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Birmingham in 1950s

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We were sometimes naughty in the early 50's, but discipline was tough. Seven of the gents in the photo below had been BANNED from Birmingham for a month, guilty of speeding but we looked happy enough on our twice weekly trips to Nottingham. Can't believe I skated wearing a tie but it was the 50's !
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Maggs, I don't recall the exact details probably in connection with some Bill going through parliament but those are the exact words he used. I will do a google and see if I can find anything.
 
Just had a quick look and there are pages and pages referring to the permissive society, Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary 1965/67 and during that time laws were relaxed on abortion, homosexuality, hanging was abolished etc.
 
It looks as though Roy Jenkins was in favour of a relaxing of laws in general then. What a mistake that was in many ways. When you think that Ruth Ellis was hung for a crime of passion, it makes todays criimes seem to matter not a jot doesn't it? Abortion is ten a penny, homosexuality is something to be proud of, and have carnivals to celebrate it, and as far as doing away with corporal punishment, well what can one say?
 
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A couple more from the 50s
 
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One of Billy Connolly's most famous sketches was the one about the coat on the bed and the children fighting over it when the priest came calling. It was hilarious the way he told it but I well remember when I was small it was the norm to have coats on the beds in the winter and the one I recall best was a light grey, woollen one of mum's. We used to fight over who'd got the most on their side of the bed and all three of us kids loved that coat.

Chris
 
We had Our Dad's Army greatcoat over us and one of those stoneware hot water bottles.
There used to be such a crash when it got pushed out of the bed !

(Billy Connolly ? The sketch about the bloke in the incontinence pants. I laughed so hard I got a hernia).
 
Mum's coat was a scratchy woollen one, but nowhere near as rough as those horrible grey blankets!! I used to put my arms down the sleeves.
rosie.
 
We had our Dads motorbike coat on our bed ex army, so it was heavy and kept us warm until he had to go to work the next day god bless him.
 
I believe we all had a dads coats on our beds in the winter time during the 40's & 50's, most of the working class kids I played with did anyway, we also had hot water bottles you remember the ones which smelt heavily of rubber when they had boiling water in them, and mom would wrap an old "cardy" round if they were too hot. When cooler we would wrap our arms around them till we woke up and they were freezing cold and through them out.
paul
 
All types of coat went on our bed, the heavier the better, they were usually army great coats and army blankets, my dad used to heat a blue brick up on the fire and then it was wrapped in a peice of blanket and put in the bed to warm it, we also used glass, screw-topped pop bottles filled with hot water which I suppose was quite dangerous, but the bedrooms had frost on the insides during the winter so we did anything to keep warm including wearing jumpers in bed.
 
I remember drawing on the frost on the inside of my bedroom window, like most houses built in the 19th, early 20th C, only single glazed, and only a coal fire in the sitting room, and a parafine stove on the stairs.
 
Houses built just after WWII were not a lot better as far as windows went. I recall sleeping in what was more a box room. Grabbed as many coats as I could get.
 
Makes you shiver just remembering it all doesn't it? I well remember flinging the rubber hot water bottle out of bed and the clumping sound it made as it landed. I remember wearing jumpers in bed, too and the sash windows were always iced over in the winter.

Chris
 
I also had my dads army greatcoat on me bed, it was really warm. As an aside, the greatcoat I was given when I joined up, was the first overcoat I had ever had.

Barrie.
 
The rubber hot water bottle was the source of some unintended pleasure .
One night , one of my brothers was moving the bottle so's it made a sloshing noise .
My other brother said "Your bladder's a bit full innit ?"
Mom had to come and see what all the laughing was about .
 
The question is "Are the 50s the forgotten decade".
Not by me they are not. I consider the years between 1950 & 1960 the best ever.
1950 I was still at school, by 1960 having worked and done national service, I was married with our first child.
The music and style of clothes, rationing ending and life getting better, we had it all.
It's gone down hill a bit of late though.
 
Hi

Continuing with this thread all contributors have unearthed the atmosphere of that decade.
One could roam around disappear for the day turn up for tea without a murmur. Our pocket
money was minimal 1/- 2/- an absolute fortune. Most bus fares were around 1d 2d.
Other than the Coop divi 211790 ingrained in my mind we would have had no Xmas.
Our hobbies were simple Train-spotting was free and endemic among the young population.
Holiday's were a week in a boarding house Rhyl Weston Boscombe (Bournemouth was too expensive)
Wages were low to toil in Factories for £10 to £12 basic plus 50% max on piece work was hard.
In the mid 60's I got nowhere near 50% and left on £13 per week.
Probably it was the low wages that started a spiral of discontent who knows the 50,s had there difficulties
but were a calm before a storm of protest. The War left our Grand Parents and Parents tired and were in a
re-building mode of there lives. We the Kids were the Lucky ones all that peace and Quite.
Those happy have gone now but all those happy times live on.

Mike Jenks
 
I was born in 1940 so I was ten in January 1950, I had an ordinary state education and strted work the day after I left school. I have had a number of jobs and found some pleasure in all of them until I became a van driver, then my working life really took off. As a youth, I did enjoy the 50s and do not consider it to be a forgotten decade in any way.
 
Every time this thread pops up I reach for my 'rose tinted' specs and in one of my earlier posts I said...

picture a lovely sunny day maybe 1954 with three of us going to Southampton in an open top Triumph Roadster which had 3 front seats and two 'dickey' seats in the boot. We drove across Salisbury Plains listening to Guy Mitchell singing 'with a whoop and a holler and a dime and a dollar' ... no cares, no worries ...

oldmohawk
 
That's a great photo Topsy. Record shops were wonderful places weren't they. Until I saw this photo I'd forgotton Embassy Records.And they have the latest top twenty on the wall. I see it also has that wall cladding with the holes all over it. The listening booths in music shops often had that on the walls. Must be a type of sound proofing. This shop looks terribly well organised. That really is a view stepping back in time.Thanks. Viv.
 
The fifties was the greatest decade in my life without a doubt, In 1950 i was 20 and serving in Africa with the RAF,,,, on return home met my future Wife at a christmas dance in 1951, December 1952 were married Jan 1953 to 1955 we were in Hong Kong and Singapore and my Daughter was born in Changi Hospital, got demobbed in June 1956, certainly the most eventful decade of my life - and the happiest. Incidently my daughter is now a grand mother twice over. Eric
 
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