# The 70s



## elbows (Apr 16, 2012)

I see the BBC news site has been promoting this series which starts tonight at 9pm on BBC two.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17703483

If its like the article then I expect I may cringe at some of the positive spin, but there is also some potential here and I have a bit of a thing for the 70s since it was a time when the political spectrum was still alive in a broad sense, it was the decade I was born and so colours early memories, and a large swathe of my favourite tv programs and films are from the 1970s or earlier.


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## marty21 (Apr 16, 2012)

I remember the 70s fairly well - I was 14 at the end of them - good times for me - I don't remember the bad stuff - I thought the 3 day week sounded a good idea - I didn't realise at the time that it meant lower pay  I remember feeling happy when the miners won their strike  and the blackouts were fun - candles and all that


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## purves grundy (Apr 16, 2012)

I was thinking the other day, it's about time someone made a programme exploring things that happened in the recent past. Could be interesting way to look at things?


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 16, 2012)

It was grim and miserable, which was much better than the 80s! Which was shiny and shit.


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## Gingerman (Apr 16, 2012)

I remember the '70s as being very brown and beige.


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## quimcunx (Apr 16, 2012)

I remember the water shortage vaguely.  It was novel collecting water from a pump.   And winter power cuts from snow seemed more common which were fun.


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## elbows (Apr 16, 2012)

This program turns out to be perfect fodder for urban75. 

Don't know where to start!


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## Pickman's model (Apr 16, 2012)

elbows said:


> This program turns out to be perfect fodder for urban75.
> 
> Don't know where to start!


it's traditional to start at the beginning.


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## ElizabethofYork (Apr 16, 2012)

I thought it was a really interesting programme.  I was a teenager in the 70s, so remembered most of the things that the programme talked about, but it was good to think about the events in retrospect.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 16, 2012)

i wonder how you'd think about the 70s in advance


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Apr 16, 2012)

marty21 said:


> I remember the 70s fairly well - I was 14 at the end of them - good times for me - I don't remember the bad stuff - I thought the 3 day week sounded a good idea - I didn't realise at the time that it meant lower pay  I remember feeling happy when the miners won their strike  and the blackouts were fun - candles and all that


 
I was in my mid twenties at the end of the seventies. I spent my youth there. I recall the youth culture, music etc going from hippie to disco to punk.


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## imposs1904 (Apr 16, 2012)

elbows said:


> I see the BBC news site has been promoting this series which starts tonight at 9pm on BBC two.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17703483
> 
> If its like the article then I expect I may cringe at some of the positive spin, but there is also some potential here and I have a bit of a thing for the 70s since it was a time when the political spectrum was still alive in a broad sense, it was the decade I was born and so colours early memories, and a large swathe of my favourite tv programs and films are from the 1970s or earlier.


 
Serious question: how does it compare to I Love The Seventies? That was a good show.


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 16, 2012)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> I was in my mid twenties at the end of the seventies. I spent my youth there. I recall the youth culture, music etc going from hippie to disco to punk.


 
I had no idea. Thought you were younger. I was merely eight when they ended.


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## ElizabethofYork (Apr 16, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> i wonder how you'd think about the 70s in advance


 
  You boring idiot.


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 16, 2012)

Do you remember the rock and roll years??
When they started doing the 80s I got a bit freaked out. Before then I didn't really have a history. Fingerless gloves were never weird, nothing I had ever done had become old fashioned.


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## editor (Apr 16, 2012)

The 70s was fucking grim. Everything was falling apart. TV was bleak. Pubs were grim. Food was shit. Everyone I knew was broke and wearing hand me down clothes. Entertainment choices were hugely limited. 

On the other hand, I was young and punk was coming right up. Thank fuck.


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## _angel_ (Apr 16, 2012)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> I had no idea. Thought you were younger. I was merely eight when they ended.


You're the same age as me then.
I don't remember much, except the unrelenting brown clothes and being made to wear awful trousers.


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## Gingerman (Apr 16, 2012)

Were spangles and white dog shit mentioned?


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## Gingerman (Apr 16, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> You're the same age as me then.
> I don't remember much, except the unrelenting brown clothes and being made to wear awful trousers.


 Ah the brown suit,something you never see anyone wearing nowadays....thank fuck.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 16, 2012)

what's wrong with brown? i have a brown suit from the 70s and it looks way better than most suits you get off the peg on the high street these days.


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## editor (Apr 16, 2012)

Unless you were minted, you'd most likely be wearing a second hand suit in the 70s. Or have just the one for 'best.'


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## Pickman's model (Apr 16, 2012)

editor said:


> Unless you were minted, you'd most likely be wearing a second hand suit in the 70s. Or have just the one for 'best.'


only if you were up in front of the beak


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## Gingerman (Apr 16, 2012)




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## Pickman's model (Apr 16, 2012)

Gingerman said:


>


which one's you?


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## Gingerman (Apr 16, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> which one's you?








More of an '80s man meself.


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## not-bono-ever (Apr 16, 2012)

Ah, the '70s..such memories...

Scotland at the World Cup 78, Newcastle in the FA cup Final,Tartan tinged Glam rock, rock hard hash laced with rubber,Skol, the groundbreaking Austin allegro, The Olympics in 72....

Actually, it was a shit time. Really shit.and brown.

Programme was a nice take on the era though. Will be watching next week.


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## elbows (Apr 16, 2012)

I would moan that this thread has failed to have very much to do with the tv program, because my brain exploded after watching it to the point Ive not been able to say anything useful, and it doesn't look like anyone else actually saw it.

