0:00:02 > 0:00:06THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE.
0:00:15 > 0:00:19BIG BEN CHIMING
0:00:22 > 0:00:25"And here, in Trafalgar Square,
0:00:25 > 0:00:31"it's midnight 1959 going out and 1960 coming in.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34"A Happy New Year to you all.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40"The forecast is that 1960 will start with mild weather."
0:00:40 > 0:00:44And strangulated, Southern voices on the BBC, as usual.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48But 1960 would be the year a new voice was heard,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51and it would come from the North.
0:00:51 > 0:00:58Like Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, it was cocky and defiant.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02What I'm out for is a good time, all the rest is propaganda.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10Arthur was part of newly prosperous generation loudly asserting itself.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19This is not defeated, downtrodden, "oh, woe is me" North, this is entirely different.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23This is the North virile and passionate and colourful, and it's remarkable.
0:01:23 > 0:01:30The North of England would go from economic engine room of the country to its cultural powerhouse.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32It would be become fashionable.
0:01:32 > 0:01:39And in literature, theatre and film, a new kind of Northerner would be depicted -
0:01:39 > 0:01:44working class, affluent, stroppy, sexy.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50So here's Arthur Seaton on screen, a heat seeking missile, hell bent on
0:01:50 > 0:01:52sinking a dozen pints, having a ruck and a...
0:01:52 > 0:01:55well, a good time with the ladies.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00With Arthur, the old deferential North could step aside, or be pushed aside.
0:02:00 > 0:02:01Mind what you're doing!
0:02:01 > 0:02:06It was a time of immense freedom and hope and optimism.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08There was nothing like us, so we thought.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12I mean, we were the start of the '60s, that revolution.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16In at the start of this revolution was a young writer from Salford.
0:02:16 > 0:02:22In 1960, Shelagh Delaney's play, A Taste of Honey, was on Broadway, and soon to be filmed.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28It introduced a new kind of Northern type.
0:02:28 > 0:02:30I am extraordinary person.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36Characters on screen with a wayward exuberance and sex lives.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Suddenly we didn't have to be embarrassed, we didn't have to be ashamed,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44we were ourselves, there we were on the screen, we were stars.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49But by the end of 1960, it would be television
0:02:49 > 0:02:54and the start of Coronation Street that would bring this explosion of Northern creativity
0:02:54 > 0:03:01into the front rooms of Britain and confirm 1960 as the year of the North.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07- A fine son you are, that tongue of yours will get you hung one of these days!- Give over.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20MUSIC: "A Wondrous Place" by Billy Fury
0:03:20 > 0:03:23# I found a place full of charms
0:03:23 > 0:03:27# A magic world in my baby's arms
0:03:27 > 0:03:32# Her soft embrace like satin and lace
0:03:32 > 0:03:35# A wondrous place... #
0:03:35 > 0:03:39In 1960, sometime Liverpudlian docker Ronald Wycherley,
0:03:39 > 0:03:43AKA Billy Fury, sang about A Wondrous Place.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47For Billy, this place was anywhere in the immediate vicinity of his girlfriend.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51But he might have been talking about the North of England.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58And for those down south like photographer John Bulmer, who took these pictures,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04here was a faraway, almost exotic place.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11Anything north of Watford was like a foreign country.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15To me it was like going to New Guinea or something, it was so different.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18There were so many wonderful images there to be captured.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25I think the cultural North in 1960 was anywhere outside of London.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28Birmingham, where I am from, was very much the North.
0:04:28 > 0:04:34Anywhere that had chimneys, anywhere that was a bit dark and dingy, that was perceived as the North.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38So it didn't have to be in the North literally.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42Nottingham fitted the bill, and it provided the setting
0:04:42 > 0:04:46for one of the most powerful expressions of the new, Northern stridency -
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Saturday Night And Sunday Morning.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53The film version begins with the ultimate source of Northern power,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56the factory floor, with the machines pounding like a migraine.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05The factory was a dynamic place, something to rebel against,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08but it also provided the cash to fund that rebellion.
0:05:08 > 0:05:15I worked in a factory in Metalastic, we used to do rubber/metal bonding.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18it was just like the beginning of Saturday Night And Sunday Morning,
0:05:18 > 0:05:24you used to go... "230, 231, 232...
0:05:24 > 0:05:26"When's the tea break?" You know?
0:05:26 > 0:05:29You see Arthur Seaton and it's yourself.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31Nine hundred and fifty-four...
0:05:42 > 0:05:44..nine hundred and fifty-bloody-five...
0:05:44 > 0:05:50The film was based on a novel by Alan Sillitoe, who grew up in working-class Nottingham.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52Sillitoe really did have it rough.
0:05:52 > 0:05:57For much of his childhood, his family were homeless, his father being an impecunious drunk.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02For a time, Alan followed his father onto the factory floor at Raleigh, making bicycles.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07The opening scene was shot here. The workers are real workers,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10living a life that Arthur Seaton seeks to transcend
0:06:10 > 0:06:12through sheer physical pleasure.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17He was cocking a hoop at authority and he didn't give a damn,
0:06:17 > 0:06:22and when he was doing his thing at the machine at the beginning,
0:06:22 > 0:06:26"£14 a week and all the rest is bloody propaganda,"
0:06:26 > 0:06:29that opened the film, he was saying,
0:06:29 > 0:06:33"Sorry, but...I'm here."
0:06:33 > 0:06:37Arthur is almost an exemplum
0:06:37 > 0:06:42of the new, affluent worker who earns such a large pay packet
0:06:42 > 0:06:48that his foreman tells him not to reveal what it is to his workmates.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51He spends his money on nice jackets and ties.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55There's a scene where he lovingly brings back his jacket
0:06:55 > 0:06:57from the dry cleaner and puts it on
0:06:57 > 0:06:59and knots his tie very carefully
0:06:59 > 0:07:02before going out for a night on the town.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11Clearly he is someone who is almost too big for his surroundings.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14You see him leave his back-to-back house
0:07:14 > 0:07:17and almost pushing people out of the way - it's as if
0:07:17 > 0:07:21his surroundings are too cramped for the way he wishes to live.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23Mind what you're doing, can't you?!
0:07:23 > 0:07:27The 1960 moment was not only important for Northern writers,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30it also allowed a new generation of Northern actors to shine.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Arthur Seaton was played by Albert Finney in his breakthrough performance.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39Before 1960, sex symbols did not tend to come from Pendleton, Salford.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46His co-star was Shirley-Anne Field, who grew up north of Bolton.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Until now she'd naturally assumed that all aspiring Northern actors
0:07:49 > 0:07:52had to appear Southern in order to get on.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58So I went to these painful lessons, one after another, one after another
0:07:58 > 0:08:02and spoke terribly carefully, like this, you see,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05trying to be like everyone else of that day.
