Morning in the Streets (1959 TV Movie) User Reviews

Times have changed - hopefully

[chrischapman-47545 · 7/10 · 16 May 2020]

A portrayal of life in a poor slum (for want of a better word) in Liverpool. Living conditions sixty years ago were very grim although there were very few cars in the streets and children were able to play outside and go to/from school unaccompanied. An important documentary with footage of a life that was about to change substantially in the 1960's.

Real Post-War Life

[TondaCoolwal · 10/10 · 1 March 2021]

When watching this documentary, I was impressed by the raw honesty of the film makers of the BBC Northern Film Unit. At the time it was made, practically everything from the BBC was frightfully middle-class or patronizingly intellectual. Here we have real working-class people in real working-class situations. Although I will also admit that I like it since it parallels my own childhood to some extent. The half-demolished streets of dilapidated terraced houses were a familiar sight right up to the early seventies. And the people who occupied the houses seem equally dilapidated. One lady, complaining about the state of her house, tells us she is aged 61, but she looks about 80. Another lady of a similar age, and with a world-weary demeanour, stoically relates the story of her saying goodbye to her husband in The Great War, never to see him again. There is even a pathetic example of snobbery, when a man refers to himself as "upper working class", despising the perceived degeneracy of the "lower working class." There is however, hope. Portrayed by the boisterous, joyful children of the baby-boomer generation, playing happily together on the streets and in swarming school playgrounds. Boys pick sports team sides and the girls play singing games which appear quaint now but which were once a vital part of childhood. I know these children, they were my schoolmates. Now in their seventies , I wonder what they think of themselves on screen? By the time this film was released my family had been moved out of the Victorian slums into the paradisaic brave new world of a newly built council estate. However, since whole neighborhoods were rehoused, the sense of community was transferred also. This tended to remain the case until later prosperity made everyone rather more self-centric. Watch this documentary to see how things were. Then decide for yourself whether things have got better or not.