But to be honest since the program managed to so often clumsily tread into some of urban 75s favourite topics, I think the existing posts on urban 75 in many many threads over the years probably cover the topics trodden on by this program in a more lively and thorough way than this thread could even begin to achieve. Especially as Im useless right now, I haven't found a way of describing the presenters take on things, its staggering in places. I feel like people have vommited their aspirations all over me.


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## Kid_Eternity (Apr 16, 2012)

Gingerman said:


>


 
Wow I didn't know they had Instagram in the 70s!


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## peterkro (Apr 17, 2012)

I just watched the program on iPlayer,just my opinion obnov. but what a load of steaming shite.I can see the program makers talking about it,cheap telly we will just use mainstream media clips from the seventies (when they were portraying an imbecilic idea of how most people lived their lives ) and have some arsehole rabbiting on about "aspiration" and the building of 21st century Britian. Absolute and complete bollocks.The program has really pissed me off,all the more so because it'll probably be the only way a lot of younger people will view the 70's.


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## gentlegreen (Apr 17, 2012)

Been there. done that, you can keep the 80s too - especially the 80s.  puke


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Apr 17, 2012)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> I had no idea. Thought you were younger. I was merely eight when they ended.


 
That's just my immaturity showing.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> The 70s was fucking grim. Everything was falling apart. TV was bleak. Pubs were grim. Food was shit. Everyone I knew was broke and wearing hand me down clothes. Entertainment choices were hugely limited.
> 
> On the other hand, I was young and punk was coming right up. Thank fuck.


 
Which decade was On The Buses?


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

The programme was shallow and uninsightful, and the presenter was annoying; his theses - such as they were - were slight and, usually, wrong.


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## girasol (Apr 17, 2012)

My experience of the 70s was very different, as I was in different countries, so it was interesting to see what was going on here in some 'detail'. I didn't know Britain joined the EU on the year I was born...


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

I remember the referendum.


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 17, 2012)

BBC dumbs down a decade. Nostalgia reigns.

There was probably more insight in 'I love the seventies'.


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## marty21 (Apr 17, 2012)

me at the end of the 70s - just about in shot on the far right, behind the small boy in blue - my bro


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## marty21 (Apr 17, 2012)

with my sister , 1975 I think, green flowery shirt for school!


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## girasol (Apr 17, 2012)

For those who are outraged by it, that was just the first one, right? and it looked at 70-72, wasn't the stuff on the miners strike what happened?

And the house prices, and people buying houses, gentrification of Islington, new towns being built?  What else was going on? (Genuine question!)


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

girasol said:


> For those who are outraged by it


How could anyone be outraged by insipid blancmange?


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## girasol (Apr 17, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> How could anyone be outraged by insipid blancmange?


 


Someone else mentioned I would give people the wrong impression of what it was like, but then again I it depends where you were living, and what your financial situation/class was... A bit like now then!   I thought it was interesting how it showed the gentrification of Islington.

Some things you can't argue with I don't think, for example, more people were buying their own homes and more people were going abroad for holidays, and the era of rampant consumerism was slowing developing?


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## Mr Moose (Apr 17, 2012)

Pickman's model said:


> i wonder how you'd think about the 70s in advance



I often did during the 'sixties'.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 17, 2012)

Mr Moose said:


> I often did during the 'sixties'.


Yes. But it was a lot easier to do so then than it is now


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## Pickman's model (Apr 17, 2012)

marty21 said:


> View attachment 18246 with my sister , 1975 I think, green flowery shirt for school!


No beard I note


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## Pickman's model (Apr 17, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> How could anyone be outraged by insipid blancmange?


Because it's shit and dull


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

girasol said:


> Someone else mentioned I would give people the wrong impression of what it was like, but then again I it depends where you were living, and what your financial situation/class was... A bit like now then!  I thought it was interesting how it showed the gentrification of Islington.
> 
> Some things you can't argue with I don't think, for example, more people were buying their own homes and more people were going abroad for holidays, and the era of rampant consumerism was slowing developing?


OK, well, I don't know the presenter, although I read in a preview of the TV series that he wrote a book called White Heat about the 60s. I haven't read it, so I hesitate to draw conclusions about where he is coming from.

However, let's look at what he said last night: the 72 miners' strike wasn't about collectivism, but about individualism. (Despite that, he said the reason for its success was the union's erm... collectivism: the flying pickets). So his thesis is that the population is _pushing government_ in an individualist direction.

Now look at the context - what was going on in the early 70s? Well, first thing to note is Heath's attack on trade unions in the Industrial Relations Act 1971. So what was Heath's government doing? It was trying to reduce the welfare state and reduce nationalisation, and it was trying to steer away from the post war consensus and give a freer hand to market forces. Heath saw the unions as a block on a free labour market. So _he_ was pushing the unions. However, the post war consensus was going to be defended as it had been won - by organised labour. The unions were in a position of strength because the labour force was: there had been full employment for decades. The labour force weakens as unemployment rises. (This much is obvious).

So who wants a rise in individualism or rather, a fracturing of collectivism and the atomisation of solidarity? The Tory government, in support of the interests of capital.

The presenter makes a big play of the miners wanting more money, and says this is a sign of individualism. But the miners were on £1300 PA when the average wage was £2000 PA. They'd seen a reduction in their standard of living (a clip said as much). The presenter ignores this fact. Of course they want a share in society's affluence: they are, after all, powering it!

His other insight (slight as it was) was that Islington liberals were really a branch of the future ruling class on the make. No shit, Watson.


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## ElizabethofYork (Apr 17, 2012)

I identified a lot with the programme because I was a working class 12 year old living in an old terraced house in Islington (owned at the time by the local authority) when it started to become "gentrified" and we all got shipped off to the suburbs and new towns, while the old houses got poshed up and sold to the middle classes.

