0:00:02 > 0:00:03This is Southwark in South East London.
0:00:03 > 0:00:05I was born in this ancient borough,
0:00:05 > 0:00:08and over the years I watched as so many fellow South Londoners
0:00:08 > 0:00:13headed to the foothills of Surrey, Kent and Essex.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16They were leaving these familiar streets that hold the bones
0:00:16 > 0:00:20and ashes of their ancestors, forsaking window-boxes
0:00:20 > 0:00:22and backyards for hedges and borders.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24They were going in search of a garden.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31They were heading for a place without a past - suburbia.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38Britain's intelligentsia has always sneered at the suburbs.
0:00:38 > 0:00:43I may be a writer and journalist, but my sympathies were always
0:00:43 > 0:00:47with those that saddled up and headed for the Promised Land.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52They called this a little piece of heaven.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57The space of lawns was the big thing for me.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00We'd never had that space before.
0:01:00 > 0:01:02Wonderful times.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05I can go snip-snip, I'm doing me garden, I'm here for the day.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08I love that. I love that.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12The distinction of the suburban garden is that it is democratic.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Acres apart from the garden's aristocratic past.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18Yet the puzzling thing is
0:01:18 > 0:01:22because it's not grand, the story of this garden hasn't been told.
0:01:31 > 0:01:36The British city a century ago - industrial, polluted,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38jam-packed with people.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41Almost no-one had much of a garden.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43# If you saw my little back yard
0:01:43 > 0:01:45# What a pretty spot, you'd cry
0:01:45 > 0:01:49# It's a picture on a sunny summer's day
0:01:49 > 0:01:51# With the turnip tops and cabbages
0:01:51 > 0:01:53# What peoples doesn't buy
0:01:53 > 0:01:56# I makes it on a Sunday look all gay... #
0:02:01 > 0:02:04But in London, where the railways ran out of the city,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07a different story was emerging.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10Houses were sprouting up around the stations.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Something entirely new was happening.
0:02:17 > 0:02:22This development would later spread to every British city.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26But the story starts here in London, birthplace of suburbia.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41For the fortunate ones it was a chance to say goodbye to the
0:02:41 > 0:02:46grim city and hello to their own individual Garden of Eden.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Among the first to leave were those who would become
0:02:53 > 0:02:56part of a social experiment in a planned utopia.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04Founded in 1906, Hampstead Garden Suburb provided rented accommodation
0:03:04 > 0:03:09for the working and professional classes in leafy surroundings
0:03:09 > 0:03:11beyond the stench and fog of the city.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20Anne Lowe still lives in the home first occupied by her grandfather,
0:03:20 > 0:03:22a Post Office worker from North London.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26My mother was a little girl of two,
0:03:26 > 0:03:30and that's a postcard of her in the back garden before all
0:03:30 > 0:03:34the hedges had grown up, and they were just little whippy hedges.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Presumably when your grandad moved here he would have come from
0:03:37 > 0:03:39- quite a poor... - Very poor.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41- ..poor household. - Very, very poor.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44So his experience of moving here must have been incredible
0:03:44 > 0:03:45to come from that background.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48Yes. I think they thought it was wonderful.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56The master plan for Hampstead Garden Suburb dictated that each garden
0:03:56 > 0:03:58was planted with two fruit trees
0:03:58 > 0:04:03and divided from its neighbour by hedges rather than walls or fences.
0:04:04 > 0:04:09Hampstead Garden Suburb's founders, Henrietta and Samuel Barnett,
0:04:09 > 0:04:11were as passionate about social reform
0:04:11 > 0:04:13as they were about healthy living.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17I think they were trying to create a total environment for people
0:04:17 > 0:04:20to live in where you're surrounded by gardens,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24you have vistas out from the houses across countryside.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27You're surrounded by trees in the streets and so on.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30- Was that a break with the past, in a way?- Yeah, very much so.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33In the Victorian period, well, they weren't really gardens for a start,
0:04:33 > 0:04:37most of them were terraced houses which were built in their hundreds
0:04:37 > 0:04:40- of thousands across London.- Hmm.- It tended to have a small, basically,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42- a yard at the back of there. - Backyard, yeah.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44You know, and that's where you did your utility stuff.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53The grimy yard was exchanged for an idyllic cottage
0:04:53 > 0:04:55with gardens back and front.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59The front gate, very much looking like a countryside gate.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02Then you have this straight path going up to the front door,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05usually lined with roses, roses around the door.
0:05:05 > 0:05:06Then the architecture itself,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11you have these incredible low eaves, the gable ends, that severe triangle,
0:05:11 > 0:05:15and the roughcast white rendered surface to the walls.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19All these things were part of the vocabulary of the arts and crafts...
0:05:19 > 0:05:20- Yeah.- ..look, if you like,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23and it's a language which I think certainly not just British people,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25but people around the world understand.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27It's an incredibly strong brand,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30if you like, you know, which you call the English country garden.
0:05:31 > 0:05:37But this planned arcadia came with very strict rules and regulations.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39You only could put your washing out on a Monday.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42The hedges had to be a certain height.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46Someone used to come along with a measuring stick and, you know,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49woe betide you if they were taller than that. You had to comply.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Why was that? Why did they need to keep the hedges so low?
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Well, it was a boundary to your garden,
0:05:55 > 0:05:59but you could still talk to your neighbour and that sort of thing.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02And it didn't cut everyone off, it didn't isolate everyone,
0:06:02 > 0:06:04- it made it more... - More communal.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07- ..much more of a community, yes. And you weren't spying.- No.
0:06:07 > 0:06:08Everyone was interested.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10If you had a glut of beans then you would share them
0:06:10 > 0:06:12with someone else who didn't have a glut of beans.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17Ultimately, Hampstead Garden Suburb didn't quite materialise
0:06:17 > 0:06:20into the vision the Barnetts had in mind.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23You can imagine that all these rules, hedge controls,
0:06:23 > 0:06:28wash-day, coupled with high rents and, worst of all, no pub,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32wouldn't have necessarily appealed to the inner-city working class.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35But the Barnetts were definitely onto something with this
0:06:35 > 0:06:36Garden Suburb concept.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52The planned idyll of Hampstead Garden Suburb is, of course,
0:06:52 > 0:06:55nothing like the suburban sprawl we've come to know.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04That development really took off with the radical Housing Act
0:07:04 > 0:07:10of 1923, when private builders were given subsidies to build new homes.
