Episode 3 The 1952 Show

Wakey-wakey!

How about that for a blast from the past?

It was Billy Cotton's war cry as he introduced his 1950s Band Show.

He's the guy who got the nation's toes tapping.

Me included. I'm Len Goodman, and welcome to my decade.

The '50S.

Every day this week, we're taking a gander

at one of the most exciting times in our history,

at the decade that made us what we are

when, in 1952, a new Elizabethan Age began.

I promise you you're in for a treat today.

Not just one story, not two, but five, as a special offer.

I got that patter as a barrow boy back in the day.

From cool jazz to calypso and carnival steel drums,

music was just one way new immigrants to our shores

added a splash of colour to those drab post-war years.

Not that you could see much of it through the deadly pea-souper

which obliterated the streets of London in the winter of '52.

The World War was over,

but now a new Cold War tightened its chilly grip on Britain.

We hear first hand how all of our lives were transformed.

And out on the high street the rigid dress codes of the time shouted,

"You are what you wear."

We reveal how fashion changed over the decade.

And it's you who've been telling us like it was,

with first-hand stories and first-hand memories.

We don't do second-hand around here.

So, let's get cracking.

Guess who I've got next to me.

Wait for it, I'm excited, everyone.

It's Arlene Phillips.

Len, my darling!

Oh, my gorgeous, gorgeous girl.

You look fabulous, my lady in red.

-Superb!

-Thank you!

I'm showered in compliments.

Our stories are stacked up, I'm raring to go,

so take it away, The 1952 Show.

You know, when I think of the music of the '50s,

you probably think first, rock and roll.

But there was another beat in the background too.

The music of the Caribbean arrived with the migrant ship the Windrush.

It struck a chord with music lovers hungry for new sounds.

Me included.

I used to love that rhythm that the Caribbean used to get,

those calypsos, and the lyrics, always a little bit saucy,

always right up-to-date.

CALYPSO MUSIC PLAYS

# ..Is a long funeral from the Royal Hospital... #

I arrived in October, so it was very cold.

I came in at Paddington Station,

and the first impression I had was, everything was black and white.

West Indians' everyday clothes was a coloured thing.

So I knew we're used to lots of colours in the West Indies,

and I'm seeing everybody in black and white.

That was the first surprise for me, and shock.

Musician Russ Henderson was one of the first of the '50s immigrants

who arrived on Britain's shores from all parts of the Commonwealth.

They brought their skills to help boost the British workforce,

and a warm new sound from the West Indies.

-STEEL DRUMS PLAY

-Back home, Russ's famous Calypso Quartet was considered red hot,

but unfortunately, his new-found digs in London were not.

When I went into bed, I jumped out and said,

-"There's water in the bed!"

-HE LAUGHS

It was cold, and I thought, say no,

and then they brought me a hot water bottle.

It was freezing that night.

When I put my pyjamas on, I thought there was water in the bed.

STEEL DRUMS PLAY

But to find a gig playing his steel pans was tough going.

It was difficult to just go and sit in in any place,

you couldn't get into a white club and sit in with people.

And there were few places that you can go and have a jam session.

But the main place that we got our gigs,

because it was a Jamaican place, it was in Carnaby Street.

The Sunset Club was one, they sort of promoted that.

Another fellow musician, also from the West Indies,

was Frank Holder.

He was having a little more success as a singer.

I used to dance around a lot,

because I believed that to sing well is all right,

but if you have something extra to give the public

then perhaps you'll be a bit... wanted a little bit more, you know?

Home-grown musicians were also looking for new inspiration.

The '50s saw the birth of the modern British jazz movement,

influenced by the be-bop sounds from America,

and the leading lights were the Dankworth Seven.

Johnny Dankworth was the main man, and soon he spotted Frank.

And John Dankworth met me in town,

somewhere, I think, like Tin Pan Alley,

and his words were, "Ah, you're Frank."

I said, "Yeah, yeah, that's me."

And he said, "The boys tell me you're good."

So, that made me smile. I said, "Oh, really?"

So, I said, "Oh, well, that's good."