0:08:05 > 0:08:12The producer of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was Tony Richardson, who was born in Shipley, Yorkshire.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16He'd had great success in the theatre, staging Look Back In Anger.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19So he had the reputation and the funding for his mission
0:08:19 > 0:08:23to put the life of the North on the cinema screen.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28So I auditioned for Tony Richardson and I read in my best English,
0:08:28 > 0:08:32and I got to the door and my back was to them, I said, "Thank you,"
0:08:32 > 0:08:35and just as I was leaving, he went,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37"You couldn't talk in a Northern voice, could you?"
0:08:37 > 0:08:41And I went, "Bloody 'ell, I've spent four years learning not to!"
0:08:41 > 0:08:44He said, "Get back in here and read again in that voice."
0:08:44 > 0:08:47They said, "We've been looking for a working-class heroine."
0:08:47 > 0:08:50I was slightly offended by that, I thought, "Working-class?!"
0:08:50 > 0:08:53- What's your name, duck?- Doreen.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56In the film, Shirley-Anne Field's character makes
0:08:56 > 0:08:59no particular attempt to finesse her social position.
0:08:59 > 0:09:06- Where do you work then, Doreen?- Me? Harris's, the hair net factory, I've been there ever since I left school.
0:09:06 > 0:09:07All right, I will have a fag.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12But Arthur sees no reason to confine himself to Doreen.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17He is also carrying on with the wife of a workmate.
0:09:18 > 0:09:24This frank portrayal of sex and adultery was something quite new in 1960.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27There was quite a tussle with the censor
0:09:27 > 0:09:32about the use of certain words in Saturday Night And Sunday Morning.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35There was also concern about Arthur and Brenda
0:09:35 > 0:09:37being seen in bed together.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41There was debate about whether Arthur should have his shirt on or his shirt off,
0:09:41 > 0:09:46and therefore there was a concern on the part of the censor
0:09:46 > 0:09:50that it was overstepping the mark in terms of its representation
0:09:50 > 0:09:56of sexual pleasure and sexual activity outside of marriage.
0:09:56 > 0:10:02# All the people down the street, whoever you meet, say I'm a bad boy
0:10:04 > 0:10:06# Say I'm a bad boy
0:10:06 > 0:10:10# Say I'm a bad boy... #
0:10:10 > 0:10:17The film was a smash hit and went on to become one of the top grossing British films of 1960.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21It really connected with young audiences, especially in the North itself.
0:10:23 > 0:10:30These huge cinemas, 2,000 people in them, and suddenly,
0:10:30 > 0:10:32it wasn't Ronald Reagan, it wasn't John Wayne,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35you saw yourself on the cinema screen.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39Your scowling, Northern, rough self.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43It was just amazing and you felt
0:10:43 > 0:10:46you no longer needed to be embarrassed,
0:10:46 > 0:10:50you no longer needed to be ashamed, you could be yoursen.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53MUSIC: "What Do You Want?" by Adam Faith
0:10:53 > 0:10:56# What do you want if you don't want money
0:10:56 > 0:10:59# What do you want if you don't want gold... #
0:10:59 > 0:11:06In 1960, Adam Faith had a hit with a song that beadily enquired, "What do you want if you don't want money?"
0:11:06 > 0:11:11It was the right song for a year
0:11:11 > 0:11:15in which the pleasures of materialism finally reached the masses.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25Between 1957 and 1960, spending on consumer goods increased by nearly 50%.
0:11:25 > 0:11:30Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, venturing into rare colloquialism,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33said Britons had never had it so good. It was irrefutably the case.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38Industry was booming and workers were doing well out of it.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43The weekly wage was 14 pounds, ten shillings - it had tripled since 1950.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48I think just the sheer availability of jobs at the time,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51kind of semi-skilled and often quite skilled jobs,
0:11:51 > 0:11:56and certainly, quite well paid jobs, was absolutely fundamental
0:11:56 > 0:12:00to people's sense of being free, almost, to do what they wanted.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04I have read a lot of stories of people on a Friday night
0:12:04 > 0:12:07telling their boss to sod off and not worrying about it.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11They knew they could walk straight into another job on the Monday.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14"If you argue with me, piss off!"
0:12:14 > 0:12:21And you'd go down the road to the next factory, no trouble.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25And people had money in their pockets for the first time.
0:12:25 > 0:12:31The factories hummed all day and all night and there was overtime to be had
0:12:31 > 0:12:34and trade unions were securing decent working conditions
0:12:34 > 0:12:36and you couldn't be pushed around.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38Seaton's kind of swagger in that film is
0:12:38 > 0:12:41the beginnings of the swagger of the Northern working class.
0:12:41 > 0:12:46But in Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Arthur Seaton insists
0:12:46 > 0:12:50that having a few extra bob isn't going to buy him off.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53I've still got some fight left in me, not like most people.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56I am not saying you ain't. Where does all this fighting get you?
0:12:56 > 0:12:59Have you ever seen where not fighting's got you, like my mum and dad?
0:12:59 > 0:13:02What do you mean? They've got all they want.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06They've got a television set and a packet of fags, but they're both dead from the neck up.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10I'm not saying it's their fault, mind you, they've had their hash settled for them
0:13:10 > 0:13:14so all the bloody gaffers can push them around like a lot of sheep.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Their answer to the grind of their exploited lives
0:13:18 > 0:13:22was of course to be anarchic, was to overthrow the rules,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26- to use an air rifle on someone's bottom.- He'll get checked one of those days...
0:13:26 > 0:13:28AIR RIFLE SHOT Streuth!
0:13:28 > 0:13:31There was real, real rebellion.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35I don't mean rebellion on the streets, I'm not talking about that,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38but in people's hearts, there was a real rebellion,
0:13:38 > 0:13:41that I will do it my way, not your way.
0:13:41 > 0:13:47For the first time, people had a bit of money in their pockets and with that came power.
0:13:47 > 0:13:53There was a nervousness among the middle class because when these people were just
0:13:53 > 0:13:5648 to a house and dying of diphtheria before they were 40,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00that was all well and good. But Seaton represents the rise of a new kind of Northerner.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04The Beatles would be that kind of Northerner as well, change the game forever.
0:14:04 > 0:14:12Before 1960, there had been a kind of iconoclasm in Northern popular culture.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17The North, as any Northerner will tell you, has always had the best comedians.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Hardship bred a sharp wit and a subtle irony.
0:14:20 > 0:14:27But the performers who succeeded on the national stage tended to be
0:14:27 > 0:14:31buffoonish, somewhat lacking in revolutionary intent.
0:14:31 > 0:14:37Thank you. Now I'm going to sing a song and they're going to make a film of it at the same time,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40so if you see any flashing, don't take any notice, please.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45I don't think the North was so much invisible
0:14:45 > 0:14:49as patronised or put into comic effect.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53# A girl while bathing close to me shouted out, oh!