0:07:10 > 0:07:15A staggering 3 million were built across Britain between the wars.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17This was suburbia's big moment,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20at least for the white collar middle classes.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25They could now afford to buy into the dream.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29This ad is a gloriously rose-tinted view of suburbia.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33There's the big mock-Tudor house, the train is far into the distance.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38The neat flowerbeds, the trees, fathers watering the sunflowers
0:07:38 > 0:07:41and the mothers sitting knitting with the kid at her feet.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46It presents a very Disney-like, magical view of the suburbs,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49and a far cry from the dirty, chaotic city.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55- # It's a beautiful morning - It's a beautiful morning
0:07:55 > 0:08:00- # It's a beautiful day - It's a beautiful day
0:08:00 > 0:08:03- # It's a beautiful morning - It's a beautiful
0:08:03 > 0:08:05# Dream home... #
0:08:07 > 0:08:11Clarkson print workers were settling in to Tudorbethan villas
0:08:11 > 0:08:13in areas such as Bromley in Kent.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17And, thanks to the recent introduction of British Summer Time,
0:08:17 > 0:08:20they even got to spend more time in their gardens.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23There's an extra hour of daylight each day,
0:08:23 > 0:08:27and working hours are reduced, so as well as the space, you have the time.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31And in the winter months, lots of offices and banks,
0:08:31 > 0:08:34in particular, had gardening societies and clubs,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38the idea being that in the summer all your clerks would be rushing home
0:08:38 > 0:08:41- to cut their hedge in the evening, which is rather nice.- In suburbia?
0:08:41 > 0:08:43Yeah.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48For the new settlers, the commute became a way of life.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52Former East Enders were now commuting from Essex.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56And South East Londoners from places like here in Bromley.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Like many other people round here, he worked in the printing trade,
0:09:00 > 0:09:02which was quite well paid at those days.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06Pauline Figgin's father moved here in 1936.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Your father left Camberwell to come here.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15My family were from Camberwell, well, the Elephant, and they stayed.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18And I'm thinking how it would have been for him to have moved to
0:09:18 > 0:09:21a house in the suburb in the '30s and suddenly had this.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Yes. It's quite obvious that he really wanted a garden.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28He loved the garden and he loved his flowers.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31He loved growing vegetables and seeing it produce things.
0:09:32 > 0:09:34He used to commute to London to work.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36And my mother looked after the house,
0:09:36 > 0:09:38and they got to know the neighbours.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40You see, everybody moved here about the same time.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43All of them would have been heavily involved in the gardens as well,
0:09:43 > 0:09:45- presumably.- Yes, they all had to design their gardens.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48They all followed a fairly standard format with the rose trellis
0:09:48 > 0:09:50in the middle and then dividing the vegetable section
0:09:50 > 0:09:53from the more leisure area, the lawn and the flowers.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55And also the retreat corner.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59Yes, they had this tiny area with a canvas cover when it was really hot.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02And they would sit outside the French windows in deckchairs
0:10:02 > 0:10:03and enjoy the sunshine.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09Do you think of it as a happy place to be?
0:10:09 > 0:10:11Hmm, yes, I think we were very contented.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14You know, things weren't changing, you didn't have the big vast
0:10:14 > 0:10:17changing world in those days, so you thought you'd achieved something.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21You'd got a nice garden and you were there to enjoy it.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32The suburbs proved a sanctuary for many, but they became a target
0:10:32 > 0:10:37for criticism by an influential few - the London literary set.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40HG Wells led the charge.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43He wrote of suburbia in War of the Worlds.
0:10:43 > 0:10:48He said "All these, the sort of people that lived in these houses,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52"and those damn little clerks that used to live down that way,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55"they'd be no good, they haven't any spirit,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58"no proud dreams and no proud lusts".
0:11:07 > 0:11:12A fear and loathing of suburbia gathered pace among the literati,
0:11:12 > 0:11:17with writers such as Graham Greene, and even George Orwell weighing in.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20The new settlers were cast as the petty bourgeoisie.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27I think it's also been quite threatening for elites to see
0:11:27 > 0:11:31new social groups suddenly appearing.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35In the inner city there weren't these displays of apparent new wealth
0:11:35 > 0:11:39or leisure time, and this was obviously worrisome,
0:11:39 > 0:11:40at the very least.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44They apparently laid themselves open to criticism from every side,
0:11:44 > 0:11:45and we still have this.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53The literary elite were scornful of the suburban phenomenon,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55but others went even further.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58They said it was actually bad for you.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03Bizarrely, the medical profession, by way of its journal, the Lancet,
0:12:03 > 0:12:08came up with this term "suburbia neurosis" to describe the alienation
0:12:08 > 0:12:11the women felt when they moved to the suburbs.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13One woman writes of her condition,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17"I had pain in my back which runs up and down,
0:12:17 > 0:12:19"my stomach swells up terribly,
0:12:19 > 0:12:23"I can't sleep at night, I'm getting ever so thin."
0:12:32 > 0:12:35I think it was Doctor Stephen Taylor in the 1930s,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39a doctor in South London, South London suburbia,
0:12:39 > 0:12:43and what he identified was what he called suburbia neurosis.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45This was women who, you know,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47were showing signs of depression,
0:12:47 > 0:12:49maybe showing physical signs of backache
0:12:49 > 0:12:53from, sort of, household labour and other kinds of things.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55And it fits with a particular story.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57It fits with a story about, you know,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00once there were these kind of communities in the city
0:13:00 > 0:13:03and now women, in particular, have moved out.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06You know, it wasn't a scientific study,
0:13:06 > 0:13:07it was a sort of thought piece.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11And...you know, to some extent there's a truth in it,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14to some extent this is about people who've moved.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18You know, displacement always comes with, sort of, psychological burdens.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24Suburban neurosis certainly wouldn't deter the next wave
0:13:24 > 0:13:26to leave the city.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28It was the turn of the working classes.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45By 1937, nearly one in five urban working class families
0:13:45 > 0:13:47across the nation had bought their own home.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53It was their first big chance to leave the city and embrace suburbia.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02They were moving to contemporary suburbs like Welling and Bexley,
0:14:02 > 0:14:05where there were smaller semi-detached homes, very different
0:14:05 > 0:14:09to the villas of Bromley or the cottages of Hampstead Garden Suburb.
0:14:11 > 0:14:18Nigel Betts' father, a fishmonger, moved out here to Welling in 1938.
0:14:18 > 0:14:19So your dad moved here because of business,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22but most people probably would have moved because they'd suddenly got
0:14:22 > 0:14:24the chance of a house and a garden.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26Yeah, I think the thing is round here
0:14:26 > 0:14:32you could buy a house for like 12/6 down, which is like 2½p,
0:14:32 > 0:14:34and you paid 7/6 a week on the mortgage,
0:14:34 > 0:14:37and suddenly you had a two-up/two-down,
0:14:37 > 0:14:39front garden/back garden.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41Which would have been a complete departure from what you'd left
0:14:41 > 0:14:43if you'd come from London.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46A place like Deptford, Bermondsey and that, this would be, you know,
0:14:46 > 0:14:48like heaven, because you'd have a front garden,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51a back garden, three bedrooms upstairs,
0:14:51 > 0:14:55a living room, dining room. I mean, can you imagine the change?
