Young Acquaintance.
As I moved out of my early teens and started to stumble around trying to make sense out of what was happening around me, my circle of friends and aquaintances increased, but they were nearly all culled from the working class areas of Manchester. Harpurhey, Gorton, Longsight, Chorlton on Medlock, Ardwick and Wythenshawe. There were one or two from finer parts, but with these, our mutual attraction was sport and mainly cricket. It did seem that like attracted like and we at the bottom had a job climbing the ladder to join the cleaner and more studious from the hygenic outer suburbs, who had a different, more relaxed, but I do not think as exiting a life as that which we were trying to pursue. I remember one chap from Gorton explaining to me one night that I should not be in this elite group of working class kids, because we lived in Birchfields Road and were therefore rich and middle class. I could not understand his logic, we did not have a pot to piss in, but lived off the aspirations of my parents. I suppose his argument was a little bit of inverted snobbery that Old Labour revelled in.
However his outlandish views did not stop me from ploughing my furrow and the friendliness of the girls kept my furrow very straight. Okay we did not live in some landlord slum, but we walked everywhere or caught the bus if we had any money and time was pressing and it was amazing how good and cheap the bus service was then.
Most of my memories of those teenage acquaintances were of the lack of fathers; by the time these kids were 15 or 16, the fathers, when they were needing them the most were disappearing. No, there was no migration of healthy masculine types to the arms of women demanding what the 1960s expected of them. No, these men were dying. Once they had passed 40 the ravages of the war and 20 years in the terrible conditions of the working class workplace took their toll. They were dying of all types of respiratory illnesses, the last vestiges of TB and heart conditions brought about by excessive smoking and bad diets. The lad who had accosted me about where on the class scale I should be, had lost his father the year previously and in some bizarre thought process considered himself lower than me. His father’s loss was a massive blow and as with them all it took him years to recover. I remember one kid, we will call him B, when we were about 14 and in a Latin class with Ron Smith. There was a knock on the door and in walked Geoff Burke, the Headmaster, “B your father died this morning, remain in school and go home at your normal time”. The delivery and shock was nearly as bad as the event. Certainly Burkes bedside manner was not what you would expect and B naturally blubbed at the back of class for the rest of the day. We at 14 did not know what to say or do, nor it seemed did any one else.
These sudden departures of fathers at the demanding age these kids were at, affected them in a far more serious way than we can believe, these were loving fathers not the feckless fruit of 21st century philosophy. These men were dying because employers were cutting whatever corners there were to be cut. There was no thought of Health and Safety or no regulatory bodies to control all the thousands of back street workshops that brought Europe back from the brink in those times ravaged as they had been by wars and recessions.
The housing stock was atrocious in the poorly maintained landlord estates, and massive waiting lists in the few slightly better maintained corporation owned properties. Most houses in the districts mentioned had no internal toilets, relying on outside loos, there were even some with shared accommodation. Most houses only had cold water, with hot water being heated by gas fired water heaters over kitchen sinks or by back boilers behind fires, that needed total precision when planning a bath, when every one lined up to take it in turns to spruce themselves up in two inches of degenerating and murky warm water. Pity the last man in. In some cases that precision was not available so that baths were not as frequent as they might have been. There were no showers, no central heating, relying on one fire in one room as the only source of heat. To day new and well refurbished houses stand in their place but it strikes me that the quality, kindness and friendliness of the people is not there. That generosity of spirit that pulled everyone along seems to have vacated the cupboard.
We all suffered strange illnesses and everyone was plagued with boils and other skin eruptions, an obvious sign of vitamin deficiency. We ate enough but probably a lot of the wrong thing. Fresh fruit and vegetables was not a must-have but as a whole we were generally fitter. There was no television so most people spent more time out of the house playing sport or going to the cinema two or three times a week. there were no cars so every one walked. Even in winter in the dark, black streets of Manchester everybody walked with not a worry in the world. You were as safe as houses. We often used to walk there and back to Manchester, three miles each way.
We had no money but we had a few brains between us and that enabled us to pick our way out of the maze and eventually after a few years pottering about in the mire of life we made a decent fist of what we set out to do. No thanks at all to most of the so called education we received free gratis, but more to do with guts and having seen the bottom of the heap.
It seems today that if you have not made a success of your life at twenty, you are a failure. Bollocks to that. Head down and keep ploughing is how I have always tried to live.
Tags: Geoff Burke, Health and Safety, Life in the 50s & 60s, Manchester and Its Backstreets, Old Labour, Slums
March 12th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
No offense but I really don’t like your post. For one you have a lot of incorrect facts. Teelevision was extremely popular in the 50s and 60s, mainly the 60s and the same with cars and we all took buses and trains as well. We went to the cinema all the time and for the “no money” bit I count that as an exaggeration. We were less materialised so there wasn’t much to pay for though we did have jobs and were paid a good salary.
Your post has also come across as very sarcastic in a lot of ways and sarcasm is sometimes the wrong term to use at the wrong time.
During the early 50s we were still recovering and in pain from the previous years from the war but shortly after were no longer in economy crisis and our revolutuion began in the 60s. The only items that were considered expensive were luxury items like dishwasher, high tech vaccumm etc. we could afford everything else as we had a bigger currency value (it was more than pennies it was shillings and guineas)
Sorry to say I didn’t like your post because you used too much sarcasm and also you stated things that you may have not had but you decided to speak for everyone else which isn’t fair. Trust me I lived through those two decades and I know.
