A 1950s Childhood (9 page)

Many 1950s designer fashions for men wouldn’t look out of place today: stylish polo shirts (then called a tennis shirt) with brightly coloured horizontal stripes, short-sleeved check-patterned shirts, sports jackets with patch pockets, and well-tailored single or double-breasted suits. On the other hand, the trilby hats and decorative top-pocket hankies thankfully fell by the wayside long ago! Although women’s fashions always seem to return if you wait long enough, there has never been a resurgence in the popularity of such ’50s things as women’s hats, or brightly coloured figure-hugging flared dresses, tied into tiny corseted waists with belts of ribbon and bows.

Although it was only the wealthy that could afford to buy designer clothes and be truly fashionable, many less well-off women tried to be as up to date as possible with clothing trends, mostly by dressmaking and knitting the clothes themselves. Conversely, the ordinary man in the street usually wore sensible and boring clothes. Many frequently dressed in their World War Two demob suit for everyday purposes well into the 1950s. There were lots of hand-knitted woollen cardigans, sleeveless jumpers and socks. Hand-knitted socks! They were so uncomfortable to wear, especially after they had been darned. Men regularly wore a shirt and tie, complete with tie-pin and cufflinks, and their jacket pocket would often be bulging from the tobacco tin that was always close at hand, ready to roll a fresh cigarette or to fill a pipe. Although men’s socks were ribbed at the top, they lacked grip and would continually slide down. Some men wore sock suspenders to keep them up.

In wintertime, because the majority of people walked or used the buses, everyone wore calf-length topcoats to
protect them from the weather, and many also wore gloves. Women, as always, were very attached to their handbags, and strapless hand-held bags were popular, but they had to be big enough to hold the essential lipstick and powder compact, and, as many women smoked, there had to be room to accommodate their cigarettes and lighter. Lots of women, and men for that matter, transferred their cigarettes into slim cigarette cases, which took up less space and were very fashionable at the time; they also made popular Christmas presents. Cigarette cases were usually made from silver, leather, chrome or Bakelite, and they were often personalised with the owner’s initials engraved on a plate at the front. Other women’s fashions included ski pants, pencil skirts, mittens, long gloves, headscarves, tiered skirts, balloon or puffed-sleeved blouses, Duffle coats, short fitted jackets, tight-fitting jumpers, upturned collars, stiletto heels (casual shoes were reserved for the garden or beach), slingback shoes and sandals, and winklepicker shoes. The dresses and blouses always had lots of buttons and pleats sewn into them. Short wavy hair, parted on the left and flicked up at the ends, was very fashionable for women, and so hairnet and curlers were often worn in bed at night. Many women had their hair ‘set’ at the hairdressers as often as they could afford it, and permed (permanent wave) every few months to make the newly grown hair wavy.

Women generally took great pride in their appearance, and although times were hard, they would always dress presentably and ready to go out if they unexpectedly needed to. Lightweight housecoats or full-length aprons were commonly worn to protect good clothes from getting dirty from housework. However, contrary to the image
projected in films, men never wore quilted dressing gowns to protect their clothes around the house – maybe they did in Hollywood!

Teddy boys, or ‘Teds’ as they were often called, got their name from the Edwardian-inspired style of clothes they wore. London teenagers started the fashion in the early 1950s, and they quickly linked themselves to the newly arrived American rock and roll music. The Teddy boy culture soon spread across the country, with some forming gangs. They hung around in cafes and on street corners, sometimes causing trouble and involving themselves in violent confrontations with rival gangs. These punch-ups often involved the use of weapons, such as flick-knives, knuckledusters and bottles. They wore long drape jackets with velvet trim collars and large flapped pockets, white shirts with bootlace ‘slim-jim’ ties, high-waisted drainpipe trousers, brightly coloured socks and chunky suede shoes, preferably large crepe-soled shoes (known as brothel creepers), which best suited their bouncy movements when jiving to rock and roll music. Their hair was long and was greased up with Vaseline or Brylcreem. They styled it using their treasured and ever-present comb, carefully sculpturing the hair into a huge quiff, and sweeping the sides around to the back of the head to form what was know as a DA (duck’s arse).

