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In the first programme
we saw how four decades

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and two world wars brought us from
a sharply defined class hierarchy

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to the brink of real change.

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By the late 1940s, here in Britain,

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we had new reforming
Labour government,

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a National Health Service,

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the start of a welfare state,
a whiff of socialism.

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For the first time,
more young people than ever
were being released

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into opportunities previously
denied their families.

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I was one of them.

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This is Wigton in Cumbria
and this is where, at 11,

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I went to school -
the Nelson Grammar, as it was then.

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It was once a fee-paying school,
but after the Butler Act in 1944,

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if you passed a scholarship
you could come for free,
and people flooded in.

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Now, it's a comprehensive school.

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That's one of the changes that's
happened since the Second World War.

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In the post-war years, culture,
especially popular culture,

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driven by lower-middle classes
and working classes,

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seemed to obliterate the need
for the old class distinctions.

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I certainly felt that.

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What you were
didn't depend any longer
on all that centuries-old stuff.

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You were indifferent to it.

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What mattered was
what you listened to,

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what you watched on television,
what you read.

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That was where you were anchored.

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But the old systems, driven by
private education, land ownership

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and the historical power of upper
class taste, were still there.

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Were they just lying quiet
or were they on the way out?

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# It's a lovely day tomorrow... #

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This is Liverpool - once a great,
rich, north-western city,

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its riches built on the cotton trade
and the slave trade,

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rich in squares and buildings
and still over 2,000
listed monuments here.

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But its very riches
and docklands and industry

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made it a target for the Germans
in the Second World War

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and it was the most heavily
bombed city by the Luftwaffe
next to London.

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Liverpool would rebuild - its docks
and shipyards would prosper again.

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It was a city whose people
had suffered great deprivations
both before and during the war,

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but it would become a crucible
for a new culture

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and supply key figures in a new
generation that would define it.

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It was this generation that
would decide that they too could

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write the books and make the films
and make the television plays
and do the art and make the music.

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Art goes where energy is,
and in the working class
and lower-middle class,

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there was tremendous energy,
and it came out and it took over.

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# You make me dizzy, dizzy Lizzy

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# Oh, babe, you look so fine

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# You're just a-rockin' and a-rollin'

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# I wish you were mine... #

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But, for most people across
the classes, it was grim.

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Pressures in the late '40s
and early '50s came from
chronic shortage of money

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and the rationing that was there
for years after the war.

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So an optimistic Festival of Britain
was planned for 1951

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by the new Labour government.

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It was to look to the future -
a festival of culture
and technology -

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to echo the Great Exhibition
of 1851.

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It attracted 8.5 million visitors,

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many of them here
on London's South Bank.

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In this time of austerity, the idea
was that culture was important

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and could be central
in bringing people together.

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For many, it was a way out,
a way of bettering themselves.

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It was an idea which was
to flourish strongly
over the next 60 or 70 years.

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So is it possible to characterise
and generalise

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these people who came
to the Festival Hall here

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and festival sites all over
the country just after the War?

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Were they worn out by the War?

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Were they content with the systems
that they found in class and culture

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or were they looking for
something new, something different,

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something that marked them out
having come through this experience?

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Certainly there was a seed bed here
for what would become

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a rather radical change
over the next 40 years.

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There were some, as there always are
of whatever class,

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who were happy to enjoy themselves
when they could,
unconcerned with arts and culture.

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But others were hungry
for something else

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and they sought it out
not always in the obvious places.

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There's a survey that shows
that in the late 1940s

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only one in ten
of working-class people claimed
to read books as a hobby.

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There were three in ten
middle-class people
read books as a hobby,

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mostly crime fiction and romance,
with Dickens thrown in now and then.

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But the newspapers were widely read

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and they contained
some fine writers.

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I remember reading Cassandra
in the Daily Mirror,

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and there was the Herald,
and on Sunday there was
the News Of The World.

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All human life is there.

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As well as newspapers, most people
got their entertainment
and their culture from the radio.

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As well as listening to comedy,
they could listen to concerts,

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even if they couldn't come here, to
the Royal Festival Hall in London.

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It was still variety, music hall -
very, very considerable audiences.

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And the reconstruction of the radio,
the wireless, after the war,

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reflected the old class structure

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because it was the Light Programme
for the masses,

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the Home Service for the
middle class, thinking classes,

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and the Third Programme
for the class, the classy ones.

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And the idea was that people
would move up this ladder.

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It was amazingly patronising
when you look back at it now,

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but it was terribly high-minded.
There was a bit of idealism in it.

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We're in a middle-class place.
We're in a temple of it.

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What did this represent culturally
for the middle classes in 1951?

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It stood out like a glowing
optimistic good deed in a very
drab austere world, this one.

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I remember coming here in the '50s
as a little boy
and being so taken with it

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that I used to go home
and use my bricks -

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that shows the level of technology
we kids had - to recreate this.

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The aristocracy,
what place did the aristocracy
see itself as playing then?

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Well, the aristocracy wasn't
uniformly culturally sensitive

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but they all, as far as I can see,
from top to bottom

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had a sense of custodianship -
that on their walls
were these extraordinary pictures

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and those walls themselves
were the product of the best
architects of the 18th century.

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There's a feeling they gave out
that they had been badly hit.

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Oh, British aristocracy, it's had
more comebacks than Judy Garland.

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They're phenomenally good at it.

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Two world wars had appeared to leave
the British aristocracy battered.

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Great loss of privileges.

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There was a shortage of cash,
there was a shortage of servants,

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but this very small group of people
still owned

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more than 50% of the land
in this country.

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Land was to be held on to
at all costs

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but houses were a different matter.

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The upkeep of these great houses,
regarded since the 18th century
as national treasures,

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was to prove a pressing problem
for many of those who owned them.

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But there were some smart enough
to see the post-war changes
as an opportunity.

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This is Woburn Abbey, or part of it.

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The 13th Duke threw open the doors
and the gates to people

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who probably wouldn't have
been admitted before
and he did it with gusto.

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His snobbish contemporaries
whispered and looked down on him
but he went for it.

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"I love meeting them
and talking to them," he said.

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"We're perfectly happy to share
the pleasures of the estate
with our visitors."

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He'd identified the notion
of a family day out

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and turned this place into one of
the big centres for family outings.

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At Woburn Abbey
it wasn't just a case
of displaying artistic treasures

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but of offering animals
and fair rides and fun.

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It might have been a case of, you
can come this far and no further,

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but the old duke had sensed that
a new energy, and money with it,

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was beginning to flow
from those below him

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and he, like his friend
Lord Montague of Beaulieu,
risked ridicule to reach it.

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# The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand

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# To prove the upper classes
Have still the upper hand

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# Though the fact that
they have to be rebuilt

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# And frequently mortgaged
to the hilt

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# Is inclined to take the gilt

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# Off the gingerbread
And certainly damps the fun... #

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The 13th Duke saved Woburn,
and now his grandson, Andrew,

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the 15th Duke,
runs the family business.

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When we started this 100 years ago,
in 1911,

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there would have been no question
that the aristocracy owned
a lot of the culture.

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They literally owned it.
They owned the great paintings.
They were patrons.

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They got things like
the Royal Ballet going and so on.

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And you think that all that
has gradually eased away now?
I would say diminished.

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I think you can look at things
like the ballet, in particular,

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is supported, but I wouldn't say
it was supported by aristocrats.

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I would say that you look at a lot
of, you know, self-made people now.

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What do you think is the biggest
change in the position

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and perception of the aristocracy
since your grandfather's day?

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I remember my mother telling me
that years ago,

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when they used to go to the cinema,
they would ring up
and say they were coming

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and they would be met
by the General Manager of whatever
cinema they were going to.

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This is very different.
She's only 70 now,
so we're talking 50 years ago.

