0:00:06 > 0:00:09When the monolithic Heygate Housing Estate
0:00:09 > 0:00:13materialised at the foot of the road where I lived,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16it wiped out the house where I was born,
0:00:16 > 0:00:18the tenements that housed my ancestors
0:00:18 > 0:00:21as well as shops, schools and churches.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28It was 1974. The overcast summer of a global recession.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33But the prospect of a better future brightened those sombre days.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Those of us in the rising generation loved it here.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41We welcomed every breeze block that brought change.
0:00:43 > 0:00:49I guess the estate brought the future closer to home in an area that was dominated by the past.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53I remember being dazzled by the Persil whiteness of the fitted kitchens
0:00:53 > 0:00:58and the stairwells seemed to head to heaven and away from the slate grey streets below.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05I guess we thought this was the modern world and it was ours for the taking.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14This estate was built as a taster for the future
0:01:14 > 0:01:20yet, at the tender age of 37, it's derelict and it's ready for the demolition men.
0:01:20 > 0:01:26Homes like these became part of a landscape of ASBOs and crack dens
0:01:26 > 0:01:29that helped sound the death-knell on social housing.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32The Heygate's legacy is one of failure
0:01:32 > 0:01:35and there are few, I think, that will regret its passing.
0:01:40 > 0:01:46But for me, this place, the Heygate, is part of a much bigger, brighter story.
0:01:46 > 0:01:51It's part of a revolution and something as important as the birth of the welfare state
0:01:51 > 0:01:54or the introduction of secondary education
0:01:54 > 0:01:56and something that's often neglected.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00It's a chapter in the history of British council housing.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04# I can remember when this was the future... #
0:02:04 > 0:02:10We really thought that my dad had won the pools and got us this massive house.
0:02:10 > 0:02:15It's not that we thought it was owned by the council. That was our house.
0:02:15 > 0:02:21At its peak in the mid-1970s, council housing provided homes
0:02:21 > 0:02:24for more than a third of the British population...
0:02:24 > 0:02:25We lived there 50 years ago.
0:02:25 > 0:02:31..marking one of the greatest social revolutions in modern history.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38The idea of being able to put the light switch on...
0:02:38 > 0:02:42Even now I should imagine there'd be thousands of people
0:02:42 > 0:02:45give their eye teeth to have a place like this.
0:02:45 > 0:02:50Council housing began with a bang at the start of the 20th century
0:02:50 > 0:02:53and ended with a whimper 80 years later.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55So how and why did it begin?
0:02:55 > 0:02:58Who was it for? Where did it go wrong?
0:02:58 > 0:03:00And who is to blame?
0:03:18 > 0:03:21The story of council housing begins here,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25currently one of London's most sought-after postcodes,
0:03:25 > 0:03:31colonised by artists and a media class seduced by its urban edginess.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35But back in the 19th century,
0:03:35 > 0:03:41Shoreditch was the epicentre of a post-industrial, over-populated metropolis
0:03:41 > 0:03:47where poverty, vice, deprivation threatened to consume the entire city itself.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53The bulk of the population are a kind of floating group of people
0:03:53 > 0:04:00involved as hawkers, costermongers, washer women, shoemakers -
0:04:00 > 0:04:04people that the Victorians referred to as the residuum.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06Those people who'd been left behind
0:04:06 > 0:04:11by the tide of progress. The original Victorian solution
0:04:11 > 0:04:15was that the problem of poverty was the problem of the poor themselves.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20But in the 1880s, there were riots in Trafalgar Square by the unemployed
0:04:20 > 0:04:26and, camped out in Trafalgar Square, were dozens of homeless people.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28That was considered to be a national scandal.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37Many a zealous politician, Fabian, clergy man and journalist
0:04:37 > 0:04:39highlighted the plight of the huddled masses.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44In 1883, the Tory leader Lord Salisbury
0:04:44 > 0:04:49proposed a Royal Commission for the housing of the working classes.
0:04:50 > 0:04:56The impetus for the first in a series of Housing Acts that signalled dramatic change.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02At the fag end of the 19th century, a radical idea emerged.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06What if the state could house the working classes?
0:05:06 > 0:05:09So here, in 1893 in Shoreditch,
0:05:09 > 0:05:15on the site of London's most notorious slum, work began on this.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18Britain's first ever council estate.
0:05:27 > 0:05:32In 1890, all local authorities were granted the option to build homes.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37The newly formed London County Council, the LCC,
0:05:37 > 0:05:41responded first with these 23 red-brick tenement blocks.
0:05:42 > 0:05:44Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement,
0:05:44 > 0:05:49each was individually designed under the supervision of architect Owen Fleming
0:05:49 > 0:05:54of the Authority's "housing of the working classes" branch.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00The buildings were named after villages along the Thames
0:06:00 > 0:06:05and built on boulevards that extend from a central communal bandstand.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09Fashioned from the rubble of the dismantled slums themselves.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14Do you feel like you get a sense of history when you're sat inside your flat?
0:06:14 > 0:06:16Definitely you get a feel that
0:06:16 > 0:06:18you're living somewhere that's got history to it.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20I think that's what's driven my passion.
0:06:20 > 0:06:26It was the start of something, I suppose you could say, revolutionary.
0:06:28 > 0:06:35The Boundary Estate was officially opened in 1900 by the Prince of Wales.
0:06:35 > 0:06:41Over a century later, it still provides social housing to thousands of council tenants.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Although its tenement blocks echoed the social housing
0:06:50 > 0:06:55of Victorian philanthropists, such as Peabody and Guinness,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58the idea of bringing housing into the public realm
0:06:58 > 0:07:02would radically reshape Britain throughout the new century.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05You know, it's all very well renting a couple of rooms
0:07:05 > 0:07:09in someone's property, but you haven't got that sense of...
0:07:09 > 0:07:10belonging.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16But for the slum dwellers whose homes it displaced,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19the Boundary didn't entirely succeed.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23Of over 5,000 people who were evicted from the old slums.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Only 11 moved in to the new estate.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31Rents were too high, rules and regulations were too restrictive
0:07:31 > 0:07:36so the remainder moved on to slums in near by East End neighbourhoods.
0:07:36 > 0:07:42Meanwhile, it was the hope of the LCC that the so-called respectable working classes
0:07:42 > 0:07:46would prosper, move on, maybe to better neighbourhoods
0:07:46 > 0:07:50and those below would move in and learn by example
0:07:50 > 0:07:54how to live respectably in decent dwellings.
0:07:55 > 0:08:02At the beginning of the 20th century, the LCC continued to build homes in and around the capital.