0:15:03 > 0:15:08By the late 1930s, nearly 300,000 homes were being built each year
0:15:08 > 0:15:10by the private sector.
0:15:10 > 0:15:15But modernists and conservationists were appalled by suburban sprawl.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19They hated the fact that the house designs sprang from builders'
0:15:19 > 0:15:23commercial instincts, rather than the elevated minds of architects
0:15:23 > 0:15:25and social reformers.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30Well, certainly all of the more expensive semis were advertised
0:15:30 > 0:15:34as having their front gardens made up. Laing's and Wimpey did this.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36Again, to make it feel established,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39it didn't just look like a shanty town plonked on the side of a meadow,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42which is obviously what a lot of them would've looked like.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45- And if the back garden was visible from a station...- Yes.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47- ..say, then they would do that too. - Of course.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52And Laing's and Wimpey and possibly Wates also ran competitions
0:15:52 > 0:15:55while the houses were still being sold and occupied, basically,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58to make sure that the cottagers, as they were supposed to be,
0:15:58 > 0:16:00kept their gardens in order.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07These gardens were promoted as something to be proud of,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09something that needed care.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Rita Withers also lives in Welling
0:16:13 > 0:16:15in the house her parents bought in the '30s.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Her family had moved from rooms in Tottenham to a thoroughly
0:16:20 > 0:16:23modern home, which came with a barren garden that her father
0:16:23 > 0:16:25set out to transform.
0:16:27 > 0:16:33He had a friend, and he was a grave-digger at Tottenham Cemetery,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36and he said, "Oh, don't worry, Bert," he said,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40"I'll come and dig all that over and get you sorted out," which he did.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44Mum wanted trellising, which was put up.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49You can see that was one of the first things that was put up.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52- And so they...- The trellis, because she wanted roses on that.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58It seems like the trellis had become the staple of the suburban garden,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01along with a very prescribed set of flowers.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06Always roses, but things like lupins were really, really popular.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09You know, people would join clubs, the Sweet Pea Society,
0:17:09 > 0:17:15or delphiniums and so on, and would really go for this big look.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21What did they favour in terms of flowers?
0:17:21 > 0:17:25Oh, all sorts of the old flowers that you don't see around
0:17:25 > 0:17:29so much now, but everyone used to queue down at Woolworths
0:17:29 > 0:17:31when some new plants came in,
0:17:31 > 0:17:36cos the Woolworths down at Welwyn Corner always went in for
0:17:36 > 0:17:40trees and everything, knowing that this estate was growing.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42And they must have made a fortune, really,
0:17:42 > 0:17:44because everyone went down there.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52The heart of the new suburb was the High Street.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54There was Boots, the gardener's chemist,
0:17:54 > 0:17:56and this was the old Woolworth's that gave one sixth
0:17:56 > 0:18:00of its floor space over to gardening paraphernalia.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04Gardening was the big boom industry for the new suburbanite.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12It allowed people to get into gardening in quite
0:18:12 > 0:18:16a spontaneous way, because it had been quite class-bound in many ways,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20particularly with the nursery world, where the tradition was
0:18:20 > 0:18:24that you wrote off your list for bulbs or perennial plants and so on
0:18:24 > 0:18:27to your nursery, you know, as if you had a, you know,
0:18:27 > 0:18:29a tailor or something, you know,
0:18:29 > 0:18:31and you gave them the order and it came back to you,
0:18:31 > 0:18:33you had to be of a certain kind of social standing
0:18:33 > 0:18:36and economic standing to be able to do that.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39And I think there was a certain amount of democratisation
0:18:39 > 0:18:40of gardening at this point.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47An indication of just how popular it was as a subject,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51gardening, is the fact that Wills and Co published a series
0:18:51 > 0:18:53of 50 cigarette cards, which you can see here.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55These were published throughout the '30s.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58And you see here, this is a woman laying crazy paving.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00Yeah, the crazing paving's fantastic.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03It's just so odd to think you would open a packet of cigarettes...
0:19:03 > 0:19:05- And see...- ..and see gardening hints.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17Putting garden tips in a packet of fags reveals just how popular
0:19:17 > 0:19:21this outdoor hobby had become among the suburban classes,
0:19:21 > 0:19:24whose approach to how they lived had thoroughly changed.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33When you live in the city the closeness of those densely populated
0:19:33 > 0:19:37streets creates an enforced neighbourliness.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39You tend to live more publicly.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42But when you move to the suburbs you become more part
0:19:42 > 0:19:45of the private family unit.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49You retreat from the street and settle into the rear gardens.
0:19:53 > 0:19:59Round the lawn, Dad managed to put some tins in,
0:19:59 > 0:20:04and we had a nine hole little golf course
0:20:04 > 0:20:08that I used to play with my friends and that for hours out there.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13As a young child, you used to always have a little bit of garden.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16I think that was quite normal for children to do in those days.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20Because we didn't have television, we didn't have computers, you know.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22I suppose doing things like a little bit of gardening
0:20:22 > 0:20:24was quite the normal thing to do.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35By the mid-1930s, Surrey boasted what would come to be seen
0:20:35 > 0:20:37as the archetypal suburb,
0:20:37 > 0:20:41but one certainly not for the working classes.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45It had grander homes and grander gardens.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48The upper middle classes were now also buying into the dream,
0:20:48 > 0:20:52which became a reality here in Surbiton.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Now this is the Mayoral garden party,
0:20:59 > 0:21:01and me in my Buckingham Palace dress that I had.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11In 1936, the young Mildred Baird and her family took up residence
0:21:11 > 0:21:13here at the Glade, with its three-acre garden.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19Mildred's father worked in London.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26He was working with Knight, Frank and Rutley in Hanover Square,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28and when we had a telephone, in those days
0:21:28 > 0:21:34the telephone in the hall, and I would listen to him, "Mayfair 3771."
0:21:34 > 0:21:37I still remember that all those years ago.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39My father had seen this property
0:21:39 > 0:21:44knowing it was coming up on the, you know, estate agent's business,
0:21:44 > 0:21:46and so he decided to move.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48It was wonderful.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51My brothers and I were very pleased, we loved it up there.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57It looks an amazingly glamorous garden, that,
0:21:57 > 0:21:59because the pond looks huge.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01It was a beautiful garden, beautiful.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04And when you say it had three lawns, you mean it was broken up,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07something broke the lawns up in to three parts?
0:22:07 > 0:22:11Yes. Yes. Because one big lawn was where they played cricket.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15There was one big lawn where they had a sitting area for people,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18and then the other lawn where they had entertainment.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23- Is this your wedding? - That's my wedding.
0:22:23 > 0:22:25- Ah.- We had to have the wedding May 17th,
0:22:25 > 0:22:28- because the azaleas would be out. - Is that why?