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You know, one can't conceive
of such a thing today.

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You just line up
and stick your credit card in
and get your tickets.

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Many of the visitors to Woburn
would have worked in the towns

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and cities, commuting each day to
and from the ever-growing suburbs.

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Here was the middle class
and it was expanding by the day.

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"Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
Runs the red electric train

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"With a thousand Tas and Pardons

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"Daintily alights Elaine

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"Hurries down the concrete station
With a frown of concentration

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"Out into the outskirt's edges
Where a few surviving hedges

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"Keep alive our lost Elysium -
rural Middlesex again."

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The poet John Betjeman
was a great success in the '50s
with the middle classes,

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though he could be a snobbish
observer of its lower reaches.

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There was a terrific amount
of snobbery about, despite,

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or perhaps in reaction to, the
egalitarian spirit of the war years.

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The upper-class writer,
Nancy Mitford,

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famously wrote about
U and non-U vocabulary.

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The writer Ferdinand Mount
is himself a baronet
who chooses not to use his title.

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What did he make
of these 1950s snobberies?

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There was still, in this country,
almost an addiction

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to nuances and gradations of class

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in what you wore,
the way you spoke, of course.
It never stops, that(!)

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What you wore, the way you spoke,
how you dressed.

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Yes, or the way you addressed
an envelope to anybody.

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Did you address it
to Melvyn Bragg Esquire

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or Mr Melvyn Bragg?

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That probably meant he was
a tradesman you owed money to

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and the cover was, sort of,
blown by Nancy Mitford

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in her famous article
on U and Non-U

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in which she exposed these, to her,
very important differences.

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Whether you said "notepaper"
or "writing paper",

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whether you said "chimneypiece"
or "mantelpiece".

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I mean, there was a whole language
devoted to differentiating

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between those who put
the milk in first
and those who put it in second,

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one of which was supposed
to be better than the other.

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Part of John Betjeman's success

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was that he had found a plain,
accessible voice for his poetry.

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It was a very different voice
from the intellectual, TS Eliot,

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that pre-war hero of Bloomsbury
and the intelligentsia.

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Betjeman was now joined
by the poet Philip Larkin

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in speaking for the world
that was emerging in the 1950s.

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"The large cool store
selling cheap clothes

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"Set out in simple sizes plainly -

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"Knitwear, Summer Casuals, Hose

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"In browns and greys,
maroon and navy

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"Conjures the weekday world of those

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"Who leave at dawn
low terraced houses

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"Timed for factory, yard and site."

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Larkin's poetry, though perhaps
gloomier than Betjeman's,

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is at the same time more accepting
of the modern world.

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What one writes is based so much
on the kind of person one is

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and the kind of environment
one's had and has now

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that one doesn't really choose
the poetry one writes.

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One writes the kind of poetry
one has to write or can write.

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Betjeman and Larkin admired
each other, but, for me,

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Betjeman's poetry betrays
a prejudice against the modern
that tips into snobbery.

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00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:04,120
His famous line, "Come friendly
bombs and fall on Slough,"
written in 1937,

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is not only disdainful,
but unthinking,

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00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:10,720
at a time when war threatened
and Spain had already been bombed.

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00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:13,800
There was quite a bit of snobbery
in Betjeman.

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00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:20,200
Like any interesting writer,
there's several different things
going on at the same time

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00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:25,080
so there's certainly
a snobbery about, you know,
"Phone for the fish knives, Norman,"

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00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:30,040
that poem which uses every kind of
phrase which was regarded as common,

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00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:32,600
um, for comic effect.

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But at the same time
there's a much broader sympathy

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for the disregarded,
the unglamorous, the dim -

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both buildings and people.

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A new outburst of building
in the '20s and '30s

223
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:59,040
led to the building of suburbs
such as this

224
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:03,040
which, by the 1950s, were firmly
the home of the middle classes,

225
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,120
from lower-income,
white-collar workers

226
00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,120
to accountants, teachers,
solicitors,

227
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:12,160
up to company directors
and chief executives.

228
00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:16,240
They were held together by common
values, if not by similar incomes,

229
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:20,120
and they saw themselves
as the mainstay of the '50s,

230
00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:24,120
and this place is a place
that defined them.

231
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,840
It was their tastes
which predominated in that decade.

232
00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:30,920
'There was a certain exclusivity
to this sort of life.

233
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,840
While the aristocracy had found
a clever way to keep

234
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:38,600
their estates for themselves, the
middle classes tried to do the same.

235
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:43,080
They wanted to keep out
those from below, many of whom
were now keen to move up.

236
00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:47,760
Its codes were enshrined in
social clubs and private schools
and what you wore.

237
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,800
The middle classes dressed
as their parents had done.

238
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,600
Respectability
and aspiration were key.

239
00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,080
It was tennis and bridge
and the Home Service

240
00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:02,160
and the local library
and the car and mortgages

241
00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:05,000
and prospects of holidays abroad
and gardening.

242
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,240
And there was also
going to the cinema,

243
00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:11,120
people around here went
to the cinema in droves.

244
00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:15,280
But radio was still
the dominant medium.

245
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:21,000
On a night in 1952,
millions of people would have
tuned in to some of this.

246
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:24,080
'For the next 30 minutes,
it's Ticket From HMS Indefatigable

247
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:28,160
'with Joy Nicholls, Dick Bentley
and Jimmy Edwards.'

248
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:32,840
Just as before the war,
accent continued to be a strong
indicator of class - or cla-a-ss.

249
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:37,520
Although regional voices
were heard on radio,
the top presenters and announcers

250
00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:40,240
were required to speak
with a BBC accent,

251
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:44,800
received pronunciation,
and most of the upwardly mobile,
lower-middle class

252
00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:49,240
and middle class decided
to temper or eradicate
their regional accents.

253
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,600
So that we get something like this.

254
00:16:52,600 --> 00:17:00,080
SPEAKS INAUDIBLY QUICKLY

255
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:05,880
But radio and cinema were about
to be overtaken by the new, great,
democratic medium of television.

256
00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:09,800
But what drove television into
people's homes was the Monarchy.

257
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:16,720
It was the Queen's coronation
in 1953 that pulled off the trick.

258
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:21,960
People rushed to buy sets
to be able to see this Royal event
for the first time in history.

259
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:26,080
In one way, they felt closer
to Royalty than ever before

260
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:31,280
but this new proximity also
defined the sharpness of the gap.

261
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:34,080
It wasn't just the coronation,
of course.

262
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:39,680
People had more leisure time
and it was easier and warmer
to stay in than go to the cinema,

263
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:42,920
but it took a while, together
with the start of ITV in 1955,

264
00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:47,480
to reach television viewers
across the class barriers.

265
00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:50,040
In the early days,
televisions were expensive

266
00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:52,640
and they were largely bought
by the middle class,

267
00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:56,920
and the BBC in those days was
largely run by the middle class,
the officer class.

268
00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:01,160
They appeared on it, they ran it
and they made it in their own image.

269
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:04,040
Sir Laurence Olivier.
How are you?

270
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:07,680
Not here tonight as an actor, but...
How would you describe yourself?

271
00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:09,320
Well, I'm a manager.
A manager.

272
00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,360
The BBC seemed to dictate
the way we spoke,

273
00:18:12,360 --> 00:18:15,040
the way we dressed,
the way we behaved,

274
00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:19,480
to reinforce our perceptions
of our class and culture,
if not the reality.

275
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:21,200
It was a new medium

276
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:25,360
but it was very reluctant at first
to leave behind
the old hierarchies.

277
00:18:25,360 --> 00:18:27,640
'What's My Line?'

278
00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:33,720
We will of course show you
what the challenger does
for a living and here it comes.

279
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:37,840
Isobel Barnett. Good evening.
Do you work indoors? Yes.