The memories of people going for their first foreign holidays, the Europe referendum, the Ugandan Asians arriving, and the excitement of new, glam pop stars like Marc Bolan and David Bowie was really interesting. I felt the programme explained my growing-up years!

Okay, it wasn't a deep political analysis of the times, but that wasn't its aim, was it?


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## redsquirrel (Apr 17, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> The programme was shallow and uninsightful, and the presenter was annoying; his theses - such as they were - were slight and, usually, wrong.


Typical modern BBC documentary fodder then?


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

There was zero gentrification going on in the Welsh valleys in the 1970s. Quite the reverse actually.


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## girasol (Apr 17, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> OK, well, I don't know the presenter, although I read in a preview of the TV series that he wrote a book called White Heat about the 60s. I haven't read it, so I hesitate to draw conclusions about where he is coming from.


 
ah, so he wrote 'White Heat'? He's got a job for life on the BBC now! His book was made into a series which only just finished. I'd describe it as a romance with bits of history thrown in... Started in the 60s and finished up in 'the now'.

Yeah, the whole thing about the rise of the individualism and the fall of collectivism - I don't know, it got me thinking, if people really weren't aspiring to have more material things and were against privatisation, they would have fought against it?

The sad truth, IMO, is that most people actually bought into it. They did want the house, the holidays, the white goods, the lifestyle they were seeing advertised everywhere. There wasn't enough of the few who actually understood what the fuck was going on to make themselves heard.


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

People weren't necessarily buying into consumerism : they just wanted stuff like washing machines and hoovers and TVs because life was a real fucking drudge without them.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

girasol said:


> ah, so he wrote 'White Heat'? He's got a job for life on the BBC now! His book was made into a series which only just finished. I'd describe it as a romance with bits of history thrown in... Started in the 60s and finished up in 'the now'.


Fwiw, the recent BBC series was written by a woman - Paula Milne. Haven't seen it described as an adaptation.


I remember there was a lot of violence and industrial action in the 70s; IRA in London, NF marches, football hooliganism went mental, Punk/Rockers, Rock Against Racism, mass picketing, power cuts.. a lot more than that as well.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

First shot of the presenter was him walking through my estate. 

I also thought that the programme was fairly shallow, telling me not much that's new.

Growning up in Germany, I don't remember the decade as brown and beige, what I do remember was that it was the last decade of modernism and the first decade of nostalgia and that was quite apparent in our flat. We also always had decent food and a continental drink and eating culture (and not just sausages and kraut as the national stereotype goes), but we had some of the same food fads (fondue, raclette).

One thing I hadn't realised was that drinking wine wasn't that common in the UK. Is that true ? And I don't know any Germans who drank Blue Nun, I had not even heard of it till I came to the UK. I think we just sold that crap to you lot.  Spanish and Italian wines were most popular in Germany in the 70s.

Fashion wasn't all brown flared polyester suits, much of it was inspired by 20s to 50s clothes and was rather elegant. I have a lot of vintage 70s clothes which people assume are from the 40s. If you look at what Yves Saint Laurent and Halston did, that style still timeless and some of it trickled down to the high street.  My mum did buy me some shit clothes though. I still shudder at the flared suede patchwork trousers she made me wear


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> First shot of the presenter was him walking through my estate.


It looked like a former 'award winning' estate not a stones throw from Crystal Palace?


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> It looked like Crystal Palace?


 
It's St Johns Wood/West Hampstead.

http://www.alexandraandainsworth.org/gallery.html


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

i felt it had a pretty strong right wing bias


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

as you would.


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## DotCommunist (Apr 17, 2012)

for me the 70s is somewhere between scum and confessions of a window cleaner.

Looks rubbish tbf


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## ElizabethofYork (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> One thing I hadn't realised was that drinking wine wasn't that common in the UK. Is that true ? And I don't know any Germans who drank Blue Nun, I had not even heard of it till I came to the UK. I think we just sold that crap to you lot. Spanish and Italian wines were most popular in Germany in the 70s.


 
Yes, it is true.  I remember my mum and dad always used to drink light & bitter when I was a child, and then they started drinking Blue Nun because they thought it was "sophisticated"!


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

A fair chuck of what's to know about the 70s is in Mike Leigh's _Abigail's Party_: painful stuff.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> A fair chuck of what's to know about the 70s is in Mike Leigh's _Abigail's Party_: painful stuff.


 
That's exactly how the 70s are missold to us now and what annoys me about how they get re-resented retrospectively. Abigails Party is not a documentary, it's a caricature. It's very much about the rather snobbish and hateful way Leigh views people. He sneers at lower middle class people and their aspirations and poor taste. But it wasn't like all people had crap taste and loved Demis Roussos. My family was lower middle class and aspirational but not "vulgar" as Abigals Party would have it.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

It was written in '76/'77. I remember a relative who was an estate agent then. I remember the cringing 'class climbing' aspiration of so many.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> It was written in 76/'77. I remember a relative who was an estate agent then. I remember the cringing aspiration of so many.


But to say that all middle class people were like that is reductive and simplistic. Sure some may have been, but there always were and will be twats.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> But to say that all middle class people were like that is reductive and simplistic. Sure some may have been, but there always were and will be twats.


 

Leigh nor I claim it's representative of an entire social class across a whole nation though an entire period. It's like saying British music was only David Bowie.

It's accurate and outstanding in what it does.


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## ElizabethofYork (Apr 17, 2012)

It's cringing to watch because it IS such an accurate portrayal of many working class/lower-middle class aspirations!