He says, "All right, we want you to join the Dankworth Seven."

So, I said, "Yes, I'm interested."

And that's how I became part of the Dankworth Seven.

HE DRUMS AND SCAT SINGS

UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

Black and white musicians happily played side by side.

It was outside the cosy world of jazz

where West Indian Frank Holder sometimes stood out

as the black singer in an all-white band,

particularly on tour when it came to finding a bed for the night.

"I'm sorry, we can't have you," was the worst.

I said, "What do you mean by 'you'?"

You know, and that was how they put it.

So, we had to then turn away and find somewhere else to go.

Many parts of Britain were still out of tune

with the growing Caribbean community.

By 1956, around 30,000 new West Indians were arriving each year,

and tensions were rising.

Two years later, riots erupted in Notting Hill.

White working class, often including teddy boys,

attacked the homes of immigrants.

I was living in Bassett Road, living right off Ladbroke Grove,

and one chap got killed there.

Fights would break out, and you don't know where it happened,

you only hear, "Another one again, man."

But my area definitely had... Ladbroke Grove, where I was living,

they had a few skirmishes there.

Soon, right-wing anti-immigration groups

such as the White Defence League ran campaigns to "Keep Britain White."

The objects of the White Defence League

are to keep Britain the white man's country that it has always been,

and repatriating, with every humane consideration,

the coloured immigrants who are already here.

ENERGETIC JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

The jazz world could hardly stand by and watch now.

Opposition to the White Defence League was led by Johnny Dankworth.

He formed the Stars Campaign for Inter-Racial Friendship,

an early kind of Rock Against Racism.

Well, the objectives of the campaign

are largely to counteract any cranky organisations

which try to preach the gospel of a master race anywhere,

because Adolf Hitler started a similar organisation

about 20, 25 years ago,

which caused the deaths of millions and millions of people,

and the sufferings of millions more.

Joining him was his singing partner and part-Jamaican wife, Cleo Laine.

Now, it was put to me earlier

that coloured people ought to be repatriated from this country

to their country of origin.

Now, where were you born, for instance?

"South-hall", Middlesex, or Southall, Middlesex.

-So, you are in fact a Londoner, you're an Englishwoman.

-Yes.

Where would you be? If you had to be repatriated, where would that be to?

-Southall, Middlesex!

-SHE LAUGHS

It was a difficult time, but slowly people got to realise

that, um... you know, we're the same.

In fact, I used to make a joke... Well, not a joke, I meant it.

When I said, "Rule Britannia!"

Because I was as British as anybody in this country.

STEEL DRUMS PLAY

People loved the music, they tried to dance it,

and they would say, "Come and play me a calypso."

It took a little time to catch on.

Strange sound, but everybody loved it.

STEEL DRUMS CONTINUE

Watching these two guys is just fantastic, isn't it?

It just makes you want to dance, it makes you want to move.

Absolutely, and when you think that that music came over, and today,

-what do we love? A steel band.

-Yeah.

-What do we love? Hearing those sounds.

-Yeah.

And it has continued the way through.

It hasn't that it's grown or developed,

it was there, and we still love it.

-Yes, exactly right. Now, you were up in Manchester.

-Yes.

Was it an isolated area,

was there lots of different nationalities going on?

Lots of different nationalities, lots of different communities,

and most of them immigrants, from Poland, from Germany,

-from Russia, different backgrounds.

-Yeah.

And always very much about the family.

I think immigrants,

because they've had to move, they've had to travel,

-collectively...

-Yeah.

-..kept grouping with their families,

-and with their friends.

-That's right.

And it was the same, you know, me growing up in the East End,

but I must say, I thought the music that came over from the Caribbean

was absolutely wonderful, cos it was something we'd never really heard,

it was unique, and it was just wonderful rhythms, great lyrics.

-I used to love it.

-Yeah, me too.

And interestingly enough, we didn't have a television,

but we used to go over to my Grandma's house,

who did have a television, and we saw Johnny Dankworth on television

-with Cleo Laine singing.

-That's right.

-Which was just incredible.