0:14:53 > 0:14:56# She said, I think I'm drowning and you'll save me, I know
0:14:56 > 0:15:00# I said, well, if you're drowning, do you mind letting go
0:15:00 > 0:15:03# Of me little stick of Blackpool rock... #
0:15:03 > 0:15:06It's certainly seen as a comic place,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09both in the sense of a place where comics come from,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13the great Northern comics, Gracie Fields, George Formby,
0:15:13 > 0:15:20and I think it's also a place that is seen as somehow funny,
0:15:20 > 0:15:24and the accent and the lifestyle is the object
0:15:24 > 0:15:28of some easy humour, south of the Trent.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Even in sport, there was a North/South divide in 1960.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Down South, it looked like this.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44"When the sun beats down, you need a hat. And where will you see
0:15:44 > 0:15:47- "better hats than at Royal Ascot in June?"- But up North,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50sport was more like this.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56The North even had its own form of rugby, League as opposed to Union.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59Rugby Union was a game for gentlemen amateurs
0:15:59 > 0:16:02and these being thinner on the ground in the North,
0:16:02 > 0:16:04the players of Rugby League got paid,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07so more was at stake and the games were harder and faster.
0:16:09 > 0:16:16In his novel of 1960, This Sporting Life, David Storey viewed the North through the prism of Rugby League.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Storey was of impeccable Northern pedigree.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23He was born in Wakefield, the son of a miner, and he played Rugby League himself.
0:16:23 > 0:16:30The book really began in a match in Leeds when
0:16:30 > 0:16:32in the middle of the game, I suddenly realised
0:16:32 > 0:16:36if I picked up the ball, which had just come loose at my feet,
0:16:36 > 0:16:38I would get my teeth knocked in.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41It happened in a fraction of a second and I hesitated,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44and an old pro was playing with me,
0:16:44 > 0:16:48and he just instinctively picked it up and lost his teeth.
0:16:48 > 0:16:55The film version of This Sporting Life shows the brutal world of a Northern alpha male, Frank Machin,
0:16:55 > 0:16:59a coal miner trying to make it in Rugby League.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03The opening game, if we can even call it a game,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06the gladiatorial combat, in This Sporting Life,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10he becomes a relentless juggernaut
0:17:10 > 0:17:13smashing his way through opposition.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22We have got a ruthless, vicious machine of bone, muscle and sinew.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26It's a very compelling vision that we see in front of us.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30This Sporting Life was directed by Lindsey Anderson,
0:17:30 > 0:17:34a founding member of the Free Cinema group of documentary makers.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37Moving into feature films, they carried a realist style
0:17:37 > 0:17:40into what became known as the British New Wave.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45So Anderson's film features real players,
0:17:45 > 0:17:47with real crowds looking on,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50and real cooling towers in the background.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Frank Machin was the first starring role for Richard Harris,
0:17:55 > 0:18:01who might himself have played Rugby League were it not for a bout of tuberculosis as a young man.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05Frank Machin in Sporting Life
0:18:05 > 0:18:11is not really someone you would like to know, again, he's an anti-hero,
0:18:11 > 0:18:14he's ruthless in his own little goldfish bowl.
0:18:14 > 0:18:20He uses the women in his life, he uses the men in his life.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Frank is signed up for the huge fee of £1,000,
0:18:24 > 0:18:29but he is still a man in a donkey jacket surrounded by men in suits,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32and treated accordingly.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Don't spend it all at once, will you, lad.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38THEY LAUGH
0:18:38 > 0:18:41In some ways, Frank pre-dates what we've seen happen in football,
0:18:41 > 0:18:47where people from what is sometimes patronisingly called by people
0:18:47 > 0:18:49humble origins and humble beginnings,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52become multi-millionaires through their expertise in sport.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56Frank's success allows him to come into contact
0:18:56 > 0:18:59with a higher echelon of Northern society,
0:18:59 > 0:19:02and funds his own personal class war.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08The restaurant scene where Harris's character
0:19:08 > 0:19:10goes out for a meal in a posh restaurant
0:19:10 > 0:19:14is really, cringingly embarrassing.
0:19:14 > 0:19:19He just does what he wants to do and he doesn't give a damn.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22Watch you don't burn his whiskers, love!
0:19:25 > 0:19:29We shouldn't have come here if you're going to behave like this.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32We're paying for it, aren't we? That's all they're interested in.
0:19:32 > 0:19:38Many of the films have a strong sense that the North is masculine.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42There are common images of the North as tough, as hard,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46that stands in contrast to the rather soft, effete South,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51and that is quite a popular image of the North/South contrast.
0:19:51 > 0:19:56I think these working-class films celebrate a certain masculine aggression,
0:19:56 > 0:20:01a certain masculine virility and toughness
0:20:01 > 0:20:05which is part of their power and vitality.
0:20:05 > 0:20:11In the end, This Sporting life is difficult to watch and harrowing,
0:20:11 > 0:20:16not least because Frank Machin does not confine his violence to men.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22"It was a year of upheaval..."
0:20:22 > 0:20:26Beyond the turbulent North of England inhabited by Machin,
0:20:26 > 0:20:29a wider populism was asserting itself in 1960.
0:20:29 > 0:20:35In Africa, Harold Macmillan made a historic speech, signalling the end of colonialism.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40The wind of change is blowing through this country.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43In America, Kennedy was elected President.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46His appeal was a new, youthful open-mindedness.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50National effort will be needed in the years ahead
0:20:50 > 0:20:53to move this country safely through the 1960s.
0:20:53 > 0:20:58In the North of England, the new optimism was underscored
0:20:58 > 0:21:03by the coming of free, universal, secondary education, ideally at a grammar school.
0:21:05 > 0:21:12Now life need not mean years of hard labour on the factory floor, you could escape by brainpower.
0:21:15 > 0:21:22The aspirations of a Northern grammar school boy were the stuff of a 1960 West End hit, Billy Liar.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26The play was from the novel by Keith Waterhouse, who was born in Leeds.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31Later filmed, Billy Liar is the story of a young clerk
0:21:31 > 0:21:35who doesn't see why suburban Bradford should hold him back.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43There is a fantastic scene in Billy Liar where Billy's dad says,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47"You should be grateful for your chances, because I never had them."
0:21:47 > 0:21:49You want to be grateful you've got a job in an office.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52Grateful for this, grateful for that, that's all I've ever heard.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55Grateful you let me go to the grammar school.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58- Been like that the first day I went there.- It's a chance we never had.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02And don't we bloody well know it! I had to be grateful for winning me own scholarship!
0:22:02 > 0:22:04What did you say when I told I'd won it?
0:22:04 > 0:22:07That you'd have to pay for the uniform and I had to be grateful!
