stay in London
Oh 70's, if only you knew the utter misery that was to come in the next 40 years
Most people are much better off now compared to then. In those days a lot of poor people looked about 20 years older than they actually were. That doesn't happen today even with the poorest people.
That'd be because less people smoke these days.
they could have built houses there instead, everyone wanted houses even back during post ww2 reconstruction, the areas may be poor today even if houses were built but nothing like what they are today as towerblocks and flats. And they should have built them in the 1930s style that is common across the UK which may have made the areas more nicer to live in
I can relate was born in that era what made it fun the mid seventies when I came to the UK at two months old and grew up there
sirkastic the corruption was set by then. When they killed Kennedy and greed took over. Divide the masses. Race.
They were described as a planners dream and a tenants nightmare....this is a wonderful piece social expression.
The lady at 26 minutes is a national treasure 💜💜💜
The guys mustache @ 9:32. That's the confidence I need in my life right now.
38:00 that kid is wise beyond his years! What an excellent documentary of bygone London
The old girl living on her own is wonderful. You dont see her like anymore
Tacitus Kilgore wasn’t she glorious? But then, seeing how she had to get out of bed, my heart broke. Old, lonely and proud...neglected by a generation that owed her’s so much.
She was 89 in 1971 imagine the changes she went through.
She was amazing, but it broke my heart to see her having to be so brave whilst being so alone.
@@beckyenglish4783 and now that same generation is moaning about the winter fuel cut when the majority of them aren’t going to ‘starve’ or ‘die’.
That elderly lady was wonderful. A true tough woman that had seen a lot and been through a lot and so appreciative. Beautiful.
Agree 100% ❤
1971 this was way before my time i was born in 1994 but it was a really well made documentary and the audio and video quality is really good quality to say it was the 70's. Bless the elderly lady she was sweet may she rest in peace wherever she's resting.
I was 10 when this was made and the good thing about the 70s we had freedom, not like now.
These people had so much dignity and vision. How dare others put them in places like this.
This is when yo7 allow the government I. Your house, and let them decide what’s best for you and your family. When you ask them to leave. They refuse. I’m so grateful in America we haven’t succumbed yet to this Marxist ideology that pretends to be virtuous to the common man. They are evil.
@@larkatmic what about the high rise housing projects like cabrini green and many others. But I do agree with you. In the USA there are many high rise housing projects for the low income , it's a shame , thank you great comment
The slums these awful flats replaced weren’t much fun either, no running water, a tin bath filled from a kettle, walk through snow and rain to an outside toilet, mould everywhere, freezing cold.
They knew what was being done to them. It was sad to see intelligent people having to struggle to fight the system. And as for the old woman, what a strength of character and wisdom. Shame on everyone of her "own people" who abandoned her, especially at Christmas.
These archives are so precious. Sadly, pretty much everything these people have spoken of is still very relevant today. My heart sinks...... Bless em.
The Mom with the little soccer players is awesome! She does her best!
What a beautiful insight into how these genuinely beautiful people lived and how they articulated their lives and frustrations.
What a lovely, intelligent lady at the start of this programme, typical of the type of person who lived in council houses of the past. The soul-destroying estates did exactly that! The estates contributed to the destruction of the old-school decency that was the norm in working class London (and probably other places who had these vile rabbit hutches on stilts inflicted on them). London has lost so much over the years ...
I lived in exactly the same type of Terraced house with a similar garden and though very young I sensed a Community near The Elephant and Castle and then came The Aylesbury and Heygate Estates and now 45 years later THEY are being knocked down !
Her name is Amy Brown, she was wonderful, she went to live in Ethelburga Tower, overlooking Battersea Park, soon after this documentary was made. She lived there happily nearly till she died, aged 94, in 2015. She was loved by everyone in the community, and I miss her now!
Lovely story tish.
Couldn't agree more, shall we all go for a pint and discuss the old times?
You people are so shameless and ungrateful, most of these people did not pay for these flats, they got to live in the for free, payed by the government, and yet you idiots still complained when there are people in this would with no shelter over there head at all and would only dream of living some where like this. Self entitled pricks, I'm glad your country is being taken over by minorities that's your punishment for being ungrateful.
I do indeed remember those old style milk bottles as I used to deliver milk way back in the day. If you got 8mph out of the float you did well...up at 3am, load the float and out on the round by 4am...done by 7:30am and off to work at the factory after that....yip...they were the days....I miss them so much...so, so much...
My Mama & Papa moved us from London flat Walworth Road 1962 to a lovely council house 🏠 in Kent we was very fortunate ❤️although my Papa had 3 jobs to pay the rent ! 🥹we never went without we had the best mama & Papa LOVED❤️ so grateful so blessed I miss them every day since they passed 💔
I got a little emotional when the two little boys got to the park and started running with their soccer ball it was awesome!!
