0:00:04 > 0:00:07Just over a century ago, the motion camera was invented,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10and changed forever the way we recall our history.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15For the first time, we could see life through the eyes of ordinary people.
0:00:18 > 0:00:24Across this series, we'll bring these rare archive films back to life
0:00:24 > 0:00:26with the help of our vintage mobile cinema.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34We'll be inviting people with a story to tell to step on board
0:00:34 > 0:00:37and relive moments they thought were gone forever.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44They'll see their relatives on screen for the first time.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49Come face-to-face with their younger selves and celebrate our amazing 20th-century past.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54This is the people's story, OUR story.
0:01:19 > 0:01:24Our vintage mobile cinema was originally commissioned in 1967
0:01:24 > 0:01:26to show training films to workers.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Today, it's been lovingly restored
0:01:29 > 0:01:33and loaded up with remarkable film footage preserved for us
0:01:33 > 0:01:37by the British Film Institute and other national and regional film archives.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43In this series, we'll be travelling to towns and cities across the country
0:01:43 > 0:01:47and showing films from the 20th century
0:01:47 > 0:01:49that give us the Reel History of Britain.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55Today we're pulling up in the 1930s.
0:01:58 > 0:02:03To hear stories about a time when millions of men, women and children, our relatives,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06were slum dwellers living in squalor.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21We're in Columbia Road in the East End of London.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Look at it, gentrified, well-heeled, on the up and up.
0:02:24 > 0:02:31But in the '20s, '30s, '40s and into the '50s, this was one of the slum regions of London.
0:02:37 > 0:02:44Coming up, two cousins see how their grandfather suffered in the slums.
0:02:44 > 0:02:49That's the terrible part, I always think - it's not that long ago that people lived like that.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54A reminder that love can matter more than money.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57They say how could you have had such a great childhood
0:02:57 > 0:03:01and loved it so much, when you lived in such dire poverty?
0:03:03 > 0:03:07And an incredible story about life in the workhouse.
0:03:09 > 0:03:10We've all got to die sometime
0:03:10 > 0:03:13and that world will leave with us
0:03:13 > 0:03:15unless it's recorded.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28Today on Reel History, we've come to Columbia Road in the East End.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33There's a famous Sunday flower market here these days, and it's a popular residential area.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36But only 80 years ago, around 20,000 families
0:03:36 > 0:03:39lived in poverty in this part of London.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51During the Industrial Revolution the population of Britain's cities exploded
0:03:51 > 0:03:54and the nation's housing stock struggled to keep up.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59Up to four million people lived in slum squalor across the country.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10Many families were crammed into one or two rooms.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13They were cold, damp, vermin-invested
0:04:13 > 0:04:15and lacked basic sanitation.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Often as many as 60 people shared one lavatory.
0:04:21 > 0:04:23Many children didn't survive.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26And in the worst areas, almost one in five died
0:04:26 > 0:04:28before their first birthday.
0:04:28 > 0:04:30We've come to the East End of London
0:04:30 > 0:04:34to hear how people lived like this not that long ago.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45'Joining me here today are former slum residents
0:04:45 > 0:04:47'and their families from all over the country
0:04:47 > 0:04:51'with stories to tell about the harrowing conditions they endured.'
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Many of them will be seeing the films we are about to screen for the first time.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59They'll be showing us family photos and revealing what life was really like
0:04:59 > 0:05:01for millions of slum-dwellers in the 1930s.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06Carole Taylor and Pat Couch are cousins.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Their mothers were sisters who grew up in a family of ten children
0:05:09 > 0:05:11in a Stepney tenement block.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14This is Carole with her mother Adelaide,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18and this is Pat with her mother Kate.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23'They've come here today to see remarkable film of Adelaide and Kate's father, Charles Norwood,
0:05:23 > 0:05:28'the grandfather they themselves remember as children.'
0:05:28 > 0:05:31He was matter-of-fact about everything, really.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34That was his attitude always, wasn't it?
0:05:34 > 0:05:38I think they had to go with the flow because they would go under.
0:05:38 > 0:05:44- They wouldn't cope at all. - He was 83, was he, when he died?- 82.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48And he still lived in the East End the whole time.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53- It's quite touching to think that it is not that long ago, is it?- No.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56That's the terrible part, I always think.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59It's not that long ago that people lived like that.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03Carole and Pat are about to watch their grandfather
0:06:03 > 0:06:07taking part in a pioneering documentary made in 1935.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24FILM: 'A great deal these days is written about the slums.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27'This film is going to introduce you
0:06:27 > 0:06:30'to some of the people really concerned.'