0:22:07 > 0:22:12Generational conflict is obviously a long established theme of literature,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15but it's particularly acute in these novels of the '50s and '60s
0:22:15 > 0:22:18because people are moving out of their social class.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22Education is much of the problem of that generation of parents,
0:22:22 > 0:22:25that their children are moving into new areas
0:22:25 > 0:22:30that they don't fully understand, and they're being left behind.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34Billy Liar was directed by John Schlesinger
0:22:34 > 0:22:39and starred the biggest thing to have come out of Hull, Tom Courtenay.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43Courtenay plays Billy as a misfit, like Arthur Seaton and Frank Machin.
0:22:43 > 0:22:50But his problem is not an excess of testosterone, it's an excess of imagination.
0:22:50 > 0:22:55He's working in an undertakers as a clerk and he finds it deathly boring,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00and he had all these ideas that his education might be a ticket to a more exciting life,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03as a script writer, which is what he really wants to become.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08And so in his fantasy life, he's the leader of the fictional country of Ambrosia.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11It gives him a really important outlet.
0:23:11 > 0:23:16The film alternates between workaday Bradford, where the story is set,
0:23:16 > 0:23:19and the more epic world of Billy's daydreams.
0:23:27 > 0:23:33Billy has the command of his environment in his dreams and in his fantasies that he doesn't have
0:23:33 > 0:23:40in real life, which is much more drab and constricting than he would wish it to be.
0:23:44 > 0:23:50Capturing the North at a moment of change, the film shows Billy caught between the old and the new.
0:23:50 > 0:23:56He wants to embrace the new, and the old, quaint North is something to be satirised.
0:23:56 > 0:24:02There's a wonderful scene in Billy Liar, set on a slag heap,
0:24:02 > 0:24:08where Billy Liar, played by Tom Courtenay, meets Councillor Duxbury,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12and what Tom Courtenay does is talk to him in broad Yorkshire.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14He actually makes up words.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17So, you're planning to go to London, then, eh?
0:24:17 > 0:24:22- Aye. Just about thraped of this place.- How do you mean?
0:24:22 > 0:24:27Neither muckling or mickling, is it?
0:24:27 > 0:24:31- Are you taking a rise out of me, young man?- No, sir!
0:24:31 > 0:24:35I'm a micklin' and a mucklin', I'm reet thraped
0:24:35 > 0:24:37and all that cod-Yorkshire patois he comes out with.
0:24:37 > 0:24:42He thinks these people are fools and he's quick-witted enough to want to get out
0:24:42 > 0:24:45of that world, but it keeps dragging him back all the time.
0:24:45 > 0:24:51Billy reflects the aspirations of young men in the new North.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54But the film also introduces a new type of Northern woman,
0:24:54 > 0:24:57one who is really in control of her own life.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01She is played by Julie Christie, whose hair is shockingly
0:25:01 > 0:25:05unconstrained by hat, headscarf or hair net.
0:25:05 > 0:25:11Here is the start of the '60s, and take note, it's happening in Bradford.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Liz represents a completely different kind of alternative.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16The minute she enters the film,
0:25:16 > 0:25:21the soundtrack changes, it's kind of really swingy, jazzy kind of music,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26she's swinging her bag, completely carefree, completely rootless.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34Liz, the Julie Christie character in the film,
0:25:34 > 0:25:38is the role model for Billy,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41she is the person that puts her fantasies into reality,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44she is the most free-spirited person in the film.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46She takes off whenever she likes.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Billy sees her skipping around town one day,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53he goes, "Oh, she's crazy, she does what she likes."
0:25:53 > 0:25:58I think the theme of escape runs through a lot of these plays and these films.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03Characters want to escape their environment.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08The irony of Billy Liar is that he has the opportunity to escape at
0:26:08 > 0:26:13the end of the film, but by virtue of fiddling with the milk machine,
0:26:13 > 0:26:19misses the train to London and Julie Christie goes off to London without him.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28To go to London was a remarkable adventure.
0:26:28 > 0:26:34To go South was something that very few people from up here managed.
0:26:34 > 0:26:39The sense that you are stuck, and you've got to
0:26:39 > 0:26:41muck in and get on with it
0:26:41 > 0:26:46was very much a part of one side of the schizophrenic Northern culture.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48The other side said, we can do anything.
0:26:55 > 0:27:00In 1960, an ambitious individual might be just as likely to head North as South.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03Certainly, an ambitious film-maker would be.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10I think for many of the film directors born in the South of England,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13certainly educated, usually public school, Oxbridge,
0:27:13 > 0:27:18the North of England just, for them, was a totally exotic landscape.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34The North became a magnet for film directors,
0:27:34 > 0:27:39fascinated by what George Orwell once called the "macabre appeal"
0:27:39 > 0:27:45of its industrial landscape and finding a paradoxical, poetical quality in its backstreets.
0:27:48 > 0:27:54One such was Ken Russell, who in 1960 was given a tour of Salford
0:27:54 > 0:27:58by the 21-year-old writing sensation, Shelagh Delaney.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03She gave him a bittersweet account of growing up in its terraced streets.
0:28:03 > 0:28:08And you get these alleyways going on for miles, separating houses
0:28:08 > 0:28:11that look as if they'd been built on top of one another.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16And because everyone is so close together, they seem to generate a terrific warmth.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Down here you can almost feel the heart of the city beating.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37Street living was community, you met people all the time.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41You met them all along the road where you lived,
0:28:41 > 0:28:43you stepped out and you met people you knew.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47People who would look out for you.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Perhaps it's the old cliche, you didn't lock your door when you went out.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55There was always someone there who knew who you were.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58It became a bit repressive,
0:28:58 > 0:29:03because everybody knew everybody else's business. But it wasn't lonely.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10It was in this world that Shelagh Delaney found inspiration
0:29:10 > 0:29:16for her play A Taste Of Honey, a hit in the West End and about to open on Broadway in 1960.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19The film version, directed by Tony Richardson,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23introduced the unknown Liverpudlian actress Rita Tushingham
0:29:23 > 0:29:27as the central character, the maverick and contentious teenager, Jo.
0:29:32 > 0:29:33In the opening scene,
0:29:33 > 0:29:37Jo and her mother struggle up steps in a maze of terraces.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40But if the townscape looked Victorian,
0:29:40 > 0:29:43the plotline certainly wasn't.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51She is seeing a culture which is in transition.
0:29:51 > 0:29:57She was in Broughton in Salford, which is about as traditional working class as you can get.
0:29:57 > 0:30:05But it's on the verge of the docks, the edge of the docks and therefore it is open to other cultures.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07Shelagh Delaney was amazing.
0:30:07 > 0:30:0816-year-old schoolgirl
0:30:08 > 0:30:14writes a play all about a Salford schoolgirl
0:30:14 > 0:30:18who falls in love with a black sailor,
0:30:18 > 0:30:21gets pregnant,
0:30:21 > 0:30:25brings up the child with the help of her gay best friend.
0:30:25 > 0:30:31This is a plot which should be a drama series in 2010.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36Regarding her friend's sexuality, Jo comes quickly to the point.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41Who did she find you with?