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

Anyone trying to give the 70s a sepia tinge should remember what the food was like for most people. Dull. Bland. Limited. Stuff we take for granted now didn't exist in the 1970s. Avocado? You're avin a laugh.

Most beer was awful fizzy shite. Coffee was undrinkable. Bread was a sweetened slop of white mush. Most tinned foods were hideously over-processed and sugar was slopped about everywhere.

The transport system was a mess, with BR being run down into the ground and many stations near derelict sheds. Bus services ran when they felt like it (which wasn't very often).

And just about the whole world went to bed at 11pm when the miserable three channels on offer turned off.

And don't get me started on the crushing emptiness of Sundays...


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## marty21 (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> One thing I hadn't realised was that drinking wine wasn't that common in the UK. Is that true ? And I don't know any Germans who drank Blue Nun, I had not even heard of it till I came to the UK. I think we just sold that crap to you lot. Spanish and Italian wines were most popular in Germany in the 70s.


 
My parents didn't drink wine  - my mum didn't drink much anyway - but was a brandy or whiskey drinker iirc - dad drank whiskey, lager, cider, guinness, whatever was in the pub  They didn't drink at home at all - unless we had relations over from Ireland - and it was whiskey then as well - wine was for posh people .


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

I've read a couple of his books, You Never Had it so Good about the 50's and State of Emergency about the 70's. He's a conservative popular historian.


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## marty21 (Apr 17, 2012)

I worked in a green grocers in the late 70s , a saturday job - veg was pretty basic and seasonal - people got excited when the spring greens were due - they'd ask for weeks beforehand if they were due  New Potatoes were also popular, the veg were your basic root vegetables, onions, tomatos, cucumber, etc - fruit was basically apples, oranges, satsumas and bananas I think, and we sold a lot of loose nuts


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> Anyone trying to give the 70s a sepia tinge should remember what the food was like for most people. Dull. Bland. Limited. Stuff we take for granted now didn't exist in the 1970s. Avocado? You're avin a laugh.
> 
> Most beer was awful fizzy shite. Coffee was undrinkable. Bread was a sweetened slop of white mush. Most tinned foods were hideously over-processed and sugar was slopped about everywhere..


 
I don't doubt that. When it comes to food and drink, moving from Germany to the UK in the early 80s was a shock to the system. I came from a culture where we have hundreds of different sorts of bread to one where there was just one. That's just one reason why on the continent we experienced the 70s more positively.


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## gentlegreen (Apr 17, 2012)

Liebfraumilch


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

yeah, we got all the continental rejected wine


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## strict machine (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> That's exactly how the 70s are missold to us now and what annoys me about how they get re-resented retrospectively. Abigails Party is not a documentary, it's a caricature. It's very much about the rather snobbish and hateful way Leigh views people. He sneers at lower middle class people and their aspirations and poor taste. But it wasn't like all people had crap taste and loved Demis Roussos. My family was lower middle class and aspirational but not "vulgar" as Abigals Party would have it.


Mine were! We lived in a Lancashire pit viallage and they gave me an affected name (in the same ball park as Portia/Fenella/Marcia) and sent me to a private school even though it crippled them financially. I remember my mum flouncing around in around in garish paisley evening dresses drinking Babysham just like in Abigails party.
With respect the programme is about Britain in the 70's so its not suprising that your experience in Germany was completely different, is it?


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

I suppose so. I just haven't liked most of Leighs films he has made since and I don't find many of them particularely truthful about more current times and not that insightful about people in general. He develops his scripts in acting workshops and it depends on particular actors. Sometimes the actors and Leigh are too seduced by caricature, because it gives them a chance to ham it up. I just don't know what to take away from a film that just tells me, these characters are vulgar and stupid, when I'm sure there were people who were not like that or at least had other sides to them.


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## blossie33 (Apr 17, 2012)

Maybe I was lucky but I was in work all through the 70's and, despite the three day week, power cuts etc. I have no bad memories of things - the food, beer etc was not that bad! Life wasn't dull or bland for me - I had various interests, a good social life and lots of friends.


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## strict machine (Apr 17, 2012)

.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> I suppose so. I just haven't liked most of Leighs films he has made since and I don't find many of them particularely truthful about more current times and not that insightful about people in general. He develops his scriopts in acting workshops and it depends on particular actors. Sometimes the actors and Leigh are too seduced by caricature, because it gives them a chance to ham it up.


his last one was brilliant.


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## girasol (Apr 17, 2012)

blossie33 said:


> Maybe I was lucky but I was in work all through the 70's and, despite the three day week, power cuts etc. I have no bad memories of things - the food, beer etc was not that bad! Life wasn't dull or bland for me - I had various interests, a good social life and lots of friends.


 
Where did you live, maybe life in bigger cities was more exciting?  Mebbe not, tell me!


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> his last one was brilliant.


 
I liked Naked and Topsy Turvey, but both of them strike me as atypical. I haven't seen the last one.


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## strict machine (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> I suppose so. I just haven't liked most of Leighs films he has made since and I don't find many of them particularely truthful about more current times and not that insightful about people in general. He develops his scriopts in acting workshops and it depends on particular actors. Sometimes the actors and Leigh are too seduced by caricature, because it gives them a chance to ham it up. I just don't know what to take away from a film that just tells me, these characters are vulgar and stupid, when I'm sure there were people who were not like that or at least had other sides to them.


I agree that he's only had a narrow experience of life and its the only perspective that he takes. Its bound to make you feel alienated if you've never met these characters. Having been nowhere else than Coronation Street land for the first 20 years of my life I was shocked to find that there really were sloans and yuppies when I moved south in the mid 80's. I thought that they were gross fictitious characatures before that!