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Housing Problems was one of the first documentaries
0:06:35 > 0:06:38to use a technique that seems obvious now,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40but was almost unheard of at the time,
0:06:40 > 0:06:43asking the opinions of ordinary people.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47Among them was Carole and Pat's grandfather.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49These two rooms which I am in now,
0:06:49 > 0:06:53I have to pay 10 shillings a week for and I haven't room to swing a cat round.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57I've also got five other neighbours alongside me in the same predicament as myself.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02I'm not only overrun with bugs, I've got mice and rats.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04If we want to wash the baby we have the use dish
0:07:04 > 0:07:07and us it in the same room as where I am.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11Carol and Pat's grandfather was living like millions of other families
0:07:11 > 0:07:13in appalling, cramped conditions.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16So how do they feel hearing him talk about his life in the slums?
0:07:19 > 0:07:22It was a bit choking really, but, yeah, it is like having him
0:07:22 > 0:07:24sitting in the sitting room with you.
0:07:24 > 0:07:25Yeah, nice.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28I've had no luck since I've been home.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30It's obvious if you've got a big family
0:07:30 > 0:07:34and you're living in a couple of rooms, you've got a pretty hard life.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39Pat and Carole's grandfather worked guiding boats into the docks on the Thames.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41Watching him as he once was,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44a young working man before they were born,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47is an emotional moment for his granddaughters.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52You really feel for them, living like that. It's sad, really.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56Not that they had any choice, really, but it's still not nice to watch.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00When you see them rats and god knows what, they just take it in their stride, didn't they?
0:08:02 > 0:08:05It's nice that you're hearing the people speak.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08- You've got photographs. - Not quite the same.
0:08:08 > 0:08:13But to see a moving picture, and then actually the voice as well,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15that's really lovely.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18Yes, it does. It brings it alive.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22More Granddad, really, than just a photo. Yeah.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27Carol and Pat even glimpse their grandmother
0:08:27 > 0:08:31filling pans in the street, and they are about to hear a shocking revelation
0:08:31 > 0:08:35about the greatest tragedy their grandparents ever faced.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37I have had no luck since I have been here.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39First I lost one youngster in one.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43Then I lost another youngster, and another one seven weeks after.
0:08:48 > 0:08:54It was sad, but it was a common occurrence.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57- It is terrible to say that. - It happened all too often.
0:08:57 > 0:09:03People, I suppose, more or less expected they wouldn't all survive for one reason or another.
0:09:03 > 0:09:08- They were so close, those buildings. - Any disease was not going to go nowhere, was it?
0:09:11 > 0:09:16We've never had it put in front of us like that with that film. That does bring it home.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21They used to say they had a hard life, they was poor.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24But until you see it like that,
0:09:24 > 0:09:29it doesn't really work out in your mind, does it, properly?
0:09:30 > 0:09:34Seeing the film today has left Carole and Pat with one regret -
0:09:34 > 0:09:39that their mothers are no longer alive to take part in Reel History.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44When I see that film, I think it would have been nice
0:09:44 > 0:09:52if this film had been done... say 20-odd, 25 years ago,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56and then it would have been the right people sitting here.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10- How did you feel when you actually saw him up there?- Upset.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14- Quite upset to think that the family...- What they went through.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18- It is sad, really.- That the family went through all that.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21It is upsetting, isn't it?
0:10:21 > 0:10:22And how they survived.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25- Well, some didn't. Three, he lost, didn't he, Granddad?- Yeah.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35The film Carole and Pat have just watched was made
0:10:35 > 0:10:39by two pioneering documentary film-makers, Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42They were determined to shame the Government into doing more
0:10:42 > 0:10:44to improve the slums.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47'Joining me on Reel History are Arthur's daughter Julia
0:10:47 > 0:10:51'and Edgar's son John who have joined us in the East End of London.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54'They are both fiercely proud of their fathers' efforts
0:10:54 > 0:10:56'to give slum dwellers a voice.'
0:10:57 > 0:10:59What impact did the film have?
0:10:59 > 0:11:04I think getting the people to speak for themselves
0:11:04 > 0:11:05was really, for the first time,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09to give the working classes a voice that would be listened to,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12and in a sense, validated their own experience.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15It was certainly seen as an important opportunity
0:11:15 > 0:11:22to get a message across to... to the Government, I suppose.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26Working on the film with Anstey and Elton was Ruby Grierson.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30Here she is as a baby with her large family in 1905.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34The great thing here is that her older brother, John Grierson,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37grew up to become one of the best-known film-makers of all time,
0:11:37 > 0:11:41and inspired a new age of social documentary.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46I have a story that Ruby Grierson, John Grierson's youngest sister,
0:11:46 > 0:11:50who also worked on the film, she is supposed to have said to him,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54"You've got the microphone, you've got the camera,
0:11:54 > 0:11:57"now tell the bastards what it's like to live in the East End."