Although they are invariably linked to 1950s violence, the media often exaggerates the amount of violence and the numbers of Teddy boys involved. There were not enough
Teddy boys around for them to affect people’s lives too much. They were a bit of a novelty, and when you saw them in the street you couldn’t help but stare at them because they were so flamboyantly dressed in otherwise unfussy surroundings. Policemen still walked the beat back then, and they enforced a no-loitering law, which meant that anyone hanging around on a street corner for more than a few minutes would soon be approached by a policeman, questioned, and moved on. Most ‘Teds’ became Teddy boys for the clothes and the rock and roll music, and the clothes were too expensive for ‘Teds’ to risk getting them spoiled in fights. The drape jackets were well tailored and frequently made-to-measure, and they cost a fortune! Teddy boys usually paid for their clothes weekly, on the never-never. Their clothes, records, and of course their treasured comb, were their most prized possessions.

Edwardians, or neo-Edwardians as they should be called, also wore drapes but their style was a lot different to that of the Teddy boys. The smart Edwardian style of fashion became popular with young people a couple of years before Teddy boys came along and adopted the look and took it a stage further to make it much more flashy. It was the newspapers in 1953 who first coined the term ‘Teddy’, from ‘Edward’, when describing this new teenage style. Neo-Edwardians wore smart long drape jackets, tailormade from good quality material, slim tailored trousers, white shirt, silk tie, waistcoat, and fine quality Italian shoes. Their hair was fairly short, neatly combed and without the Teddy boy quiff. Again, the neo-Edwardians spent so much money on clothes, it was unlikely that they would go out looking for punch-ups!

Six

R
ADIO AND
T
ELEVISION

Memories of 1950s radio programmes remain indelibly imprinted on the minds of those who are old enough to remember when radio was the main source of entertainment in the home. Even with the increasing demand for televisions during the late 1950s, radio was still hugely popular and more than adequately bridged the gaps in between the good television programmes, and filled the time when television’s two broadcasting stations, BBC and ITV, were off-air. Well-liked radio shows like
The Goons
,
Hancock’s Half Hour
,
The Archers
and
Mrs Dale’s
Diary
continued to attract large numbers of listeners to the BBC radio’s Home Service and Light Programme, while Radio Luxembourg,
‘208 – your station of the stars’
, was attracting younger listeners through its increased output of pop music.

Your parents had control over the radio’s tuning knob, and children often had little say in what programmes were listened to, but there were plenty of radio shows like
Dick Barton
,
Life with the Lyons
and
Meet the Huggetts
, that managed to get both young and old equally hooked. Even with the advent of television programmes like
Watch With
Mother
and
Children’s Hour
, radio shows like
Uncle Mac’s
Children’s Favourite
,
The Clitheroe Kid
and
Educating Archie
still remained firm favourites with young listeners. As a child in the 1950s, you would have considered the radio announcers and commentators to be just old fuddy-duddies, but you heard so much of them during those radio days that many of their names would still be very familiar to you, such names as Franklin Engelmann, Robert Dougall, Jean Metcalfe, Kenneth Kendal, Alvar Lidell and John Snagge, just to mention a few.

Radio provided great entertainment for you on rainy days, evenings and weekends; and not forgetting the great comfort it could be when you were off school sick with one of those many childhood illnesses of the 1950s. The enormous variety of comedy, drama and music programmes kept you from getting bored and in many ways added to your education. Here is just a selection of popular 1950s radio shows to stir the old grey cells:

A Life of Bliss
(1953–9) BBC Light Programme. Written by Godfrey Harrison and featured George Cole as the bumbling David Alexander Bliss who was always finding himself in awkward situations. Petula Clark joined the cast in 1957, and played David Bliss’s girlfriend Penny Gay, until she left him at the altar! Animal imitator, Percy Edwards, played Psyche the dog.

The Archers
(1951–present) BBC Light Programme and BBC Home Service – ‘an everyday story of country folk’. First main broadcast was in January 1951. This is the world’s longest-running radio soap, now broadcast on BBC’s Radio Four. According to the BBC’s press office in 2006, it remained BBC Radio 4’s most popular non-news programme. In the 1950s, the story revolved around the Archer family of Brookfield farm near the village of Ambridge. Much of the action took place at the farm or in
The Bull
pub in the village. Some of the main early characters were Dan and Doris Archer, Jack and Peggy Archer, Doris and Jack Woolley, Ned Larkin, Tom Forrest, and of course that old favourite – ‘well me old pal, me old beauties’ – Walter Gabriel.