0:22:28 > 0:22:31You see, all the azaleas were out. And they are out.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35All the azaleas were out, and those are the big trees in the back there.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38- It was red roses. - Yeah, that's great. Really nice.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41- Mother wanted me to have red roses. - And that.- Yes.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45But it sounds to me like the garden, for your dad being the Mayor,
0:22:45 > 0:22:49was quite a draw in the community, presumably, because...
0:22:49 > 0:22:52It was. It became thus. It became thus.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55And there are still people in our church will talk about the dos,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58the fairs, the fetes that went on at the Glade.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00Wonderful times.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05Grab her! Grab her!
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Oh, dear, do you think it's his Bible or his hymn book
0:23:10 > 0:23:12that old grandpa there was waving?
0:23:14 > 0:23:16Now this is one of the things that happened.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18So the entertainment that was sitting,
0:23:18 > 0:23:22they did things like funny races, and this is flowerpot race.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25You had to walk only on your feet on the flowerpot.
0:23:27 > 0:23:29That's the Glade Conservatory over there.
0:23:31 > 0:23:33There we go again, races.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35That was the Minister from New Malden.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38I don't know why he was there.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40He was a good runner, wasn't he?
0:23:44 > 0:23:45That was my father.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54You see how they'd had to usher the audience all round the edge
0:23:54 > 0:23:57to give the ballet schoolgirls room to do their dancing?
0:23:59 > 0:24:03I never remember rain coming when we had one of these garden fetes.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05We were blessed with good weather.
0:24:05 > 0:24:07And look at the shadows on the grass,
0:24:07 > 0:24:09it must have been bright sunshine.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14There certainly were shadows on the grass.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19Everything in the suburban garden was rosy,
0:24:19 > 0:24:22whether it was the lupins of the villas of Bromley,
0:24:22 > 0:24:26the rose trellises of the semis, or the azaleas of the Glade.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30But war was about to change all that.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Yet according to one critic,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35suburbia was oblivious to the emerging threat.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38By the close of the 1930s,
0:24:38 > 0:24:43suburbia had ceased to be merely a done target for snob writers.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47Its manicured lawns housed an apathetic herd,
0:24:47 > 0:24:51according to the broadcaster and author, JB Priestley.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54They were ill-prepared for the realities of war.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58Priestley wrote, "We messed around in our back gardens,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01"we drove about in our little cars, we listened to the comedians
0:25:01 > 0:25:05"and the crooners as the shadows crept nearer."
0:25:10 > 0:25:14But I'd argue they were far from being an apathetic herd,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18as they battened down their windows and built their Anderson shelters.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23This is the year war started.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28Can you remember what your dad's reaction was when war was announced?
0:25:30 > 0:25:35Dad had been in the Somme, and when war started, he went into shock.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40And he sat in the dining room for three days
0:25:40 > 0:25:42and didn't talk to anyone,
0:25:42 > 0:25:46and then he got up and he went and he dug a trench
0:25:46 > 0:25:48right across the garden, shored it all up.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53And I can remember him taking me and mum out in the garden and saying,
0:25:53 > 0:25:58"Well, you'll be safe here." And then he was all right.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00Mum had had to get the doctor,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04and the doctor said he's gone into shock, he'll come out of it.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08But the thought of another war must have been terrible for him.
0:26:10 > 0:26:17MUSIC: "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" by Roxy Music
0:26:36 > 0:26:41My father had got his study shored up against bomb damage,
0:26:41 > 0:26:47so we were asleep in bed there, and about half past one,
0:26:47 > 0:26:50one bomb went off, and we all went up to see what was happening out there.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54AIR RAID SIRENS WAIL
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Went back to bed, and two hours exactly,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59and the second one went off and it must have been a timed bomb,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02and it knocked down part of the big oak tree up the garden.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04So in one night you had two bombs in your garden?
0:27:04 > 0:27:06We had two bombs in our garden.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08And then we went back to sleep after that.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25During wartime the gardens themselves became a great leveller.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28Everyone was expected to pull together
0:27:28 > 0:27:33as part of the national Dig For Victory campaign.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36- NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:- 'This Dig for Victory leaflet number one,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39'issued by the Ministry of Agriculture,
0:27:39 > 0:27:41'tells you how to plan your spring planting campaign so that you can
0:27:41 > 0:27:43'have fresh vegetables in your garden
0:27:43 > 0:27:46'next winter and all year round.'
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Everyone grew as much as they could, they really did.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54- So people in the suburb got very involved in that?- Yes.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57And when the houses along the road were bombed
0:27:57 > 0:28:00everyone was asked to still use the gardens,
0:28:00 > 0:28:02because the houses were derelict,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05but the apple trees were still bearing fruit,
0:28:05 > 0:28:09and you could still grow fruit and veg and everything to... Yeah.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17The campaign was launched by a man who's since been described
0:28:17 > 0:28:22as the first working class hero, after boxers and gangsters.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24His name was Mr Middleton,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27and he was the BBC's first horticultural instructor.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32Mr Middleton lived in Surbiton. He may have put Surbiton on the map,
0:28:32 > 0:28:39because his radio show in 1940 had an amazing 3.5 million listeners.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43RADIO: 'This is the national programme In Your Garden,
0:28:43 > 0:28:45'and here's Mr Middleton.'
0:28:45 > 0:28:47'Good afternoon.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51'I suppose one of the most difficult jobs to explain over the wireless
0:28:51 > 0:28:54'is the pruning of fruit trees, and I've had a good many tries,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58'but I doubt whether I've ever made much of a success of it.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01'The trouble is that the different varieties of apple trees
0:29:01 > 0:29:04'have their own individual habits and characteristics,
0:29:04 > 0:29:07'and there are so many different opinions about
0:29:07 > 0:29:11'that I can well understand how confusing it must be to a beginner.'
0:29:11 > 0:29:14Mr Middleton's Dig for Victory sounds so united,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16yet the campaign did not unify everyone
0:29:16 > 0:29:19in ploughing up their petunias.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22One dissenting voice distraught at the prospect was
0:29:22 > 0:29:27Stephen Chavley in his 1940 book 'A Garden Goes To War'.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32He wrote "Sad to think of all the work that must now be undone.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34"But, after all, it's a small sacrifice.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37"Let's hope that some day we can restore
0:29:37 > 0:29:40"all that now has to be destroyed."
0:29:42 > 0:29:44It must have been a little irritating
0:29:44 > 0:29:46for the suburbanites to have to dig up
0:29:46 > 0:29:50their carefully manicured lawns and flowerbeds,
0:29:50 > 0:29:51however, it had to be done.
0:29:53 > 0:29:57So they must have been over the moon in the summer of 1945 -
0:29:57 > 0:30:00the long war was finally won.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07There was one flower in particular
0:30:07 > 0:30:10which came to symbolise this return to tranquillity -
0:30:10 > 0:30:13the Peace Rose.