And the mum "gaw on then...Tackawl"⚽️😅
@@emilemacdonald6277 yup
Me too. Kids just wanna run 😐
I love ❤ watching these old documentaries from the early 70s - I time when I was a very small child..I’m learning so much about what life was like in those tough days 🙏 thanks to everyone who shared so much of their lives 👍
I’ve never been so glad that I live in the country.
Fascinating! The residents speak so candidly about the impact of moving from house to high-rise. A well-crafted peek into the past.
Peak into the future you mean!
It wasn't bad planning, it was perfectly planned for what they wanted to achieve. The shrivelling of the human spirit
1971. 3 years before my late mother was born. Looking at this. What have we come to?
100%
COMMUNIST STYLE SOULESS DRAB MISERY
They could buy a house if they wanted to. Get a job and stop moaning about free accommodation
@@WeanerBeaner69 AND MANY DID JOBS WERE PLENTYFUL AND HOUSES WERE DIRT CHEAP
Oh those plastic ceiling tiles! I remember them being all the rage in the 70s until people realised that if there was a fire they helped it spread like crazy, and you also had hot molten plastic dripping on you to contend with... 😳
This is just completely fascinating and totally relevant now.
the old lady is a character, if I saw her in my day I would check in on her and listen to her stories of her workhouse days, i always love listening to old people they have great stories to tell, nobody seems to be interested in other peoples past these days unless their a celebrity, life is precious and we are all special, watching this I don't see any change for the better , we have the internet and new tecs but attitudes are the same now as they were in this documentary ,sadly not much progress has been made.
the boss that would be a lovely thing to do. I like old people plus you help them out because a lot of old people are lonely.
Me too! I could sit for HOURS listening to what went on before my time. Hence why I watch things like these. I'm only 20 and I'm more interested in what happened in the past than what's haopenig right now.
Happening*
I’m from the Midlands but one of our houses we lived next door to an elderly woman and I always went round to see her in my early teens to listen to her stories. Fascinating!
The old bird who comes in at 26 mins brought a tear to my eye she thinks she's well off and lucky crawling around the floor on Christmas day not getting help or visits from any of her own ... nobody even brought me a 1/4 of tea she said ....... God bless her
Maybe there's a reason no one talks to her... lol
@@Gadfly333and that's supposed to be funny?. As the expression goes, YOU don't know you're born!!!. Idiot. I bet this woman never had one carer visit her. She probably didn't live into the mid 1970s. My take is, she probably died alone. I hope this doesn't happen to you!.
The old lady broke my heart
My grandparents moved from a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom highrise flat in the 60s. The 1st tennants to get there keys , It was heaven to begin with, all modern and new. They knew everyone in the block. Fast forward 20 years it became hell. Lifts braking down . Due to their disability sometimes couldn't get out for 2 days until they got repaired. People they knew Started dying off has they got older and got replaced by people who didn't give a s!@te .
Being complete strangers with their own lives to live, and not giving a shit, are not the same thing.
“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................................
Would love to see an update on the children that took part in this to hear their point of view. Obviously they will be adults now, nice documentary. Took me bk to my own childhood late 70s an the 80s...
4:00 quite a haunting intro sequence ending there and that music just topped it all off nicely, quite advanced for the day.
gan9e The whole thing has a simplicity that is devoid in modern TV. Modern documentaries wouldn’t allow more than 30 seconds interviewing one person in fear of the viewer losing interest. Also graphics and music almost constantly would be barraging the viewer needlessly.
Patrick Bradley like modern movies and video games.
Back when British people were very well spoken regardless of wealth.
^ this cunt has never heard of a telephone voice 😅
Yes, it's called the telephone voice when you're on television 😅
@@dontnoable - your dismissiveness serves only to highlight your ignorance.
I think back then the ones who were NOT well-spoken did not get interviews on the BBC.
What a treasure that video. I have been, once again, moved and touched by their testimonies. I really do not understand how architects could design such structure and buildings, honestly, it looks gruesome, even at that time. Thank you so much for sharing that documentary.
Bless these people. I grew up working class on a council estate and I thought it was bad. We had a house, never lived in a flat and my parents worked extremely hard to get off of the estate (which they did) I'm so very proud of them and I never forget my working class roots.
Quite sad this really. They said at the beginning of the film that the same amount of people lived in the flats as did in the houses. I'm from the north of England where o grew up in terraced houses in the 80s. I knew all my neighbours and my mum would open the front door and let me out to play. I can't imagine how it must have been for kids growing up in these flats.
leigh sutcliffe they were playing too, just in bigger numbers
Yes, my son grew up with me in a terraced house in Brighton in the 80s-90s, it was lovely: we knew most of the people on the street and the kids played out together, a real community.
I grew up on the 5th floor of Rundell Tower in Stockwell. I had no idea there were playrooms. We wren't allowed to go downstairs to play out anymore after some psycho on drugs broke my dad's arm in the car park and the slightest noise echoed on the landings so that was out of the question.