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## blossie33 (Apr 17, 2012)

girasol said:


> Where did you live, maybe life in bigger cities was more exciting? Mebbe not, tell me!


 
I lived in Birmingham up until 1998


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## redsquirrel (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> I liked Naked and Topsy Turvey, but both of them strike me as atypical. I haven't seen the last one.


I hated it (while accepting that it was a very good film) for the exact reasons you've given in this thread. A horrible, sneering piece of work.

Besides Topsy Turvey the other one of his that I like is Happy Go Lucky.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> I've read a couple of his books, You Never Had it so Good about the 50's and State of Emergency about the 70's. He's a conservative popular historian.


Yes, I guessed that from the programme.


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

And then there's the relentless homophobia, sexism and racism that was the hallmark of the 70s.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> And then there's the relentless homophobia, sexism and racism that was the hallmark of the 70s.


 
...but it was also the start of the gay rights movement, when feminism got a foothold and when black culture went mainstream. It was the decade where everything changed and where the old attitudes saw their days numbered. By the end of the 70s these communities were in a very different place from where they were at the start.


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## spliff (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> And then there's the relentless homophobia, sexism and racism that was the hallmark of the 70s.


A lot of that we only really recognise in hindsight.
I worked in cinemas throughout the 70's and would get home just in time for the 'don't forget to unplug your set' announcement.
I had some great times with great people, but looking back it was a groggy and sluggish era. Until punk came along.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> I suppose so. I just haven't liked most of Leighs films he has made since and I don't find many of them particularely truthful about more current times and not that insightful about people in general. He develops his scripts in acting workshops and it depends on particular actors. Sometimes the actors and Leigh are too seduced by caricature, because it gives them a chance to ham it up. I just don't know what to take away from a film that just tells me, these characters are vulgar and stupid, when I'm sure there were people who were not like that or at least had other sides to them.


As has been suggested, you'r points are really about Mike Leigh and not about a country you know nothing of in the 70s - which is obv. fine, but maybe in another thread.


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## hammerntongues (Apr 17, 2012)

Stating the obvious maybe but 2 or 3 years in age difference and location has us remembering things very differently , I left school in `76 in S.E.England , first wage packet and independence shortly followed by punk , my memory is going to be very different from someone only a couple of years older who lived in an industrial or mining town and was directly affected by the strikes , 70`s for me was nothing but fond memories.
The programme was lightweight , one stat that did surprise me was that house prices doubled in 3 years between 72 and 74 , if I rememeber right and rose 10 fold between 1970 and 1980 !


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 17, 2012)

The 70s was great because it produced public information films like this:



and



Which sum up the general mood of the decade I think.....


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## rubbershoes (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> And don't get me started on the crushing emptiness of Sundays...


 




			
				 Alan Patridge said:
			
		

> 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. What a great song. It really encapsulates the frustration of a Sunday, doesn't it? You wake up in the morning, you've got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you've got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think "Sunday, bloody Sunday!"


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

girasol said:


> ah, so he wrote 'White Heat'? He's got a job for life on the BBC now! His book was made into a series which only just finished. I'd describe it as a romance with bits of history thrown in... Started in the 60s and finished up in 'the now'.
> 
> Yeah, the whole thing about the rise of the individualism and the fall of collectivism - I don't know, it got me thinking, if people really weren't aspiring to have more material things and were against privatisation, they would have fought against it?
> 
> The sad truth, IMO, is that most people actually bought into it. They did want the house, the holidays, the white goods, the lifestyle they were seeing advertised everywhere. There wasn't enough of the few who actually understood what the fuck was going on to make themselves heard.


He didn't write the drama White Heat. He wrote a history of the 60's called White Heat.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> As has been suggested, you'r points are really about Mike Leigh and not about a country you know nothing of in the 70s - which is obv. fine, but maybe in another thread.


 
Having visited London on a regular basis since 1976, having moved here not long after the 70s and having seen and read many other representations of the 70s in the UK in film and TV and having good friends who lived here in the 70s gives me some idea. It's not like I know nothing about it.


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> i felt it had a pretty strong right wing bias


You're right, it  did.


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> as you would.


Dominic Sandbrook is well known as a conservative.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> Having visited London on a regular basis since 1976, having moved here not long after the 70s and having seen and read many other representations of the 70s in the UK in film and TV and having good friends who lived here in the 70s gives me some idea. It's not like I know nothing about it.


Great. I feel the same about West Germany. I'm sure you'd love to read my thoughts.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> Dominic Sandbrook is well known as a conservative.


Ok. Then describe the "right wing bias"  because (a) it would be helpful and (b) a simple statement is obv. worth shit.


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 17, 2012)

Peterborough. Center of the 70s universe apparently. Who knew?

I always thought it was Basingstoke.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

the first thing that springs to mind is what he said about the miners and scargill and how they were aspirational and thatcherite rather than socialists


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## quimcunx (Apr 17, 2012)

elbows said:


> I would moan that this thread has failed to have very much to do with the tv program, because my brain exploded after watching it to the point Ive not been able to say anything useful, and it doesn't look like anyone else actually saw it.
> 
> But to be honest since the program managed to so often clumsily tread into some of urban 75s favourite topics, I think the existing posts on urban 75 in many many threads over the years probably cover the topics trodden on by this program in a more lively and thorough way than this thread could even begin to achieve. Especially as Im useless right now, I haven't found a way of describing the presenters take on things, its staggering in places. I feel like people have vommited their aspirations all over me.


 
I'm going to have to find time to watch this now.  You have piqued my interest.   How awful can it be?


