There are some surprising treasures in the depths of the BBC iPlayer.
In 1962/63, Jack Ashley, then a television producer but later a well-known Labour M.P. and campaigner for disability rights, made a 45-minute film, ‘Waiting for Work’, about unemployment in Hartlepool in the North of England (made before he became totally deaf).
The film could have been from my own childhood: the people, the homes and their contents, the shops, the pubs, the shipyard. Where I am from did not suffer mass unemployment as early as Hartlepool, but here were the same kind of lives I grew up with. Although my father would have been considered white-collar rather than blue, and later ran his own business, this is definitely the kind if background I came from. A real glimpse of a once familiar past.
The film is here (
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p053r2q1/waiting-for-work), but as most will not want to sit through 45 minutes, and the iPlayer is not available outside the U.K., here are some screen-shots, probably far too many. (
Update: links to YouTube copy added at end)
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There was still work to be had
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but the shipyards are silent
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and many are on the dole.
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Out-of-work men are embarrassed to have to look after the children
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and do the housework while their wives are at work. The children don’t like it.
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Jack Ashley interviewed families about how unemployment affected them.
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Pubs were still busy,
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as was the High Street,
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but many families were struggling.
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Shopkeepers talked of decreased trade,
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even the newsagents and hairdressers.
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Luxury goods were hard to sell
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and the second-hand shops had more sellers than buyers.
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A few of those interviewed had been able to find work in the south of England, but those that owned houses in Hartlepool were unable to sell, and many did not want to leave the community of their parents, relatives and friends.
Like most of northern Britain, this was still a mare-orientated monoculture. Few women appear in the film and there are no persons of colour. It would inform today’s woke young things why some older people have the views and language they do, especially the part where unemployed young men (most then left school at 15) talk about how their lives are limited by lack of money. They cannot afford to go to the pictures (cinema) or buy records:
“You have to cut down on all your things ... you can’t be expected to enjoy yourself when you’re on the dole ... it’s very rare I go out with a girl now ... when you take them out you ... have to pay for everything ... you can’t get far with fifteen shillings ... you can’t expect to take them out ”
“Do the girls ever offer to pay for you?”
“They offer, but it’s more or less accepting charity.”
The whole way of life would now be dismissed as unenlightened, and inferior to cultures that have replaced it.
Some of us were lucky, the beneficiaries of grammar school education, first-rate universities without fees, and student grants so generous that some even managed to save money. Most were not so lucky. I wonder what became of the people in the film.
Update: for those who cannot see iPlayer, the film may be visible (with sub-titles) on YouTube in three segments:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/PxAKfnbFWe0
Part 2: https://youtu.be/sY9Fm4Y9k1c
Part 3: https://youtu.be/XZzTsThUIlU
There are some surprising treasures in the depths of the BBC iPlayer. 
The school looks like my partner's school in Newcastle, boys to the left and girls to the right.
ReplyDeleteThere were quite a lot built to a similar design during the 1940s.
DeleteI will get round to watching that film in the next few days. Hartlepool holds a special place in my heart because some of my ancestors moved there when agricultural work in North Yorkshire began to dry up in the late nineteenth century. It was a story oft repeated - moving off the land and into heavy industry.
ReplyDeleteSome of mine moved to the booming town of Goole from villages in Lincolnshire.
DeleteThe film and the photos are such an important part of the history of that area. The older I get the more I appreciate the everyday history of people and towns. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeletePleased you like it. There are similar old films around on the web. I find them fascinating. Almost a lost way of life now.
DeleteIt's a shame the BBC iPlayer is not available here, I would like to watch this film. Quite of bit of life in northern Britain in the late 1950s and early 60s was not so different from life in my area. Women DID wear headscarves when leaving the house (and many for doing housework, too), and men were still looked at as the sole or main provider, not used to doing anything around the house or taking the children to school etc.
ReplyDeleteOne big difference with my area is that we had the US military here; their presence meant we were used to seeing African Americans, and clubs catered to their taste in terms of music. Also, the infux of workers from Italy, Turkey and Spain had begun; they arrived upon invitation of the German ministry for work, since relatively soon after the war, Germany was still lacking men to do much of the work in the car industry, building and roadworks and so on.
The problem here was that most of Britain's industry was outdated, especially shipbuilding and motor manufacture. That's why it has now all gone.
DeleteI've added links above to a YouTube copy of the film.
The book I reviewed some time ago on my blog, "Northerners - A History" talks about that, too.