0:30:41 > 0:30:44- Your girlfriend?- Of course not.
0:30:44 > 0:30:46It wasn't a man, was it?
0:30:49 > 0:30:53'This was ordinary street, this was the gays that we knew.'
0:30:53 > 0:30:55These were just normal and he was just normal.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00This is what it was, it was the normality of us.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05But perhaps the most touching relationship in the film
0:31:05 > 0:31:10is between Jo and her equally spiky mother, Helen, played by Dora Bryan.
0:31:11 > 0:31:17For me, Jo and Helen are two of the best characters in literature. They really are.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19I've got something to tell ya.
0:31:20 > 0:31:23Jo, I'm going to get married again.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27Helen's in the bath and she's telling Jo that she's going to get married again,
0:31:27 > 0:31:29and Jo's response is so telling.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33She wants her mum to herself, she wants her mum to be a mum,
0:31:33 > 0:31:37but her mum doesn't want to be a mum, her mum is 40 and she wants to have a good time.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40I wish you wouldn't talk about me as if I'm an impotent old woman.
0:31:40 > 0:31:42You're not exactly a child bride.
0:31:42 > 0:31:46- I was once.- I want to be dead and buried by the time I reach your age.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48Jo knows her mother inside out.
0:31:48 > 0:31:54You've got the young person's coming distrust of the older generation.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57The idea that the older generation was something to be looked up to
0:31:57 > 0:32:00and valued and trusted is not there in Taste Of Honey.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04Jo is like what The Beatles are going to usher in as well,
0:32:04 > 0:32:08a kind of cocking snook and making fun of the older generation
0:32:08 > 0:32:12for being kind of stuffy and hypocritical in their morality.
0:32:12 > 0:32:18What these films did for the first time is give a picture of working class people having inner lives
0:32:18 > 0:32:24and having unique individual lives and unique perspectives on the world.
0:32:24 > 0:32:31And even though there's a collective shared experience of difficulty and adversity,
0:32:31 > 0:32:35and to some extent grimness, there is an awful lot of joy to be had.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38There's the scene in A Taste Of Honey where Jo and Geoff
0:32:38 > 0:32:41are talking to each other about how unique and how marvellous they are.
0:32:41 > 0:32:49To hear two working class people who are really in quite a pickle,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52in terms of the circumstances of their lives, she's pregnant
0:32:52 > 0:33:00and he's gay and has got nobody to turn to, both of them affirming each other's value
0:33:00 > 0:33:04for the first time on film to everyone is just fantastic.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09My usual self is a very unusual self, and don't you forget that, Geoffrey Ingham.
0:33:09 > 0:33:14I'm an extraordinary person. There's only one of me like there's only one of you.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16- We're unique.- Young!- Unrivalled!
0:33:16 > 0:33:18- Smashing!- We're bloody marvellous!
0:33:18 > 0:33:21MUSIC: "Walk Don't Run" by The Ventures
0:33:26 > 0:33:311960 would prove to be a big year for a rather more conventional family unit down south.
0:33:31 > 0:33:38The head of the family, Elizabeth Windsor, had a new baby, Prince Andrew, here making his TV debut.
0:33:38 > 0:33:43Then her younger sister Margaret got married.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49But whilst all the glitz and glamour seemed to be confined
0:33:49 > 0:33:53to its usual southern haunts, the North would keep crashing the party.
0:33:53 > 0:33:58The judges of the Miss Cinema 1960 competition seemed to know which way the wind was blowing.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01The final was on Halloween at the Lyceum ballroom.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05Third prize went to 18-year-old Ellen Lloyd, a London girl.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08The first went to Nottingham, a city famous for its pretty girls.
0:34:09 > 0:34:16Then an infamous son of Nottingham, DH Lawrence, stole the limelight from beyond the grave.
0:34:17 > 0:34:22In the winter of 1960, Penguin Books were taken to court in an attempt to prevent them
0:34:22 > 0:34:25from publishing an uncensored paperback version
0:34:25 > 0:34:28of Lawrence's erotic novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Lawrence, although he's obviously long dead,
0:34:35 > 0:34:42but he is a working class writer from the North,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46and he's a sexual revolutionary, I mean genuinely.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49And also he's actually a literary revolutionary in the sense
0:34:49 > 0:34:54that he puts explicit sex into a novel like Lady Chatterley's Lover.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58In the Old Bailey courtroom an elemental culture clash was played out.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02Much of the argument of the learned friends centred on the F-word,
0:35:02 > 0:35:04and its function in working class speech.
0:35:04 > 0:35:10The literary critic Richard Hoggart, who'd been born in Leeds, was called to give evidence for the publishers.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14One of the key moments in the whole trial, at least in my dad's evidence,
0:35:14 > 0:35:19was that he was asked about the use of that very bad four-letter word.
0:35:19 > 0:35:22He was asked about the use of the word "fuck".
0:35:22 > 0:35:26In the courtroom there was a sort of frisson.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30Somebody had said that word which was never used in polite society.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32Dad said, "Yes, I was on my way to the Old Bailey here,
0:35:32 > 0:35:39"I heard the word used many, many times when I walked past a building site.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41"That's what people do, that's the word for it."
0:35:41 > 0:35:44What he was saying was, if you don't like it
0:35:44 > 0:35:48then you're going to be very unhappy, because it's a very, very commonly used word.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54But the pivotal event of the trial would prove to be a fatal aside
0:35:54 > 0:35:57by the rather patrician chief prosecutor.
0:35:58 > 0:36:03His speech to the jury was going very well and he allowed himself an ad-lib.
0:36:03 > 0:36:09And the ad-lib he used was, "Is this a book you would want your wife or your servants to read?"
0:36:09 > 0:36:12That was at the very beginning of the trial, on the opening day,
0:36:12 > 0:36:17and the trial was probably lost at that point, when this ancient attitude was revealed.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23With victory for Penguin the book became a mainstream best-seller,
0:36:23 > 0:36:27another breakthrough for Northern culture in this year of 1960.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36CRASHING
0:36:39 > 0:36:44Just as a tale of cross-cultural sex was erasing ideas of taste and decency,
0:36:44 > 0:36:49so the old North was being physically erased.
0:36:49 > 0:36:54The dark satanic mills, and correspondingly gloomy houses
0:36:54 > 0:36:57were being replaced by something more salubrious.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00And this modernisation was welcomed by many.
0:37:00 > 0:37:07The kind of suburban dream that starts filtering through to northern working class communities
0:37:07 > 0:37:10at this time is of the new house on the outskirts of town.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15The new estates, and you can see in Manchester that happens, and in Sheffield and Liverpool.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19And the dream is to get out of these overcrowded, grimy, run-down inner city areas,
0:37:19 > 0:37:23and you can understand quite why centrally heated, properly ventilated,
0:37:23 > 0:37:28clean homes on the outskirts of town were a dream for people.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31There were going to be parks and fields.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Instead of the bath house, you'd have your own bath.