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> the first thing that springs to mind is what he said about the miners and scargill and how they were aspirational and thatcherite rather than socialists


Indeed. Like you can't be aspirational and socialist.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> Great. I feel the same about West Germany. I'm sure you'd love to read my thoughts.


 
Yes, I would actually especially if you've visited there a lot in the 70s and then moved there soon after.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> Yes, I would actually.


you'd regret it, as they'd be tedious, hectoring and smug.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> Indeed. Like you can't be aspirational and socialist.


Furthermore, "Thatcherism was a product of the 70s". No shit, Watson. She was a Minister in Heath's government, too, wasn't she, Dom?


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> you'd regret it, as they'd be tedious, hectoring and smug.


If only we could all be you.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

QED, Blagsta.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> If only we could all be you.


that would be a tragedy


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> ...but it was also the start of the gay rights movement, when feminism got a foothold and when black culture went mainstream. It was the decade where everything changed and where the old attitudes saw their days numbered. By the end of the 70s these communities were in a very different place from where they were at the start.


Sure. But that was little comfort for people living through it.


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> that would be a tragedy


So.. tell us more about non-aspirational socialism?


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> So.. tell us more about non-aspirational socialism?


Are you confusing O_U with the presenter of the programme?


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> So.. tell us more about non-aspirational socialism?


 
Hi Dom.


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## Idaho (Apr 17, 2012)

It seems that the Rock and Roll Years seems to have cast a long shadow over all recent history programmes. They end up being little more than a cultural patchwork of attractive footage from the period. "Bowie was topping the charts, and Charlton scored 8 goals at Wembley" etc. Cultural manifestations are entertaining. And there is nothing wrong with watching programmes to spot the curtains we used to have, etc. However there tends to be little in the way of real content or insight. Just well edited and compiled footage which invariably tells a story quite removed from the reality of the decade itself.

Any programme on the 70's would show houses decorated in the latest 70s fashion. But the vast majority of people would be living in houses with outdated 50's and 60's decoration. A dull example - but what it points to is that people don't suddenly become bang up to date and live in the zeitgeist shown in classic 70s' footage. Decades come and go with their trappings and fashions. It's the attitudes and deeper political, cultural and other changes that are more interesting and meaningful.

I recall arguing with a lecturer at university on this point. That you couldn't just see political attitudes in the 1920s without looking at the trends and significant features of the previous decade. "No. The 1920s are a distinct historical period" he said. What a twat.


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> Sure. But that was little comfort for people living through it.


 
That's wrong and I can tell you that as a gay man who lived throught much the 70s as a teenager. Even then I was acutely aware of the changes that went on and it gave me a sense of confidence and comfort knowing that i wasn't on my own and that there wasn't anything wrong about my sexuality. That's despite the fact that every so often I got bashed up at school and that the representations of gay people was severely lacking in the meda, though even that was improving as the decade went on. Nobody is saying that things were all rosy in the 70s for minorities, they still aren't, but that's when they made their biggest leaps and gains and how could they not draw comfort from that ?


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> So.. tell us more about non-aspirational socialism?


does it exist?


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> does it exist?


I only saw 90 seconds. I'm hoping to learn from your description of the bias in the programme.


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## seeformiles (Apr 17, 2012)

I can relate to a lot of what's been said on this thread. While we had neighbours who fitted very nicely into the "Aspirational" mould (colour telly, central heating, faux-leather furniture with ashtray on a long stem and swivel chair for "dad", holidays in Spain, etc.), I grew up in a house with one coal fire, no fridge, no phone and a black and white telly and recall feeling a bit resentful about it all (what a brat!).  During the power cuts my old man told us that having a bottled gas cooker and a coal fire meant we were warm and could eat while our (electric powered) neighbours were cold and hungry! Both my parents were "green" before the term was bandied about and it was very much "The Good Life" with a communist tinge from my old man e.g. he would wear cheap shoes made in Poland since it was supporting the workers behind the iron curtain, make his own paper bricks with a homemade machine involving pram parts and bean tins and we'd drink this awful chicory "coffee" called Barleycup that my mother got from the market which came in tins that had the original polish label underneath the English one. I was pretty resentful of it at the time but I think, in hindsight, it's made me a very unmaterialistic adult. Don't know whether that's good or bad but Mrs SFM (who grew up very much in the stereotype presented by this programme) gets really annoyed at my "make-do-and-mend" ways.


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## editor (Apr 17, 2012)

Reno said:


> That's wrong and I can tell you that as a gay man who lived throught much the 70s as a teenager. Even then I was acutely aware of the changes that went on and it gave me a sense of confidence and comfort knowing that i wasn't on my own and that there wasn't anything wrong about my sexuality.


I'm glad your experiences were so positive but there's no shortage of tales of gay people having a truly terrible time in the 1970s.

Where did you grow up, by the way?


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> I only saw 90 seconds. I'm hoping to learn from your description of the bias in the programme.


Why not watch the programme on iplayer?


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## London_Calling (Apr 17, 2012)

Why?


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## Reno (Apr 17, 2012)

editor said:


> I'm glad your experiences were so positive but there's no shortage of tales of gay people having a truly terrible time in the 1970s.
> 
> Where did you grow up, by the way?


 
My experiences were far from positve. I grew up in Munich. It was catholic and rabidly right wing and still full of the old nazi spirit in the 70s. I got gay bashed several times and my mother chucked me out when I came out of the closet. It's one of the main reasons I left the country and moved to London at the age of 20 where I felt far more safe and accepted.