0:08:02 > 0:08:07But it took the carnage of global conflict to make council housing a national issue.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14During the final months of World War One,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18Britain's natives were getting restless.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20The country was hit by strikes at home
0:08:20 > 0:08:24while veterans were agitating for a better deal on their return.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30The day after Armistice, Lloyd George's coalition government
0:08:30 > 0:08:34proposed a policy to pacify the masses.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39Sceptics dismissed it as a ruse to stave off revolt,
0:08:39 > 0:08:43but it was the outcome rather than the motivation that mattered.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53So this is the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1919.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56It says here, "An act to amend the enactment
0:08:56 > 0:08:59"relating to the housing of the working classes."
0:09:00 > 0:09:07And when you open it, you see Part One, it says, "It shall be the duty of every local authority
0:09:07 > 0:09:10"to consider the needs of their area
0:09:10 > 0:09:14"with respect to the provision of houses for the working classes."
0:09:14 > 0:09:19This might not look like much, but this is a really revolutionary document.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21This made it national. This is the point
0:09:21 > 0:09:24where all local authorities were given the green light.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30Lloyd George promised "Homes Fit For Heroes"
0:09:30 > 0:09:35and it was now the duty of local authorities to deliver.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39The policy was expected to survive only until 1927
0:09:39 > 0:09:44while the fear of insurrection subsided, and private development revived.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50Meanwhile, Britain needed 700,000 homes fast.
0:09:52 > 0:09:58And the Government found inspiration in an idyllic housing scheme built at the start of the century.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11So, Reenie, tell me what is it that you like about your house in Letchworth?
0:10:11 > 0:10:12I just love it down here.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14I wouldn't want to move from here now.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18- It's quiet.- Yeah, really lovely.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22For 70 of her 90 years, Reenie Williams has lived
0:10:22 > 0:10:26in a quaint English country cottage in Letchworth,
0:10:26 > 0:10:30the world's first garden city.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36The brainchild of social reformer Ebenezer Howard,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40Letchworth was a privately funded project.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Its cottages were the vision of a sandal-wearing socialist
0:10:45 > 0:10:51called Raymond Unwin, the founding father of the British council house.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57Raymond Unwin was an architect who became inspired
0:10:57 > 0:11:02by the Arts and Crafts vision, particularly that of William Morris.
0:11:02 > 0:11:07Not only the decorative arts, but also Morris's venture
0:11:07 > 0:11:10into socialism. Unwin started to explore the idea
0:11:10 > 0:11:15of reformed working-class housing, not just in tenements,
0:11:15 > 0:11:19the way that they'd been built in London and the industrial cities,
0:11:19 > 0:11:23but the idea of individual houses with gardens.
0:11:25 > 0:11:30Unwin committed himself to campaigning for decent homes for the working class.
0:11:30 > 0:11:35He became the most influential contributor to this document,
0:11:35 > 0:11:37the Tudor Walters Report.
0:11:39 > 0:11:45Its recommendations underpinned the Housing Act of 1919.
0:11:46 > 0:11:52And Unwin's garden cottages became the prototype for Lloyd George's homes for heroes,
0:11:52 > 0:11:57including those on the biggest housing estate in the world.
0:12:06 > 0:12:13Here in Becontree, 27,000 homes were built between 1921 and 1932
0:12:13 > 0:12:19to entice an urban working class away from London's overcrowded East End.
0:12:19 > 0:12:26Visiting the estate now, where every home has a plasma screen in the living room,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30and more than a few have an old one on the lawn,
0:12:30 > 0:12:34I can't help wondering how it felt for those survivors of the war
0:12:34 > 0:12:41as they surveyed these streets on a damp afternoon in 1921.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43Right, so here we are,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46one of the very first homes at Becontree.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49This looks like it's not been touched since 1919.
0:12:49 > 0:12:54This particular house was built just after 1919. I'd say 1921-22.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58When your family moved here, you had eight siblings from Bethnal Green.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01Something like a downstairs toilet would have been quite a luxury.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05Coming from the East End, it's fabulous. Front and back gardens.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08- Yeah.- Running water.- Yeah. - Inside toilets,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11- bathroom.- Yeah.- Fabulous.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15'Bill Jennings has breathed Becontree, man and boy.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19'His family moved here in 1954.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23'He served the estate as a housing officer for most of his working life.'
0:13:23 > 0:13:27Your family with eight kids - all those families coming from the East End,
0:13:27 > 0:13:29I bet they couldn't believe their luck.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33I think one old lady described it as heaven with the gates off.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38Yeah, well probably , I can understand it. You can sense what it must have been like.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41It must have been massive compared to what they'd left.
0:13:41 > 0:13:47There was something practical and paternalistic in both the layer of these cottages
0:13:47 > 0:13:52and the manner in which the working classes were expected to live in them.
0:13:52 > 0:13:57If you want to know why the council houses in Becontree and elsewhere at the time
0:13:57 > 0:14:01are the way they are, it's all here in the Tudor Walters Report.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03You can feel the influence of Raymond Unwin in this.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08Unwin believed, almost religiously, that every room had to have a specific purpose.
0:14:08 > 0:14:13He hated hallways, he hated landings, but most of all, he hated the parlour.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16He thought that the parlour was a room that they just used
0:14:16 > 0:14:20perhaps for Christmas or for somebody's funeral tea.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24Why not throw the space into a bigger general living room?
0:14:24 > 0:14:28This is where you see the distinction between what an architect wanted
0:14:28 > 0:14:30and what some of the residents wanted
0:14:30 > 0:14:34because the aspirational working class really wanted parlours
0:14:34 > 0:14:36because it gave them the status.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40It made them feel that they were on their way to becoming middle-class.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45There's something very precise and prescriptive about the Tudor Walters Report
0:14:45 > 0:14:50and this becomes really apparent when you look at the scullery cos it's here you see
0:14:50 > 0:14:53that slightly paternalistic attitude of Unwin and his acolytes,
0:14:53 > 0:14:56because they wanted the scullery to be the place where
0:14:56 > 0:14:59the working classes cooked, prepared and ate food,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03whereas in the past, a lot of that stuff had been done in the living room.
0:15:03 > 0:15:09The scullery was being promoted to what we would now think of as a working kitchen.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12Everything had its place. There was the mangle, there was the copper.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16And there was the sink, which had to be 36 inches long
0:15:16 > 0:15:19with a cupboard one side and a draining board the other,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22and under the window so that housewives could look into the street
0:15:22 > 0:15:25and keep an eye on their kids playing outside.
