New Month Old Post: first posted 10th February, 2016
What do you think of those who, watching films or television programmes set in the past, say: “they would not have used the phrase ‘too right’ in the twenties”, or that nineteen-fifties midwives would never have taken such an attitude to abortion, or that a locomotive shown in a wartime scene had not been built until the fifties? Are they nit-picking pedants or defenders of authenticity? I am about to join them.
In 2016, a television programme, “Back In Time For The Weekend”, took a family back to live as in the past. Episode by episode, their house and its contents were changed to how they would have been through the decades from the nineteen-fifties to the present day. Their furniture, decorations, kitchen and household appliances, and home entertainments were appropriate to the date. At the start of the series they had no television set or refrigerator, and they did not have a home computer until Episode 4 set in the nineteen-eighties.
Episode 2 was about the nineteen-sixties, when car ownership became more common. Supposedly in 1961, the family were given a blue, D-registration Morris Mini (above). The problem was it was a 1966 Mini, in 1961, five years before it was first registered. I know because I had one, blue, D reg., exactly the same, as in my blog header. Was the BBC research department taking shortcuts?
Those Minis had something called hydrolastic suspension. Instead of separate springs, the front and rear wheels were connected by pressurised pipes. The idea was that when a front wheel went over a bump, the pressure would tighten its paired back wheel to reduce the bounce. It was rubbish. Mine kept gradually losing pressure and sinking down into its wheel arches. It had to go every few months to be pumped up. It is astonishing after fifty years they found one that had not been scrapped years ago. The family of two adults and three teenage children in the programme would have weighed down the back and shone the headlights up into the air.
Here is my uncropped picture taken on the Cam Gill Road North of Kettlewell late in 1974 as we were putting on our boots for a walk to the top of Great Whernside. It was blowing a gale on top, but we were able to shelter in the large hollow summit cairn.
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| Near Kettlewell, 1974 |
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| Great Whernside Summit Cairn, 1974 |
As a mini owner in the 60s I loved my two minis. The first one sort of let rain through a hole in the floor and would grind to a slow halt when it rained because the distributor cap got wet. But they got you from A to B and were cute. The modern larger minis of today which I have seen in America are poor substitutes!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it now a Chinese company that makes Minis?
DeleteIt looks like BMW Germany that make them now, though they could outsource to China I suppose.
DeleteFrom the time when driving was fun. I had a very old Mini Van for about 6 months, but the engine was out. Then I got the blue Mini when it was 6 years old and kept it for 3, and then bought a 3-year-old Mini Van which was the most fun of all. The modern "Minis" are enormous ugly things, bigger than a 1960s Austin Cambridge, with only a passing resemblance to the originals.
DeleteI see many such errors and I used to remark on them when I saw them on tv and it drove my partner mad. So I stopped doing so but I still noticed.
ReplyDeleteA similar tv show was made here a couple of years ago, and then one about the evolution of a what you call a corner shop, and the family that ran the business and lived on the premises. They were quite interesting.
Yes, they are interesting, but they have a tendency to focus on the people in the programme rather than the subject, and then they make series after series until the idea if completely tired out. There was Back In Time To Tea about food, BITT School, and yes, BITT The Corner Shop, and others, each poorer than the previous series. BITT The Week End was one of the first and quite good.
DeleteNit-picking pedants or defenders of authenticity? In my opinion, it's the latter. When I first met Shirley she had a little cream-coloured Mini that also had hydrolastic suspension. What a dumb idea. We also had to get it pumped up quite regularly. Otherwise, it was a great little car.
ReplyDeleteThe original Minis were quite sporty, as were the later ones, but the hydrolastic ones had to be driven more sedately. They did not like being thrown round bends and corners. The Mini Van I bought after the blue car was great.
DeleteWe have to defend authenticity, or the truth and the facts are mired and then lost. Small details may not signify, but it's a lazy approach in what is supposed to be documentary material.
ReplyDeleteThe ones that really annoy me are the films that overstate the American contribution to things.
DeleteHistorical anachronisms drive me nuts too.
ReplyDeleteThey pander to the easy watch audience who they take it as fact. It is easy to rewrite history and hard to be accurate.
DeleteI remember the series, must have come across it somehow on youtube, or maybe I happened to be in Ripon when it was on TV. Anyway, I would not have known about the 5 year difference with the car, but I‘m all for authenticity - especially when the show was designed to give us an impression of what life was like at a certain time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, the 1973/74 Musketeer films with Michael York as D‘Artagnan were shown on German TV. I loved those films, and especially Michael York. But I noticed that in one scene, the royal court are dancing a minuet composed by Luigi Boccherini, who wasn‘t even born yet at the time Alexandre Dumas had set his Musketeer stories.
As replied to Andrew, above, there were several series in the same vein, until it was done to death. Nice one about the Boccherini. It puts you well ahead in the pedantry stakes here, but we await what certain other (nameless) contributors might say.
DeleteSome of these blunders are from sloppy research, One does like to see something authentic.
ReplyDeletePossibly they were unable to obtain one of the right year for the TV programme, but I agree entirely there is no excuse when it happens through short cuts and negligence.
DeleteI had a blue mini van ( had to be a van as my son plays/played the double bass and needed transporting round for various school orchestras). I loved it - nice and hippy, never let me down. Vowed to get a 'proper' mini one day - never did.
ReplyDeleteNice views of Great Whernside - don't suppose I shall see it again but plenty of good views from Buttertubs.
I had two mini vans and like you I loved it. The car with the hydrolastic suspension was not so good. Short of a miracle, I am unlikely to see the Yorkshire Dales or lots of other places again, so it is wonderful to have the photographs. I have others of Great Whernside taken on the same day, along with the walking companion I was with.
DeleteGreat photo of you, by the way, and I am not talking about the Mini!
DeleteBritta - pre-scruffy-beard, with eyes resting closed after being in strong wind.
DeleteDear Tasker, that was a great idea for a series! Sorry I missed it.
ReplyDeleteThe Blue Mini might be a sad mistake - the BBC makers should have used the blue eyeshadow I wrote about in my blog of today - and woosh they could have sailed back in time.
You could host a new series: Back In Time For The Look.
DeleteHa - I found it on Youtube and spent a wonderful half an hour (the rest will follow in the evening) - and now I understood for the first time why my father was such a great maker of wonderful things, and my mother too: he cobbled shoes, had a vegetable patch, could make cupboards and paint them - all very perfect; and my mother sew wonderful. They were very good with the little money they had, and saved a lot (of the little) so we were often the first in our street: to have a TV (neighbours came to watch with us!) and a telephone (neighbours came...) - though my sister and I had to use the public telephone box) and quite early they bought a VW - so the motorbike became dispensable - and streets were empty and parking place no problem - and we children could play in the streets. I do not remember that I was ever bored.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that wonderful tip for watching, Tasker - you made my day!
It was a great programme in the early series when it was fresh, but by the time they had reached the 3rd and 4th series it was beginning to look tired out.
DeleteI've no doubt things would have been the same all over Europe. It was when I went to Belgium in 1965. The high standard of living was mainly in the U.S.
I am very much interested: do you believe that BBC really changed the interior of their house (I mean "really" - with destroying tiles etc?)
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