I said I drew comfort from the knowledge that things were changing and at least there was enough information out there to know that nothing was wrong with me, but that the fault lay with society. I started to hang out with people active in the gay rights movement in my late teens. In the 60s or 50s I might have topped myself.


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## spliff (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> Why?


Because we're not just talking about the 70's but a programme made about the the 70's.
That's why


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## Blagsta (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> Why?


You're obviously curious about it, why not watch it?


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## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> I only saw 90 seconds. I'm hoping to learn from your description of the bias in the programme.


what vain hopes.


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## hammerntongues (Apr 17, 2012)

I don`t think it was biased , my take is that the right would have seen it as left biased , sympathy/empathy for the strikers , Ugandan asians  etc. it was just lightweight but i really don`t think it was meant to be anything else but light entrtainment , did anyone else turnover to channel 5 and watch Webb host why I hate 1995 ?


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 17, 2012)

Idaho said:


> It seems that the Rock and Roll Years seems to have cast a long shadow over all recent history programmes. They end up being little more than a cultural patchwork of attractive footage from the period. "Bowie was topping the charts, and Charlton scored 8 goals at Wembley" etc. Cultural manifestations are entertaining. And there is nothing wrong with watching programmes to spot the curtains we used to have, etc. However there tends to be little in the way of real content or insight. Just well edited and compiled footage which invariably tells a story quite removed from the reality of the decade itself.
> 
> Any programme on the 70's would show houses decorated in the latest 70s fashion. But the vast majority of people would be living in houses with outdated 50's and 60's decoration. A dull example - but what it points to is that people don't suddenly become bang up to date and live in the zeitgeist shown in classic 70s' footage. Decades come and go with their trappings and fashions. It's the attitudes and deeper political, cultural and other changes that are more interesting and meaningful.
> 
> I recall arguing with a lecturer at university on this point. That you couldn't just see political attitudes in the 1920s without looking at the trends and significant features of the previous decade. "No. The 1920s are a distinct historical period" he said. What a twat.


 
To be fair, as this episode was geared towards the 70 - 72 period, much of the decor and fashion on display was very much a hangover from the 50s and 60s. This wasn't pointed out, but it was certainly apparent in the footage.

Even the clips with younger poeple in demosntrated that they donned the look and feel of the decade before. There was very little glam to the glam fans displayed. The long haired miners looked like miners with long hair. 'The Dandy' elements of the glam scene and growing long hair were an extension of the working class past of Mod, skins, suedehead scenes etc. Bolan was a face, Rod was a face, Bowie was a face, Slade were Skinheads....glam wasn't that disconnected from geezers dressing up to get attention.


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## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2012)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Bolan was a face, Rod was a face, Bowie was a face


So are you.


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## Nanker Phelge (Apr 17, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> So are you.


 
Ha...I give it a go, mate!


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## davesgcr (Apr 17, 2012)

The 70's was all about change at a local level - we (for example) acquired a Trimphone , colour TV (cost around £300 in those days) , and generally did OK - and better than my fathers pre generation.

And before you think I am from the soft South , my dad was a colliery undermanager and we lived in West Wales. Not all bad , in retrospect - though the loss of the Grammar Schools was a disaster in my view as the Comprehensive model was so badly implemented locally.


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## peterkro (Apr 17, 2012)

I must admit I wasn't in Britain in the early seventies,the first couple of years in Sydney then in Dublin till moving to Brixton in the middle of the decade.That program showed nothing of what the seventies were like for me.I worked at British Leyland in Sydney (most of my coworkers were south American) and at the Uni we all had a great time same in Dublin and later in the decade when I worked at Ford,spent half the time sitting on the roof with other wastrels smoking dope and planning how to foment strikes.I was a vege through all those years and the growth in available choices was growing strongly all through the time.The program focused on the middle classes (who are shite and always will be) and those following the shallow fashions of the time.It certainly wasn't beige or gray .I could reminisce about lots of things,the burgeoning gay movement in Darlinghurst or the Aboriginal movement in Redfern,the squatting movement in Brixton and so on,it was a great time to be in your twenties.I've lived through the fifties (as a child),the sixties and seventies up until now and none of them are portrayed in TV or popular history as the actually were, IMO.In my mind it was a waste of an opportunity why didn't they interview a wide range of people who could put forward their views of what life was like at the time instead of playing crap mainstream news clips with a complete jerk making asinine comments, I've seen great programs made in that way about the Spanish civil war or the Jewish New York city Anarchists for instance much more enlightening than this tripe.


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## ska invita (Apr 18, 2012)

the host spoils this show...seems to happen all the time on bbc factual telly these days...not brilliant without him either though tbh.




Idaho said:


> It seems that the Rock and Roll Years seems to have cast a long shadow over all recent history programmes. They end up being little more than a cultural patchwork of attractive footage from the period. "Bowie was topping the charts, and Charlton scored 8 goals at Wembley" etc. Cultural manifestations are entertaining. And there is nothing wrong with watching programmes to spot the curtains we used to have, etc. However there tends to be little in the way of real content or insight. Just well edited and compiled footage which invariably tells a story quite removed from the reality of the decade itself.
> t.


agree with that. i think there was a conscious thing that happened at the bbc a few years back, to make factual programming more accessible. cue that bloke from blur who does the shows about the solar system etc.


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## Greebo (Apr 18, 2012)

hammerntongues said:


> <snip> did anyone else turnover to channel 5 and watch Webb host why I hate 1995 ?


Watched that on +1.  Webb does scathing so well.


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## elbows (Apr 23, 2012)

Watched it again this week, still plenty of moments where I cringe horribly at the blokes narrative of events.