0:15:26 > 0:15:33Becontree's council cottages prescribed a contemporary way of life with remarkable detail,
0:15:33 > 0:15:38providing light, spacious homes for more than 100,000 residents.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43As with the Boundary Estate,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47the aim was to rehouse those dispossessed by slum clearance.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53But once again it was the cultivated working classes that moved in,
0:15:53 > 0:16:00families whose domestic conduct already chimed with the values demanded by their new landlords.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Monday, the rent man came and it was washday,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05and Tuesday was ironing day.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Wednesday was a good clean through the house
0:16:08 > 0:16:10and then Thursday was another washday.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12Friday was shopping day.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And Saturday, you cleaned the house thoroughly for Sunday, for the weekend.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17You took pride in where you lived.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20I don't think that happens so much today.
0:16:20 > 0:16:26Each new tenant was issued with a handbook in which rules and regulations were listed.
0:16:26 > 0:16:31Failure to comply could result in eviction.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34OK, what I've got here is the Becontree handbook.
0:16:34 > 0:16:39It shows you just how specific these rules and regulations were.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41Some of them are quite straightforward.
0:16:41 > 0:16:46It says the tenants should clean their windows at least once a week.
0:16:46 > 0:16:47Fair enough.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51Tenants should have the chimneys swept once every year. That's OK.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55But there are other things that are really, really specific.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59The tenants shall use the back garden of the premises as a drying ground
0:16:59 > 0:17:05but shall not otherwise expose to public view any washing or unsightly objects.
0:17:07 > 0:17:08In this day and age,
0:17:08 > 0:17:13if those rules and regulations were attempted to be applied,
0:17:13 > 0:17:15there'd be protest meetings and marches and all sorts of things.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21There wasn't anything like that in our days.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23People never dreamt of anything like that.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26This is the one I love. This is my favourite.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31It says you have to lay linoleum within one foot of any wall,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34so basically you have to leave a border all around the room.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37That was basically when they came to decorate
0:17:37 > 0:17:39so that they didn't damage the lino.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41You had to have this wooden border all the way round.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43They also kept the privets cut.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47If they were cutting your privets and keeping your house clean,
0:17:47 > 0:17:52they expected, quid pro quo, you should keep your garden tidy.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54This all may sound very prescriptive,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57but I think it's as much for the landlords as the tenants
0:17:57 > 0:18:00because it was all a new experience, a new experience for both of them.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04So I suppose they were really guessing because they had no idea,
0:18:04 > 0:18:10either of them, had no idea how this two-way relationship would work out.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13The paternalism that applied to the home
0:18:13 > 0:18:17also extended into the social sphere of the residents.
0:18:17 > 0:18:22The LCC was keen to make Becontree a teetotal town.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25But the absence of pubs, as well as shops and markets,
0:18:25 > 0:18:30cast Becontree as a town without a heart.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34This was a dilemma that would plague local councils for decades.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Having given the working classes ideal homes,
0:18:38 > 0:18:42how would it replace the culture and the neighbourhood it had erased?
0:18:42 > 0:18:46# Ain't misbehavin'
0:18:46 > 0:18:49# Saving my love for you... #
0:18:52 > 0:18:55I was really looking forward to coming to Becontree,
0:18:55 > 0:18:59not just because it was the first big adventure in council housing
0:18:59 > 0:19:02but because it was that first big estate
0:19:02 > 0:19:06that was built on the back of the Homes For Heroes initiative.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09Even though you look back and think some of those rules and regulations
0:19:09 > 0:19:12in the handbooks were particularly strident,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15I don't think some of them would go amiss now when you see
0:19:15 > 0:19:19clapped-out caravans and the broken TVs on people's lawns.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23What I can't bear is that awful pinched Fabian approach
0:19:23 > 0:19:29of trying to evangelise about people's social life by not giving them a pub.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33But most of all, Becontree gave thousands and thousands of people,
0:19:33 > 0:19:36from the East End and beyond a home,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39and I think for that alone we should salute it.
0:19:45 > 0:19:51Becontree's cottages came to exemplify council housing throughout Britain,
0:19:51 > 0:19:56as 170,000 homes were built in the wake of the Housing Act.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01But the individual cottage-style dwelling wasn't the only solution to the housing crisis.
0:20:03 > 0:20:09The working classes of Liverpool were being offered an alternative foreign vision.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13I've come a long way to show you this film from the '30s.
0:20:13 > 0:20:15It's a fantastic film about Liverpool
0:20:15 > 0:20:20and why Liverpool was important within the story of council housing.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23And as you were all from major estates in Liverpool,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26I thought it would be great to see what you think about
0:20:26 > 0:20:29the estates themselves and what memories you have of them.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32I'm introducing to you a film
0:20:32 > 0:20:36dealing with one of the most vital social problems of our time -
0:20:36 > 0:20:37housing.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41It was this man, Lancelot Keay,
0:20:41 > 0:20:45who introduced the modern flat into the lexicon if council housing.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49Flats were part of a foreign tradition.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54For the British, they conjured up memories of old squalid Victorian tenements,
0:20:54 > 0:20:58an image that Keay would help to consign to the past.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07St Andrew's Gardens is the most important
0:21:07 > 0:21:10surviving example of Liverpool's very, very extensive programme
0:21:10 > 0:21:13of integral flats, a series of very large estates
0:21:13 > 0:21:15that ringed the city centre.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19It's the only city outside of London
0:21:19 > 0:21:22that's really committed to building flats on this scale.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25This is due to the particular circumstances of Liverpool.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29You've got a dockside economy, which is casually based,
0:21:29 > 0:21:33and people need to be physically close to the docks every single day in order to get work.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37So putting everybody out into council estates on the edge of the city
0:21:37 > 0:21:40is not really going to work for a city like Liverpool.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45The council's housing department looked abroad,
0:21:45 > 0:21:50transforming the image of the flat by importing some European modernism.
0:21:52 > 0:21:56It's borrowing very much from the so-called Horseshoe Estate in Britz in Berlin,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00but the English housing standards of the inter-war period
0:22:00 > 0:22:03were a lot higher than those seen in other countries.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06The Tudor Walters report laid down minimum space standards,
0:22:06 > 0:22:10minimum standards of amenities that the English were, quite rightly, proud of.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15For the time, they're incredibly well-appointed, most importantly very spacious,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18and you've got ventilation on both sides of the building.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23You've got through ventilation which is a crucial sanitary aspect of these buildings.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27You've got the idea that any internal corridors are less healthy than
0:22:27 > 0:22:31an access balcony which is open to the air, and that's the means of access to all of these flats,
0:22:31 > 0:22:33and the same with the stairwells.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37So they really couldn't be more different from the dark, dingy
0:22:37 > 0:22:42and often very disease-ridden slums that you see down in the city centre.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53Liverpool slums were among the most densely populated in Britain.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56A public health risk as much as a housing issue.
0:22:56 > 0:23:02In 1930 the Ministry of Health, in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05instituted a five-year slum clearance plan.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11VOICE OVER: 'Slums are gradually disappearing,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14'giving way to new development in and around the city.