280
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:41,120
Is it something that's a service
rather than making something?

281
00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:42,840
Yes. Yes. Right.

282
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:47,320
If we were in a certain place,
you would do this service for us.
Is that right?

283
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:53,200
Yes. Yes. If you were younger,
I'd say you were one of those
gorgeous little boys in buttons,

284
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,600
but you can't be.
APPLAUSE

285
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:56,760
A page?

286
00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:02,760
Television programmes like these
reflected the middle class,
its manners and values.

287
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,360
The only way of getting on in life,
it seemed, would be to adopt these.

288
00:19:06,360 --> 00:19:09,280
But a new generation now emerging
from the post-war gloom

289
00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:13,520
saw things differently
and they wrote about it.

290
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:18,200
Out of the conservatism
of the early '50s
came an explosion of books.

291
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:23,640
First off was the novel, Lucky Jim,
from Larkin's friend, Kingsley Amis.

292
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:25,880
Then Room At The Top
from John Braine.

293
00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:30,400
These young writers found a voice
that refused to accept tradition.

294
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:33,200
They were against what they saw
as upper-class arrogance

295
00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,480
but equally against a genteel
middle-class way of life.

296
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:42,360
But theirs was a cultural revolt,
not a political one,
more DH Lawrence than Nye Bevan.

297
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:47,960
Alan Sillitoe's novel,
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning,
was made into an outstanding film.

298
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:52,720
It made a star of Albert Finney
who paid the young Arthur Seaton
in his own authentic voice,

299
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,800
a young factory worker whose main
aim in life is to enjoy himself

300
00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:01,400
but is also frustrated by
the conventions of his own class
that restrict him.

301
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:03,280
'Fred's all right.

302
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:07,200
'He's one of them who knows
how to spend his money, like me.

303
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:11,600
'Enjoys himself. That's more
than them poor beggars know.

304
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,040
'They got ground down before
the war and never got over it.

305
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:19,760
'I'd like to see anybody try to
grind me down. That'd be the day.

306
00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:25,360
'What I'm out for is a good time.
All the rest is propaganda.'

307
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:28,640
It was this small theatre in Chelsea

308
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,360
that became the focal point
of what became a revolution.

309
00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:37,800
Overnight, it seemed,
the middle-class grip on the culture
was finally overthrown.

310
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:40,080
Do the Sunday papers
make you feel ignorant?

311
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,120
Not half. Well, you are ignorant.
You're just a peasant.

312
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:45,760
What about you?

313
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,240
You're not a peasant,
are you? What's that?

314
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:54,480
I said, do the papers make you feel
you're not so brilliant after all?
I haven't read them yet.

315
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,520
I didn't ask you that. I said...
Oh, leave the poor girlie alone.
She's busy.

316
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:01,920
Well, she can talk, can't she?
You can talk, can't you?

317
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:05,960
You can express an opinion.
Or does the white woman's burden
make it impossible to think?

318
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,360
The opening of John Osborne's
play Look Back In Anger in 1956

319
00:21:10,360 --> 00:21:14,640
seemed to define a moment
when the culture in this country
changed gear.

320
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:19,600
All right, dear, go back to sleep.
It was only me talking.
You know, talking, remember?

321
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:22,480
I'm sorry. Stop yelling.
I'm trying to read.

322
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,560
I don't know why you bother.
You can't understand a word of it.

323
00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:31,200
Up till this time, playwrights such
as Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward

324
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:32,840
were the favourites in the West End.

325
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:36,080
They'd established their reputation
before the Second World War

326
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:40,680
and they had that sensibility
which drew from the upper classes
and the upper-middle classes.

327
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:44,000
Osborne's lead character,
Jimmy Porter,

328
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,840
was the embodiment of the '50s
angry young men and women,

329
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,120
lower-middle class,
clever and discontented.

330
00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:53,360
These young people were different
from Albert Finney's Arthur Seaton.

331
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:56,800
They were better educated, but they
shared a hunger for something new.

332
00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,520
They weren't content to look round
an aristocrat's safari park.

333
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,880
They were looking
to take over the culture.

334
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,320
Being in here reminds me
very clearly

335
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,320
of when I started to come to this
theatre, here at the Royal Court,

336
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:11,840
in the early 1960s.

337
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,600
I came to London to work in 1961.

338
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:20,200
And this was...
some sort of sceptred place.

339
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:24,440
I came from the working class,
which you've probably heard
too much about,

340
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:28,000
and England being England
I'd known the trivial slights

341
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,160
and pinpricks of snobbery,
and that great spider web

342
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:36,280
which we still have in this country,
run by the smugs and the duds

343
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:40,040
and the perpetually fearful,
but that didn't matter very much.

344
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:44,960
But here, and from what came
from here, it didn't matter at all.

345
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:49,760
It was swept away. Something else
completely was going on.

346
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,480
There was this feeling of
a great rush through.

347
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:58,360
The playwright impact
had ramifications
way beyond the theatre.

348
00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:01,400
Writers and musicians and artists
from the lower-middle

349
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,200
and the working classes
poured through the breach.

350
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,320
But the great centre of this
was in television.

351
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,560
Look Back In Anger was seen
by relatively few people

352
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:12,800
in a theatre in London.

353
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:16,840
It wasn't until work like this
was shown on TV
that its full impact was felt.

354
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:22,120
What happened was that a new bunch
of people came into the theatre,

355
00:23:22,120 --> 00:23:25,960
into novel writing,
into advertising, into photography,

356
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,840
into films and into television.

357
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:31,080
I'm here in Lime Grove
in west London

358
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,680
where I came in 1962
to join BBC Television.

359
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,800
This was a place - in these houses
were our offices -

360
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,960
which seethed with the idea
that a new generation

361
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:47,520
could get hold of the mass means
of communication and change things.

362
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:52,800
Over at ITV, Coronation Street had
begun its extraordinary run.

363
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,640
And now, here too at the BBC,
a new sort of programming emerged -

364
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:58,200
drama and documentary -

365
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,360
and it drew in both middle-class
and working-class audiences.

366
00:24:02,360 --> 00:24:04,600
Oh, there was one place we did go to,

367
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,800
and I thought we were
going to have a chance.

368
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,240
They said six pounds,
and the next thing we heard,

369
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,040
someone had offered them eight.

370
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:12,920
So that put the cap on that.

371
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:18,000
In the Wednesday play strand, as in
Coronation Street, ordinary people

372
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,440
were now seeing their own lives
as worthy of serious attention.

373
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,840
Television was entertaining, yes,

374
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,520
but in class terms
the change was immense.

375
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:31,120
Young writers and directors,
like Ken Loach, understood
that the power of theatre,

376
00:24:31,120 --> 00:24:35,920
previously a middle-class preserve,
could be projected much further.

377
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,320
His drama, Cathy Come Home,
about homelessness, struck a nerve

378
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,760
and pulled in a wide audience.

379
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:47,720
In 1963, the BBC was probably
as open, I guess, as it's been.

380
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:50,800
Later I moved on
to the Wednesday Play

381
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,960
and the people involved in that
had a very clear idea

382
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,400
of what contemporary television
drama could be,

383
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:02,320
and that would have
a strong working-class character.

384
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,920
The aim was to try to show
not only the surface of life

385
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,600
but the class conflicts within it.

386
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:14,240
And the idea of class conflict was
something that you talked about,

387
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:19,360
that you intended to pursue?
I don't think we had any illusions.
I mean, even in our youthful stage

388
00:25:19,360 --> 00:25:22,600
we didn't have any illusions about
what we could change,

389
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:26,440
but that was the proper function
of drama,

390
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:31,080
was to illuminate and illustrate
and clarify and sharpen

391
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,800
the way we saw the world, really.