0:11:57 > 0:12:01John and Julia are now going to watch their fathers' film
0:12:01 > 0:12:05with the families of some of the people who feature in it.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17Well, I must have dozed off with the baby.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20Thinking it was the dog on my head, I looked up,
0:12:20 > 0:12:22and instead of that it was a big rat.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24I screamed, and ran out and left the baby.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27The people in this film knew all about rats.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29They were a serious threat to public health,
0:12:29 > 0:12:34spreading dangerous diseases like salmonella, Weil's disease and TB.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39And the residents of Stepney shared their fears with the camera.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45- 'This is what Mrs Hill has to say.' - I tell you, we are fed up.
0:12:45 > 0:12:50If anybody comes to see you, they feel bilious when they get down the stairs because it is crooked.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54You go up the stairs, you don't know whether you are coming down again or not.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57The same with the passage, that's the same, on the crook.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59Everything in the house is on the crook.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01There is not a straight thing in it.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06The housing problems, it seems to me, has this immediacy, because
0:13:06 > 0:13:10you actually hear these people, who are not sorry for themselves,
0:13:10 > 0:13:14they are just telling the camera what their life experience was.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17And I find that very moving.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23But it wasn't just prominent film-makers
0:13:23 > 0:13:25that documented the lives of the slum dwellers.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28I am meeting the writer and poet Bernard Kops,
0:13:28 > 0:13:31who has written about his own life in these slums.
0:13:31 > 0:13:33Bernard Kops' family were European Jews
0:13:33 > 0:13:37who came to the East End at the turn of the last century.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40His whole family of nine lived in cramped conditions.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42They didn't have money,
0:13:42 > 0:13:45but he had brothers and sisters and a lot of love.
0:13:46 > 0:13:52- How are you?- Fine. Lovely day. - So this is your patch, really.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56Yes, from the age of 11 onwards,
0:13:56 > 0:13:58I lived just round the corner from here.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01I had a marvellous childhood.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05People laugh at this, because they say, how could you have had
0:14:05 > 0:14:08such a great childhood and loved it so much
0:14:08 > 0:14:11when you lived in such dire poverty?
0:14:11 > 0:14:14I worked it out like this later on.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17I thought, the reason why I was happy was that
0:14:17 > 0:14:20I had sisters who used to fight to hold me.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23When I was born, I was the boy, the young one.
0:14:23 > 0:14:28My sister Phoebe would say, "You have held him ten minutes now, it is my turn."
0:14:28 > 0:14:32So I think that alone was very important,
0:14:32 > 0:14:34I was born with such should confidence.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Did you think, I have got to get out of this?
0:14:37 > 0:14:39- Yes.- And how did you get out of it?
0:14:39 > 0:14:43I had a very important meeting with a neighbour.
0:14:43 > 0:14:47He was well educated, he'd won a scholarship.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50And he gave me a book.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53It was the collected poems of Rupert Brooke.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58And it turned me on to reading. I became voracious to read.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01At the same time, I became voracious to get away,
0:15:01 > 0:15:04so those two things came into one.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12'It is uplifting to think that, despite the poverty and misery,
0:15:12 > 0:15:16'people like Bernard do have happy memories of life in the slums.'
0:15:16 > 0:15:22All around the country in the 1930s, slum dwellers made the best of it,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26and my next guest on Reel History today coped with more than most.
0:15:26 > 0:15:3091-year-old Stan Hardy from Dulwich has come along
0:15:30 > 0:15:35to share his own extraordinary past as a child in the Peckham workhouse.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39He believes people need to know how tough life could be.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45For the first time, Stan is about to see his old life on screen.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48What memories will it bring back for him?
0:16:04 > 0:16:08It brings me back to the terrible conditions
0:16:08 > 0:16:10in which so many people lived.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14Kids scavenging around the streets for, you know...
0:16:14 > 0:16:17Real scavengers. I was probably one of them as well.
0:16:17 > 0:16:23A bit of a shock to be reminded how brutal things were.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Stan's early life was indeed brutal.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30He had an absent father,
0:16:30 > 0:16:33and his mother was forced to start a job in service when he was newborn.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35There was only one thing for it -
0:16:35 > 0:16:39she took him to the workhouse, and left him there.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43I was carried into
0:16:43 > 0:16:47the Peckham workhouse when I was just two weeks old,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51and my mother left me in the workhouse,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56and I remained in the workhouse for some three years or more.