0:23:14 > 0:23:20'Foundation stone, at the entrance to Gerard Gardens, was laid in 1935
0:23:20 > 0:23:23'by the Right Honourable Sir Kingsley Wood, then Minister of Health.'
0:23:23 > 0:23:27Government subsidies were available for the building of flats
0:23:27 > 0:23:30on sites where slums had been raised to the ground.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35The epic scale of the estates that emerged astonished contemporaries
0:23:35 > 0:23:38and enthralled their new inhabitants.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46My first memory of moving to the square
0:23:46 > 0:23:48is actually being on the hand cart with my dad
0:23:48 > 0:23:51taking the furniture down. We only lived about 400 yards away.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55Going up all these stairs going, "Where'd all these stairs come from?"
0:23:55 > 0:23:58Someone once said it was like living in a castle, and it was.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00It was like a fortress.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02All our friends lived there,
0:24:02 > 0:24:06all the people you went to school with, but I think, because you knew all the kids,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09you also knew the parents and there was a lot of respect at that time.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11You always called the parents -
0:24:11 > 0:24:14"Hello, Mrs Birchall" - you always called them by their surname.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17You knew them, but more importantly they knew you.
0:24:17 > 0:24:22That's a powerful commodity when you're a kid, the fact that everybody knows who you are.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26I think that's what maybe separate the gangs of kids from the squares where we lived,
0:24:26 > 0:24:31with the kids that hang around on street corners now who are totally anonymous.
0:24:31 > 0:24:35I think that sense of belonging doesn't exist any more
0:24:35 > 0:24:36and I think that's the key.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39We all felt as though we belonged somewhere.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43I know from personal contact with the tenants who move into the new dwellings
0:24:43 > 0:24:47how much they appreciate the amenities provided for them.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50I was six and we sat on the floor and ate fish and chips
0:24:50 > 0:24:53the first day we arrived, which was lovely because it
0:24:53 > 0:24:57was a lovely house and we ran into every room to see what there was.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00It was lovely being able to turn the tap on and there was hot and cold.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04The idea of being able to put the light switch on,
0:25:04 > 0:25:05you know, some lights,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08have your own bathroom.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11It was just heaven to us kids, you know?
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Came in from the landing
0:25:13 > 0:25:15and there was a long hallway which was red tiles.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20There were three bedrooms and a living room and a little scullery,
0:25:20 > 0:25:22which we called the back kitchen.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24Everyone got washed in the kitchen,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27the little scullery, because there was no sink in the bathroom.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30You'd say, "Who's got the soap?"
0:25:30 > 0:25:34And someone would say "Winnie's got it," that's my other sister.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36She'd be doing the step with it.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40The difference between some property and this house and its surroundings
0:25:40 > 0:25:41you can see for yourself.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44The struggle to make both ends meet has ceased
0:25:44 > 0:25:48and we're all perfectly happy and healthy.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52Over time the flats that remain have been redeveloped,
0:25:52 > 0:25:54they're now privately owned,
0:25:54 > 0:25:57but visiting today, you still get a sense
0:25:57 > 0:25:58of what they must have meant
0:25:58 > 0:26:00for those early council tenants.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05That house there was Mrs Bristow's.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10- This bottom one on the very bottom, and then Fisher's.- Fisher, yeah.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13Of course... Where the chap has just come out of now...
0:26:13 > 0:26:15Do you live in that corner house?
0:26:15 > 0:26:18We lived there 50 years ago and we're making a film.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20I was brought up there 50 years ago.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24- And me!- I wonder if it's just possible to just have a quick look?
0:26:24 > 0:26:28- Oh, would you, please?- Is there any way we can come up and have a look?
0:26:28 > 0:26:30Are you sure? That's great.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33- What number is it? - It was 21B but it's not now.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Are you ready for this?
0:26:36 > 0:26:40- How long since you've been here, Tony?- 50 years for me.
0:26:40 > 0:26:4243 years for me.
0:26:45 > 0:26:51Oh I see, they've knocked into that bedroom and made the living room L-shaped.
0:26:51 > 0:26:53That's a much bigger kitchen and we had.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56This is massive to what we had, isn't it?
0:26:56 > 0:26:58The fireplace was there.
0:26:58 > 0:27:03Radiogram in that alcove there. Oh!
0:27:03 > 0:27:05- I can't believe this. - Are you all right, love?
0:27:05 > 0:27:07Yeah, just...
0:27:09 > 0:27:11A lot of happy memories here though.
0:27:11 > 0:27:12Absolutely.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24You see where the little hut is now?
0:27:24 > 0:27:26- Oh, yeah. - That was where the swings were.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34All the people along the landing, usually at the weekend,
0:27:34 > 0:27:37would be out scrubbing their socks right as far as you can see.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45The story of council housing in Liverpool isn't simply that of individual homes,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48but of vast estates of flats and houses
0:27:48 > 0:27:53that formed a vision for the redevelopment for an entire city.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58Building was halted by World War Two,
0:27:58 > 0:28:03during which the impact of bomb damage made the housing problem more acute than ever.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09Council housing was becoming an essential social service,
0:28:09 > 0:28:13providing permanent homes, more of a right than a privilege.
0:28:15 > 0:28:22I'd love to know from you what you actually think council housing has done for a city like Liverpool.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25I remember my mam's face when we first moved into that house.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27It was... I just felt overjoyed for her.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31There was me mam and dad, nine kids,
0:28:31 > 0:28:3611 people in a two-up-two-down cockroach infested slum.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38She wanted a brand new four-bedroomed corpy house,
0:28:38 > 0:28:42not too far from where we were living thank you very much, and we got it.
0:28:42 > 0:28:48And, I've got to say, like, my dad, he brought up nine kids.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53We all worked, all paid taxes, we haven't been in prison or anything like that.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56Nine kids in a very poor working-class area.
0:28:56 > 0:29:00He went away to fight a war when he was a young man,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03he fought every day of that war.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08He came home and worked every hour God sends, you know,
0:29:08 > 0:29:11and of course he deserved a Home Fit For A Hero.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13He was a hero, you know.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18We were entitled to that council house, you know.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21It's not that we thought it was owned by the council,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24that was our house, so me mam and dad spent a fortune.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27They bought railings, you know.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30They spent a fortune on the garden, they decorated,
0:29:30 > 0:29:32they changed things around.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34That was their house and they looked after it, you know.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38It's interesting we're speaking now, it's just been announced that
0:29:38 > 0:29:43you can only have short term tenure of council housing in the future.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47That's pernicious. Just imagine somebody coming along and saying to us
0:29:47 > 0:29:52"I'm sorry, your economic circumstances have changed, your mum and dad have got to get out now."