0:30:13 > 0:30:14It was a pretty rose.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17It was yellow and it was tinged with pink edges,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20and suddenly after the war everyone was happy
0:30:20 > 0:30:23and wanted to show their happiness and would buy such a thing.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28And it became like a symbol almost, at the end of the war,
0:30:28 > 0:30:30the end of austerity, the end of rationing and so on,
0:30:30 > 0:30:34and there was a great craving for colour and enjoyment
0:30:34 > 0:30:36and a bit of glamour in your life again.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58After the flowers came back to life,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01it was as if colour returned to the cheeks of the masses.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07New consumer goods made light work of gardening,
0:31:07 > 0:31:11and life in the garden became the muse for aspiring filmmakers.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18Nigel Betts' father, in a revitalised Welwyn,
0:31:18 > 0:31:19documented the family's life
0:31:19 > 0:31:23in Cine films featuring his children and wife Kathleen.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25- Do come in.- Thank you.
0:31:27 > 0:31:29This is the fish shop?
0:31:29 > 0:31:33Yeah, that's when it was an open frontage shop.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36And it was ruddy cold, I might tell you!
0:31:36 > 0:31:381951 that was.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40But then we had a shop front put in.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48This is our front garden at number 4, the Green.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51I can't get over the length of that skirt.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53And who is that? Who's that in the film?
0:31:53 > 0:31:55This is my eldest sister
0:31:55 > 0:31:59when she joined the Royal Navy in the late 1950s.
0:31:59 > 0:32:01That's a camellia there which actually grew in
0:32:01 > 0:32:05to be quite a large plant before it was taken out completely.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07Back garden there.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11And there's a lovely rockery garden at the back there,
0:32:11 > 0:32:15and you can see the bottom of it, and there.
0:32:15 > 0:32:16And this was the grass. That's me there.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19And, of course, that's the tortoise,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22everybody had tortoises in those days.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25But down here you can see the gladioli.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28And this idea of the kids all being in the back garden
0:32:28 > 0:32:30rather than out the front,
0:32:30 > 0:32:32and having the swings and the toys in the back.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34Yeah. I mean that wasn't unusual. I mean maybe, you know,
0:32:34 > 0:32:36having a roundabout like that might have been,
0:32:36 > 0:32:39but I think most of the time people had a swing,
0:32:39 > 0:32:43because you could make swings quite easily.
0:32:51 > 0:32:53Did you just get the kids going into the garden
0:32:53 > 0:32:55and leave them there and let them get on with it?
0:32:55 > 0:32:59My kids were quite good, they never touched the flowers.
0:33:01 > 0:33:02I drummed it into them, you know,
0:33:02 > 0:33:05they mustn't pick flowers and that, in the garden.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10You got your backside smacked if you'd have done that.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12It's quite a joyous thing, isn't it,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14when you see it's being used in that way?
0:33:14 > 0:33:16It's not just a place to grow vegetables and flowers.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19- It's been used in other ways. - No, we didn't do vegetables. No.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23But I mean if you look at that, you know, I was saying to you
0:33:23 > 0:33:27about gladioli, my dad wouldn't put ten in, he'd put 110 bulbs in.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35Oh, look how small your father looks there and how fat he got!
0:33:45 > 0:33:49Before the war, suburbia had been dominated by the railway lines,
0:33:49 > 0:33:52but now a new generation of suburbanites
0:33:52 > 0:33:54owned cars as well as homes.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57Not for them the mail order seed catalogue
0:33:57 > 0:33:59or a quick trip to Woolworths.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03As the '50s gave way to the '60s their favourite destination
0:34:03 > 0:34:06would be suburbia's new Mecca, the garden centre.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15You'd go along with your trolley
0:34:15 > 0:34:16and pick and mix and put things in.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19- And the car gets you there, of course.- Yeah, absolutely.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22The car gets you there and it become a day out, doesn't it?
0:34:22 > 0:34:24You know, it still is.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27A garden centre, it's a good afternoon out.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Going into a garden centre, it's halfway there,
0:34:31 > 0:34:33you're not waiting for the seed to grow,
0:34:33 > 0:34:37you're buying more or less a plant that's well on its way if not there.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40And you come home and suddenly you put it in the garden
0:34:40 > 0:34:41and you've got a garden.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45Pat and Cyril Barker were typical
0:34:45 > 0:34:49of the next wave of the working classes to move out.
0:34:49 > 0:34:51They moved to Welwyn in 1962
0:34:51 > 0:34:56and forked out £3,550 for a suburban semi with a garden.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02The Barkers were now part of the property-owning democracy
0:35:02 > 0:35:06trumpeted by Harold Macmillan and his Conservative government.
0:35:06 > 0:35:09You two are both Londoners, so does that mean that you grew up
0:35:09 > 0:35:12without any gardens at all in your life?
0:35:12 > 0:35:15- We had yards, not gardens. - That's it, it was always yards.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17There was no such thing as gardens in the,
0:35:17 > 0:35:20on the East side of London or...
0:35:20 > 0:35:25No, over where we were as well, as Cyril's just said, it was a space,
0:35:25 > 0:35:29it would be a yard which was with an outside lavvy, even down to a small
0:35:29 > 0:35:33little fridge type thing was where you kept your milk and your butter.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35It was all outside out in the open, that was all you had.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38You even had to share your clothes line.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40You know, you could do your washing one day
0:35:40 > 0:35:45and the lady downstairs had the minority of it really, you know.
0:35:45 > 0:35:49So you actually got married and then your thing was to buy a house
0:35:49 > 0:35:52- and then you'd have a garden? - Upgrade a bit. Yeah.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54Well, when we got married I said to Pat, I said,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58"I'm going to give you a promise, we're going to have our own home."
0:35:58 > 0:36:00That was our first house.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03This is like an Ideal Homes house, isn't it?
0:36:03 > 0:36:06Yes. That's way back in, let me see..
0:36:06 > 0:36:08- '62.- '62.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11And then we, just a year later we had Tracey
0:36:11 > 0:36:14and it was lovely to have a garden where you could have a child.
0:36:14 > 0:36:20And there's our baby. We called this a little piece of heaven.
0:36:20 > 0:36:22- And that was how you felt about it? - Yes.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24- It's how we feel about this, you know.- Just the openness.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26I would have been cooped up in rooms, you know.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28- We got privacy. - That's basically what it was.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31I mean, when you're in rooms, I can remember as a child,
0:36:31 > 0:36:34you'd go in and that's where you stayed, really,
0:36:34 > 0:36:37apart from going to the loo at the bottom of the garden,
0:36:37 > 0:36:39there was nowhere for you to go.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Along with the Barkers, taxi drivers and market traders
0:36:49 > 0:36:52were also moving to those original working class suburbs
0:36:52 > 0:36:55of Welwyn, Bexley and Eltham.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59My relatives had stuck it out on the Old Kent Road,
0:36:59 > 0:37:02but now decided they too could be part of this exodus.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07It wasn't until the 1960s when someone in my family
0:37:07 > 0:37:09actually bought their own home.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13My grandparents were local market traders and publicans
0:37:13 > 0:37:15before they made this move.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19You can imagine how remarkable it must have been to move
0:37:19 > 0:37:23from the inner city to suburbia, and own your own house.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31And uncle's Cine film captures our visit to the relatives
0:37:31 > 0:37:35that had left our slate-grey streets for greener pastures.