0:16:58 > 0:17:02Workhouses, commonly known as poorhouses in Scotland,
0:17:02 > 0:17:06date back to the 17th century. They were grim places.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09A last resort for Britain's destitute,
0:17:09 > 0:17:16which offered shelter and employment for those unable to look after themselves.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20Only still photographs remain of the institutions everybody feared.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24They were officially abolished in 1930, but incredibly,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28there were almost 100,000 people still living in the workhouse in 1939,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31and almost 6,000 of these were children like Stan.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36When people became destitute -
0:17:36 > 0:17:40in other words, they couldn't afford to look after themselves,
0:17:40 > 0:17:42they had lost their accommodation,
0:17:42 > 0:17:47there was only one place to go, or one of the only places to go was the workhouse.
0:17:49 > 0:17:54There was certain brutality in the workhouse,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57particularly if you didn't have a parent to keep an eye over you.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01I can remember being bashed around quite a bit,
0:18:01 > 0:18:06and as I was bashed around, I used to grip my hands like that.
0:18:06 > 0:18:12The more they hit me, the harder I did, so I used to make my hands bleed
0:18:12 > 0:18:15because I wasn't going to let them get away with it.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19Stan did return to live with his family in the slums of Brixton,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23and these films take him right back to that place.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27My family was five adults and myself.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31We were in one of these multi-occupied houses,
0:18:31 > 0:18:36and there were about 15 people in our house, with one outdoor toilet,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39which nobody used because they had two savage Alsatian dogs
0:18:39 > 0:18:45who would have eaten us alive if they could run free.
0:18:45 > 0:18:53Hygiene was a tremendous problem, with rats and mice and bugs,
0:18:53 > 0:18:58terrible bugs, these red little things that get into your skin.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02You'd see them coming up the wall, and people used to bash them
0:19:02 > 0:19:04so you see all these blood spots on the wall.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09Figures from the 1920s when Stan was just a kid,
0:19:09 > 0:19:13shows that every year almost 50,000 people died
0:19:13 > 0:19:17as a direct result of their squalid living conditions.
0:19:19 > 0:19:25One of the great killers was TB. 30,000 people died a year with TB.
0:19:29 > 0:19:36My poor brother Jimmy, he died of TB when he was only 18 years of age,
0:19:36 > 0:19:40so I have sad recollections of that.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48The films have reminded 91-year-old Stan of his childhood hardships.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52But has this been a worthwhile experience for him?
0:19:52 > 0:19:56It was really an emotional journey back,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59which I didn't quite expect.
0:19:59 > 0:20:05Because it showed in stark detail how we lived in those days,
0:20:05 > 0:20:11and I have to say that some of the people lived even harsher lives than I did,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15and that is saying something. So it was an emotional journey back.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21We have all got to die sometime,
0:20:21 > 0:20:23and that world will leave with us
0:20:23 > 0:20:26unless it's recorded.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44'Today on Reel History, we are hearing about
0:20:44 > 0:20:50'the appalling conditions people like Stan endured less than three generations ago.
0:20:50 > 0:20:55'Millions of families lived in slum communities in cities across Britain.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00'But despite the squalor, community spirit did endure,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04'as remembered by childhood friends Roger Packer and Brian Davis,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08'who grew up in the St Philips Marsh area of Bristol in the 1940s.'
0:21:12 > 0:21:16Both men knew real poverty.
0:21:16 > 0:21:21Roger's grandfather was an ironworker, seen here at a works outing in 1938.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28Brian was one of ten sons raised by a widowed mother.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30When did you two meet?
0:21:30 > 0:21:36When we were about four or five years of age. We grew up together.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38We have been friends ever since.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42We have got a picture of us when we were at school together.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46Can we point out the suspects?
0:21:46 > 0:21:51That is myself, and that there is Brian.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54And we've been friends ever since.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59This is a photograph of my family in the 1940s.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01My dad died in the '40s,
0:22:01 > 0:22:05and my mother was left to bring up ten boys in this house.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08The Bristol Evening Post came and took a photograph at that time,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11and said, how was she ever going to bring up these ten boys?
0:22:11 > 0:22:16- But she obviously managed it. - She has done a very good job.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20Roger and Brian are about to be taken on a journey back in time
0:22:20 > 0:22:23to see the sort of life they knew as children.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26But how will they feel now, seeing it as adults?
