by Paul Feeney
You will also remember singers like Billy Fury, Bobby Rydell and Bobby Vee from the ’50s, but they didn’t have hit records in Britain until the early ’60s, and although ‘rockers’ like Chuck Berry were very popular in Britain in the late ’50s, he had to wait until 1963 to get into the UK top ten with Let it Rock/Memphis Tennessee, a double A-side. Similarly, Fats Domino was very well-liked in Britain and had twelve records enter the top thirty from 1956-59, but his only top ten hit during the ’50s was Blueberry Hill, which reached number six in the UK charts in 1956.
The first Eurovision Song Contest was in 1956, and Britain’s first entry was in 1957 with All, sung by Patricia Bredin, which came seventh out of the ten countries that entered. The UK didn’t enter the 1958 contest, and to date it is the only year we have not taken part. In 1959, the competition was held in Cannes, and the United Kingdom came second with Sing Little Birdie, which was sung by husband and wife duo, Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson. The song reached number twelve in the UK charts.
As in every decade, novelty records were popular in the 1950s, and you will remember that many were regularly played on Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourites show every Saturday morning on BBC radio. You will undoubtedly recall two in particular, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat by Mel Blanc, which was number one in the sheet music charts for three weeks in January 1951 (this was before record charts started to be published), and How Much is that Doggie in the Window by Lita Roza, which reached number one in the UK hit record charts in April 1953, but for one week only.
Fashion
As in every generation, affluent parents bought their children expensive designer clothes and dressed them in their own fashionable image. Women’s magazines were full of fashion ideas for the whole family. There were pictures of young boys dressed in two-piece made-to-measure suits that made them look like a miniature version of their dad; the only difference was that the child’s suit had short trousers with turn-ups. Many magazines catered for the proud mums who loved to dress up their little girls in pretty fashionable clothes. The pages were often filled with pictures of young girls dressed in smart, brightly coloured pinafore dresses, pleated skirts, and well-tailored jackets with matching beret-style caps. Lots of puff-sleeve blouses, with plenty of ribbons and bows, and brightly coloured shoes. To the average family, this was all Hollywood stuff and well beyond their means; so, out would come the sewing machine, and your mum would try her hand at making something resembling the real thing. Dressmaking was something that all mums seemed to be able to do, a skill that was taught and handed down through generations. Young girls’ dresses in the ’50s were usually loose fitting, cut just above the knee, and gathered at the waist with a belt or a ribbon. Mums were also quite adept when it came to copying fashionable hairstyles. It took time, but it cost nothing to send their child out with well-groomed hair. Girls from ordinary working-class families would frequently have their hair smartly styled in ringlets, bunches, plaits or in a ponytail – sometimes with a fringe, and usually held in place with an Alice band or ribbons. And then there were the hair grips that they were forever taking out, pinching apart with their teeth and pushing back in place. Short hair, parted on the left side, was also quite fashionable for young girls. However you were dressed, and for whatever occasion, young girls always wore navy blue knickers, and boys always wore white y-fronts. One item of clothing that was common to both boys and girls was the vest – you always had to wear a white sleeveless vest under your shirt or blouse.
Many 1950s designer fashions for men wouldn’t look out of place today: stylish polo shirts (then called a tennis shirt) with brightly coloured horizontal stripes, short-sleeved check-patterned shirts, sports jackets with patch pockets, and well-tailored single or double-breasted suits. On the other hand, the trilby hats and decorative top-pocket hankies thankfully fell by the wayside long ago! Although women’s fashions always seem to return if you wait long enough, there has never been a resurgence in the popularity of such ’50s things as women’s hats, or brightly coloured figure-hugging flared dresses, tied into tiny corseted waists with belts of ribbon and bows.
Although it was only the wealthy that could afford to buy designer clothes and be truly fashionable, many less well-off women tried to be as up to date as possible with clothing trends, mostly by dressmaking and knitting the clothes themselves. Conversely, the ordinary man in the street usually wore sensible and boring clothes. Many frequently dressed in their World War Two demob suit for everyday purposes well into the 1950s. There were lots of hand-knitted woollen cardigans, sleeveless jumpers and socks. Hand-knitted socks! They were so uncomfortable to wear, especially after they had been darned. Men regularly wore a shirt and tie, complete with tie-pin and cufflinks, and their jacket pocket would often be bulging from the tobacco tin that was always close at hand, ready to roll a fresh cigarette or to fill a pipe. Although men’s socks were ribbed at the top, they lacked grip and would continually slide down. Some men wore sock suspenders to keep them up.