0:37:36 > 0:37:41They capture the neighbours,
0:37:41 > 0:37:45model villages, holidays...
0:37:47 > 0:37:51..but mostly the house and garden.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54That's me with the bald head and the decapitated doll.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59The elderly aunts, justified and ancient.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04My dad with a Ford Anglia and the boxer's nose.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11These suburbs were 40 minutes away from where we lived
0:38:11 > 0:38:14near the Old Kent Road, the cheapest street on the Monopoly board,
0:38:14 > 0:38:19but it felt like another country and another language.
0:38:20 > 0:38:25Trains instead of tubes, avenues instead of streets,
0:38:25 > 0:38:28fences instead of walls.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32There's the make-shift swing, the magical shed.
0:38:34 > 0:38:40My mum, still life of woman with dead turkey, Christmas 1964.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47The families featured in these home movies
0:38:47 > 0:38:49offered a glimpse of the future.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51They were the shape of things to come.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54The masses were moving in.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58But for some critics it was the masses who were the problem,
0:38:58 > 0:39:00clogging up our green and pleasant land.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04Here's architectural historian, Reyner Banham, for example,
0:39:04 > 0:39:07speaking in 1964.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11The thin patchy expansion of the thin patchy metropolis
0:39:11 > 0:39:12can still be traced.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16But in the end it was to be London's undoing.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19The idea of giving every citizen his own house
0:39:19 > 0:39:21on its own piece of ground, with greenery,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25became dynamite as soon as every citizen came to mean
0:39:25 > 0:39:28every Tom, Dick or nobody with a vote.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30The principal charges were that suburbia
0:39:30 > 0:39:32was destroying the English landscape,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35and that it was too inward looking.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38But personally, I quite like the way it has colonised
0:39:38 > 0:39:41part of the English countryside and kept a bit back for itself
0:39:41 > 0:39:43by way of front and rear gardens.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48And as far as being too inward looking, that was about to change.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00The package holiday introduced Britons to foreign climes,
0:40:00 > 0:40:05and also to the exotic world of the continental garden.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11You're the only person doing his garden in this street
0:40:11 > 0:40:13and I just wondered why you were up so early?
0:40:13 > 0:40:15Early? It's quarter past nine.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17But you're the only one around, no-one else is doing it.
0:40:17 > 0:40:19- People are working. - Are they?
0:40:19 > 0:40:22Yes, it's only us retired people that can be around actually
0:40:22 > 0:40:24working during the day on their own property.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27- This has a continental feel. - Deliberately, yes.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31- Oh, intentionally?- Yes. It's deliberately to... I like Spain.
0:40:31 > 0:40:32Oh, yeah.
0:40:32 > 0:40:36And it was to give us the sort of Mediterranean feel
0:40:36 > 0:40:38in the awful English weather, like summer.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40So you brought a bit of the Mediterranean
0:40:40 > 0:40:43- to Welwyn in your English garden. - Yeah, in a way.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46The terracotta pots were deliberately Spanish
0:40:46 > 0:40:48and every year - a bit boring - but every year
0:40:48 > 0:40:51we put in red Geraniums which you see all over Spain.
0:40:51 > 0:40:53I tell you what I like about your garden even more,
0:40:53 > 0:40:56talking to you, is the fact you don't have to do much to it,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58it's neat, and it's my kind of garden for that.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00- I think it's great. - Cheers.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11By the 1970s, although the suburban garden was changing
0:41:11 > 0:41:14it was already carrying 60 years of history.
0:41:14 > 0:41:17And with history, of course, comes cliche.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19What had been the target of the literary elite
0:41:19 > 0:41:23now also became a hunting ground for sitcom writers,
0:41:23 > 0:41:27and the archetypal butt of their jokes was Surbiton.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
0:41:34 > 0:41:38- Pardon?- Which way is Mecca, then?
0:41:38 > 0:41:41Easterly, I suppose. Why?
0:41:41 > 0:41:45Well, you and your prayer mat, you know?
0:41:48 > 0:41:52Oh, I see, one of your jokes? Very good.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57Angela and John Howell live in modern Surbiton.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02- What do you actually think of those cliches?- Well...
0:42:02 > 0:42:05- We laugh through gritted teeth a bit.- Yes.
0:42:05 > 0:42:07I mean, I think it's partly the name.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10- Suburbiton, Surbiton is an unfortunate thing.- Yeah.
0:42:10 > 0:42:11But it is interesting,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14'The Good Life' which gave Surbiton its brand, if you like...
0:42:14 > 0:42:16That was filmed in Northwood.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18It wasn't even filmed here, because Surbiton
0:42:18 > 0:42:20was not sufficiently like Surbiton to be worth filming,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22so they filmed it in North London,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27- which is I suppose a kind of oblique compliment.- Yes.
0:42:33 > 0:42:36The Howells enjoy a more modest lifestyle
0:42:36 > 0:42:39to that of the original owners who bought their house in 1924,
0:42:39 > 0:42:42during the halcyon days of suburbia.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46The people who lived here would have been able to afford a servant,
0:42:46 > 0:42:50it would have been big enough, the house, to have a servant,
0:42:50 > 0:42:53and we were told by the elderly people who lived here that they
0:42:53 > 0:42:56wouldn't have wanted a kitchen window looking over the garden
0:42:56 > 0:43:00because the servants would then be looking at the family in the garden.
0:43:00 > 0:43:02But that makes me think that they would have been quite well off then.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05Well, no, because servants were very cheap in those days,
0:43:05 > 0:43:07they earned very, very little.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09It would have been a Mr Pooter kind of person, wouldn't it?
0:43:09 > 0:43:12- Yes, exactly. Diary of a Nobody. - Diary of a Nobody. Yes.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16And there was an element of snobbery about it, I'm quite sure,
0:43:16 > 0:43:21you know, living in a modestly sized house in an out of London suburb
0:43:21 > 0:43:25was something that the wealthier people
0:43:25 > 0:43:26somewhat turned up their noses at.
0:43:29 > 0:43:31It's curious that the central London wealthy
0:43:31 > 0:43:34were looking down at the Surbiton wealthy.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36I can't help feeling this stemmed
0:43:36 > 0:43:39from a kind of uncomfortable suspicion
0:43:39 > 0:43:42that life was perhaps better in the suburbs after all.
0:43:46 > 0:43:48From the fictional character, Mr Pooter,
0:43:48 > 0:43:54to 'The Good Life' and beyond, snobbery dogged suburbia.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58Its big crime was that it attracted those with aspirations,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02ideas above their station, questionable taste.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05Should ordinary people have a house quite so grand?