Who could ever forget the happy-go-lucky ‘maypole dance’ theme tune entitled
Barwick Green
?

Beyond Our Ken
(1958–64) BBC Light Programme (1950s). This comedy show starred Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick and Bill Pertwee. Barry Took and Eric Merriman wrote the 1950s’ scripts and Douglas Smith played the very formal announcer. It reappeared as
Round the Horne
in 1965–8.

The Billy Cotton Bandshow
(1949–68) BBC Light Programme (1950s). The dreaded shout of Billy Cotton’s ‘Wakey! Wakey!’ each Sunday afternoon sent a shiver down every child’s spine. This music and comedy show presented by the larger-than-life bandleader, Billy Cotton, also featured Alan Breeze, Doreen Stephens and Kathie Kay. Its lifespan indicates that it was very popular with listeners, but I am not sure that there was ever a poll done of children’s views.

Pete Murray presented
Six-Five Special
live music show on BBC TV in 1957/8, and in 1958 he lent his name to this songbook, which gave the words of sixteen current songs. The songbook came free with Roxy, ‘the new exciting all-star picture love story weekly’.

Children’s Favourites
(1954–67) BBC Light Programme (1950s). Every Saturday morning, Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac) would play a selection of children’s record requests, starting each programme with the words, ‘Hello children, everywhere!’ Among the most popular record requests from children were
The Laughing Policeman
by Charles Penrose,
Buttons and Bows
by Dinah Shore,
The
Runaway Train
by Michael Holliday,
When You Come to the
End of a Lollipop
by Max Bygraves,
Nellie the Elephant
by Mandy Miller,
I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat
by Mel Blanc,
The
Bee Song
by Arthur Askey,
How Much is that Doggy in the
Window
by Lita Roza,
The Ugly Duckling
by Danny Kaye,
The Hippopotamus Song
by Flanders and Swann,
Little White
Duck
by Danny Kaye,
The Deadwood Stage
by Doris Day,
My Old Man’s a Dustman
by Lonnie Donegan,
The Teddy
Bear’s Picnic
by Henry Hall,
Puff the Magic Dragon
by Peter Paul and
Mary, Que Será Será
by Doris Day. There were just too many regular children’s favourites to mention them all. Most children just wrote to the show in the hope of getting their name read out on the radio by Uncle Mac, thereby obtaining full bragging rights in the playground on the following Monday morning!

Children’s Hour
(1922–64) BBC Home Service (1950s). Broadcast from 5pm to 6pm on weekdays. It was filled with stories, plays and drama serials, as well as informative talks, children’s newsreels and competitions. The various presenters included Derek McCulloch, ‘Uncle’ Arthur Burrows, ‘Auntie’ Violet Carson, Jon Pertwee and Wilfred Pickles. Popular serials included
Jennings at School
,
Just So
Stories for Little Children
,
Sherlock Holmes
,
Worzel Gummidge
and
Winnie the Pooh
.

The Clitheroe Kid
(1957–72) BBC Light Programme (1950s). This was a long-running situation comedy programme, featuring the diminutive Northern comedian, Jimmy Clitheroe, who played the part of a cheeky schoolboy. Amazingly, Jimmy Clitheroe was already an experienced thirty-five-year-old comedy actor when
The
Clitheroe Kid
was first launched on radio in 1957. Famous celebrities that appeared in the 1950s’ programmes included Judith Chalmers, Bob Monkhouse and Violet Carson (best known for her role as Ena Sharples in
Coronation Street
).

Desert Island Discs
(1942–present) BBC Home Service (1950s). This programme was devised and presented by Roy Plomley from 1942 until his death in 1985. Each week, a guest was invited to choose eight gramophone records and one book. It is said to be the longest-running music radio show in radio history. It was not essential listening for 1950s kids as most of the musical choices seemed to be either classical or from stage shows. The signature tune was, and still is,
By the Sleepy Lagoon
by Eric Coates.

Dick Barton, Special Agent
(1946–51) BBC Light Programme. This was the BBC radio’s first daily serial. Our special agent hero, former Commando Captain Richard Barton, with his two trusty sidekicks, Jock Anderson and Snowy White, solved endless crimes and regularly saved us all from terrible disasters. Its unforgettably dramatic chase signature tune was
Devil’s Gallop
, composed by Charles Williams.