-Yeah.

-I was riveted.

-Yeah.

And there was another great group in those days,

-the Deep River Boys, do you remember them?

-Yes! Yeah.

-Fabulous harmonies these four guys made.

-Yeah.

-Great music, I must say, and lovely.

-Yeah.

Everybody loves to have a good old moan

about the horrible winters we've been getting,

but if you have a decko at the newsreel back in the winter of '52,

they really had something to moan about.

London was at a standstill, a real standstill.

I had never seen such a concentration of very ill patients

in a very short time.

People were suffering, and people were dying.

London knew all about fog.

But on December the 5th, 1952,

a darker, denser veil fell upon the city.

Smog.

The first sign something was amiss

were reports of cows dying in Smithfield Market.

The city ground to a halt, and by day two, it was front page news.

For George Walker, a kid at the time,

it was an adventure messing around in the fog.

I'm walking along Tower Bridge Road back from the Scouts,

I'd see what I thought was a policeman standing in the road,

and ask them to tell me how far I am away from a Christmas tree.

No answer, got a bit closer,

and I realised I was talking to a pillar box.

HE CHUCKLES

But soon it became apparent it was not all fun and games.

Dr Harold Lambert, ex-Medical Corps,

was a junior doctor in a busy London hospital at that time.

I think at the beginning of it, um...

nobody thought it was much more than the ordinary London pea-souper.

But suddenly we were under enormous pressure from patients coming in

in numbers that we hadn't seen.

It was really a nasty taste in your mouth,

and it stuck in your nose, and it stuck in your throat,

and it stuck in your clothes.

And anyone with a cough, their phlegm was black,

just as if they'd been in... down a coal mine.

'The fault is largely our own.

'The fog is made worse by man.

'It's up to man to stop it.'

The over-burning of cheap, low-quality coal

full of sulphur dioxide fumes, coupled with freak weather,

brought about this killer condition.

Smoke plus fog equalled smog.

The coal we had in Britain for the ordinary people

and for the ordinary factories and power stations

was the lowest-quality coal possible,

cos the good stuff, we were exporting,

the bad stuff had lots and lots of chemicals in it.

You could actually see the smoke

rolling down the chimneys instead of going up

and dropping into the street.

With no wind, it hung around town,

registering the highest levels of pollutants since records began.

This would have fatal consequences.

These patients came in in severe respiratory failure.

That's to say, they were very short of breath, they couldn't breathe,

had awful coughs, and they were often looking blue,

because they couldn't get the oxygen into their lungs,

and that's what we mean by respiratory failure, really.

The death rate soared.

The new NHS nearly ground to a halt

as ambulances and staff struggled to do their jobs.

As the smog started to lift on day four, December the 8th,

it unveiled the true toll.

'4,000 people died in three weeks because of fog,

'a fog caused by a pollution of the atmosphere

'worse than anything recorded in 20 years.

'Londoners will never forget it.'

They later updated this to 12,000,

and a little later, from the effects of that,

it went up to 25,000.

Hitler didn't do that in four or five days of all the bombing of London,

and this part was badly bombed.

But one good thing did come out of the tragedy.

The Clean Air Act was passed in 1956,

and it gave London a clean bill of health.

The burning of low-grade coal was banned,

and power stations were relocated.

Within ten years, pollution levels had plummeted

to a quarter of what they had been in those foggy days of '52.

# And through foggy London Town The sun was shining

# Everywhere. #

Now, that film scares me, cos it brings it all back, the smogs.

Now, you know, I know we had plenty in London.

What about up in Manchester?

Oh, smogs so thick that when you went out of the front door,

you put your hand up here, you couldn't see it.

You didn't know where to go on these well-worn paths

-that you'd trod for many, many years.

-Yeah.

-You didn't know where they were.

-Yeah.

-You were lost.

And in Manchester,

we lived fairly close to this huge, sort of, gas station,

I mean, enormous.

And I remember once going out, and as I came back,

-the smog had dropped.

-Yeah.

-And it was so terrifying.

-Yeah.