392
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:41,280
Of course, we were only one stream
within a much broader,
complex organisation

393
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,320
and a lot of the other stuff
was very traditional,

394
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:49,200
very establishment,
right wing in our terms.

395
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,360
So, I don't think it was true
that the BBC as a whole

396
00:25:53,360 --> 00:25:57,960
was taken over by a bunch of lefties.
Far from it.

397
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,720
Directors, like Loach,
and writers, like Dennis Potter,

398
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,640
were determined to find a voice
both for the class they came from

399
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,600
and, in Potter's case,
a voice for those, like himself,

400
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:09,120
who wanted to get out and move up.

401
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,800
No-one who has been brought
up in a working class culture,

402
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:20,360
can ever altogether escape,
or wish to escape...

403
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,680
..the almost suffocating warmth

404
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,520
and friendliness of that culture.

405
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:33,520
But, and this is what I mean
by the personal element,

406
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,720
as soon as you cross the frontiers
between one class and another,

407
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:44,800
you feel... I feel...as though
you're negotiating a minefield.

408
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,480
Dennis Potter's play was about
a young working-class man

409
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,920
who won a scholarship from his local
grammar school to university,

410
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:52,520
as Potter did, as I did.

411
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,000
It was a story being repeated
all over the country.

412
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,400
Your services seem to be
very much in demand.

413
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,040
Why not?
Everyone's gone to the moon.

414
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,880
That's this place, all right.
Some moon.

415
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,200
Bright and shiny
when you're a long way off.

416
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,600
Cold and grey and dark
when you get there.

417
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,480
Who said that? I did.

418
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,560
You mean you actually talk
like that?

419
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:19,400
It doesn't sound right
with your accent.

420
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,200
Patronising bitch, aren't you?

421
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,560
Not everything was new, of course,
but it was the mass of it.

422
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,560
Wherever you looked
around the place,

423
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,000
people were trying new things,
doing new things,

424
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,400
hoping to get into trouble, wanting
to change things, taking their turn.

425
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,280
What was new was a third channel
that now attempted to satisfy

426
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,960
a hunger for a wider access
to culture.

427
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,880
It was a channel
designed for self-betterment.

428
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,000
We always watch BBC2 on Mondays.

429
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,440
I like it best
of all the programmes.

430
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,760
I think it's very good
because it has lots of concerts
and things on it.

431
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,680
Do you want me to be honest?
I prefer ITV.

432
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,560
With the arrival of BBC2 in 1964,

433
00:27:57,560 --> 00:27:59,720
television, like radio before it,

434
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,000
replicated the three-tier
class system.

435
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,480
BBC2 at the top end,
BBC1 in the middle

436
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,720
and ITV at the market end,
although, to be fair to ITV,

437
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,200
they used to a lot of public service
broadcasting as well.

438
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,600
There were plenty who resented
this new group

439
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,680
who were pushing from below
at the class barriers.

440
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:19,880
The writer, Evelyn Waugh,

441
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,120
had satirised his own generation
to great effect in his early novels

442
00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:28,040
but deeply disliked the new world
in which he found himself.

443
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,080
You're a great deal luckier
than many people

444
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,920
because you made something
of a fortune before the war,

445
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,360
before it was all taxed away.
Not a penny. Never saved a penny.

446
00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:37,600
You never saved it?

447
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,840
No honest man has been able to save
any money in the last 20 years.

448
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,400
An appearance on Face To Face
was an accolade

449
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,320
given only to the middle aged
and distinguished.

450
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:50,200
# What do you want
if you don't want money? #

451
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,200
But the BBC now paid lip service -
or was it homage? -

452
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,480
to the changes around them.

453
00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,800
They put 20-year-old
pop singer, Adam Faith,
in the establishment chair.

454
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,200
His was a different voice
that ran alongside

455
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,640
those of the highly-educated
grammar school boys.

456
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,680
When you wake up tomorrow morning and
go outside the house, the people...

457
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,080
The flat. ..in your own street,
the flat.. Yeah.

458
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,520
The local people in your own street
will see you,

459
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,400
will you be mobbed by fans then, or
do they accept you in your own home?

460
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:24,800
They accept me very much.
I live on an estate of council flats

461
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:28,960
and having lived there
for so long,

462
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,600
I haven't found any difference
amongst them at all.

463
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,520
You're still Terry Nelhams to them?
Completely, yeah.

464
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,320
The respect accorded to the views
of this young man

465
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,760
reflected a radically new
economic and cultural reality.

466
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,600
By the early '60s, there are
about five million teenagers

467
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:48,280
and they had around
£800 million to spend.

468
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:54,560
It was as if these teenagers
picked up the baton handed on by
the angry young men and ran with it.

469
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,400
They weren't prepared to live
by old class distinctions.

470
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,880
It was the teddy boys
who fired things,

471
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,360
mimicking an older upper class
in their Edwardian suits,

472
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,760
calling the more conventionally
dressed uppers "peasants",

473
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:10,800
and then a new set of working-class
dandies emerged, the mods.

474
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,880
Like Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night
And Sunday Morning,

475
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:15,680
their main aim was
to have a good time.

476
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,760
They were energetic,
but frustrated too,

477
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:20,640
and were looking for
a way to say so.

478
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:27,280
In the early '60s, the south coast's
beaches were the stages for clashes

479
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,480
between the young mods
and the rockers,

480
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,280
two largely working-class tribes
that terrified the middle classes.

481
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,800
'Vermin, hoodlums, sawdust Caesars,

482
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,000
'were among the names
magistrates applied to them.

483
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,680
'Authority was determined
that the rule of the tearaway
should be brief.'

484
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,040
Pete Townshend of The Who
began as a mod

485
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,600
and later wrote his rock opera,
Quadrophenia,

486
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:50,840
against the backdrop
of these battles.

487
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:55,920
His was a voice that found a way
to speak for those who, so far,

488
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,960
had felt alienated
from a middle-class culture.

489
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:01,960
Sausage, egg, chips, beans,
gentlemen.

490
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:03,880
Steak pie, chips and beans.

491
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,360
When did you define yourself
as a mod,

492
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:11,120
and was this a generational thing
or was it anything to do with class?

493
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,320
It was definitely for me
to do with class.

494
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,800
It wasn't just working class, but it
was driven by the working classes.

495
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,800
Now, your generation came along,
and you're very much
in the front of that,

496
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,520
and one of the things
you started doing quite early on

497
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,600
was taking control of the material.

498
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:34,320
After the first song that I wrote
had been recorded for The Who
successfully, I Can't Explain,

499
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:37,160
I was summoned by a group of mods
who came,

500
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,600
there were five of them, and they
said we need to tell you something

501
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,400
and it is that we love this song
that you've written,

502
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,680
and I said, "Well, what is it
that you love about it?"

503
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,720
And they couldn't explain
what they loved about my song,

504
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:50,560
I Can't Explain.

505
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:55,000
And at one point, one of them said -
he's a mod from Cork in Ireland -

506
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,040
"That's what we want you to do,

507
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:02,640
"write more songs about the fact
that we can't explain what it is
that we want you to do."

508
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:07,400
So, in a sense, those songs were
commissioned by that little group,
and they were...

509
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,040
Working class mods.
Yeah.

510
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,280
# Why don't you all....
just fade away? #

511
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:19,000
# And don't try
and dig what we all s-s-s-say

512
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:24,480
# I'm not trying to c-c-c-cause
a big sensation

513
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,520
# I'm just talking about
my g-g-g-generation

514
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:30,240
# My generation... #

515
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:36,040
The Who's first managers were
Kit Lambert, an upper-class boy
from Lancing public school,

516
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,480
and Chris Stamp,
a working-class cockney.

517
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,960
Theirs was a very '60s partnership.