0:29:54 > 0:29:55We'd go...
0:29:55 > 0:29:59We'd be in there with baseball bats waiting for somebody to knock on the door.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01"Try it now, this is our house!"
0:30:01 > 0:30:05You know. It's just... It's ludicrous.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08Just cos it's a council house, doesn't mean it's not yours.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14In 1945, following a Labour landslide,
0:30:14 > 0:30:19the Minister for Health, Nye Bevan, oversaw the creation of a welfare state,
0:30:19 > 0:30:24in which public housing would be as universal as health and education.
0:30:25 > 0:30:33A utopian vision of council housing for all, that led to the foundation of entirely new towns.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41For me, this is where the story gets personal.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53While I was still an infant, my uncle, aunt, two cousins, and assorted pets,
0:30:53 > 0:30:58broke rank and left London for what seemed an impossibly modern town
0:30:58 > 0:31:01beyond the capital's green belt.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08My uncle captured his family's new life here in Stevenage
0:31:08 > 0:31:10in a series of cine films.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14For those of us that joined them on high days and holidays,
0:31:14 > 0:31:19it was a place that seemed as alien as abroad.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22When I used to come to Stevenage when I was a kid,
0:31:22 > 0:31:24it was funny coming to a place like this where
0:31:24 > 0:31:27there didn't seem to be anyone on the street,
0:31:27 > 0:31:31apart from the town centre, but these cul-de-sacs seemed really quiet and suburban.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36When you came into the gardens, you realised everyone was in their gardens doing something.
0:31:36 > 0:31:41The utility room was fantastic because my uncle, he would always be filming,
0:31:41 > 0:31:44and that's the place where he edited these little films.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49which I didn't take much notice of at the time but now I realise it's a fantastic archive to discover.
0:31:51 > 0:31:58In 1946, Stevenage became the first of the nation's designated new towns,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01built to relieve Britain's inner-city population problem.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07Providing not just the homes, but also the jobs,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10that would bring a skilled urban working class,
0:32:10 > 0:32:14including my uncle, to pastures new.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17This was a place for skilled craftsmen
0:32:17 > 0:32:19rather than unskilled dockers and whatever.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24This is the go-ahead superior working class,
0:32:24 > 0:32:28who get their nice house and garden and their good school
0:32:28 > 0:32:32and their kids are encouraged to go on to university.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37For Nye Bevan, this was the realisation of his new society,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41where all classes would live side-by-side.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45A world in which home-ownership was for an ever-diminishing minority
0:32:45 > 0:32:47and council housing was for all.
0:32:47 > 0:32:53This was symbolised by the historic decision in 1949
0:32:53 > 0:32:57to remove the working classes clause from the Housing Act.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00The proles were no longer made the priority.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03Now council housing was moving on
0:33:03 > 0:33:07and an increasingly affluent clientele was moving in.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11In the early years, it's really about
0:33:11 > 0:33:15getting buildings built because there's such a shortage.
0:33:15 > 0:33:20But through the '50s, I think these come to stand for much more than that.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24They are about giving people a better life.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27Hopes for that quality of life
0:33:27 > 0:33:30were evident from the modern pedestrianised town centre,
0:33:30 > 0:33:31the first of its kind,
0:33:31 > 0:33:36to plans for libraries, swimming baths, theatres and public art.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45Sisters, Sharon, Christina, and Laura, were born and raised in Stevenage.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49When their family migrated here from London's East End,
0:33:49 > 0:33:54they became the guinea pigs for Bevan's classless New Society.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57All our friends all lived in council houses.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00They weren't all the same, there was lots of different designs,
0:34:00 > 0:34:02but you never felt anybody was better than you.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05We were all the same and that was one of the beauties of it.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08I think I was in my late teenage years before I actually realised
0:34:08 > 0:34:11that not everybody came from the same sort of environment as us,
0:34:11 > 0:34:12because everybody here did.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16I think it raised people's expectations coming to somewhere
0:34:16 > 0:34:18where they had this high quality housing,
0:34:18 > 0:34:21it really did change the way people felt about themselves
0:34:21 > 0:34:25and their environment, and, you know, a great step forward.
0:34:26 > 0:34:33This great leap forward prefigured a major rethink on the design of the home itself.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38In 1959, a party of official-looking outsiders came to town.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41They had one question for the locals.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45How do we adapt the home for the affluent and flexible future?
0:34:45 > 0:34:49The result reflected all that happened to the home,
0:34:49 > 0:34:54after a decade in which consumerism, not utopian socialism,
0:34:54 > 0:34:57had begun to emancipate the masses.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59The Parker Morris Report.
0:34:59 > 0:35:04It set out the minimum standards for a council house.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09Kids were staying on at school, they were doing exams,
0:35:09 > 0:35:13You had O and A-levels, they needed places to do their homework.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16It was about making space more flexible.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20That a bedroom shouldn't just be a bedroom, a living room just be a living room.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22It was about hobbies
0:35:22 > 0:35:26and that people were doing more than just huddling round the gas fire.
0:35:26 > 0:35:32The report revealed that one household in three owned a car,
0:35:32 > 0:35:37two in three had a TV set, one in five had a refrigerator.
0:35:37 > 0:35:42You'd have had shops, music, and all of those new consumer durables as well.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45The whole music thing was very much part of it.
0:35:45 > 0:35:50We had a little record player and we used to put it on and be dancing round the living room to that.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57The Parker Morris report duly detailed how many electrical sockets
0:35:57 > 0:36:02and how much storage was needed for the floor polishers, mixers,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05ironing machines, toasters and bread slicers
0:36:05 > 0:36:10filling the homes of Britain's new affluent working class.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13I always remember Mum buying a Keymatic washing machine
0:36:13 > 0:36:16that you could front load, it was real state-of-the-art.
0:36:16 > 0:36:17- It was, yeah.- It changed our lives.
0:36:17 > 0:36:23It felt like being part of a new revolutionary way of living, didn't it? That's what it felt like to me.
0:36:23 > 0:36:28It sounds daft to say that but it really did feel part of a new generation.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34Stevenage was the first of over 20 designated new towns
0:36:34 > 0:36:37built throughout Britain up until 1970,
0:36:37 > 0:36:42providing council homes for a population of over two million.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49But the new towns made little impact on the slums that still blighted Britain's cities
0:36:49 > 0:36:53and politicians feared building yet more houses,
0:36:53 > 0:36:56encroaching further on the countryside.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00From 1954, following yet another slum clearance programme,
0:37:00 > 0:37:02this time by a Conservative government,
0:37:02 > 0:37:06urban council housing began to head skyward.