Because there was this huge gas tank that was enveloping anyway,

and the smog, and the fear of not knowing how to get back.

-I knew the path.

-Yeah.

-But I didn't know which way the path was.

-And of course, we didn't have mobile phones.

-No, of course not.

-There's no way to call and say, "Help!"

-No.

I remember...I remember going from our house to my Nan's,

-which was about 300 yards.

-Mm-hmm.

Up a road, one road, and then turn left,

-the second house on the right.

-Yeah.

And me and my dad were there, and when we came out,

-the smog had come down.

-Yeah.

-And we got lost.

-Trying to get home?

We could not find our own house, and it sounds bizarre.

-Another time, I was with my dad in his car.

-Oh.

And it was so terrible, we had to stop, and we just waited,

and my dad said, "I don't know where I am.

"I don't know whether I'm one side or the other."

And a bus went by with the conductor walking in front of the bus,

-with a...

-To guide it.

-..with a torch.

-Mmm.

Ten yards, five yards, two yards in front of the bus,

and my dad then came out and followed the bus to get us home.

-And also, it got on your chest.

-Oh!

I mean, not only couldn't you see, but you couldn't breathe.

Oh, well, that's why, you know, as we saw in that film,

that's why so many people died.

-Yeah.

-It was absolutely incredible.

And, oh, thank heavens

-that pollution like that is no longer with us.

-Yeah.

Because it was horrendous.

OK! Reds under the beds, spies, secret underground bunkers.

It all seems like something out of James Bond, doesn't it?

But in the '50s, it was for real,

as East and West faced off against each other across the world.

One way or another, we were all caught in the crossfire.

Australian Phillip Knightley was a reporter

for the Sydney Daily Mirror in London in 1951,

when a curious rumour began to circulate round Fleet Street.

Two senior diplomats had gone missing.

They were seen last getting on a ferry at Folkestone,

and when somebody said, "Hey, you've left the car on the dock,"

they shouted back, "Back on Monday."

Well, they didn't come back on Monday.

'This is the BBC Home Service, and here is the news.

'Mr Morrison has made a statement in the House of Commons

'about the disappearance of the two Foreign Office officials.

'Security aspects of the case were being investigated.'

They were soon named as Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

Both had been at Cambridge together,

and went on to land top jobs at the Foreign Office,

before mysteriously disappearing.

It was impossible to imagine

that people of such middle-class, upper-middle-class backgrounds,

and in positions of trust and power, could possibly be a traitor.

It became the biggest spy scandal of the decade

and Phillip Knightley was determined to reveal more about the story.

One followed, almost daily, what events were going on,

who else might be a traitor, what other information was available,

and there was very little, I mean, the Government kept strong.

Rumours were rife.

They might not be the only ones working for the Soviets.

A third man could be involved.

The finger of suspicion pointed to Kim Philby,

a high-ranking MI6 officer,

which, if true, would make him a double agent.

Mr Philby, Mr McMillan, the Foreign Secretary said there's no evidence

you were the so-called third man who allegedly tipped off Burgess and Maclean.

-Are you satisfied with that clearance that he gave you?

-Yes, I am.

He kept his real role very, very close to his chest.

-If there was a third man, were you in fact the third man?

-No, I was not.

I looked at the footage of the press conference

and it was very obvious that Philby was lying through his teeth,

but he was able to carry it off

because he was bold, he was dedicated

and he was ruthless with people who were opposed to what he was doing.

It WAS true.

Eventually, the three members of this Cambridge spy ring surfaced in the Soviet Union

and were decorated by the Russians for their work.

If they were guilty then there were others.

I mean, the real rush was to try and find the third man,

the fourth man, the fifth man. Where did it stop?

Was the whole of the British establishment penetrated

by moles and by traitors?

The incident damaged intelligence efforts in the '50s,

just as Britain was flexing its muscles as the world's third nuclear power.

And the escalation in Cold War paranoia also fuelled the anger

of a new movement against Britain's newly acquired atom bomb.

In 1957, plans to test a one megaton bomb near Christmas Island

galvanised a young Cambridge graduate and pacifist,

Pat Arrowsmith, to get involved.