518
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:46,520
It was magical
because Kit was a Lancing boy

519
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,040
and Chris was an extremely
good-looking man,

520
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,720
very mod-like, mod haircut,
mod suits.

521
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:58,360
His friends weren't just
through his brother, Terence,

522
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,400
who was a big film star at the time
and still is,

523
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:06,720
but, you know, through him Michael
Caine, Terry Donovan, David Bailey.

524
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:11,000
When I was 18 or 19,
I had a flat in Chesham Place,

525
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,800
right in the middle of Belgravia.

526
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,520
I couldn't function there.
I just couldn't function.

527
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,280
I couldn't buy milk without
somebody in a fur coat saying,

528
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,160
"Get out of the way, boy!" you know.

529
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:25,360
I didn't know how to handle
the established upper classes

530
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:27,840
that occupied the place at the time.

531
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,520
Kit and Chris lived together,
you know,

532
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,360
and Chris was always,
"Hey, taxi!"

533
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:40,960
And Kit would, you know,
"No, we're in Belgravia. Cab!"

534
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:45,960
"Cab! Cab!" "Taxi!" "Cab!"
Which one do you pick?

535
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,760
It was that kind of incredible
power tension.

536
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,000
They worked incredibly well
together.

537
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,240
Do you think
class continued to figure?

538
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:59,320
You know, the band that did
the most to, kind of, crack that
was The Stones.

539
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:04,800
You know, Mick Jagger would enlist
anybody that came in the room.

540
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:07,040
He seemed to be completely classless.

541
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,080
And by '64, '65,
when I got to know him well,

542
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:14,320
he was already... He already
had the house in Cheyne Walk

543
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:19,840
and parties with titled people
and, you know, Lucien Freud.

544
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,480
With the invasion of Belgravia
and Chelsea by the young pop stars,

545
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,840
and the educated boys and girls
storming the media,

546
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,600
there was a brand-new
sort of middle class.

547
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,840
From it emerged a group with the
confidence to mock the old order

548
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,480
and the likes of Nancy Mitford
and U and non-U.

549
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,000
These new satirists, unlike
most of the post-war comedians,

550
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,040
were university
and often public school educated

551
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,040
and they set about ridiculing

552
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,720
the social codes and values
of their parents.

553
00:34:46,720 --> 00:34:48,280
Perkins.

554
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,200
Sir.
I want you to lay down your life.

555
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:51,200
Yes, sir.

556
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,760
We need a futile gesture
at this stage.

557
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:55,560
LAUGHTER

558
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:58,000
It will raise
the whole tone of the war.

559
00:34:58,000 --> 00:34:59,640
Get up on a crate, Perkins. Sir.

560
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:01,200
Pop over to Bremen. Yes, sir.

561
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:02,520
Take a shufty. Yes.

562
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,720
Don't come back.
Right you are, sir.

563
00:35:04,720 --> 00:35:07,040
LAUGHTER

564
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,200
Goodbye, Perkins.
God, I wish I was going too.

565
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,280
Goodbye, sir. Or is it au revoir?

566
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,280
No, Perkins.

567
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,960
Satire was booming
in clubs, on television

568
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,920
and in the pages of
the brilliant Private Eye,

569
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:25,840
dedicated to unseating
the old order.

570
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,320
A new Establishment was in town.

571
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:31,960
Since the early '60s,
the Beatles had been pop royalty.

572
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,240
For our last number
I'd like to ask your help.

573
00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:39,880
Would the people in the cheaper
seats clap your hands?

574
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,480
And the rest of you,
if you'd just rattle your jewellery.

575
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,640
# Oh, yeah, I tell you something

576
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,960
# I think you'll understand... #

577
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:01,000
The phenomenal success of The
Beatles had helped to spread the new
culture beyond their young fans

578
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,040
and they appealed to the middle-aged
and the middle class as well.

579
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,280
They seemed to make class
irrelevant.

580
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:11,000
But their manager,
the middle-class Brian Epstein,
had decided early on

581
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,240
that The Beatles shouldn't
frighten the horses.

582
00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:19,280
The Beatles were somewhat ill-clad,
and their presentation was,

583
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,480
well, left a little to be desired,
as far as I was concerned.

584
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,800
He took them out of their
biker leathers and jeans,

585
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,000
working-class clothes
as he saw them,

586
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,440
and put them in classless uniforms.

587
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,440
But after a while,
Lennon in particular was reluctant
to be claimed,

588
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,160
or perhaps reclaimed,
by the middle class.

589
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:39,600
He'd been inspired,
like many others,

590
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,640
by the black American
blues tradition,

591
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,440
as well as that working-class
genius, Elvis Presley.

592
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,480
# It's so lonely, baby

593
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,320
# It's so lonely. #

594
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,040
This is Menlove Avenue
in Woolton, Liverpool.

595
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,920
As you can see,
it's a respectable semi-detached.

596
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,640
In the late 1950s,
this would have been seen

597
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,400
as an aspirational
lower-middle-class house.

598
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,040
John Lennon was brought up here
by his Aunt Mimi,

599
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,080
a lower-middle-class boy
who went to a grammar school,

600
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,880
although later he wanted to be seen
as a working-class hero.

601
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:20,080
This wasn't unusual
in the 1950s and '60s
when many middle-class boys,

602
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:24,280
and some women, looked to the
working class for a cultural lead.

603
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,320
So he was brought up here
by his Aunt Mimi.

604
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:32,320
What did she feel when his more
definitely working-class friends
came round, like Paul and George?

605
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:34,600
What was her view of that?

606
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:36,080
Well, of course, you know,

607
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,120
this is where the class system
kind of kicks in a little bit

608
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,760
because this is Woolton, Mendips,
situated in Woolton,

609
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,320
and it has always been a much
sought-after area in which to live.

610
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,680
I mean, I was brought up
in Woolton as a young lad,

611
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:52,720
and I think there was some alarm

612
00:37:52,720 --> 00:37:57,440
because, of course, these were
boys coming from council estates

613
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:03,080
and there was that feeling that
maybe this was the rougher element.

614
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,720
You know, common might be the word
that would be bandied about.

615
00:38:06,720 --> 00:38:10,240
I think she was worried he may start
being an impressionable lad.

616
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:13,040
He might start wearing, you know,
the Teddy Boy gear

617
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,680
and start speaking
in that Scouse accent,

618
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,120
which she abhorred
because this is Woolton.

619
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:23,400
We're talking about John Lennon
here, making a dive towards
the working class

620
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,240
and getting some sort of energy
from it at that time.

621
00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:29,880
Well, I...I mean, the connection is
rock'n'roll, isn't it?

622
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:34,960
It was Elvis Presley that had
such a huge impact on him

623
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,360
but, of course, he was
a young lad in England

624
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:40,560
so, thankfully,
we've got Lonnie Donegan.

625
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:42,800
# The Rock Island Line is
a mighty good road

626
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,120
# The Rock Island Line is
the road to ride... #

627
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,920
Lonnie Donegan kind of cut across
all the classes

628
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,200
and it was a melting pot.

629
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,880
Skiffle was a melting pot,
live-played skiffle, it was acoustic,

630
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,560
you could create
your own instruments from...

631
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,880
You could deploy it
with a washboard and a...

632
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,800
And it was inclusive.

633
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,000
And so, basically,
it brought together people

634
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,520
from different backgrounds
to make bands.

635
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:13,560
From skiffle to the Beatles,
the Kinks, the Who
and the Rolling Stones,

636
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:16,000
in a few short years
it was these voices,

637
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,040
some from the lower rungs
of society,

638
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,520
that were now heard
above all others.

639
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,320
The explosion of pop music
in the 1960s took us all over.

640
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,240
It was written by the musicians
themselves, for a start,

641
00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:30,920
our generation.
It spoke to us about us.