I can't help but watch it though, so many things going on in the 70s that are relevant as ever in 2012, so many of urban75s favourite topics of argument. Never mind that the program hasn't the depth to do any of them justice, and is politically confused at best, a little taste is still enough to get the mind dwelling on the mood, feel & ideas of the time.


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## gentlegreen (Apr 23, 2012)

I'd forgotten about "Last Tango" - I'm so glad Longford watched it so I don't have to ...


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## oryx (Apr 24, 2012)

seeformiles said:


> I can relate to a lot of what's been said on this thread. While we had neighbours who fitted very nicely into the "Aspirational" mould (colour telly, central heating, faux-leather furniture with ashtray on a long stem and swivel chair for "dad", holidays in Spain, etc.),


 
My best mate's family in the early 70s fitted that description.

They were nice people, but thought they were really 'it' for going to Spain and staying in some place any sane person would now avoid like the plague, sort of a fishing village with tower blocks. More recently, I've realised it must have been under f***ing Franco!!!

Enjoyable programme, but very lightweight and populist.


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## articul8 (Apr 24, 2012)

IRA covered with absolutely no context at all - just more 70s miserablism.


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## Hollis (Apr 24, 2012)

Idaho said:


> It seems that the Rock and Roll Years seems to have cast a long shadow over all recent history programmes. They end up being little more than a cultural patchwork of attractive footage from the period. "Bowie was topping the charts, and Charlton scored 8 goals at Wembley" etc. Cultural manifestations are entertaining. And there is nothing wrong with watching programmes to spot the curtains we used to have, etc. However there tends to be little in the way of real content or insight. Just well edited and compiled footage which invariably tells a story quite removed from the reality of the decade itself.
> 
> Any programme on the 70's would show houses decorated in the latest 70s fashion. But the vast majority of people would be living in houses with outdated 50's and 60's decoration. A dull example - but what it points to is that people don't suddenly become bang up to date and live in the zeitgeist shown in classic 70s' footage. Decades come and go with their trappings and fashions. It's the attitudes and deeper political, cultural and other changes that are more interesting and meaningful.
> 
> I recall arguing with a lecturer at university on this point. That you couldn't just see political attitudes in the 1920s without looking at the trends and significant features of the previous decade. "No. The 1920s are a distinct historical period" he said. What a twat.


 
Which is much of the point Sandbook makes in 'White Heat'.


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## Maggot (Apr 24, 2012)

articul8 said:


> IRA covered with absolutely no context at all - just more 70s miserablism.


The IRA weren't covered - the unrest in Northern Ireland and the Birmingham pub bombings were covered. What sort of context were you expecting? 

I am enjoying this series, although I agree about the miserablism, I'm sure things weren't as depressing as Sandbrook painted them.  It's ridiculous to complain that 'The 70s were nothing like that for me' because they were different for everybody.


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## fizzerbird (Apr 24, 2012)

Erm...are there two threads on this? I just answered on another one I think?!

Anyway, I agree with Maggot...they were different for everybody. Just like any decade.


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## articul8 (Apr 24, 2012)

Maggot said:


> The IRA weren't covered - the unrest in Northern Ireland and the Birmingham pub bombings were covered. What sort of context were you expecting?


 
Who carried out the Birmingham pub bombings (not the people they arrested, prosecuted and jailed of course)?  What was behind the (ahem) 'unrest'?


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## Maggot (Apr 24, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Who carried out the Birmingham pub bombings (not the people they arrested, prosecuted and jailed of course)? What was behind the (ahem) 'unrest'?


The IRA did - Durrr!  

And the causes of the unrest go back decades before the period covered by the programme. This programme is about events of the early 70s - not a history of Northern Ireland.


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## articul8 (Apr 24, 2012)

exactly, but why did this period see the start of a fullscale mainland bombing campaign?   And what about Sunningdale, why did it fail etc.  What policy were the Brits pursuing etc?  You can't just say "terrorism arrived on the scene" - as if from nowhere or from some ethnic hate that has been running since time immemorial!


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## Chz (Apr 25, 2012)

That would take a 5-part documentary all on its own. That's not the point of the damned thing - it's light entertainment.


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## Sigmund Fraud (Apr 25, 2012)

Chz said:


> That's not the point of the damned thing - it's light entertainment.


 
It doesn't feel like it - why isn't a comedian or similarly lightly entertaining face presenting it if its supposed to be 'light'? Its certainly trying to be more than that given the portentious mega statements of Mr Sandbrook (who is as irritating as fuck btw). It really needs to be re-written and presented by someone of the calibre of Jonathan Meades or Mark Steel.


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## Reno (Apr 25, 2012)

It's the kind of programe that's flickering in the background while I'm doing something else and as such it's fine.

Every episode seems to start on my estate though.


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## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2012)

So who still thinks it it's a balanced view then?


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## Hollis (Apr 30, 2012)

Enjoyed the second episode as well... there's far more irritating history presenters than Domonic Sandbrook.  Atleast he doesn't speak slowly or provide an obligatory 5 minute gap between statements.

Wonder if caravans will get a mention at some point..


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## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2012)

The last episode was the third. 
I hate the cunt


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## Hollis (Apr 30, 2012)

Why?


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## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2012)

Cos he's got it in for the unions and is clearly leading up to the glorious Thatcher years


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

I'm intermittently reading his book in preparation for when my rewritten mastered thesis destroys him and all his ilk with a definitive revision of the 70s union militancy narrative


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## danny la rouge (May 1, 2012)

Good luck with learning how to spell 'masters'.


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## Lo Siento. (May 1, 2012)

danny la rouge said:


> Good luck with learning how to spell 'masters'.


Writing on a phone damnit.


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