0:44:06 > 0:44:09But don't you think it's kind of brilliant
0:44:09 > 0:44:12the way suburbia is content to be something it's not,
0:44:12 > 0:44:15to settle for the fake, the mock, the ersatz?
0:44:15 > 0:44:19It's this that bothered the aesthetists and the radicals
0:44:19 > 0:44:21who believed they had the monopoly on taste.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30They're being criticised for being fake,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32they're being criticised for being pastiches,
0:44:32 > 0:44:37they're being criticised for not being somehow proper architecture.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40And I've always thought there's an extraordinary hypocrisy,
0:44:40 > 0:44:42that if the lower middle classes
0:44:42 > 0:44:44want to move in to Tudorbethan suburb,
0:44:44 > 0:44:47somehow that's fakery, somehow that's not authentic,
0:44:47 > 0:44:51and that just doesn't ring true to me.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54I think an enormous amount of that is about class.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02First it had been the aspirations of the lower middle classes
0:45:02 > 0:45:04that were attacked,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07and then the perceived pretensions of the Surbiton class.
0:45:09 > 0:45:16Now in the '80s, the home-owning working classes became the target.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19They had begun customising their homes and gardens,
0:45:19 > 0:45:23and in this high season of consumerism and individualism,
0:45:23 > 0:45:27the garden was not merely a place to plant your pansies,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30but perhaps even to build your own Versailles.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42The garden is fantastic in that sense,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45because it's a blank canvas in many ways.
0:45:45 > 0:45:47It's a place where you can do quite radical things
0:45:47 > 0:45:49for not necessarily a large amount of outlay,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52financially, and even psychologically.
0:45:52 > 0:45:54You know, if you completely redesign the interior of your house
0:45:54 > 0:45:57the stakes are an awful lot higher, actually,
0:45:57 > 0:45:59than if you redesign the exterior of your house.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04The suburban gardener now ripped up the manual.
0:46:06 > 0:46:08Gone were the days when one trellis fits all.
0:46:11 > 0:46:151980s self expression came in all shapes, colours and sizes.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19But you've put your stamp on it in other ways, Pat,
0:46:19 > 0:46:21there's all these figures and faces.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24- What's...? - To me they're like characters.
0:46:24 > 0:46:26They're just like little people to me.
0:46:26 > 0:46:27That sounds weird, doesn't it?
0:46:27 > 0:46:30People say to me, "Where do they come from?"
0:46:30 > 0:46:32And I say well, people grow bushes, I grow faces.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36- For what reason, why is it faces? - I just like them.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40I think the first time I ever saw faces was gargoyles,
0:46:40 > 0:46:42I love to see gargoyles. I know some people don't like them
0:46:42 > 0:46:45because they're a bit gruesome looking,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48but I just like them, they're characters.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52There's the owl over there. There's the sun faces.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54I started it really basically
0:46:54 > 0:46:56when our grandsons were small, weren't it?
0:46:56 > 0:46:59- Yeah.- They used to be here, spend a lot of time in the garden
0:46:59 > 0:47:02and they used to find the fun in it really, you know,
0:47:02 > 0:47:04and I've just carried it on from there.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06So if I see faces I've got to have it.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13By the 1990s there was no way you could tell
0:47:13 > 0:47:16from the front of a house what was going on at the rear.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19I wouldn't expect to find this behind a semi-detached house.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21Did you have a plan for this?
0:47:21 > 0:47:25No. No, it's ad hoc really, it's all been done as and when.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27There was nothing here, it was just..
0:47:27 > 0:47:30- I can't quite take it all in. - No, there's lots to take in.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33Here in Surbiton, engineer, Andy Hutchins,
0:47:33 > 0:47:36has created his own secret garden.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39So it was just a standard suburban garden when you moved in?
0:47:39 > 0:47:40Yeah, yeah, definitely.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43I mean the majority of the structure within the garden is all
0:47:43 > 0:47:47made from reclaimed materials, a lot of reclaimed timber, bricks.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49Did you intend it to be like an extension of the house,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52- with different rooms? - Absolutely, yeah, very much so.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54With a long garden like this you can play around with it
0:47:54 > 0:47:56a bit more than a wide garden,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59so you're not quite sure what's round the next corner.
0:47:59 > 0:48:00But there's a bit of exotica.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03That's so exotic, it's called rhubarb.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05Yeah, oh, is that rhubarb? It looks foreign to me!
0:48:05 > 0:48:08If it was rhubarb with custard on it, I'd recognise it!
0:48:08 > 0:48:11It'll all creep over eventually.
0:48:11 > 0:48:14There's rhubarb here, but rainforest too.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18And in the middle of it all, a quiet place to feed the ducks.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29Customised gardens are typical of the 1990s onwards.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31Although the architecture of the suburban house
0:48:31 > 0:48:33may not have changed since the '30s,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36its gardens have continued to evolve.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41Suburbia's century-long history has brought with it
0:48:41 > 0:48:45a set of traditions and, in my view, the important thing is
0:48:45 > 0:48:48it has progressed from being a nowhere space
0:48:48 > 0:48:51between city and country,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53to being a very definite somewhere.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58I really think you can see that process of suburbia becoming
0:48:58 > 0:49:00somewhere in its garden.
0:49:00 > 0:49:05It's been there for 80 years, and you can get these little
0:49:05 > 0:49:07traces of the people that were there before.
0:49:08 > 0:49:12You've got those kind of layers of history within it, you know,
0:49:12 > 0:49:16making a history for a place isn't just about sort of monuments
0:49:16 > 0:49:20and grand gestures, it's about the little traces that people leave,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22and those are so there in a garden.
0:49:22 > 0:49:23It's within the ordinary.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26Yeah, I think that's right, within the ordinary and the everyday.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29And I think suburbs perhaps more than anywhere else
0:49:29 > 0:49:31are where people have made their own histories.
0:49:36 > 0:49:37From the early days of suburbia
0:49:37 > 0:49:41to the Tudorbethan villas of the middle classes,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44and the semis and bungalows of the working classes,
0:49:44 > 0:49:48the 20th century suburb has broadly stayed the same.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55But what of the 21st century?
0:49:55 > 0:49:59Here in Greenhite, in Kent, is a brand-new suburb,
0:49:59 > 0:50:02it's right next to Europe's biggest shopping mall.
0:50:04 > 0:50:12Bluewater opened in 1999, occupies 240 acres, and employs 7,000 people.
0:50:17 > 0:50:19Many of the Bluewater employees
0:50:19 > 0:50:23live here in this spanking new suburb, Ingress Park.