642
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,840
And it seemed to be inclusive
of all classes and all cultures -

643
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,120
one sound fitted all.

644
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,960
And most of all,
it was so very good.

645
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,400
It was on a par with all
the other arts at the time,

646
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,640
but it was also totally accessible.

647
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,880
It was the essence of the '60s
and it was its promise.

648
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,120
# ..All day and all of the night. #

649
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,640
The young had a whole
new set of heroes,

650
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,040
many of whom, like themselves, came
from working-class backgrounds.

651
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,640
As well as pop musicians,
there were working-class artists

652
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,440
like David Hockney from Bradford,

653
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,840
the '60s superstar who had become
one of our most eminent artists.

654
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:11,960
There were writers and actors,

655
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,640
and they could come here,
to Carnaby Street,

656
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:18,720
where another working class hero, a
former Glasgow welder, John Stephen,

657
00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:21,000
became the lord of Carnaby Street

658
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,600
and attracted all the dedicated
followers of fashion.

659
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,120
Most of these boys and the girls

660
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,160
who come to us have got
ideas of their own,

661
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:32,360
set ideas of their own,

662
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,400
and most of them have got
very good taste,

663
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,320
which is much more
than their parents

664
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,440
and their parents' parents
had before.

665
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:43,240
On all sides, our culture was
becoming less rigid.

666
00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:46,160
The old dress codes that had
pigeonholed people's status

667
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,160
were falling by the wayside.

668
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:52,840
It was beginning
to be much more difficult
to identify someone's class,

669
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,360
particularly the young,
by the way they dressed.

670
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,600
Fashion no longer came down
from on high via Paris

671
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,560
or the likes of
the Princess Margaret set.

672
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,040
Hats were finished,
gloves were thrown away,

673
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:07,520
jeans became ubiquitous, but there
was a foppishness in the air.

674
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,720
The working-class dandy
replaced the Regency buck.

675
00:41:10,720 --> 00:41:13,000
And, of course, there was sex.

676
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:17,400
As Philip Larkin said,
"Sexual intercourse began in 1963,

677
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,920
"which was rather late for me,"
he wrote,

678
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:24,960
"between the end of the Chatterley
ban and The Beatles' first LP."

679
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:29,400
Philip Larkin's poem singles out
DH Lawrence's explicit novel,
Lady Chatterley's Lover,

680
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:34,600
written in the '20s,
but suppressed till 1960,
as signalling a sexual revolution.

681
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:40,320
But this revolution was propelled
less by the mass sales
of Lady Chatterley

682
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:43,080
and more by the mass production
of the birth-control pill.

683
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:47,880
Thousands of women were free
from constant childcare
and went to work.

684
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,160
Family incomes and aspirations rose.

685
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:53,400
So, perhaps,
did the sum of human happiness.

686
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,520
We're sticking broadly to the arts
in these programmes

687
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,440
but in 1959 the scientist
and novelist, CP Snow,

688
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,720
delivered a lecture called
The Two Cultures,

689
00:42:04,720 --> 00:42:07,840
which spoke of the rift
between the arts and the sciences.

690
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,280
There were the beginnings
of a technological revolution,

691
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:15,160
one whose consequences would
eventually bite, as we'll see.

692
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,360
But for now, the white heat of
technology was feted and fed

693
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,280
by young scientists
from schools like this one,

694
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,080
Harrow High School,
a former grammar school,

695
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:28,560
where Sir Paul Nurse, Nobel
prize-winning geneticist and
president of the Royal Society,

696
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,120
set out on a scientific path
in the 1960s.

697
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,840
You know, you never forget
when you're 11, do you?

698
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,480
Oh, is this scrubbed wooden tops
and Bunsen burners

699
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:38,920
and that sort of thing?

700
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,080
When it was a lab,
the floor was the same

701
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,320
and the windows were the same
but it was all these wooden benches.

702
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:46,280
That's right. They were beautiful.

703
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:47,840
You were at this school in the '60s.

704
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:51,520
Did you feel you were a different
lot from those doing arts,

705
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:53,920
who were doing English,
history and languages?

706
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,800
Do you know, I did,
because this is sort of anecdotal

707
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,880
but I have a feeling,
I came from a working-class family,

708
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:04,920
and I had a feeling it was easier
for me to do science than the arts

709
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,360
because at home I hadn't, you know,
I'd never been to the theatre,

710
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,840
I'd never been to a concert,
we didn't have books and novels,

711
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:15,880
whereas science, it was
more of a level playing field.

712
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,520
And there was something else.
You know, my dad was a fitter.

713
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,080
He worked with his hands.

714
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:24,400
When you do science, there's that...
You work with your hands too,

715
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,880
so I felt more comfortable with that.

716
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,320
And there was a surge of new ideas,
new ambitions,

717
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,000
with a new tranche of people
doing it.

718
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:36,600
Do you feel the same was happening
in science at that time?

719
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:40,480
I do. I think it was the beginning
of a major expansion in science.

720
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,960
And of course CP Snow himself,
when he wrote his book,

721
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:48,720
was, in fact, interested in driving
science because of driving wealth.

722
00:43:48,720 --> 00:43:52,840
I think that scientists
like Paul Nurse make a nonsense

723
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,960
of any barrier between a creative
and a scientific imagination.

724
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,440
But when CP Snow talked of
two cultures,

725
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:02,720
he probably still thought of
the arts as something traditional
and mainly for the elite.

726
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,720
With popular culture so dominating,

727
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:12,280
it seemed at the time
that it took the energy
out of the traditional arts

728
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:14,400
and they were in decline,
but not so.

729
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,240
Behind me at Covent Garden,
it was the time of Maria Callas

730
00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:20,280
and of Nureyev and Fonteyn
whose fame on the stage of ballet

731
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,440
has never been equalled
before or since.

732
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,560
The orchestras were playing
in Liverpool, in Edinburgh,

733
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,600
in Birmingham
and, of course, in Manchester.

734
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:30,920
The philanthropist, Vivien Duffield,

735
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:34,280
has been involved with opera
and ballet for many years.

736
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,480
She's given £100 million to the arts
and arts education.

737
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:42,840
How did she regard the connection
between class and high culture?

738
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:44,760
The English upper, upper class,

739
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:47,240
I'll probably get shot down
for saying this,

740
00:44:47,240 --> 00:44:49,920
has never really been
interested in culture.

741
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,720
They're interested in visual culture.

742
00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:55,000
They've got wonderful possessions

743
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,920
and they're probably very interested
in museums,

744
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,520
but if you look at the patrons
of the arts in the last 50 years

745
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:07,640
I don't think there are any
aristocrats included in that list.

746
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:12,080
If you looked at the list
of funders, being mainly
a lot of Jewish people,

747
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,080
not entirely, of course, because
people like the Sainsburys were not.

748
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:20,600
Was there a sense in which
the working class just didn't get
to places like this?

749
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:25,200
I don't think they were
deliberately excluded, but there was
an amphitheatre in those days,

750
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:28,760
and there was a totally separate
entrance to the amphitheatre.

751
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:33,160
People who went to the amphitheatre
didn't even think they were
at the Royal Opera House.

752
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,040
They had their own bar upstairs,

753
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:37,840
they had that horrid,
narrow, little staircase

754
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,920
and they did not in any way mingle.

755
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,440
And so one might have got
the impression,

756
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,200
if you came in the front door,

757
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,800
you would think it was
all knobs and swells

758
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,080
because you never saw anybody else

759
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,760
but they were there,
and they were upstairs.

760
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:56,360
Nureyev and Fonteyn led

761
00:45:56,360 --> 00:46:00,400
a great renaissance of interest
as well as of artistic mastery here,
didn't they?

762
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,240
It was Beatlemania.