In wintertime, because the majority of people walked or used the buses, everyone wore calf-length topcoats to protect them from the weather, and many also wore gloves. Women, as always, were very attached to their handbags, and strapless hand-held bags were popular, but they had to be big enough to hold the essential lipstick and powder compact, and, as many women smoked, there had to be room to accommodate their cigarettes and lighter. Lots of women, and men for that matter, transferred their cigarettes into slim cigarette cases, which took up less space and were very fashionable at the time; they also made popular Christmas presents. Cigarette cases were usually made from silver, leather, chrome or Bakelite, and they were often personalised with the owner’s initials engraved on a plate at the front. Other women’s fashions included ski pants, pencil skirts, mittens, long gloves, headscarves, tiered skirts, balloon or puffed-sleeved blouses, Duffle coats, short fitted jackets, tight-fitting jumpers, upturned collars, stiletto heels (casual shoes were reserved for the garden or beach), slingback shoes and sandals, and winklepicker shoes. The dresses and blouses always had lots of buttons and pleats sewn into them. Short wavy hair, parted on the left and flicked up at the ends, was very fashionable for women, and so hairnet and curlers were often worn in bed at night. Many women had their hair ‘set’ at the hairdressers as often as they could afford it, and permed (permanent wave) every few months to make the newly grown hair wavy.
Women generally took great pride in their appearance, and although times were hard, they would always dress presentably and ready to go out if they unexpectedly needed to. Lightweight housecoats or full-length aprons were commonly worn to protect good clothes from getting dirty from housework. However, contrary to the image projected in films, men never wore quilted dressing gowns to protect their clothes around the house – maybe they did in Hollywood!
Teddy Boys and Edwardians
Teddy boys, or ‘Teds’ as they were often called, got their name from the Edwardian-inspired style of clothes they wore. London teenagers started the fashion in the early 1950s, and they quickly linked themselves to the newly arrived American rock and roll music. The Teddy boy culture soon spread across the country, with some forming gangs. They hung around in cafes and on street corners, sometimes causing trouble and involving themselves in violent confrontations with rival gangs. These punch-ups often involved the use of weapons, such as flick-knives, knuckledusters and bottles. They wore long drape jackets with velvet trim collars and large flapped pockets, white shirts with bootlace ‘slim-jim’ ties, high-waisted drainpipe trousers, brightly coloured socks and chunky suede shoes, preferably large crepe-soled shoes (known as brothel creepers), which best suited their bouncy movements when jiving to rock and roll music. Their hair was long and was greased up with Vaseline or Brylcreem. They styled it using their treasured and ever-present comb, carefully sculpturing the hair into a huge quiff, and sweeping the sides around to the back of the head to form what was know as a DA (duck’s arse).
Although they are invaria
bly linked to 1950s violence, the media often exaggerates the amount of violence and the numbers of Teddy boys involved. There were not enough Teddy boys around for them to affect people’s lives too much. They were a bit of a novelty, and when you saw them in the street you couldn’t help but stare at them because they were so flamboyantly dressed in otherwise unfussy surroundings. Policemen still walked the beat back then, and they enforced a no-loitering law, which meant that anyone hanging around on a street corner for more than a few minutes would soon be approached by a policeman, questioned, and moved on. Most ‘Teds’ became Teddy boys for the clothes and the rock and roll music, and the clothes were too expensive for ‘Teds’ to risk getting them spoiled in fights. The drape jackets were well tailored and frequently made-to-measure, and they cost a fortune! Teddy boys usually paid for their clothes weekly, on the never-never. Their clothes, records, and of course their treasured comb, were their most prized possessions.
Edwardians, or neo-Edwardians as they should be called, also wore drapes but their style was a lot different to that of the Teddy boys. The smart Edwardian style of fashion became popular with young people a couple of years before Teddy boys came along and adopted the look and took it a stage further to make it much more flashy. It was the newspapers in 1953 who first coined the term ‘Teddy’, from ‘Edward’, when describing this new teenage style. Neo-Edwardians wore smart long drape jackets, tailormade from good quality material, slim tailored trousers, white shirt, silk tie, waistcoat, and fine quality Italian shoes. Their hair was fairly short, neatly combed and without the Teddy boy quiff. Again, the neo-Edwardians spent so much money on clothes, it was unlikely that they would go out looking for punch-ups!
Six
RADIO AND TELEVISION
Radio
Memories of 1950s radio programmes remain indelibly imprinted on the minds of those who are old enough to remember when radio was the main source of entertainment in the home. Even with the increasing demand for televisions during the late 1950s, radio was still hugely popular and more than adequately bridged the gaps in between the good television programmes, and filled the time when television’s two broadcasting stations, BBC and ITV, were off-air. Well-liked radio shows like The Goons, Hancock’s Half Hour, The Archers and Mrs Dale’s Diary continued to attract large numbers of listeners to the BBC radio’s Home Service and Light Programme, while Radio Luxembourg, ‘208 – your station of the stars’, was attracting younger listeners through its increased output of pop music.
Your parents had control over the radio’s tuning knob, and children often had little say in what programmes were listened to, but there were plenty of radio shows like Dick Barton, Life with the Lyons and Meet the Huggetts, that managed to get both young and old equally hooked. Even with the advent of television programmes like Watch With Mother and Children’s Hour, radio shows like Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourite, The Clitheroe Kid and Educating Archie still remained firm favourites with young listeners. As a child in the 1950s, you would have considered the radio announcers and commentators to be just old fuddy-duddies, but you heard so much of them during those radio days that many of their names would still be very familiar to you, such names as Franklin Engelmann, Robert Dougall, Jean Metcalfe, Kenneth Kendal, Alvar Lidell and John Snagge, just to mention a few.