0:37:34 > 0:37:40There'd be the municipal laundrettes, there'd be garage parking,
0:37:40 > 0:37:42there'd be roadways in the sky.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46We'd probably go to school with jet packs, I don't know.
0:37:46 > 0:37:51It was going to be everything that you'd ever seen in encyclopaedias of the future.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57But even in 1960 there were those, like Shelagh Delaney,
0:37:57 > 0:38:01who worried about what was being lost.
0:38:01 > 0:38:05They're tearing down whole parts of Salford and building them again.
0:38:05 > 0:38:11They're tearing them down and they're not putting the people back there, they're sending them away.
0:38:11 > 0:38:17Far away, to places where there's no city and no...
0:38:17 > 0:38:22Just sterile places, nobody knows anybody on it.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25And when they're building these places they never think
0:38:25 > 0:38:28of putting anything in them like a theatre or something.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34Another writer looking warily at the changes taking place in the North
0:38:34 > 0:38:37was that star of the Lady Chatterley trial, Richard Hoggart.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42His book The Uses Of Literacy was one of the talking points of 1960.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45It examined the shifting dynamics of northern working class life,
0:38:45 > 0:38:51not so much with a magnifying glass as a very powerful microscope.
0:38:51 > 0:38:56He was writing about working class people as having a real culture of their own,
0:38:56 > 0:39:00almost as though they were as strange and as different
0:39:00 > 0:39:04as the Trobriand islanders anthropologists had written about.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08But at the same time very much part of our world, our society and our nation.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11So that came as quite a surprise to a lot of people.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15It also came as a tremendous surprise to a lot of people who came from that background.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18They had never seen what they took for granted,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21the way they were schooled, the streets they lived in,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25the attitudes their parents and friends had. They'd never seen that written about.
0:39:25 > 0:39:31A fan of Hoggart's book was writer Stan Barstow, from Horbury near Wakefield.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35Barstow was a grammar school product, the son on a miner.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39He worked in the drawing office of an engineering firm before becoming a novelist.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45I think The Uses Of Literacy, it certainly influenced me.
0:39:45 > 0:39:48It gave me an insight into what...
0:39:50 > 0:39:56..somebody observing working class life with an acute insight.
0:39:56 > 0:39:58And it excited me very, very much,
0:39:58 > 0:40:03and I think I wasn't the only one who found it very, very valuable
0:40:03 > 0:40:06in its reporting from the grass roots.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12In 1960, Barstow's debut novel, A Kind Of Loving, was published.
0:40:12 > 0:40:17It tells the story of Vic, an ambitious, upwardly mobile young draughtsman.
0:40:18 > 0:40:23A film version starring Alan Bates and directed again by John Schlesinger
0:40:23 > 0:40:25was shot in various northern locations.
0:40:28 > 0:40:30They just caught the industrial North,
0:40:30 > 0:40:36just on the change when four or five years later all kinds of things would've changed.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42The film counter-poses the aspirant with the traditional North.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45Unlike his father, Vic goes to work in a collar and tie.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49He "kept a clean collar", as the phrase had it.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52Alan Bates is shown at work in an office that is both literally
0:40:52 > 0:40:55and metaphorically above the factory floor.
0:40:58 > 0:41:05We've got this perfect character, this cipher for "Man 1960."
0:41:05 > 0:41:09Who's not a coal miner, who's not a factory floor worker,
0:41:09 > 0:41:16who is somebody who could rise to a lower managerial position if he played his cards right.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18Or if he married the right girl.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21All these things are possible.
0:41:21 > 0:41:24That notion of the white collar job and the factory job,
0:41:24 > 0:41:28the manual job and the office job, is absolutely massive in the Northern culture at the time.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33Your mum would want you not to have to do what your dad had done and she had done,
0:41:33 > 0:41:37ie, not be in factories, or be in a coal mine or whatever.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41I remember growing up thinking that working in a bank was the ultimate accolade,
0:41:41 > 0:41:46because you could wear a clean shirt to work and you didn't come home covered in soot,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48or tired, or with a broken arm.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52Not unless it had been a particularly hectic day at the bank.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55But against that feeling that this was a nice job was also this feeling,
0:41:55 > 0:41:58and you heard it expressed by older guys sometimes,
0:41:58 > 0:42:02that it wasn't quite a proper job for a man, that it was a cushy number.
0:42:02 > 0:42:04Pen pushing. "Oh, he's a pen pusher."
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Vic's father, a cheerful railwayman,
0:42:08 > 0:42:12evinces all the inverted snobbery of the old-fashioned northerner.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14- Where's my tea, then?- Tea?
0:42:14 > 0:42:15White collar workers don't get tea.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18You want to get a day's work done before you get tea.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22Vic's caught between the values of the old traditional working class
0:42:22 > 0:42:25and the temptations and the pull of the new working class.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30It is Vic's girlfriend Ingrid who represents the dreams now on offer.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32Vic is living in two worlds.
0:42:32 > 0:42:34His loyalties are divided.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37You see him running backwards and forwards
0:42:37 > 0:42:43between the new houses on the aspirational housing estate, Ingrid lives in a semi-detached house,
0:42:43 > 0:42:50and then him running back to the terraces, which is where he's from and where he also belongs.
0:42:52 > 0:42:57The dilemma is awareness of what is possible
0:42:57 > 0:43:00and the danger of leaving behind the parts of it
0:43:00 > 0:43:06that are very, very valuable which have made him and given him his stability and given him his values.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11When Vic does the decent thing and marries his pregnant girlfriend,
0:43:11 > 0:43:18he is claimed by the semi-detached suburbia that was beginning to rise up around northern towns.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23My favourite scene is when Alan Bates comes home drunk and it's not his home,
0:43:23 > 0:43:26it's his mother-in-law's home where he's having to live.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29How dare you say such filthy, disgusting things?!
0:43:29 > 0:43:31You filthy upstart.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35You come into the house drunk, filthy drunk. You're filthy.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38You talk filth, you are filth.
0:43:38 > 0:43:44He turns and vomits, and she looks at him with utter disgust and calls him an animal.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46You filthy pig!
0:43:46 > 0:43:52And it's a classic example of not just the generations clashing but the classes clashing.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55Thora Hird's character is incredibly aspirational.
0:43:55 > 0:44:01She lives in a semi-detached with a nice bedroom suite,
0:44:01 > 0:44:06and the new son-in-law is from working class.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09She's working class herself, but she doesn't think herself that way.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13True to the spirit of 1960, Ingrid and her mother
0:44:13 > 0:44:17talk about little else than their latest purchases.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20Everything's been going wrong. The new carpet hasn't come.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23They promised me it would be down and fitted by the time you came back,
0:44:23 > 0:44:27- and now they say it'll be a fortnight.- Never mind. - And the TV's gone wrong.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30In The Uses Of Literacy, Richard Hoggart fretted
0:44:30 > 0:44:33that the integrity and cohesion of Northern working class life
0:44:33 > 0:44:37was being threatened by this new consumer culture.