763
00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:06,080
I mean, what happened to The Beatles
happened here to Nureyev and Fonteyn.

764
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:09,240
I always remember, people used to
sleep - you're too young -

765
00:46:09,240 --> 00:46:11,200
but people used to sleep...
No, I'm not.

766
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:15,000
..do you remember? They used to sleep
on Floral Street all the way round,

767
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:16,560
Yeah. ..waiting for tickets.

768
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,320
So the more traditional arts
were booming too,

769
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,240
in London and, to some degree,
around the country.

770
00:46:22,240 --> 00:46:26,040
But were we looking at
two aspects of one culture?

771
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:27,840
So there were these two strands,

772
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,280
one rooted in Covent Garden
the opera, the ballet and so on,

773
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:33,440
and the other rooted
in popular culture -

774
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,160
popular music, photography, fashion.

775
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,360
But were they part of
the same spectrum in the end?

776
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,280
Were they all to do with quality?

777
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,280
I thought they were,

778
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,600
and I think it's become increasingly
clear that they are.

779
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:52,400
The middle and upper classes
had lost exclusive hold

780
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,640
over forms of artistic expression.

781
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:56,240
Culture itself was more open.

782
00:46:56,240 --> 00:46:58,720
The Open University
was about to start up,

783
00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:01,960
the most democratic university
we'd ever had

784
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,600
and, underpinned by the BBC,
a great success.

785
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:06,120
But as the decade moved on,

786
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,480
it also seemed as if the
voices that had articulated the
frustrations

787
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,320
and energy of the lower classes

788
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,160
had themselves become
a new middle and upper class.

789
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:19,040
Many of our pop stars now aped the
gentry, buying big country houses,

790
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:21,720
while others,
John Lennon among them,

791
00:47:21,720 --> 00:47:26,120
were absorbed by the new hippy
culture imported from America.

792
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,160
There was a distinct dress code
at work here.

793
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,000
If you were dressed as a hippy,

794
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,080
you were likely to be new posh
or old middle class.

795
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,840
Up to this point we'd seemed less
marked by the way we spoke,

796
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,160
the way we dressed,
we liked the same things,

797
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:43,400
we liked the same music, there's
a feeling of coming together.

798
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:48,080
But was it like that or
was this just a clever regrouping
by the establishment?

799
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,720
Were they just getting ready
for their next move?

800
00:47:51,720 --> 00:47:54,120
The so-called spirit of the '60s
was more or less over.

801
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,600
The Beatles broke up

802
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:58,840
and the skinheads had just begun
to appear,

803
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,480
defining themselves against
the middle-class hippies.

804
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,120
And, unlike their predecessors,
the mods,

805
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,160
they seemed to have no-one to
speak for them, or not quite yet.

806
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:10,840
The economy was going bust

807
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:15,720
and the white heat of technology
had helped put Liverpool Docks

808
00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:17,720
as well as much else
out of business.

809
00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:22,400
That terrific creative energy seemed
to be running out of steam.

810
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,800
We were entering a darker period.
There was a recession.

811
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:29,400
What was left of our manufacturing
industry took another hammering

812
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:34,960
as we can see here, in Liverpool,
with the steep decline of the docks.

813
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:40,080
The '70s were very tough
on those optimisms.

814
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,920
The quadrupling of the oil price
in '73/'74.

815
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:45,360
The stagflation,

816
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:47,840
the under-performance
of the British economy,

817
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:49,840
growing industrial strife,

818
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,080
the break-up of the post-war
political consensus which made us,

819
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:56,200
which we so liked
and so felt at home with.

820
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,160
I think that knocked a good bit
of the stuffing out of us,

821
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,240
and the areas where
the fight seems to go on now,

822
00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:07,240
and thank God it does, is trying to
retain the high seriousness strand
which was very much part of this.

823
00:49:07,240 --> 00:49:10,360
Mm.
It's what Richard Hoggart once called

824
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,560
"the bump of social purpose
of the early post-War years,"

825
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:17,480
which some would deride
as bookishness, excessive scholarly.

826
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:19,840
Or being too serious.
Or being too serious.

827
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,920
It's interesting that we can use,

828
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:27,400
you can be accused
of being too serious. Exactly.

829
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,640
It's very revealing. It's
a kind of reverse class antagonism.

830
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,080
Mm. Don't use the long words.

831
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:37,680
Women, come and join us!

832
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,440
The vacuum left by a seeming
loss of confidence in the '70s

833
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,880
was beginning to be filled
by other groupings

834
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:47,120
that were just starting
to stake their claim to acceptance.

835
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:51,800
Meanwhile, the new '70s heroes,
like David Bowie, were playing
with gender and identity.

836
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,400
Did this mean we were now
identifying ourselves

837
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:56,440
culturally in a new way?

838
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,880
Had cultural distinctions
replaced those of class?

839
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:03,480
Most people belonged
to several tribes.

840
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:06,000
They belonged to perhaps an ism,
feminism,

841
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:09,240
if it's Gay Rights, that's
centrally important to them,

842
00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,080
but at the same time
they don't forget

843
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,120
where they came from
and what made them,

844
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,400
and it depends on the question,
the mood, the moment, the anxiety,

845
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,400
state of mind, which is to the fore.

846
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:21,600
And that's the problem with class,
it lurks.

847
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,600
You'll find this
in newspaper coverage.

848
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:25,560
When somebody becomes very prominent

849
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:29,160
in one of those groups where class
doesn't seem to be the determinant,

850
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:31,240
certainly not the number-one
pacemaker, nowhere near,

851
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:35,080
when the profile is written
in the Guardian or the Observer
or wherever it is,

852
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,880
when they become a bit of a figure
for the first time,

853
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,400
background and schooling,
right up there,

854
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:43,680
and if there's a heroic element
of social mobility,

855
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:47,600
right up there, absolutely integral
to the understanding of everybody.

856
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:49,240
We'll never get out of it.

857
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,560
Some of Fay Weldon's
comic novels of the 1970s

858
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,800
played with the status
of women in society.

859
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,840
I asked her if she felt that class
was part of that equation.

860
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:06,080
Was that outside class,
do you think, the Women's Movement?

861
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:09,120
I think it was a very middle-class
movement, actually.

862
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:10,840
I think it tended to be

863
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,440
professional and middle-class women

864
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,560
who were protesting
at the state of the world

865
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:23,000
because they wanted to be active,
they wanted to join the community.

866
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,680
Men wouldn't let them,
which was very true at the time.

867
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,600
Working women tended to be
rather grateful to be allowed
to stay at home

868
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,440
while their husbands
provided the money.

869
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:39,520
So, in a way, what these
educated women were doing

870
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:43,520
was actually making life extremely
difficult for the uneducated women.

871
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,320
You really think that?

872
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:49,200
Yes. Yes. I mean,
everybody has to go out and work.

873
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:53,000
Once upon a time,
one male wage would keep a family.

874
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,880
One male wage no longer will
because, almost,

875
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:58,880
the women went out to work,
so, you know,

876
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,360
the value of the wage dropped

877
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:03,800
because you had doubled
the workforce.

878
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:05,840
The Yorkshire poet, Tony Harrison,

879
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,480
also felt that
the more basic aspects of class,

880
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:12,040
the significance of accent for
social distinction, for example,

881
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:14,520
had not faded
as we might have thought.

882
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:16,200
His poem, Them And Uz,

883
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,240
recalls a schoolmaster mocking him
for his pronunciation.

884
00:52:20,240 --> 00:52:24,280
"We say 'us' not 'uz', TW.

885
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:26,560
"That 'shut my trap'

886
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,160
"I doff my flat As as in 'flat cap'

887
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:34,440
"My mouth all stuffed with glottals

888
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:38,720
"Great lumps to hawk up and spit out.