It was the birth of the campaign for nuclear disarmament, CND.

Well, it was clear that we weren't going to be able to go out to the test area.

We'd decided to organise a pilgrimage to this place, Aldermaston,

where Britain makes its atom bombs.

Pat organised the first 52-mile march to Aldermaston

in protest against the bomb on April the 4th, 1958.

We were taken aback and agreeably surprised,

when 8,000 people turned up to the launch rally in Trafalgar Square.

Phillip was among the marchers.

We were milling around Aldermaston, not going anywhere,

but generally demonstrating, when the leaders of this right wing group

sped a car in the midst of the demonstrators.

They didn't hit anybody, but they came near to it.

Even with the opposition, did Pat think the march was a success?

The first Aldermaston march did galvanise and bring together

and coalesce a lot of unease in this country

about British nuclear weapons,

so it was valuable internationally for the peace movement.

There were other countries that then began having similar marches,

who might not have done it if we hadn't set the pace in this country.

The Cold War, I tell you, what a fascinating era that was,

and Phillip, you were there.

-Yes, I was in Britain.

-Right.

Very worried, my mother was,

that I'd come all the way from Australia over here to make it on the big time.

-And she was worried that I was going to get blown up...

-Right.

-..by a Russian A-bomb.

-Yes.

-I mean, the war was just over.

-Yes.

-That war just followed the First World War.

-Yes.

And yet here we were, almost coming to blows again with a former ally...

-Yes.

-..who'd lost 30 million dead in that war.

And everybody felt it was going to all resurrect once again.

Us, as just the general public,

you were much closer to it as a journalist.

Were we entitled to be scared and worried about it, do you think?

I suspect in retrospect, looking back on it now

-that a lot of it was hysteria whipped up by the press..

-Yeah.

..but by the press being encouraged to do so by the Government.

-It was a scary, but most fascinating time.

-Yes.

-It really was.

Meanwhile, back at home, we slept peacefully,

knowing that the great British bobby was on the beat.

But is our impression of '50s policing fact or fiction?

Let's proceed in a northerly direction with a West Midlands bobby

who gives us nothing but the truth.

MUSIC: "Dixon of Dock Green" theme tune

Do you believe that back in the '50s, all local bobbies could be found under the blue lamp

and have the time to chat with each and every one?

When a clip round the ear was all it took

to teach those young rascals a thing or two?

Is this a perfect Photofit of our 1950s boys in blue,

or just nostalgia,

triggered by memories of that heart-of-gold

fictional bobby in Dixon of Dock Green,

the hero of the BBC's long-running drama from that time?

Ah, good evening, all.

Well, I'm the mug tonight.

The chaps at the station are putting on a concert at the church hall,

raising funds for the orphanage.

Mike Collins, our man in the size 11 boots,

a working Wolverhampton bobby in the '50s, gives us his evidence.

His first day on duty was the Queen's coronation.

It was quite a learning curve for me,

because women were dancing around with their skirts around their waists

and people climbing up lampposts and really having a great time.

The policeman was an object of affection,

so I think I was kissed a number of times, by ladies, usually!

And, you know, everybody was really,

really enjoying the national celebration.

CHEERING

But a typical day on the beat meant being out in the community,

when policing Britain was much more of a relaxed affair.

You could usually find people you could have a laugh with,

particularly when you were walking round

and you'd very often get invited in for a cup of tea.

Strictly speaking, one shouldn't have done that

but of course you did, why not?

Back then there were no police radios and bobbies had to quick foot it

to the now iconic police box to put in a call to HQ.

And what about dealing with those pesky kids?

Without any doubt at all, there was more respect.

If you said to a bunch of lads who were fooling about,

"Now clear off and keep quiet," they'd probably do it.

Nowadays, I'm afraid they wouldn't.

We used to police the football ground.

We used to have to go on the pitch at half-time

to prevent anybody coming onto the pitch,

and if there was snow on the terraces -

remember, open terraces in those days - very often,

you'd get snowballed,

and if you lost your helmet, for example, to a snowball,

well, everybody laughed and gave you a cheer.