0:22:38 > 0:22:40Watching the films,
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Roger remembers a strong sense of community despite the hardships.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48I can remember a lot of times like that, with the housing,
0:22:48 > 0:22:53the poor kiddies, the youngsters who didn't have anything at all.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57The little cobbled streets, narrow streets and houses.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04Nobody had no more than the next person.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06You could go out on a night-time,
0:23:06 > 0:23:08and you could just leave your front door open.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12Nobody would pinch anything cos nobody had nothing to pinch.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26And for Roger's friend, Brian,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29these films remind him of his cramped early home life.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34We had these bedrooms to fit 12 every night.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37And so we used to try to fit these people in
0:23:37 > 0:23:38in this bedroom.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41It was done by two double beds in the back room,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45two double beds in the front room, top to tail in both.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52When they were around the fire eating in one room, that was us.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56And ten of us used to get in that room, and we had a big fire
0:23:56 > 0:24:00with a guard going round, and that was the only heating in the house,
0:24:00 > 0:24:05so everybody used to try and get their bit in front of the fire.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13Brian has never forgotten his humble beginnings,
0:24:13 > 0:24:19but he thinks it helped give him the drive to work for a better life.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21There is nothing good about being poor.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24I think somebody once said, it is nothing to be ashamed of,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27but it is nothing to boast about, either.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30One of the things I particularly wanted was not to be poor.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37With her ten boys to bring up single-handedly,
0:24:37 > 0:24:43Brian's mother was at the front of the queue when the clearance of her Bristol slum began.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49We were one of the first, because of our conditions, to move.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51But it was a bit of a shock.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55I mean, the street I lived in had 35 houses up one side,
0:24:55 > 0:24:5935 terraced houses the other, and I could tell you even almost today
0:24:59 > 0:25:01who lived in every one of those houses.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05So we knew everybody.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09And for us to be the first out was quite something of an occasion.
0:25:09 > 0:25:14The 1930 Housing Act gave local authorities power to demolish homes
0:25:14 > 0:25:17unfit human habitation -
0:25:17 > 0:25:22a process known as slum clearance, which occurred nationwide.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25In Leeds, 10,000 homes were demolished.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28In Sheffield, close to 15,000, and in Bristol,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32almost 20,000 people were rehoused, just like Brian's family.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37Sometimes I think we are the blessed generation, because when we left,
0:25:37 > 0:25:42we really could, financially, and job and everything else, go up.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44Whereas it is slightly different now.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47That was one of the nice things about it.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51We always thought we could get better than this. And it was a lovely feeling, that.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57Today, I have been hearing about the awful living conditions,
0:25:57 > 0:26:02the poverty and disease, and the remarkable people like Brian and Roger
0:26:02 > 0:26:05who, against all the odds, survived the slums and thrived.
0:26:09 > 0:26:14But amazingly, some slum dwellers didn't want to leave their homes.
0:26:14 > 0:26:20I'm off to meet housing expert and writer Michael Collins to try to find out why.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22Despite the state of the buildings people lived in,
0:26:22 > 0:26:26there was that sense of community, there was a neighbourhood
0:26:26 > 0:26:29and a culture that had grown organically.
0:26:29 > 0:26:35A lot of people felt that was sacrificed if they moved away or moved to these new places.
0:26:37 > 0:26:42The 1930s saw the clearance of more slums than at any time previously,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45and the building of 700,000 new homes.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55So when you had some of the new homes built,
0:26:55 > 0:26:59a lot of the people that had occupied the slums didn't want to move to the new places,
0:26:59 > 0:27:03and they kind of almost embraced the idea of staying put.
0:27:03 > 0:27:08And there is a quote, that the slum dweller loves his slum too much.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23Ultimately, it was Hitler and the widespread bombing
0:27:23 > 0:27:25of our major cities during the Second World War
0:27:25 > 0:27:30that flattened many slums and left no option but to build new homes.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34It still took until the 1960s, but the arrival of high-rise housing
0:27:34 > 0:27:39finally consigned Dickensian slum conditions to history.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46You may think there's been quite a bit of nostalgia in this programme,
0:27:46 > 0:27:48but this country is full of it.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Whatever class, background, whatever place we are, we are nostalgic.
0:27:52 > 0:27:54But let's leave that in the past.
0:27:54 > 0:27:59What happened here was that a disgrace of life, the slums, was erased.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05We still have housing problems today, but we recognise that
0:28:05 > 0:28:10decent housing is a basic human need, and that's progress.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17Next time on Reel History, we are hitting the road to Somerset
0:28:17 > 0:28:20for the rise of the motorway in the '60s.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22It was all so very free.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25There was no speed limits,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28so you can see if you could get some speed out of it.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Email: subtitling@bbc.co.uk