Radio provided great entertainment for you on rainy days, evenings and weekends; and not forgetting the great comfort it could be when you were off school sick with one of those many childhood illnesses of the 1950s. The enormous variety of comedy, drama and music programmes kept you from getting bored and in many ways added to your education. Here is just a selection of popular 1950s radio shows to stir the old grey cells:
A Life of Bliss (1953–9) BBC Light Programme. Written by Godfrey Harrison and featured George Cole as the bumbling David Alexander Bliss who was always finding himself in awkward situations. Petula Clark joined the cast in 1957, and played David Bliss’s girlfriend Penny Gay, until she left him at the altar! Animal imitator, Percy Edwards, played Psyche the dog.
The Archers (1951–present) BBC Light Programme and BBC Home Service – ‘an everyday story of country folk’. First main broadcast was in January 1951. This is the world’s longest-running radio soap, now broadcast on BBC’s Radio Four. According to the BBC’s press office in 2006, it remained BBC Radio 4’s most popular non-news programme. In the 1950s, the story revolved around the Archer family of Brookfield farm near the village of Ambridge. Much of the action took place at the farm or in The Bull pub in the village. Some of the main early characters were Dan and Doris Archer, Jack and Peggy Archer, Doris and Jack Woolley, Ned Larkin, Tom Forrest, and of course that old favourite – ‘well me old pal, me old beauties’ – Walter Gabriel.
Who could ever forget the happy-go-lucky ‘maypole dance’ theme tune entitled Barwick Green?
Beyond Our Ken (1958–64) BBC Light Programme (1950s). This comedy show starred Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick and Bill Pertwee. Barry Took and Eric Merriman wrote the 1950s’ scripts and Douglas Smith played the very formal announcer. It reappeared as Round the Horne in 1965–8.
The Billy Cotton Bandshow (1949–68) BBC Light Programme (1950s). The dreaded shout of Billy Cotton’s ‘Wakey! Wakey!’ each Sunday afternoon sent a shiver down every child’s spine. This music and comedy show presented by the larger-than-life bandleader, Billy Cotton, also featured Alan Breeze, Doreen Stephens and Kathie Kay. Its lifespan indicates that it was very popular with listeners, but I am not sure that there was ever a poll done of children’s views.
Pete Murray presented Six-Five Special live music show on BBC TV in 1957/8, and in 1958 he lent his name to this songbook, which gave the words of sixteen current songs. The songbook came free with Roxy, ‘the new exciting all-star picture love story weekly’.
Children’s Favourites (1954–67) BBC Light Programme (1950s). Every Saturday morning, Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac) would play a selection of children’s record requests, starting each programme with the words, ‘Hello children, everywhere!’ Among the most popular record requests from children were The Laughing Policeman by Charles Penrose, Buttons and Bows by Dinah Shore, The Runaway Train by Michael Holliday, When You Come to the End of a Lollipop by Max Bygraves, Nellie the Elephant by Mandy Miller, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat by Mel Blanc, The Bee Song by Arthur Askey, How Much is that Doggy in the Window by Lita Roza, The Ugly Duckling by Danny Kaye, The Hippopotamus Song by Flanders and Swann, Little White Duck by Danny Kaye, The Deadwood Stage by Doris Day, My Old Man’s a Dustman by Lonnie Donegan, The Teddy Bear’s Picnic by Henry Hall, Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter Paul and Mary, Que Será Será by Doris Day. There were just too many regular children’s favourites to mention them all. Most children just wrote to the show in the hope of getting their name read out on the radio by Uncle Mac, thereby obtaining full bragging rights in the playground on the following Monday morning!
Children’s Hour (1922–64) BBC Home Service (1950s). Broadcast from 5pm to 6pm on weekdays. It was filled with stories, plays and drama serials, as well as informative talks, children’s newsreels and competitions. The various presenters included Derek McCulloch, ‘Uncle’ Arthur Burrows, ‘Auntie’ Violet Carson, Jon Pertwee and Wilfred Pickles. Popular serials included Jennings at School, Just So Stories for Little Children, Sherlock Holmes, Worzel Gummidge and Winnie the Pooh.
The Clitheroe Kid (1957–72) BBC Light Programme (1950s). This was a long-running situation comedy programme, featuring the diminutive Northern comedian, Jimmy Clitheroe, who played the part of a cheeky schoolboy. Amazingly, Jimmy Clitheroe was already an experienced thirty-five-year-old comedy actor when The Clitheroe Kid was first launched on radio in 1957. Famous celebrities that appeared in the 1950s’ programmes included Judith Chalmers, Bob Monkhouse and Violet Carson (best known for her role as Ena Sharples in Coronation Street).