1950s.mp4

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I grew up in the Forties and Fifties in England starting with the first taste of welfare orange juice and ending with the birth of rock n roll.
We were recovering from the ravages of a War and despite the difficulties of day-to-day living people seemed to share a common purpose in life. Everybody knew their neighbours and it was a common practice to leave the street door on the latch or hang a key on a piece of string behind the letterbox when they were out for us kids to come and go as we pleased (My mum did the latter.)
I experienced the rationing of food and clothes for most of my childhood. It was quite normal to go without the sweets, biscuits, crisps, fizzy drinks and other delights that would be taken for granted now. The most I would have had in the early years was once a week, a two-ounce Mars Bar sliced as you would a loaf of bread and shared between three of us. (Always a Mars Bar!)
Our first 9 inches black and white television set with one BBC Chanel and a half-hour children's program with Annette Mills and Muffin the Mule was equivalent to me as an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max would be the child of today. It didn’t really matter that I had little television time because I could play in the streets without the fear of traffic or the obstruction of parked cars.
I grew up in a much safer environment than you imagine in those days. We were able to enjoy the freedom of outdoor life. We played lots of rough-and-tumble games, got dirty and fell out of trees. The purple stains of iodine were always evident on the grazed knees of boys in short trousers. There was no such thing as health and safety or children’s rights. We were taught discipline at home and at school and ­corporal punishment was freely administered for bad behaviour.
I respected people in authority such as policemen and teachers, This didn't stop me from riding the Tube without paying or getting off busses before the conductor could collect the fare always knowing that I would get a clip round the ear if caught.
Homelife was much different from today. We only had a valve radio in the front room until we were taken over by technology with the arrival of our Pye 9” B&W TV.
As the food started to come off ration we managed to eat more wholesome food, which was always freshly cooked, and my mum seemed always to be in the kitchen. On Sundays we always had a roast dinner and leftovers were made into stews and bubble and squeak to eat later in the week. The fat was poured into a bowl for cooling and solidifying ready for the bread and dripping that was standard fare in the early days.
Boys and girls played street games together, such as tag, hopscotch and knock down ginger. In the playground schoolgirls practised handstands and cartwheels with their skirts tucked up under the elastic of their navy blue knickers, while the boys played conkers.
Saturday morning pictures provided me with my best fun ever. Every week, I and another 250 or so unruly children would descend on the Odean Cinema for a couple of hours of film and live entertainment. The live entertainment consisted of the large organ rising majestically up from the pits playing the Odean Song. With the words projected on the screen, we would all sing our lungs out following the bouncing ball. “We come along on Saturday morning greeting everybody with a smile”. This would be followed by other songs for us to follow the bouncing ball on.
If you were really lucky,,, Like winning Loto or something... and managed to get a front seat in the gods (circle), you could throw your empty sweet packets, ice-cream tubs or any other projectiles that you could lay your hands on at the kids below you. The manager would regularly stop the film and threaten to send everybody home if they didn’t behave and the solitary usherette was often forced to run for cover. It was controlled mayhem with the stalls and circle filled with children cheering for the goodies and booing the baddies. It introduced me to The Lone Ranger and Zorro, Roy Rogers, Billy The Kid and the slapstick comedy of Mr Pastry and Old Mother Riley.
Money well spent from my one-shilling and sixpence a week pocket money. The rest would go on sweets when available, ice cream and a comic.
It all ended 1n 1953 when I was enrolled in a naval boarding school for the duration of my childhood. The freedom to run amuck in the streets and parks now relegated to the corridors of history, The bomb sites that were my forbidden playgrounds long gone.
There was something cosy about growing up in the forty's and early fifties, even not having the life of plenty as the kids here today have, I enjoyed a carefree childhood full of fun and games. I was lucky, and I survived,

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