March 13th, 2011 at 7:33 am
Dear Disney 101,
Thank you for reading my blog and for your comments on this piece. Everybody has their own take on the remembered past. This was mine living in Longsight in Manchester. Those from more salubrious suburbs would obviously have a different tale to tell.
I have read through the posting a couple of times since your comment came through and cannot find a hint of sarcasm and certainly when writing had no thoughts of such. As with everything I write, I speak from my own point of view and do not try to represent anyone or anything, so I am sorry you interpreted it wrongly.
Paul
March 13th, 2011 at 11:20 am
That’s okay but as far as I remember, we all had jobs in the 50s and 60s so we had cars and tv. I think you meant tv was not 24/7 and there were hardly any cars about so it was mainly public transport. Actually in big cities you don’t see many cars anyway. And families only had one car, not three or four like they do now. And of course there was no internet, we can’t question about that.
But when you make a post, could you explain it more clearly as there will be people who will get confused like I did because by the 1960s nearly every household had a car and tv, but we didn’t have colour, it was black and white. Also if we had “no money” we wouldn’t be able to afford anything! We wouldn’t be happy if we couldn’t buy food. We were able to buy whatever we wanted as our economy rose and everyone was laid back but this took a trip down memory lane as I remember when we got our first tumble dryer in the late 60s and saved to finalise it from the laundrette. But we were not living in poverty. This wasn’t medieval times! This was meant to be a developed time with society change and more luxury arrivals.
April 25th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
What a load of shit. Is that what you viewed everything in the 60s as?? Men were dying as if it were a modern bubonic plague illness that re-started in World War 2?? Only men died when they fought for the USA in Vietnam you idiot. As someone who has lived through the 60s, your article was a pile of crap. And speak for yourself, not for other people.
April 26th, 2011 at 5:57 am
Dear zeezak,
Thank you for reading the blog and it is a pity you came to your conclusion. As I said to Disney 101 below this is my take on the subject and obviously not yours and I was speaking for myself. It might help in your future correspondence with others, to try and regulate your thought processes and not be so bloody rude.
Paul
May 1st, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Ok sorry for sounding so rude. That’s your opinion and I have mine. I was not having the best day so I cursed at you. We all have bad days so I apologise for any misbehaviour.
May 3rd, 2011 at 8:41 am
But no offense, you shouldn’t write posts that would anger or confuse other people. You didn’t classify anywhere that you were refferring to your life and no one else’s. And you didn’t even say anything to my previous post when I said sorry. If you don’t want a reaction like that then you should rephrase it because that is definetely not how I remembered my lifetime.
May 15th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Look I’m sorry okay. Why aren’t you accepting it??
May 15th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Zeezak,
I only accept positive and couteous comment, so let that be an end to it.
Thankyou,
Paul
July 19th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Hello Paul
I read some of your blogs a while back and as agreeing with what you had said about the volunteering process, you definetely need to get experience somewhere. I’m sorry to see that you have recieved rude comments but maybe zeezack just simply misunderstood your post. You seemed to have taken a very bleak vision of Manchester when you were a child and as my relatives were from Manchester, no one was ill or getting any plagues or anything. I know this is from your perspective but like Disney101 said, you tended to speak for everyone else which you said you didn’t, and the whole point of an autobiographyof young aquaintance is written by you and in your perspective.
Luxury items were coming in on the market, I do remember most of us were starting to get proper washing machines by the early 60s and television was the most common thing back then. Nearly everyone got one by then. I remember riding around in our ford anglia in London, whereas therre would be more cars, but even so, public transport was required far more than it is now. We got fruit and vegetables and many minerals not from frozen stock but chilled and mostly fresh from vegetable gardens and farmer markets so I disagree with you on that aspect. We took in all the vitamins required.
On the whole, everyone has their own opinion and if you want to avoid abrupt comments in the future, maybe you might need to rephrase your blog because even I got confused at first. Noneless that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. Maybe you could write about a young aquaintance at Christmas? What about your years in adolscent and your first job?
Best wishes,
Lisa
December 7th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
The 1960s was the golden age for tv and the vast majority had one. People started getting them ever since the Queen Elizabeth speech in 1953. Your view is very bleak. Longsight was probably one of the places that had been badly affected by the war.
January 19th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Dear Clannad,
Thank you for reading most of my postings and I am most upset that you think I am rude. What you interpret as rudeness is nothing more than that well recognised Longsight terseness. So piss off and let me get on with my life.
Paul
January 21st, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Dear Clannad,
I certainly accept your apologies but what you have to realise is that the opinions and ideas expressed in my blog postings are mine and mine alone. I am not speaking for any group or class of people, I write my postings for the therapeutic effect it gives me along with the hope and chance that my writing skills improve.
I have read over this piece a hundred times and I cannot believe how or why I should be treated with opprobrium by so many people. These are my thoughts based on my experiences, so why oppose it so vehemently. If you and others disagree with my experience, you are entitled to write a piece on a blog that you create.
Anyway thanks for eventually trying to understand me and also taking the trouble to read my original offending words which were not written with that emotion in mind.
I would like it if you read every one of my postings (there are nearly 200 of them) and come back to me if you still think I am a villain.
Paul
February 7th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Dear Clannad,
Do not worry, take it in your stride and let us have more of your opinions.
Paul
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:57 pm
I’m glad you have accepted my apology and the outburst was immature. But please get rid of my comments because I don’t want to look back at how I spoke to you.