0:50:40 > 0:50:45Ingress Park is set amongst 72 acres of landscape grounds
0:50:45 > 0:50:47next to the River Thames.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51But don't be deceived by its retro mish-mash of looks.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54With its proximity to the mega-mall
0:50:54 > 0:50:56I think Ingress Park's real prototype
0:50:56 > 0:51:00is the self contained post-war American suburb.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13When you move here you buy the kit,
0:51:13 > 0:51:17the lawn, the bushes, the hanging baskets.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21What I find surprising is in this new type of suburb,
0:51:21 > 0:51:22miles out of London,
0:51:22 > 0:51:26the gardens are only the size of the old inner city backyards.
0:51:28 > 0:51:30That's certainly not a problem
0:51:30 > 0:51:33for Ingress Park resident Sue Butterfill.
0:51:34 > 0:51:39I open my door and I'm out in the fresh air and I love it,
0:51:39 > 0:51:44because I've got bricks, and then I plant up pots,
0:51:44 > 0:51:49I come out with my watering cans and water and snip and do things.
0:51:49 > 0:51:54But I don't get out the lawnmower because I haven't got any grass.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57Well, interestingly enough, the street is there,
0:51:57 > 0:51:59- so it's a different... - It's actually a walkway.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02People walk by with their dogs and their children,
0:52:02 > 0:52:07and they go, "Hi, Sue, how are you?" And that's how I love it, you know.
0:52:16 > 0:52:18Around the corner,
0:52:18 > 0:52:23another arrival who moved from the ancient streets of South East London
0:52:23 > 0:52:25is builder Karen Roberts.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28Her garden is also pint sized.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Karen, you started out in Bermondsey.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32- Yeah.- You end up in Ingress Park.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35- Yeah.- How does that happen, and what is special about Ingress Park?
0:52:35 > 0:52:38A lot of hard work, two parents that love their children
0:52:38 > 0:52:41and want to get them the best in life.
0:52:41 > 0:52:42Not easy, but...
0:52:42 > 0:52:45I'm not saying we're the Brady Brunch and go,
0:52:45 > 0:52:47"Woah, look where we are!"
0:52:47 > 0:52:51But at the same token, you can achieve it.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Ingress Park is dope. It's dope.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01They say living the dream on Ingress Park, I live the dream, to be fair.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04I can spend hours out here just doing nothing really,
0:53:04 > 0:53:08and I'm gardening, but I'm not really doing anything, to be fair.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11I get guided by Pat next door, I get guided by Ron,
0:53:11 > 0:53:14and they give me plants, they say, put this in.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17I haven't got a lot of money to spend, so I don't spend a lot,
0:53:17 > 0:53:21but I can go snip, snip, I'm doing my garden, I'm here for the day.
0:53:21 > 0:53:23I love that, I love that.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26I've got a thing here, weeds as well,
0:53:26 > 0:53:30if you flower you can stay, if you don't flower, you're gone.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34But this is small, but you've done a lot with it.
0:53:34 > 0:53:35I think you have to, don't you?
0:53:35 > 0:53:39Like the grass, this cost me £700 on the internet, who wouldn't do that?
0:53:39 > 0:53:41No, I'd do it, this is my ideal garden.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44It's the best buy I ever bought in this house.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46No, I love the astro turf.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49Yeah, the snow just melts in to it,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52and if I move you can unpin it and take it with you!
0:53:52 > 0:53:54Mobile garden!
0:53:54 > 0:53:57How good is that? Roll it up, take it!
0:53:59 > 0:54:04This is a 21st century consumerist, satellite community
0:54:04 > 0:54:06to an American-style mall.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08But that's far from the whole story.
0:54:11 > 0:54:14In funny ways there are references back to things
0:54:14 > 0:54:17like Hampstead Garden Suburb in this place here.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20How would you say this references Hampstead Garden Suburb?
0:54:20 > 0:54:23Well, it feels to me like quite a planned environment.
0:54:23 > 0:54:28I mean there's a sort of strong sense of organisation and control,
0:54:28 > 0:54:30a kind of masterplan to this.
0:54:30 > 0:54:32This isn't that kind of suburbia where...
0:54:32 > 0:54:34- Sprawl, no. - Sprawl. Yeah.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37But also where, you know, there's more autonomy,
0:54:37 > 0:54:41there's more sort of independence for the people that live there
0:54:41 > 0:54:44in controlling the sort of overall environment.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47So in some ways things have gone full circle.
0:54:47 > 0:54:49You could see here, and this probably sounds slightly mad,
0:54:49 > 0:54:51you could see here
0:54:51 > 0:54:54something of what the Barnetts had hoped for Hampstead Garden Suburb?
0:54:54 > 0:54:56I think elements of that.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59I mean, I think they'd come here and they'd be disturbed.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03I mean, they'd look at the prices, they'd look at what you have to do.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06I'm not sure the Barnetts are going to enjoy Bluewater though.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09- They would hate Bluewater. - Very much.
0:55:16 > 0:55:18People shop here, work and socialise here.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21It's a self-contained world.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25Unlike the previous suburbanites, they have little need of the city.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38London itself is not the place it was a century ago,
0:55:38 > 0:55:42and the reasons for leaving it now have totally changed.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45Homes are scarce, house prices astronomical.
0:55:52 > 0:55:54Mass immigration has transformed neighbourhoods
0:55:54 > 0:55:58once familiar to native Londoners.
0:55:58 > 0:56:00And now the migrants' children too
0:56:00 > 0:56:04are heading for the foothills of Kent, Surrey and Essex
0:56:04 > 0:56:07in search of a house and in search of a garden.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16It's the garden spaces between the houses, roads and stations
0:56:16 > 0:56:18that help define suburbia,
0:56:18 > 0:56:22at the heart of which is the private garden, front and rear.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25This has become the most English of landscapes,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28and gardening as a hobby, part of our national identity.
0:56:35 > 0:56:39I love the garden and I find if I'm upset about anything, I think
0:56:39 > 0:56:42I'll go out there for a little while. And you feel peace in the garden.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50If I feel tired and I come out into the garden I'm energised again,
0:56:50 > 0:56:51so I'm very lucky.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58If I can't get out here, watch out!
0:57:05 > 0:57:09The truth of the matter is that suburbia is all our history,
0:57:09 > 0:57:11right across the country.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16Nowadays, an amazing 80% of us in England live in the suburbs.
0:57:19 > 0:57:24And as for me, even I finally said goodbye to South East London.
0:57:29 > 0:57:31We may fool ourselves into thinking we're different,
0:57:31 > 0:57:34but we're almost all suburbanites now.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46Throughout the last century, suburbia has become as much a part
0:57:46 > 0:57:50of British identity as the city and the countryside.
0:57:50 > 0:57:53But it deserves its place among those English icons
0:57:53 > 0:57:57that George Orwell believe made England a living thing -
0:57:57 > 0:58:00the fried breakfasts, the red pillar boxes,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03the gloomy Sundays and the smoky towns.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13It's up there, it's iconic, a garden for the masses.