0:44:39 > 0:44:45The key theme of Hoggart's work is the social changes being wrought
0:44:45 > 0:44:51by affluence and materialism in that period,
0:44:51 > 0:44:58so in many ways Hoggart lays out that concern about the quality of life,
0:44:58 > 0:45:03about how we might be becoming economically better off but culturally worse off.
0:45:09 > 0:45:15A poignant moment in A Kind Of Loving brings Hoggart's critique to the screen.
0:45:16 > 0:45:24Vic Brown's father, as Stan Barstow's father was in real life, was a brass bandsman,
0:45:24 > 0:45:31and Vic and his girlfriend Ingrid and her mother sit at home watching the new television set.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35There's two or three empty seats in the local town hall
0:45:35 > 0:45:38where they should be sitting watching his father
0:45:38 > 0:45:45play his short trombone solo in that most Northern, most communal of experiences, the brass band concert.
0:45:51 > 0:45:55Vic could go to a brass band concert that his dad is playing in, but instead
0:45:55 > 0:46:01he's sitting with his mother-in-law and his wife in silence, eclipsed,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05nobody is interested in him, watching game shows on television.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08And that's all that Ingrid and Ingrid's mother seem to be interested in.
0:46:08 > 0:46:13Their superficiality and their vulgarity is something that the film really enjoys.
0:46:13 > 0:46:18A common feature of new-wave films was the presence of a TV set,
0:46:18 > 0:46:21usually depicted as an agent of moronism.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25And your hobbies are gardening and looking at people.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29It's very interesting how a lot of these films would have a scene
0:46:29 > 0:46:34in which the telly appears, and the telly appears often very negatively.
0:46:34 > 0:46:39It's viewed very negatively because it's a threat
0:46:39 > 0:46:43to what is seen as authentic, working class amusements.
0:46:51 > 0:46:59Down south in 1960, the BBC proudly unveiled its new headquarters in London - Television Centre.
0:46:59 > 0:47:05Director of TV Gerald Beadle boasted it was the largest and most carefully planned "factory"
0:47:05 > 0:47:07of its kind in the world.
0:47:07 > 0:47:13'This 100-feet long studio is one of seven in a building that may well become the Hollywood of television.'
0:47:15 > 0:47:22From this manufacturing base, the BBC could take on that upstart commercial television.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28The arrival of independent television had introduced
0:47:28 > 0:47:33not only a competitor to the BBC, but it had introduced advertising.
0:47:34 > 0:47:40It was the impact, not only of advertising on British cultural life, but also what
0:47:40 > 0:47:45was seen as increasingly commercial, audience-winning programmes
0:47:45 > 0:47:49such as quiz shows with big-money prizes.
0:47:49 > 0:47:54They were often seen as a symptom of a new more commercial, material culture.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57'A mum is someone who uses Persil in her washing machine.'
0:47:57 > 0:47:59'Heinz baked beans.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02'Oven-baked to give you that extra Heinz flavour.'
0:48:02 > 0:48:07'Glucose and sugar, milk and chocolate are all in Mars.
0:48:07 > 0:48:12'Yes, a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.'
0:48:20 > 0:48:25By 1960, TVs squatted in three quarters of British living rooms.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29The franchise for commercial television in the North
0:48:29 > 0:48:32had recently been won by the Bernstein brothers from London.
0:48:32 > 0:48:38The north-pointing logo of Granada Television symbolised its geographical orientation.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42But in 1960, there was concern within the company
0:48:42 > 0:48:46that it wasn't adequately reflecting life in its catchment area.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51That changed thanks to an altercation between a studio
0:48:51 > 0:48:56executive and a young local writer, Tony Warren.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59I climbed on top of a filing cabinet
0:48:59 > 0:49:02in a Canadian executive producer's office and said,
0:49:02 > 0:49:05"I'm not coming down until you let me write what I know about."
0:49:05 > 0:49:07He said, "Well, what do you know about?"
0:49:07 > 0:49:11I said, "I know about the North of England and I know about show business."
0:49:11 > 0:49:16He said, "Well, show business is kiss of death, but how about writing me the story of a street out there?"
0:49:16 > 0:49:19Tony Warren grew up in Swinton, near Salford,
0:49:19 > 0:49:22and he knew the Salford backstreets incredibly well.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26He'd walked down them, he'd observed them and he'd go through them in a bus.
0:49:26 > 0:49:30This is real community and he observed
0:49:30 > 0:49:34that and it is his observations which became Coronation Street.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38The first episode of Coronation Street
0:49:38 > 0:49:41was broadcast on the 9th of December 1960.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45The opening scene is a masterpiece,
0:49:45 > 0:49:50it was shot in Archie Street in Salford, absolutely captures the
0:49:50 > 0:49:57classic back-to-back streets, very much takes its iconography from the new-wave cinema.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01And has that marvellous theme tune.
0:50:01 > 0:50:06What could be more Northern to a mass audience in 1960 than a cornet solo?
0:50:06 > 0:50:10The fact the cornet solo is written by a man born in Croydon perhaps takes a little bit away
0:50:10 > 0:50:14from that, but it's extremely skilful at creating a mood
0:50:14 > 0:50:19and creating an imaginative setting, just in a few seconds.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22CORONATION STREET THEME
0:50:27 > 0:50:32Every possible facet of Northern life was reflected in its cast of characters.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34We could now examine at our leisure some of the
0:50:34 > 0:50:39incendiary types the new wave of Northern writers had created.
0:50:39 > 0:50:44Coronation Street had its very own pouting, smouldering bad boy,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47Dennis Tanner, played by Philip Lowrie.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50In that opening episode we're taken into the Tanners,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53Elsie Tanner having a big argument with Dennis Tanner,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56she's accused him of nicking two bob from her purse.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59Not an hour ago, you asked me for two bob for cigarettes.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02- And you wouldn't give it me.- So you stooped to going in a lady's handbag.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06Just listen it! A lady? Is that what you crack on you are these days?
0:51:06 > 0:51:10Dennis Tanner in that is absolutely Arthur Seton on the small screen,
0:51:10 > 0:51:15with the quiff and the turned-up shirt, and the open neck.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19That same kind of slightly brooding, Elvis Presley relocated to Salford.
0:51:19 > 0:51:25The grammar school boy burning with ambition to escape, an ambition still mysteriously
0:51:25 > 0:51:29unfulfilled after 50 years, is Ken Barlow, played by William Roache.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33We move into the Barlows and there's young Ken
0:51:33 > 0:51:36and he's still at college, and Ken is looking down his nose
0:51:36 > 0:51:39cos they've put a bottle of brown sauce on the table.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43- What's up?- Nothing.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46- What's that snooty expression for? - What snooty expression?
