Now I am a great fan of those books, plays, and films that set out to portray the lives of working people during the 1950s, and 60s.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, A Taste of Honey, and A Kind of Loving, were set in the decades when I was growing up and although our family life was very tame in comparison, the story lines and the settings were ones I recognized and knew.
Today I still watch them, but less for the drama, and more for the period shots of people going about their daily business, catching trams, and trolley buses, often against backdrops of bombed out streets, wearing clothes that made little distinction between the older generation and the younger one.
Looking at the collection of DVDs on the book shelves what strikes me is that so many of the ones I regularly watch are set in the North, whether it is Nottingham, Salford, or Wakefield, which given that I have lived in the North for over half a century is fine, but then I am a Londoner, and the list barely touches London.
That said I did watch the 1951 movie, the Pool of London recently, enjoyed the story, and reveled in shots of the Thames, London Bridge and the Observatory at Greenwich.
All of which is an introduction to tonight’s film ……..Sparrows Can’t Sing.
I was too young to see the play which was staged at Joan Littlewood’s Stratford East theatre in 1960, and some how missed the film which came out three years later.
But in 1963 I would still have been just 13, and a bit and while I might have managed to get in, some how I doubt it would have appealed.
Tonight, is a different thing, and having purchased a “digitally restored” version, I shall sit down with Tina to watch this slice of London life. Just how much of the Isle of Dogs, Limehouse and Stepney I recognise will be up for debate.
And it will be interesting to see what Tina makes of it. She is Italian and was born in the mid 1960s.
In the fullness of time I will pass it on to our lads, who were all born, here in Manchester in the 1980s and 90s, and see in their dad a south east London lad who crossed the Thames once too often.
But for now, I shall get myself ready to watch Barbara Windsor, James Booth, George Sewell and host of Joan Littlewood’s original cast recreate a London I knew.
Location; London
Pictures; Greenwich and Woolwich in the 1970s and 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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| The Christening, Greenwich, 1981 |
Today I still watch them, but less for the drama, and more for the period shots of people going about their daily business, catching trams, and trolley buses, often against backdrops of bombed out streets, wearing clothes that made little distinction between the older generation and the younger one.
Looking at the collection of DVDs on the book shelves what strikes me is that so many of the ones I regularly watch are set in the North, whether it is Nottingham, Salford, or Wakefield, which given that I have lived in the North for over half a century is fine, but then I am a Londoner, and the list barely touches London.
 |
| Greenwich, 1979 |
All of which is an introduction to tonight’s film ……..Sparrows Can’t Sing.
I was too young to see the play which was staged at Joan Littlewood’s Stratford East theatre in 1960, and some how missed the film which came out three years later.
But in 1963 I would still have been just 13, and a bit and while I might have managed to get in, some how I doubt it would have appealed.
Tonight, is a different thing, and having purchased a “digitally restored” version, I shall sit down with Tina to watch this slice of London life. Just how much of the Isle of Dogs, Limehouse and Stepney I recognise will be up for debate.
 |
| Woolwich, 1979 |
In the fullness of time I will pass it on to our lads, who were all born, here in Manchester in the 1980s and 90s, and see in their dad a south east London lad who crossed the Thames once too often.
But for now, I shall get myself ready to watch Barbara Windsor, James Booth, George Sewell and host of Joan Littlewood’s original cast recreate a London I knew.
Location; London
Pictures; Greenwich and Woolwich in the 1970s and 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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