0:37:08 > 0:37:16A new wave of architects pounced on the opportunity to design towering high-rise buildings.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19And this pair of influential theorists
0:37:19 > 0:37:23came up with a concept of putting streets in the sky.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28We regard it as a demonstration of a more enjoyable way of living
0:37:28 > 0:37:31in an old industrial part of a city.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36The street was a known, functioning element of the neighbourhood.
0:37:36 > 0:37:41That is, your first, as you were, contact with the world around you,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44as a child, was playing in the street. So, I think the idea of
0:37:44 > 0:37:48the street in the sky was saying, "The street has a lot of very good characteristics,
0:37:48 > 0:37:52"can we take that into a high-rise solution?"
0:38:05 > 0:38:08- Hello.- Hello.- I hope you're Lynn. - I am, yes.- I'm Michael.
0:38:08 > 0:38:10Oh, pleased to meet you.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14'In 1957, work began on Park Hill,
0:38:14 > 0:38:19'over 900 flats that delivered Sheffield's urban poor
0:38:19 > 0:38:22'from 19th century back-to-backs.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26'Such estates may have a notorious reputation today
0:38:26 > 0:38:33'but Park Hill's first settlers were thrilled with their futuristic high-rise homes.'
0:38:33 > 0:38:37We saw our flat first through a letterbox and we were amazed.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40"Oh crikey, we've got a new house!" Well, a flat.
0:38:40 > 0:38:41We used to call it a house
0:38:41 > 0:38:45because we weren't used to saying flat, of course.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47We thought it were absolutely marvellous.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53Previous estates such as Becontree had lacked the amenities
0:38:53 > 0:38:56of the working-class neighbourhoods they replaced.
0:38:57 > 0:39:03But Park Hill's residents found themselves at the centre of a self-contained world.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06I think it looks a lot better than estates,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09they're just houses, rows of houses.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11But here, it's modern.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15It were wonderment, you know, we had parks on us doorstep.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17All the shops were together in one place.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21From a hardware shop to a butcher's shop, wallpaper shop,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25there were ironmongers, there were a chips and fish shop.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30We used to have a bread van come, selling bread, milk.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33"Hey, mam, there's a bread man coming round in a van
0:39:33 > 0:39:37"and he's selling bread, and there's a milkman and he's selling chickens!"
0:39:37 > 0:39:39Pubs all together, if you know what I mean.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44My dad, he could go and get drunk on the inside without getting wet on the outside,
0:39:44 > 0:39:48because he could go into every one round the landing, down the lift, straight in.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52The best part about it is I come down six steps and I'm here.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54He'd never move off here.
0:39:54 > 0:39:56He always said, "No, we've got everything.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00"Hot water, heating, what more can a working man want?"
0:40:00 > 0:40:06As close proximity living is concerned, in general I think it's an example to the country.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16Just be careful as you climb up on there. That's it.
0:40:16 > 0:40:22'Architects from all over the world came to marvel at Park Hill's modern facilities.'
0:40:22 > 0:40:24- So do we go that way? - Yeah, this way.
0:40:24 > 0:40:29'They also found homes that boasted state of the art utilities.'
0:40:29 > 0:40:33So Grenville, where are we, where have you brought me to today?
0:40:33 > 0:40:35Well, now, we're in the ducts,
0:40:35 > 0:40:39which in modern-day language, it's a service tunnel.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45These pipes carried underfloor heating, hot water, gas
0:40:45 > 0:40:49and a thoroughly modern waste-disposal system
0:40:49 > 0:40:53that Park Hill residents remember with particular pride.
0:40:55 > 0:40:56To walk into a kitchen,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58it just looked like a normal sink
0:40:58 > 0:41:00and then once you looked into the bowl,
0:41:00 > 0:41:03there were two plugs, a small one, and a big one.
0:41:03 > 0:41:08All your food preparation, your plate scrapings, everything all went into there.
0:41:08 > 0:41:10It'd take tin cans, it'd take bottles.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12In the middle, there were a plunger.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17You filled it up with water, with all your rubbish in and then you lifted that plunger.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20Whoosh, it went away. Came down through these pipes
0:41:20 > 0:41:23and it used to suck everything out and down to the boiler house.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26Most of your other rubbish, your bagged up rubbish,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29once a week, there were round about 15 to 20 tons,
0:41:29 > 0:41:34and that went down to the incinerator and that heats water,
0:41:34 > 0:41:38which is pumped round and comes round Park Hill as heating.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41So what do you think this place gave to people
0:41:41 > 0:41:44that they didn't have before they moved to Park Hill?
0:41:44 > 0:41:49To sum it up, there's an old lady who appeared on a film a couple of years ago
0:41:49 > 0:41:53and she says, "We thought we'd died and gone to heaven."
0:41:53 > 0:41:58You know, people loved Park Hill and they loved the way it were.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00You belonged.
0:42:01 > 0:42:06Park Hill was a means of keeping the old neighbourhoods together in the city.
0:42:06 > 0:42:10The council gave priority to rehousing families,
0:42:10 > 0:42:14such as Lynn and her neighbours, from the streets it replaced.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20I really understand how you think the streets in those old neighbourhoods, you know,
0:42:20 > 0:42:24are here. The width of it feels like a street.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27You said landing, it doesn't feel like a landing to me,
0:42:27 > 0:42:28- it feels like a street.- Yeah.
0:42:28 > 0:42:33I can imagine over the years, your families and you lot have probably stood outside these doors,
0:42:33 > 0:42:38had chats like this and even like a night like tonight, you don't feel frightened.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43It's noisy and its busy, but there's no fear.
0:42:43 > 0:42:44I miss that noise.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51Completed in 1961, Park Hill marked the start of a high-rise boom
0:42:51 > 0:42:55that became a defining feature of the council house cannon
0:42:55 > 0:42:58from the late 1950s until the late 1960s.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03# Since I was very young I realised
0:43:03 > 0:43:05# I never wanted to be human size... #
0:43:05 > 0:43:09Lifts took homes higher than ever. New factory-style building methods
0:43:09 > 0:43:13produced flats quickly and inexpensively
0:43:13 > 0:43:17and government subsidies were offered for high-density developments.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20The taller the tower, the higher at the handout.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24# Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall... #
0:43:24 > 0:43:28We think we have here a site big enough
0:43:28 > 0:43:33so that when it's finished you'll be able to smell, feel and experience
0:43:33 > 0:43:38the new life that's being offered through your full range of senses.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43In 1972, at the heart of a changing East End,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46the Smithsons, whose theories had inspired Park Hill,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49completed a sterling monument to the future.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02Its first tenants, and the architect's son,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06hold Robin Hood Gardens in high regard.
0:44:06 > 0:44:08Well, I was three when I moved in here.