0:51:46 > 0:51:47'Duffle-coated Ken Barlow'
0:51:47 > 0:51:51looks like he's just come from the Aldermaston March.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53You see this idea of the new educated working class lad,
0:51:53 > 0:51:58who is going to go away to university and all the attendant problems that will bring.
0:51:58 > 0:52:04He'll love his mum and dad and love his culture and be slightly ashamed of it as well.
0:52:04 > 0:52:08You're not so much getting a sense of the new economic prosperity
0:52:08 > 0:52:11but you are getting the idea of new values coming into the North.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19Embodying the sexualisation of Northern culture was Pat Phoenix,
0:52:19 > 0:52:22as the vampish Elsie Tanner.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25Elsie Tanner is a fascinating character
0:52:25 > 0:52:29because she is a new cultural phenomenon, a single mum.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32We've had widowed mums, who are honourable.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35Elsie Tanner is a single mum and she is loose.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39In a scene between Elsie and her daughter, Elsie's erotically
0:52:39 > 0:52:42adventurous past is firmly, if glancingly, established.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45You haven't been doing anything you shouldn't, have you?
0:52:45 > 0:52:47- How do you mean? - You're not a kid anymore.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50It's no secret round here why your dad left me.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54'Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street dressed very glamorously on very little money.'
0:52:54 > 0:52:58And that kind of older, evidently sexually-active woman
0:52:58 > 0:53:06character was really much at odds with the more kind of battleaxe,
0:53:06 > 0:53:09harridan Ena Sharples character.
0:53:09 > 0:53:16If Elsie represented the turbulence of a new, more liberal era, Violet Carson as Ena Sharples
0:53:16 > 0:53:21seemed to personify about 200 years of Northern rectitude.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26The North was and is a matriarchal society.
0:53:26 > 0:53:33Men are there and thereabouts, but they at work or they're in the pub.
0:53:33 > 0:53:39That's not a cliche, I think to a certain extent men were important but kind of shadowy figures.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Daily life as it was lived, on the streets, in the shops,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45and in houses and in factories, is dominated by women.
0:53:45 > 0:53:50Ena Sharples' arrival into the corner shop
0:53:50 > 0:53:53is an absolute tour de force.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56She's incredibly intrusive. One of the first questions she has for
0:53:56 > 0:54:00Florie Lindley is, has Florie thought about where she is going to be buried?
0:54:00 > 0:54:03And in and around that, she's punctuating acute and precise
0:54:03 > 0:54:08observations about the locality with her shopping order.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11- You a widow woman?- Well, yes.
0:54:11 > 0:54:14I thought so. I'm the caretaker at the Glad Tidings hall.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16That's just across the street, isn't it?
0:54:16 > 0:54:19- What's your place of worship? - I don't really do much about it.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21Oh, I know, C of E.
0:54:21 > 0:54:22'What Coronation Street is giving us'
0:54:22 > 0:54:26is the rhythm and the tonality and the inflection
0:54:26 > 0:54:28of Northern dialogue, Northern speech.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Within a week you'll be received, christened and confirmed.
0:54:31 > 0:54:37Within a fortnight she was sitting up all night sewing surpluses. I'll take a packet of baking powder.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40'And suddenly we hear Northern voices on TV.'
0:54:42 > 0:54:46Apparently, papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express, in 1960,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49published little explanations of what "owt"
0:54:49 > 0:54:52meant or "eccy thump", or what have you,
0:54:52 > 0:54:57so that southerners wouldn't be baffled by the language of Coronation Street.
0:54:57 > 0:55:03All the stressful argy-bargy of Northern working class life enshrined on TV.
0:55:03 > 0:55:05Well, it took some getting used to.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11When Coronation Street was first transmitted in 1960, lots of people didn't know how to take it.
0:55:11 > 0:55:16Some people thought it was real life and these characters actually existed,
0:55:16 > 0:55:19because they'd never seen a soap opera before like it.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23And a lot of people were expecting a comedy because they were used to the
0:55:23 > 0:55:28Manchester accents being from the comedy acts of the music halls,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31like George Formby and Gracie Fields.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40But the viewers did acclimatise, and Coronation Street, originally
0:55:40 > 0:55:47commissioned for 13 episodes, soon became unstoppable, a hit all over the country.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54I think Coronation Street is in many ways the most
0:55:54 > 0:55:57revolutionary of all the products of this Northern movement.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01By 1961 it's got 24 million viewers, so it's reaching a far bigger
0:56:01 > 0:56:04audience than any of the other cultural products.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10And it, along with Granada Television and the other regional television companies, was inserting
0:56:10 > 0:56:16the North of England in the national culture in a permanent way, that simply hadn't happened before.
0:56:16 > 0:56:23The North has always had its moments of fashionability in 1840s, '50s, 1930s, but they came and went, and
0:56:23 > 0:56:28it was television that really meant the North could never go away again.
0:56:41 > 0:56:46By the end of 1960, the North had attained true glamour.
0:56:46 > 0:56:51It was unignorable, and if you tried to patronise it, you risked looking stupid.
0:56:51 > 0:56:57If you wanted iconoclasm, humour, style, music, you looked north.
0:56:57 > 0:57:02And this was only the start.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04I am certain we, in some way,
0:57:04 > 0:57:09paved the way for the Swinging Sixties because,
0:57:09 > 0:57:11before we came along,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15the Northern accent certainly wasn't acceptable accept as a caricature.
0:57:15 > 0:57:22The Midlands accent was unheard of, and now suddenly in 1963, we had people like The Beatles.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25- IN LIVERPOOL ACCENT:- They were Liverpool and talk like that,
0:57:25 > 0:57:26at the beginning.
0:57:26 > 0:57:32I don't think they would have got away with it if we hadn't started the trend for regional accents.
0:57:32 > 0:57:36The Beatles, right from the word go, speak in their own voice, they speak
0:57:36 > 0:57:41in their own argot and the world is ready to fall in love with them.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45So instead of finding it upstart or vulgar, they find it charming
0:57:45 > 0:57:50and it's the beginning of the idea of the kind of impishness and vitality of the North.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52And The Beatles take that and make it global.
0:57:52 > 0:57:58Out of this is the beginning of the '60s and maybe a kind of more exciting '60s.
0:58:01 > 0:58:03# Love, love me do
0:58:03 > 0:58:07# You know I love you
0:58:07 > 0:58:10# I'll always be true
0:58:10 > 0:58:15# So please
0:58:15 > 0:58:17# Love me do
0:58:17 > 0:58:20# Whoa, love me do... #
0:58:27 > 0:58:30# The whole world used to pass me by
0:58:32 > 0:58:38# I'd sit home all alone and cry
0:58:40 > 0:58:44# No-one stopped me to say hello
0:58:44 > 0:58:48# But now I'm someone they want to know... #