And getting around in those days

before high-powered pursuit vehicles.

You'd be on a bike.

Not very many police cars in the early '50s,

and then they started to come in

and we had the old Dixon of Dock Green cars,

which were splendid in terms of protection

because they were built like a tank,

but unfortunately, they were only about as fast as a tank!

CAR BELL RINGS

And we had a little bell on the front,

which you could hear ever so well after the car had gone past.

You couldn't hear it coming, but you could hear it after it'd gone past!

What you always have to remember about being a policeman is that

it's long, long periods of boredom

interspersed with a sudden need for very intense activity.

Um, so one always had to be ready for that, and I've always thought

that we were appreciated perhaps more as a friend

than an enemy in those days.

I'm beginning to fancy my supper. I'll see you next week. Ta-ta.

Well, Arlene, what about you? What's your experiences

of the great British bobby?

Well, everyone on our street knew our local policeman, that was for sure.

But what was extraordinary is how many of the parents

terrified the kids by telling them that if they misbehaved,

the local bobby would come and he would take them away.

-And we believed it.

-Yeah.

I mean, so it certainly kept sort of good behaviour

-in the street because people were afraid.

-Yeah.

At least, you know, the least is you get a clip round the ear.

The worst is you will be taken away.

-I got plenty of clips round the ear off plenty of coppers, I can tell you that!

-Did you?

Yes, I did! But my biggest fear

was that not only would I get a wallop off the copper,

but he'd then take me home to my mother

because I knew if I turned up on the doorstep with a policeman,

-I was going to get a bigger wallop.

-Yeah.

So, I always took the wallop quite gracefully

because I didn't want to get another load when I got home.

So, what do you think?

Were they really like Dixon of Dock Green, or not quite?

I don't think so.

I think even though they knew the families living on the street,

and there was order around, Dixon of Dock Green?!

-Rose-coloured spectacles, if you ask me.

-Well...

The smiling bobby? Not really. They were all as hard as each other.

-What I liked about the local copper, he knew the community.

-Yeah.

He knew, you know,

at number eight was an old girl, who wasn't good on her pins,

and on his rounds, he'd always give a little knock on the door,

make sure she was all right.

And walking down the shops when the shops were shut,

-he'd check every door...

-That's right.

..and make sure everything was locked up and safe and sound.

So, you know, I felt sort of reassured

that around somewhere near my house as a kid there was a copper.

-And you did feel safe, absolutely.

-Yeah.

And also, you were talking about with the old ladies,

they would actually help somebody if they had heavy bags

and bring it to the door.

-That's right.

-They were part of the community. You're right.

The problem started because the robbers were on foot

and the policemen were on foot.

As soon as the robbers started getting in cars

and flying about, it was no good.

They had to be in cars as well and that's when it all fell down.

-Z Cars - whoop!

-Yes indeedy.

-Yeah.

If you ask me, I felt really safe and sound in my bed as a kid

when we had the bobby walking by.

Now, I'm proud of my working-class roots,

but '50s class division really did shape lives.

How you spoke and what school you went to

made for a "them and us" society.

But slowly, things loosened up a bit

and one of the first ways you saw it was in the clothes people wore.

# She wears red feathers

# And a hooly-hooly skirt

# She wears red feathers... #

The fashions in the '50s were really feminine.

And you wore a hat. You were dressed, weren't you, with a hat on?

-Yes.

-And gloves, shoes to match.

-Yes.

-And a handbag.

Shoes, handbag, hat, all the same. Matched.

And you always had your Sunday best, didn't you?

Yeah. Always.

What you wore in the '50s said volumes about you -

not just your personal taste, but about your background,

the social class you belong to.

This social divide wasn't lost

on friends Mary O'Reilly and Olive Hipkins.

You see some of the middle class

with different things on two or three times a day.

We couldn't afford that, could we?

-They used to have these evening dresses.

-Yeah, and furs.

-Oh, fur coats?

-Yeah.

-Oh, fur coats, yeah.