0:44:08 > 0:44:13I can still remember the smell of the block, the newness of the block.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16I absolutely love it.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19You had to keep outside clean.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23Windows had to be done at least once a month, with fresh nettings up.
0:44:23 > 0:44:26- No, seriously, clean nettings! - Really?- Yeah.- That's fantastic.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29Cost a lot of money in nettings, but it always looked nice
0:44:29 > 0:44:31and it always looked lovely from the outside.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37Today, the pride Sharon clearly feels for her home
0:44:37 > 0:44:43seems at odds with the reputation and reality of Robin Hood Gardens.
0:44:43 > 0:44:48The estate was completed just 11 years after Park Hill -
0:44:48 > 0:44:5111 years in which the high rise experiment had collapsed.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57The decline began when many of the rapidly built tower blocks
0:44:57 > 0:45:02that shot up from the mid-50s were exposed as cheap and shoddy.
0:45:02 > 0:45:07Here in Birkenhead, these two blocks have lasted just 18 years.
0:45:07 > 0:45:11Now, they're going to be demolished because they're literally rotten.
0:45:12 > 0:45:18By 1967, the government had withdrawn its subsidy for tower-blocks.
0:45:18 > 0:45:25And a year later, a gas explosion killed four people at Ronan Point in east London.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29What I have done is to assemble a team of experts
0:45:29 > 0:45:32to give me a preliminary report by tomorrow
0:45:32 > 0:45:35on the factors that need to be taken into account.
0:45:35 > 0:45:39Subsequently, the expansive deck access estates,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42of which Park Hill was one of the first,
0:45:42 > 0:45:46were blamed for fostering crime and breeding antisocial behaviour.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50By the time Robin Hood Gardens appeared,
0:45:50 > 0:45:56it already seemed like a fossilised idea from an optimistic past.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00For one reason or another,
0:46:00 > 0:46:04Robin Hood Lane became a kind of lightning rod,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07a critique of the perceived failure of social housing.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10It had a very negative effect on my parents' career
0:46:10 > 0:46:16which was painful to them, because they'd built something which was clearly, in their view,
0:46:16 > 0:46:21an improvement over the type of housing that their parents had lived in.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25There's no collective memory of those conditions.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29In the mid 1970s, it seemed that the homes that had been built
0:46:29 > 0:46:33to replace the slums were becoming slums themselves.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37But this was part of a bigger picture,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40the downgrading of all council housing.
0:46:40 > 0:46:45No longer perceived to be a step up, but a step back.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50A rise and fall that is epitomised by the story of an estate
0:46:50 > 0:46:54that was hailed as the town of the 21st century.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58# I'm the urban space man baby
0:46:58 > 0:47:00# I've got speed
0:47:00 > 0:47:02# I've got everything I need... #
0:47:05 > 0:47:10Thamesmead emerged from marshland in Woolwich in 1968.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14A mix of houses, maisonettes and high rise flats,
0:47:14 > 0:47:17it promised to learn from the mistakes of the past.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20One minister declared that it would be,
0:47:20 > 0:47:22"The decade's greatest achievement."
0:47:26 > 0:47:28It opened with a fanfare,
0:47:28 > 0:47:32the spotlight falling on the first family to move in.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37I read that your wife said that moving here
0:47:37 > 0:47:39was the greatest day of her life.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41I mean, obviously apart from marrying you!
0:47:41 > 0:47:43Oh, at the time, yes, of course it was,
0:47:43 > 0:47:47and I suppose until the day she died.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49We felt elated to be chosen
0:47:49 > 0:47:51to be the first people on Thamesmead.
0:47:56 > 0:48:02'The Gooches had been on the housing list for all 14 years of their married life.'
0:48:02 > 0:48:06Harry! Don't be so nosy, you old git, and get off there!
0:48:06 > 0:48:07HE LAUGHS
0:48:09 > 0:48:12'But when they moved from rooms in a 19th century house
0:48:12 > 0:48:15'to a maisonette in a 21st century town,
0:48:15 > 0:48:19'the view from their new home was a building site.
0:48:19 > 0:48:25'The family were the sole inhabitants on an estate that was a long way from completion.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30'They hoped that the world outside would soon be as perfect as that within.'
0:48:30 > 0:48:33I feel like I'm going back to the future here, because this is what
0:48:33 > 0:48:38- the future looked like in the 1960s in a 21st century town. - I suppose it did, really.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43We had two toilets, which we never had before.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47- There was three bedrooms upstairs, plus a study.- Plus a study?
0:48:47 > 0:48:48You see, that's so grand.
0:48:48 > 0:48:54The lounge and the kitchen were something we'd only ever dreamed of.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56Everything's fitted.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59You've got your washing machine, tumble-drier, your gas stove.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02This was the place where you had something to eat,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04and then you could come into the lounge.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07You know, you've got a really, really big lounge.
0:49:07 > 0:49:11that's the difference between that and unfortunately, where we lived in Peckham.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16You can see how things have changed, because it's kind of open plan now.
0:49:16 > 0:49:22- You've got this door. Presumably you can pull this. Can I pull it? - Yeah, by all means, yeah.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26- I feel like I'm going to pull the whole of Thamesmead down by pulling this!- No!
0:49:26 > 0:49:29If I was a kid, I'd have had a field day with this.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34We didn't know of anybody that had got a house or a maisonette like we had.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38- I think this is my favourite bit. - It's mine too!
0:49:38 > 0:49:44Even now, I should imagine there'd be thousands of people give their high teeth to have a place like this.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55Despite the view outside, the Goochs were proud of their new home.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59And when they were eventually joined by neighbours,
0:49:59 > 0:50:04they, too, felt privileged to be making the step up to council housing.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09There was seven of us in a two-bedroomed flat in Hackney.
0:50:09 > 0:50:14I was only six and my mum went and dropped me round my auntie's.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18Then when they come and got me, they brought me here, to Thamesmead.
0:50:19 > 0:50:24I walked in the house, oh my God! It was so big, it was so, so big.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27And then my dad turned round and said, this is our new house.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34Everything was so new and we thought we was really rich,
0:50:34 > 0:50:39that me dad had won the pools and got us this massive house.
0:50:39 > 0:50:45Tracey's family typify that first generation of council tenants everywhere.
0:50:45 > 0:50:49They felt privileged to be swapping their archaic,
0:50:49 > 0:50:54over-crowded rented rooms for modern, spacious homes.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59Once past the council's notoriously strict vetting procedure,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01they were offered a home for life,
0:51:01 > 0:51:06their sons and daughters given priority on Thamesmead's waiting list,
0:51:06 > 0:51:10so successive generations could make this their home.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14My dad had to have references from his work
0:51:14 > 0:51:17to get even a look-in on Thamesmead.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21It seemed like when we moved in, on that week,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23everybody moved in that week.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26It was like, right, this is a new place,
0:51:26 > 0:51:28everyone's going to be moved in all together.
