Thank you, Eileen and Tony Colburn for putting together this fascinating social document. Although I didn't live in the UK in the '50s, I remember the rather primitive state of Heathrow Airport from arriving and departing from there as a toddler (for my father's "leave" from Malaya, where he'd been since the early 1930s). So the Heathrow story made me chuckle. But there was so much more of interest...It still astounds me, for example, that Brits had to endure rationing for so many years after the war had ended. And it was interesting to hear one of the interviewees say that her family didn't know they were poor. This makes more sense in an era when television wasn't widely available to show the lifestyles of the rich if not necessarily famous; however, I'm puzzled as to how unions & working class movements were more vigorous then, at a time that seemingly produced less class consciousness, than now. Oh and one further thing: Although one man mentioned joining the army, I don't think National Service was mentioned. That played a pretty important part of many young men's lives, I believe - with skills learned during it facilitating upward social mobility.
Thank you, Eileen and Tony Colburn for putting together this fascinating social document. Although I didn't live in the UK in the '50s, I remember the rather primitive state of Heathrow Airport from arriving and departing from there as a toddler (for my father's "leave" from Malaya, where he'd been since the early 1930s). So the Heathrow story made me chuckle. But there was so much more of interest...It still astounds me, for example, that Brits had to endure rationing for so many years after the war had ended. And it was interesting to hear one of the interviewees say that her family didn't know they were poor. This makes more sense in an era when television wasn't widely available to show the lifestyles of the rich if not necessarily famous; however, I'm puzzled as to how unions & working class movements were more vigorous then, at a time that seemingly produced less class consciousness, than now. Oh and one further thing: Although one man mentioned joining the army, I don't think National Service was mentioned. That played a pretty important part of many young men's lives, I believe - with skills learned during it facilitating upward social mobility.
I spent 13 months in the 50s