-Real fur.

'But the crown of elegance is the fur and British furs

'have also a place in the fashion fortnight.

'For evening wear, Joy has a natural blue fox cape.'

Olive and Mary loved clothes as much as anyone else.

They were just limited in what they could afford.

What we could get somebody to make, or make it ourselves.

-Or buy something second-hand and make it look different.

-Yeah.

The upmarket family department stores

were mostly out of their reach.

Lewis's were absolutely...

-well, posh.

-Yes, that was very posh.

It was very posh, and Henderson's.

That was a store on its own,

-and that was very posh, wasn't it, Mary?

-Yeah.

The first time I went into Lewis's, I was really agog

because when you walk in,

it used to be all perfumes, stockings, you know,

-everything like that for a lady.

-Luxury goods.

-And then upstairs were the clothes.

-Oh, yeah.

-It was absolutely fantastic, wasn't it?

-Lovely clothes.

-For the day.

But posher even than Liverpool's Lewis's was the rarefied world

of London couturiers and their aristocratic clients

that Felicity Green entered when she became a fashion editor in the '50s.

I was looking at women from Mars. They were so different

from anything I'd ever experienced in real life.

And I saw not only the clothes, which were beautiful, remarkable,

but I saw the women who actually were wearing them.

They were the upper classes, the debutantes and their mothers

and these were the women

who were writing the fashion rules in the '50s.

'This year, tailored slacks have been shown for the first time

'in the London fashion fortnight.

'These are classic gabardine slacks in cinnamon.

They're worn with a poplin blouse and scarf

'and their retail price is about five-and-a-half guineas.'

Fashion was very static at the beginning of the '50s.

The scene was very set, and it came from the mothers to the daughters.

There was no young fashion.

The designers, the couturiers making these expensive, beautiful clothes,

basically made the same tailored suits for the mothers,

and the same tailored suits for the daughters.

Michael Skinner was also styling the well-to-do in the 1950s.

The people who came to us

were those who had, even in those days,

the same as today, sufficient income...

..or inheritance, or spending power to be able to afford to come to us.

Each trade, each business had its uniform.

Part of the uniform of professional life,

like lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers and things

was the hat and the pinstripe suit,

stiff white collars.

# I worked in a London bank Respectable position... #

You're a friend, whose skills they admire

to make them look either beautiful,

or more beautiful than they are,

or hide things that maybe need hiding, or enhance the good points.

But tailors like Michael were feeling the heat,

as high street stores upped the quality of their clothes.

The ready-to-wear trade has always been our competitor.

There was always someone offering something a little cheaper

and a little less well made.

You could go to M&S or Burtons or whatever,

and get a perfectly good suit, which did the job.

Slowly, things were beginning to change.

Clothes were becoming more affordable,

and fashion rules were being rewritten.

Working-class women were creating their own style,

and it didn't stop at clothes.

-Twink.

-Twink.

-Twink and Toni, they were the home perms.

-What was the other one?

-They were only in a little box.

-You got the rollers with the Toni, didn't you.

-Yeah!

What you had to do was you put this liquid on your hair,

-then you put perm rollers...

-Oh, yeah. Very small.

..put them in, then you waited half an hour.

You rinsed your hair while they were on.

-Put some more on.

-When your hair was rinsed out, you take them off

-and you put curlers in.

-That's right.

We used to put it to dry and you came out all frizzy.

You come out frizzy, you did. You come out all frizzy.

-You did!

-They used to stink like rotten eggs.

-Like rotten eggs it was, the mixture, wasn't it, Mary?

-Yeah.

But home perms were high fashion, and soon everyone wanted one,

as Felicity discovered when her female boss invited her to dinner,

with the then President of the Board of Trade,

Harold Wilson, and his wife Mary.

She said, "I want you to give his wife a home perm."

"What?" When dinner was over,

and I hardly knew what I was eating, she said,

"Now, you and Mary will go into the bathroom

"and you can give her her home perm."

I gave her a home perm and it was a great success.