What a brilliant documentary. I found it interesting to hear how london people spoke back then. They didn’t have the attitude of people today who all imitate other cultures, with their street slang. They were just down to earth, hard working people trying to survive the best they could. Not one mention of the dole or other benefits.
What happens is folk degenerate with lower races they don't bring them up to their level
We still exist! Not all of us have morphed into that odd fakery you rightly describe! But the destruction of many poorer uk city neighbourhoods hasn't improved that much since this documentary, the poverty has moved though, places like Battersea are really upmarket now.
I fortunately avoided tower block living, instead ended up in low rise on quiet estates. Always found tower block types bloody cold & creepy. Especially those damn metal lined lifts!
You should read the book "Londonstandi". I live in Portsmouth & half the kids talk like they're mixed race. Even blokes my age talk they're from the west indies when they've never even been there. It's just where their absent father's are from. I'm 42 btw,I was married to a Muslim man for 11 years & they used to look down on the way we treat our elderly & needy. They also found it embarrassing that white youths were copying their accents (half of our mosque were African). I find it quite sad that youngsters can't be comfortable just being themselves. I guess that's why they join gangs....to belong, be part of something 😔
They would have had their accents slated by you if you were around back then too, just for other reasons.
My mum and nan still have the old London Accent ..I love it ❤
I was only a baby when this was filmed , I feel so privileged to have grown up in a house in Surrey with a garden and open spaces , I really feel for people who have to live like this ❤️
Who's watching in 2021 and who cried seeing that poor old lady telling her story about Christmas day n her broken hip😥😭
2022
2023....and didn't she have an amazing attitude to life! Bless her ❤
2024 🫡
2024
Love how they describe depression as being a bundle of nerves.
Yeah, depression was rarely talked about. It was huge taboo
Well everyone has "depression" now days...It's a fad until the next excuse comes along.
I often remember in the 1970’s hearing that Mrs so and so suffers from her nerves.
Yeah I bet a large % were on valium..it was dished out like smarties to folks back then
Well Humans have got more weak as years have passed by,40 and 50s babies are stronger then 70 and 80s babies,70 and 80s babies are stronger then 2000 and 2020 babies and so on,Thats why its more rife with depression now,because the kids are being exposed too things too early and too quick that their mind don't develop at a normal pace......Bless
Today that moustache would have its own Instagram account
I didn't know Vic Reeves was that old
Hahahaha ja aparte styl
Jock12366 No doubt😆
Quality. That moustache is a work of comic genius
Lmao😂😂😂
Perhaps the greatest example of a moustache known in the history of Mankind in this film.
I remember the smell of urine in our lifts. My mum used to disinfect them weekly. Well, she’d disinfect ours. That’s if it was actually working of course. Lol!
Yes I remember that too, there were the minority that had been raised to take pride in their dwellings, but sadly as Lenin once said "all socialism leads to Communism" i.e you don't treat a hire car aswell as the one you bought with blood sweat and tears.
@freebeerfordworkers Genius!! Hahah, gotta love Singapore =)
@freebeerfordworkers Or, as a last chance, try to behave your children...:-D
@freebeerfordworkers It is not normal to piss in a lift. It is a metter of education and upbringing. I've never met anthing like this in my country. If there is a needed people piss into a bush in park coz, you know, it is a nature and can handle it. But in a lift...?
@@tomfu6210 Anger and hatred. Those places aren't felt to be homes, more like a prison. It's a sign of dissociation.
When the media used to be (seemingly) more of a voice FOR the people
I miss the sound of the milkman in the morning driving past in his milk float
Na Noid no more the people that came n moved in from all over the world laughed at the concept of leaving full milk bottles laying around, yet another easy picking from the land of milk n unny,
Is he the father of your children?
God, I feel old
I remember a crumpet man used to come round. :-)
I live in flats as Well, you never really see anyone, nothing has changed in that respect.
I used to live in a high rise. I never saw or spoke to my neighbours either.
Loved it!! I bloody hate people haha.
Lol 😄 👍👍
"I like to be a little bit different from the neighbour next door".. hence his 'tache 😂
And his decorating style
😂
Thank you so much for sharing!
That elderly woman at 28 minutes is one in a million
Her attitude is so positive.
Its unbelievable how positive she is. People in those days were made of a different fabric entirely.
salt of the earth
Yes she was amazing what a smart lady god rest her .
Absolute blinder
The meeting towards the end of the programme is great. Very dramatic - like a scene from a movie. The guy who organises it is impressive. Very moving documentary.
Very dramatic! I loved the young ones who were there to offer their voices. So typical that they were told they ought be home doing their homework and not participating in their community. Ugh.
It was telling how they had to meet in a cold, dark, ugly basement. The designers had included no space for people to meet. Every part of the estate was about separating people and stifling their behaviour. Even the kids mentioned that the only place they could meet to socialise forced them to do sport or leave- they couldn't just sit and talk with each other in peace. This is class warfare in action.