Morning In The Streets

[poliphilo]

BBC 4 showed Morning in the Streets last night as part of a evening of programmes about Liverpool. It's a wee gem- a lyrical impression of the post-war city- somewhat in the style of Humphrey Jennings-  put together by the BBC Northern Film Unit.  It records a society that has completely- but completely- vanished. Respectable tramps are dossing in blitzed out buildings, respectable families are sleeping seven to a room, all the men wear flat caps, all the women wear headsscarves- and girls in the playground are doing a complicated ring dance and chanting,

Take her by the lily white hand,
Lead her to the water, 
Give her gifts and make her cry-
She's the old man's daughter!

And then someone on screen tells us about something that happened in 1957. Sheesh, was I really contemporary with all of this?  But of course I was.  I checked with the Radio Times this morning. The film was made in 1959- when I was eight- approximately the same age as the ring-dancing girls.

Comments

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

You're naughty! LOL

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Naughty perhaps, but it's how a lot of Mancunians feel. The IRA bomb didn't kill anyone, it ripped up the ugly city centre and provided the impetus for the regeneration that's been powering away ever since. What's not to love? In the thirty odd years that I've lived here I've seen Manchester go from a grimy, depressed, post-industrial shell to one of the liveliest, most cosmpolitan cities in Europe.