But when we went into the bathroom, I opened this box,

which was a rough cardboard box, with the stuff in it,

and it said, and I can see it now,

"In case of emergency, phone Kingston 7777."

Imagine having to phone Kingston 7777 and I have burned the hair

of the wife of the President of the Board of Trade.

From home perms to ready-made suits,

fashion would never be the same again.

I've got to say, I felt smart, I felt well dressed.

But Michael, you've turned up from that fabulous little film,

and I've got to say, you look brilliant.

And I caught a glimpse of your lining.

Now, I'd like you to give me a flash, if you'll excuse the...

-Can you do it?

-Do you mind?

-No!

-How about that.

-Look at that. What is that lining?

It's the arms of the Merchant Tailor's Company

in the City of London.

Fantastic.

Now, my dad used to go to what was called the 50-bob tailor.

£2.50, you got a suit.

What do you reckon on that?

Well, before that war, that's exactly what it was, 50-bob tailors.

At the same time, we were charging 15 guineas.

There wasn't a lot of difference, really.

-But the 50-bob tailors did an essential job.

-Yeah.

They were making clothes for the masses,

and we, as it were then, we were making clothes for individuals,

who wanted their own identity and to have fantastic clothes.

And the thing was, after the war, you know,

every man who'd been a soldier was given a demob suit,

so I suppose there was a bit of a uniformity about their dress,

and it did sort of spruce them up a little bit.

-It gave them something that they hadn't had for six years.

-Yeah.

-And of course, clothes rationing was still on.

-Yeah.

-And that was a major factor in what we made.

-Yeah.

And we were so grateful when, come the '50s,

when, sadly, King George VI died,

there was the great demand for clothes and robes

for the coronation in 1953.

That was a good time for you, then.

-It was a wonderful year for us.

-I bet it was.

I was in Westminster Abbey with my father

and the team from my family firm,

and we were robing the peers as they came in from the procession,

-for the actual service.

-Really?!

-So, you were there.

-I was there.

-Gosh!

-We only got to see it on the telly, and there you are.

-Yeah!

-And get a mug.

-Yeah.

What about you? Have you got any stories about fashion in the '50s?

Interestingly enough, when we got a new coat

we went to C&A,

and we wore our school shoes or our sandals.

-Timpsons was our shop.

-Yeah.

But I remember Barbara, the girl down the road, who was posh,

because her mother took her to have her clothes made in Blackpool

and she always had black patent shoes,

so there was a real sort of difference,

a sort of class war on the street,

-about where you bought your clothes.

-Yeah, of course.

Now, I've got to ask, you've brought a couple of hats in, Michael.

Tell me about them.

I only brought them in because when I first started to go to work,

my father said, "You will wear a bowler hat,

-"because that's what gentlemen wear."

-Right.

And I did. I went and had it made, and that's how I went to work.

-You look good, though.

-Yeah.

-You look pukka.

I used to ride horses and it doubled up,

because it was a proper hard one,

and I used it for that as well.

And the other one, what was that? Weekends?

The other one was a trilby, which you wore for Saturdays,

and high days and holidays

and when you weren't dressed up to the nines.

This is what I like about you. You've got style.

My trilby, it's got to be pristine,

but you people, you don't mind if it gets a little bit cranky.

I think it's great and it shows so much style.

Michael, to be honest with you,

in some ways, I wish you'd never shown up!

Oh, I'm sorry!

Because, you know, you are, for me, the epitome

of what a well-dressed guy of our age should dress like,

and you look fantastic.

It's been fabulous to talk to you,

and thank you so much for gracing our couch.

-Well, thank you for having me.

-Fabulous!

-Thank you.

Well, I don't know about you, but I've had a fantastic time.

But talking of time, time's up for today.

But I tell you what - what a lovely lot of '50s stories we've had.

But join me again tomorrow, when we'll have some fun with '50s food.

It wasn't all double egg and chips, you know!

We'll run the famous four-minute mile

and get the inside dope on National Service call-up.

Until then, don't forget - if you can't be safe, be sorry.

From me, Arlene and the crew,

on the Good Ship '52,

cheerio.

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