889
00:52:38,720 --> 00:52:40,920
"Enunciate."

890
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:45,000
First thing I did
for the National Theatre in 1973

891
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:48,840
was Le Misanthrope of Moliere.

892
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,960
And I always remember
in the interval

893
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:58,440
hearing a woman with the class
of voice I was...

894
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:02,680
creating a poetry
to undermine, saying,

895
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,480
"He has such a command over language,

896
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,760
"but they say he comes
from Sheffield."

897
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:13,080
And so it was still going on.

898
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:16,880
This was a typical, cultural
audience at a first night, you know.

899
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:18,960
Do you think it still goes on?

900
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,760
Well, I thought
the battle had been won,

901
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,640
but people keep telling me
that it still goes on.

902
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:28,800
What was the battle as you saw it?

903
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,760
Not to, as I said
in the Them And Uz poem,

904
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:36,600
only the drunken porter part
is available to people
with my voice, you know.

905
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:38,080
We are the rude mechanicals.

906
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,920
Yes, yes. We are
the rude mechanicals, yeah.

907
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,840
That's the only part we can play,
rude mechanicals.

908
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,960
That used to annoy me intensely.

909
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:47,720
Yeah, yeah. Me too.

910
00:53:47,720 --> 00:53:51,360
And it was only when I did
the Mystery Plays

911
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:55,440
and got Northern actors
to, you know, doing verse

912
00:53:55,440 --> 00:54:02,240
that I felt I was reclaiming, um...
the energy of classical verse

913
00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:05,880
in the voices
that it was created for.

914
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,520
The fragmentation
of our cultural battles

915
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,840
and the political conflicts
on all sides left many of us
a bit confused.

916
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:17,480
It's perhaps not so surprising
that in hard times
our tastes seem to turn back

917
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:21,360
to an Edwardian world
where everyone knew their place.

918
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,840
The massive popularity
of Upstairs, Downstairs,

919
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:25,800
with its snobbery
and forelock tugging,

920
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:27,600
seemed to prove the point
in the '70s.

921
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:29,720
You remember Lady Pendlebury,

922
00:54:29,720 --> 00:54:33,120
she came here to dine
once or twice last season.

923
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:37,000
She was lady-in-waiting to
the Queen as Princess of Wales.

924
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,240
Thin, angular person.

925
00:54:39,240 --> 00:54:41,040
Very sallow skin.

926
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,840
Indeed, I remember Lady Pendlebury,
Mrs Bridges,

927
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:47,480
she had a regrettable habit
of throwing her head back
when she laughed.

928
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:51,200
Edward nearly had the potatoes
knocked out of his hand
when he was serving them.

929
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,240
In the present, too, there were
enough young people

930
00:54:54,240 --> 00:54:57,080
aspiring to climb
a conventional class ladder

931
00:54:57,080 --> 00:54:59,720
to make it the butt
of popular humour.

932
00:54:59,720 --> 00:55:02,720
Do we have a fondue set
on our wedding list, pet?

933
00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:04,680
We will have tomorrow.

934
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:06,760
Alan's mother bought us
that at Harrods,

935
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:08,600
she has an account there, you know?

936
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:11,320
Oh, and these lovely table mats,
these are new.

937
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,080
Well, hunting scenes.

938
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:16,560
Just haven't had them out before.
They were a present
from Auntie Elsie.

939
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,760
Oh, your Auntie Elsie,
how is she, Brenda?

940
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,800
Is she still a cleaner
down the brewery?

941
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:26,120
By the mid-1970s,

942
00:55:26,120 --> 00:55:29,800
was the great blossoming of the '60s
already blowing away in the wind?

943
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:31,840
Were we back where we started from?

944
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:36,080
Well, the old establishment
was now being reinforced
by the new super-wealthy,

945
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,360
and its opposite, the lower classes,
were themselves starting

946
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:42,000
to become marginalised,
becoming an underclass.

947
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:44,600
But there was life
in the old dog yet.

948
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,600
There were still a few echoes
of the angry young men

949
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:49,880
of the '50s and '60s
in the Wednesday Play.

950
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,520
There was still hard hitting drama
with tough humour

951
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:54,960
and no time
for middle-class hypocrisies.

952
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:57,400
We see it in Jim Allen's play,
The Spongers,

953
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,600
set on the day
of the Queen's Jubilee.

954
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:01,840
From the council.

955
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:03,320
Oh blimey, what's up?

956
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:05,200
Mrs Crosby? Yeah.

957
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:08,560
Actually, I'm a certificated bailiff
and I've come to...

958
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:11,440
Oh. You are Mrs Crosby? Yeah.

959
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,640
Yeah, I'm dealing with you.
There's £262 owing.

960
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:16,080
I must advise that
I've got to collect this now.

961
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:18,120
I haven't got it. £262.
I haven't got it.

962
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,960
Eh, eh. Oh, the Queen, the Queen.

963
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,120
Turn the Queen the other way,
you bloody Communist.

964
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:27,200
Get her upright.
The right way up, the Queen.

965
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,680
Put the Queen up...the right way up.
The Queen!

966
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:32,760
Use your bloody head, the other way!

967
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:34,760
'Ello.

968
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:38,360
And then there was punk,
out of the depths, it seemed.

969
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:40,600
The '70s version
of the angry young men.

970
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:44,320
Finally, here was the voice
that could speak for the skinheads

971
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:46,720
and for a new generation of youth.

972
00:56:46,720 --> 00:56:48,200
It had real energy and fury

973
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:51,280
and it upset both the old
and the new middle classes,

974
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,840
sweeping away the remnants
of hippydom.

975
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,120
But it seemed to come
as a last gasp

976
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:00,400
rather than able to kick-start
something new.

977
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:05,200
Its influence, however,
would be felt in the years ahead.

978
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:07,840
CHEERING

979
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:10,080
# God save the Queen

980
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:12,320
# She ain't no human being

981
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:15,760
# And there's no future

982
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:18,640
# In England's dreaming. #

983
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:23,680
Yet it was hard to hear
the Sex Pistols' anthem
in the summer of 1977

984
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:26,560
above the clamour of
pro-monarchy feeling.

985
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:29,640
The country was apparently
gripped by the excitement

986
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:31,640
of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

987
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:34,880
The desire of most of us
to better ourselves,

988
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:36,880
to be part of the middle classes,

989
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:39,840
had led not so much to
a sweeping away of social barriers

990
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:41,280
as a redefining of them.

991
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:42,640
Thank you very much.

992
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,400
Less than two years later,
we would enter a new era.

993
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:47,200
Very excited, very aware of...

994
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,760
And when we listened to the
distinctive voice of Mrs Thatcher,

995
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:55,120
what we heard were
the clear tones of the old
BBC received pronunciation,

996
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:59,080
that accent once so essential
for the upwardly mobile

997
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:01,920
and which we briefly thought
had gone for ever.

998
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:06,800
Were any of the gains of these
post-war decades to stay with us?

999
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,720
There had been a marvellous surge
of energy which had given us,

1000
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:13,920
at the very least, what appeared
to be a shared culture
on a very high level.

1001
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:16,120
It was now the case
that talent and skill,

1002
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:20,640
whether in the service of
entertainment or high seriousness,
could transcend class.

1003
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:25,120
So, had culture replaced class as
a truer way of saying who you were?

1004
00:58:25,120 --> 00:58:28,800
Did your birth still mean
that that was your destiny,

1005
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:30,800
as it had done for centuries?

1006
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:34,120
Or was this period a little splurge,
a little bubble,

1007
00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:38,080
that was going to burst
while the others up there regrouped?

1008
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,760
This is what we're going to
look at in the culture

1009
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,760
between Margaret Thatcher
from Grantham Grammar

1010
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:45,840
and David Cameron
from Eton College.

1011
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:58,800
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