Easy Beat
(1959–67) BBC Light Programme. A Sunday mid-morning show produced and presented by Brian Matthew, it was recorded before a live audience at the Playhouse Theatre, just off Trafalgar Square in London. It
featured the Johnny Howard Band, with guest bands and artists including regulars like Kenny Ball’s Jazzmen and Bert Weedon.

Educating Archie
(1950–60) BBC Light Programme and Home Service. Yes, ventriloquist Peter Brough really did manage to succeed with his own Sunday lunchtime comedy radio show, which he did while holding his dummy, Archie Andrews, in front of the microphone. The show featured fourteen-year-old Julie Andrews, and an enormous number of comedians who went on to become big names, including Tony Hancock, Max Bygraves, Harry Secombe, Benny Hill, Beryl Reid, Hattie Jacques, Dick Emery, Bruce Forsyth, Sid James, Marty Feldman, Graham Stark, Warren Mitchell and James Robertson Justice. The show was even adapted for an ITV television series in 1958.

The Goon Show
(1952–60) BBC Home Service with repeats on the BBC Light Programme. Created and mainly written by Spike Milligan, this comedy sketch show was a firm favourite with 1950s kids, including Prince Charles. The show stared Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, and Michael Bentine, who left the show in 1953. Some of the main characters were: Mr Henry Crun, Lance Brigadier Grytpype-Thynne, Major Dennis Bloodnok and Bluebottle – all played by Peter Sellers; Miss Minnie Bannister, Eccles and Moriarty – all played by Spike Milligan; and Ned Seagoon – played by Harry Secombe. Each of the cast played many minor characters as well, and everything was accompanied by music and comical sound affects.

Hancock’s Half Hour
(1954–9) BBC Light Programme. Comedy show written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson
about the life of down-at-heel comedian, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, who was waiting for the big time to arrive. The main character, Hancock, lived with his dim-witted Australian lodger, played by Bill Kerr, at 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. Sid James played Hancock’s roguish friend Sid, and in later series, Hattie Jacques played his live-in secretary, Miss Griselda Pugh.

Have A Go
(1946–67) BBC Light Programme. A travelling radio quiz, hosted by Yorkshireman Wilfred Pickles, the first BBC newsreader to speak with a broad Yorkshire accent. Accompanied by his wife Mabel, Wilfred took the programme to church halls all around the country, challenging ordinary people to ‘have a go’ and answer quiz questions for money prizes. With ‘Mabel at the table’, Wilfred coined several catchphrases, including ‘How do, how are yer?’, ‘Are yer courting?’ to the younger contestants, and ‘Give ’em the money, Mabel!’ when they won, but all contestants were given the money anyway. The theme tune was
Have a Go, Joe
by Jack Jordan, the original pianist on the show. Violet Carson, famous for playing Ena Sharpes in
Coronation Street
, took over as pianist from 1947 to 1953, after that Harry Hudson took over, followed by Eric James in 1966.

Housewives’ Choice
(1946–67) BBC Light Programme. A popular record request programme for women at home during the day. It was mainly men that presented the shows, with the most popular presenter probably being George Elrick, known as ‘The Smiling Face of Radio’; he had a long association with the show. The signature tune was
In
Party Mood
by Jack Strachey, another unforgettable tune from the 1950s!

Journey into Space
(1953–8) BBC Light Programme. This 1950s radio science fiction classic kept us all up late and sent us to bed with nightmares! Written and produced by BBC producer Charles Chilton, it was set in the future of 1965 and described Man’s conquest of the moon. Each half-hour weekly episode left us all biting our fingernails in suspense with a new cliffhanger ending. The main characters included Captain Andrew ‘Jet’ Morgan, Doc Matthews, Stephen ‘Mitch’ Mitchell, and Lemuel ‘Lemmey’ Barnett, with a changing cast that included Andrew Faulds, David Jacobs, David Kossoff and Alfie Bass.

Life with the Lyons
(1950–61) BBC Light Programme. A popular light-hearted domestic radio sitcom that featured a real-life American family living in London, and starred the husband and wife team of Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, with their children Richard and Barbara Lyon, and the family’s pet dog Skeeter. Other cast members included Molly Weir, who played their Scottish housekeeper Aggie McDonald, Doris Rogers, who played the nosey neighbour Florrie Wainwright, and Ian Sadler as her hen-pecked husband George.