DeleteI have just checked out the YouTube links, thank you! I seem unable to get the volume up; I can hear it but find I have to strain my ears, no matter how much I faff with settings on my computer or on YouTube itself.
Daft bint I am!! It was the separate speaker that I had to turn up in order to hear better, and the 2nd part came on louder anyway.
DeleteNo problem with any of the accents, by the way.
Strangely the first thing that came to mind was Lady Docker, a socialite of that era with her husband and the luxury yacht they owned. Then the memory of the Queen dashing bottles of champagnes against the hull of newly made ships. Then of course the horror of unemployment and people living on the dole. I shall watch that film, a grey grubbiness of streets and sad people. But it is a pattern uttered again and again through time.
ReplyDeleteI remember her being mentioned and thinking it sounded more like as occupation than a name. I've looked her up and I can't see an association with Hartlepool - was it just the name association?
DeleteThis was well before Thatcher who brought unemployment all over the north. She was right that industry was outdated, but uncaring about the social consequences.
Our very own Grapes of Wrath in a way. Tough on them but maybe some of those experiences informed the way the next generations have been less constrained by gender roles.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, there was a report about present-day Hartlepool on BBC news yesterday. They now have a massive crime and drugs problem. Sixty years have passed, but I suspect the town never properly recovered.
DeleteThat was a depressing film - no jobs, no hope, no prospects and a gradual draining away of self-respect and dignity, a fate visited upon so many.
ReplyDeleteThere are towns around here that never got over the blight of the coal industry. Modernisation without an eye to the social consequenses is criminal. All the jobs moved to the south. Britain's stupidity.
DeleteI like your site and content. thanks for sharing the information keep updating,
ReplyDeletelooking forward for more posts. Thanks Sports News
Thank you. Have you considered covering more Yorkshire football teams on your blog?
DeleteI cannot view the report, unfortunately. It sounds like a good one. Later, I will come back to it and see if I can find something on the topic on You-tube. It reminds me of when my parents were young. They had married at 18, moved away from their families so that my father could take work at a steel mill. My mother stayed home with her children. My father was laid off regularly and often. They struggled a lot. There was a pride back then that seems to be lacking today. They didn't want their families to know. My mother talked about if family came on Sunday, they'd have a roast. What the family never knew is that the roast had to stretch for the rest of the week. My dad once spoke of a polish immigrant who was eating potato peels in his lunch. This went on for a while and somebody finally was able to talk to him and find out why. He'd never been paid, he said, and the men were aghast, because he'd been working there for a couple of months. No, he insisted, he had never been paid. They just give him a little piece of paper. He wait. No money. The men explained that those little pieces of paper needed to be taken to the bank. That's how you got money. He didn't know. Luckily, he'd carefully saved them all.
ReplyDeleteThe comment from the young man really was moving...the reluctance to take charity. That is an uncommon thing in today's world, don't you think?
It sounds like that was hard. I see the same pride in this film. Employers always have the upper hand.
DeleteI've added links to a YouTube version of the film I found at the end of the post.
I didn't know Jack Ashley had been a television producer. He was a politician I greatly admired. When I lived in the North East in the 1970s we attended all the football grounds. The Saturday we were due to go to Hartlepool there had been strong winds the day before and overnight and the main stand blew down and the match was postponed. I don't know if it was still the wooden stand, it may have been. Anyway, we never got to Hartlepool and never arranged another visit. Hartlepool was considered the pits and not a place one would normally visit.
ReplyDeleteIt still sounds grim. There was a report on BBC news about the crime and drugs problems they now have. Some years ago, someone said they had tried to turn the old dockyards area into a historical tourist centre, but the place is so out of the way I wonder how successful that was.
DeleteWow, interesting photos, thank you! I always love to see the haircuts and the fashion of a time - and of course the glimpses into sitting rooms and other private life. The headscarfs look elegant and handy: easy there when it rains.
ReplyDeleteWith indoor images, it is often the peripheral detail rather than the subject that is now of most interest. I don't know about elegance. Many women would not have been seen out without one then, and the men all wore either caps or hats. It changed. My dad used to blame the Beatles.
DeleteThe sickly smell of the butchers
ReplyDeleteThose headscarfs always worn Too tight lol
Yuk! The meat used to hang there without refrigeration.
DeleteWouldn't the scarves have blown off if they had not been tight?
I like the woman looking into the butchers from the outside - looks like an exacting customer.
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