0:51:28 > 0:51:32'The optimism of Thamesmead's first inhabitants
0:51:32 > 0:51:36'is captured in a remarkable series of photographs.'
0:51:36 > 0:51:41Right, everyone, I've called you here today because George here
0:51:41 > 0:51:44took some fantastic photographs in the '70s of everyone
0:51:44 > 0:51:49that went to school in Thamesmead, and I think the photographs tell their own story,
0:51:49 > 0:51:54not just about Thamesmead but about everyone here and everyone that's in the photographs.
0:51:56 > 0:52:02George Plemper arrived in Thamesmead in the summer of 1976.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06He became a chemistry teacher at the local school and, in his spare time,
0:52:06 > 0:52:11he began to document life within this new urban landscape.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14- Is that George? - CHEERING
0:52:14 > 0:52:18Everything I've heard about Thamesmead over the last 30 or 40 years,
0:52:18 > 0:52:22it's had such bad press, but when you look at those photographs,
0:52:22 > 0:52:26there's a real joy and a confidence within the faces of those kids.
0:52:27 > 0:52:32Thamesmead was made up of people from the East End, from south London.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36There was people from Nigeria, Biafra.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40And I do think that there was a sense of hope and expectation
0:52:40 > 0:52:43about what the future was going to hold for them.
0:52:43 > 0:52:45Is that Tracey?
0:52:45 > 0:52:49- CHEERING - Tracey!- I don't know her!
0:52:49 > 0:52:50I was a right mess!
0:52:53 > 0:52:57That cardigan as well that I've got on, was two-years-old,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01cos I wore it one year and then when another photo come up,
0:53:01 > 0:53:04I still had it on!
0:53:04 > 0:53:05That's me!
0:53:08 > 0:53:12There was an optimism for a bright new future, there was an optimism.
0:53:12 > 0:53:18'For my dad, it meant going to somewhere which was better for us.'
0:53:18 > 0:53:22- Amazing.- So you're the same year as my brother, Paul.
0:53:22 > 0:53:24We were privileged, I think we was.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27Oh, this is a great picture.
0:53:27 > 0:53:32'It was the efforts and attitude of those early settlers that made Thamesmead work.'
0:53:35 > 0:53:38But in time, a considerably short time,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41everything changed for the 21st century town
0:53:41 > 0:53:43and for council housing in general.
0:53:45 > 0:53:50I remember by the end of the 1970s, Thamesmead had become a dirty word.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53If you heard someone had moved there, it was like they'd been
0:53:53 > 0:53:58dispatched to some distant gulag of the outer limits of south-east London.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01It had become shorthand for council housing
0:54:01 > 0:54:04and council housing had become characterised by
0:54:04 > 0:54:08antisocial behaviour, crime and dysfunctional families.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14It was not only ignorant outsiders that harboured this view.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18Your house here is lovely. Everything's organised and
0:54:18 > 0:54:22outside, it seems like it's a completely different experience.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24- Yeah.- I just wondered how you feel about that divide.
0:54:24 > 0:54:30If you wander round Thamesmead, it is an absolute hole.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34Before we moved here, we ticked all the boxes.
0:54:34 > 0:54:39I had a job, I could pay my way and we were told
0:54:39 > 0:54:44quite categorically that everybody on Thamesmead would have to pay.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47Fortunately or unfortunately,
0:54:47 > 0:54:51they decided that their policy was no longer viable.
0:54:51 > 0:54:57They had to change the rules and had people that were on subsistence,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01not that there's anything wrong with people on subsistence.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03But that changed everything.
0:55:05 > 0:55:12By the mid-1970s, more than a third of the British population lived in council housing.
0:55:12 > 0:55:16But at the moment it reached its peak, its image was at its worst.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20It needed reviving or a rethink.
0:55:20 > 0:55:23Instead it got the death sentence.
0:55:23 > 0:55:27We've set in hand the sale of council houses and flats.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30We have to move this country in a new direction,
0:55:30 > 0:55:34to create a wholly new attitude of mind.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38When Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979,
0:55:38 > 0:55:42the building of council estates came to an abrupt halt.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45In 1980, she introduced a right-to-buy scheme,
0:55:45 > 0:55:49that offered a generous discounts to established tenants.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54A million families purchased their homes in that first decade alone.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00But before Thatcher dealt the fatal blow,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03the council housing system had begun to implode,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06failing to serve the local people on the housing list.
0:56:06 > 0:56:11And it wasn't the Tories who were to blame for that.
0:56:22 > 0:56:29In 1977, it was a Labour government that made a symbolic and I think fatal change to the Housing Act.
0:56:29 > 0:56:3630 years earlier, it removed the working-class clause, making council housing available to all.
0:56:36 > 0:56:41Now, it reversed that and the homeless became the priority.
0:56:41 > 0:56:49This idea of housing based on need was open to all sorts of interpretation and abuse.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56This was the latest in a series of changes that jettisoned those policies
0:56:56 > 0:57:01that had previously favoured the long-standing locals waiting to be housed.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05Strict vetting procedures,
0:57:05 > 0:57:10once a defining feature of estates from Becontree to Park Hill, lapsed.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16Initiatives such as Thamesmead's sons and daughters scheme
0:57:16 > 0:57:20were abandoned, deemed to be discriminatory.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23Estates such as the Heygate,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27which for me was once a snapshot of a promising future,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31became dogged by sub-letting and itinerant tenants.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38By the 1980s, it seemed the noble motivation behind council housing
0:57:38 > 0:57:41and the achievements of its formative years
0:57:41 > 0:57:44were all but forgotten.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51But even now, state housing remains on the political agenda.
0:57:53 > 0:57:57A new coalition government has introduced plans
0:57:57 > 0:58:00for a further overhaul of the council housing that still exists.
0:58:00 > 0:58:06It's new residents will be expected to reapply for their tenancy
0:58:06 > 0:58:10every two years and move on if their circumstances improve.
0:58:11 > 0:58:16This could destroy the one thing that consistently made it a success
0:58:16 > 0:58:20in the face of all that threatened to turn it into a failure.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26This idea of council housing as temporary is nothing new.
0:58:26 > 0:58:31It's what the LCC hoped when it created the Boundary over 100 years ago.
0:58:31 > 0:58:35But council housing was soon providing permanent homes
0:58:35 > 0:58:39and it was that sense of permanence that gave so many British people,
0:58:39 > 0:58:42not least of all those people I've met in this film,
0:58:42 > 0:58:48a reason to have an investment in their homes, in their estates, in their neighbourhoods.
0:59:08 > 0:59:11Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:11 > 0:59:15E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk