The 1951 Festival of Britain; A Brave New World.

[salymap]

Mercia very kindly brought this to my attention, Sat.24th on BBC2 at 8.15pm.

There was another film on the Festival some time ago, this one has up to date colour filming and several new interviews.
I was disappointed that there was very little about the RFH with one brief shot of the interior and no mention of the Concerts at that time,which were a large part of the Festival to me.
There are some wonderful examples of the fabrics and designs that were about at the time. I had David Whitehouse curtains in my room, large circles of yellow, blue, red, with grey shapes in the background. My mother hated them! I knew that a lot of the Festival fittings were sold off. The RFH carpet even appeared in a local shop, greeny grey with white shapes as I recall. Everything possible was sold off. It was great fun at the time and at least we still have the RFH.

[mercia]

yes I enjoyed that programme. Such a shame, I thought, that everything bar the RFH was so soon broken up, largely due to the incoming conservative government who hadn't wanted the festival to take place in the first place - it had obviously been very popular. By the looks of it, the Lansbury estate in Poplar may still have surviving Festival of Britain crests on the buildings. Has someone previously mentioned the Far Tottering & Oyster Creek Railway in Battersea Gardens?

http://www.lakesideminiaturerailway.co.uk/fartottering.htm

[salymap]

The feature I remember was called something like 'The Grotto of the Four Elements' [earth, fire water and air] and was a sort lf cavern down steps and very atmospheric.It was at Battersea Pleasure Gardens and Iam pretty sure that Holst's Perfect Fool music was played. Can anyone confirm that as my companion on that day disagrees.? And yes, I travelled on the little railway too,

[mercia]

'The Grotto of the Four Elements' [earth, fire water and air]

this article refers to the Schweppes Grotto (bottom of page 2), I guess it was sponsored by the Schweppes company, but no mention of Holst Perfect Fool.

http://www.joylandbooks.com/themagiceye/articles/battersea-festival-gardens.htm

[aeolium]

I thought it was an interesting documentary and it made a great difference to see the colour footage (one of those interviewed made the comment that the colour of the festival was such a contrast to the grey existence of the previous decade). What came across very strongly was the feeling of optimism, of public service and community at that time. It was a pity that some of the more striking buildings were pulled down.

The concert halls, Hayward Gallery and National Theatre were at least great legacies of that festival, and I've always enjoyed going to the South Bank (whatever the acoustic shortcomings of the RFH).

[Mary Chambers]

I thought it was an interesting documentary and it made a great difference to see the colour footage (one of those interviewed made the comment that the colour of the festival was such a contrast to the grey existence of the previous decade).

What I remember most about the Festival of Britain was the fuss about it, and being told how wonderful the Skylon was. I didn't think it looked wonderful - at eleven years old my interest in the wonders of engineering was nil, and I didn't find it beautiful. I only saw photographs, though. My brother went to London for the Exhibition, but I stayed at home and saw Margot Fonteyn and Joyce Grenfell in Liverpool - the Festival was celebrated everywhere.

I always feel rather cross when I hear people say how grey and bleak the 40s and 50s were, because that wasn't my experience. People had fewer material things than now, I suppose, but there were flowers and nature and books and music and theatre. I had some lovely clothes. My memories aren't grey or bleak at all.

[aeolium]

I always feel rather cross when I hear people say how grey and bleak the 40s and 50s were, because that wasn't my experience.

I don't see why it should make you feel cross - it just means your experience must have been different from theirs, surely? And for people living through the war, with bombing as well as the rationing (the latter lasting into the 1950s), followed by the bitter winter of 1947 it must have been fairly bleak quite a lot of the time. One interviewee pointed out that with coal the main source of heat for people in London before the Clean Air Act, the smog and black coating on the buildings made things darker and greyer physically. My mother who grew up in West Bromwich remembered the blackness of the buildings there because of the industry and coal (and poor people wearing dark clothes because they couldn't change them often and couldn't have frequent baths).

[Mary Chambers]

I don't see why it should make you feel cross - it just means your experience must have been different from theirs, surely? And for people living through the war, with bombing as well as the rationing (the latter lasting into the 1950s), followed by the bitter winter of 1947 it must have been fairly bleak quite a lot of the time. One interviewee pointed out that with coal the main source of heat for people in London before the Clean Air Act, the smog and black coating on the buildings made things darker and greyer physically. My mother who grew up in West Bromwich remembered the blackness of the buildings there because of the industry and coal (and poor people wearing dark clothes because they couldn't change them often and couldn't have frequent baths).

Yes- it's just that my experience never seems to be mentioned. Apparently we were all miserable. I remember the winter of 1947 quite well, but of course for a child snow is fun. It was cold, though - that I do remember! I remember the black buildings, certainly, from when we went to Liverpool, but we just took it for granted. I wish my parents were still alive, because I'd love to ask them if everything seemed bleak to them. If so, it didn't show.

[rauschwerk]

...the Far Tottering & Oyster Creek Railway in Battersea Gardens?

I was 5 at the time of the Festival and lived in Clapham. We visited the gardens regularly and I rode on that railway at every opportunity (of course, at that age I wanted to be an engine driver).

[Serial_Apologist]

I was born in November 1945 and brought up in W London up to the age of 12. What I remember is perpetual poor visibility, grey polluted skies, litter everywhere on streets that seemed dirtier than nowadays, khaki greeny-brown smogs every winter, bottle green, chocolate and mustard brown, and a dingy cadmium red being the only paint colours available for external redecoration, and my aunt in Surrey always reminding me how much more colour I had in my cheeks after spending a week with them in suburban Surrey! The Festival of Britain seemed almost psychedelic by comparison - all those red, blue and yellow baubles! The dowdy, baggy male attire, presumably made-to-last demob suits in those austere days, went in the 1960s and '70s in favour of more colour, only to return in the yuppie 1980s, and remain the limited choice of formal (undertaker style) to this day.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mary Chambers; like S_A i was born and raised in Nov 45 in London, we were poor, lived n a large block of Victorian flats on a Kensington Street ... we were not miserable and made full use of Kensington Gardens as well as bomb sites [a pretty widespread opportunity in central London] and later Holland Park. i remember the Festival as 'exotic', colourful certainly, but more in the manner of Hollywood films ... and London and its people were pretty drab in those days ... holidays in Northumberland gave me an experience of open country and open skies, the sea and also the back alleys of the working class streets my grandparents lived in .... but at the end of the fifties and through the sixties the generation which S_A and i were part of 'coloured' life, not a la Hollywood, but like the peacocks in Holland Park .... painting changed, movies changed and culture changed, drab it was not .... the clothes, pop music, and life generally made our childhoods even drabber in retrospect ... and the 'old greys' muttering on about the war even greyer ... plus we had ££££, a lot more ££££ to spend on clothes, records, movies, restaurants .... concerts and gigs even .... money drives mood i find, the poverty of many people in the post war years is oft forgot ..... colour was 'democratised' later eh

[Mary Chambers]

Perhaps the difference is whether one lived in the city or, as I did, in a fairly rural suburb (Cheshire). We weren't poor, but we certainly weren't rich. I was always surrounded by trees, and always very aware of natural beauty. We did visit cities, though - Liverpool mainly, but also London. I thought cities were very exciting, but I only ever saw the centres of them and not the miles of drab streets. I do remember when more colourful things came into the shops - was it in the latish fifties? - and enjoying that, but the things that really mattered to me, the natural world, the music and theatre, hadn't really changed at all. I lived in London in the early sixties and felt the excitement, especially about clothes - pop music meant nothing! When my sons were born in the early seventies I was very pleased that at last boys could wear colours, and not be condemned to a life of grey flannel. Before that I used to think it must be awful to be born a boy!

[mercia]

this will sound rather silly, but I wonder if 'younger' people's perception of pre-, let's say, 1960's, is influenced by the majority of photo and film images being in black & white, so that all clothes, for example, appear as basically different shades of grey.

[vinteuil]

this will sound rather silly, but I wonder if 'younger' people's perception of pre-, let's say, 1960's, is influenced by the majority of photo and film images being in black & white, so that all clothes, for example, appear as basically different shades of grey.

... not silly at all. I think most of us somehow imagine that the 1914-1918 War was conducted in black and white...

I remember the shock to the system when one did see bits of WW2 footage in colour - and you realised the trees were green, the sky blue, the people pink, the uniforms khaki - and it all seemed much more real, much closer. As indeed did the colour footage from the 1951 Festival.

[salymap]

i was born in 1930 in a part of Kent which was country in those days, a London suburb now, although theaddress is still Kent.I actually lived in london until 1937 becauseof my dad's job, but the Bromley/Shortlands area was home. In 1939 everything changed. We were near Biggin Hill, were bombed out and dug out of our home At 17 I discovered music and London concerts, the war was over and I seemed to have a lot of good friends. There were bad years like 1947 when I had to walk home from Woolwich on one occasion because of thick snow. The smogs were terrible, everything was rationed for years although we never actually went short of food. However I was young and mostly happy, although I had years of bad health.

The Festival was wonderful, Iwas working in music by then and went to alot ofthe early concerts. Later musicians moaned aabout the acoustics but the clarity seemed great to me after the echo of the RAH.

It waslovely when things came off rationing, especially clothes. I loved the 'The New Look' with ther swirly skirts which suited me being tall and skinny. Happy on the whole memories.