The 1970's: Part Four - Work, Rest, and Play

The 1970's are remembered by some as a sort of Golden Age in England. Although the music was good, the 1970's was a decade that style forgot when it came to fashion, and one  probably best remembered for the Winter of Discontent, rampant inflation, unparalleled industrial strife, IRA atrocities, and Britain being dubbed 'The Sick Man of Europe.' It was the decade of my teenage years, and although there is much to look back on with fondness, there was much about the 1970's that was a struggle and not all that pleasant. The decade was one of change and transition, for the country and for me

In the classic episode of Hancock's Half Hour, Sunday Afternoon At Home, Hancock laments that Sundays in England are boring. "It's not like this on the continent," he says, "it's their big day over there, all the cafes open, football matches and race meetings, everybody's gay, ha, ha, ha, ha. Not over here though. Everything's shut up." That was broadcast in the 1950's, but Sundays in England were still the same in the 1970's. Just about the only shops open were the newsagents - and they closed at lunchtime - and the pubs, having opened at noon, closed between two o'clock and seven. 

Most Sunday mornings my Dad and I would go for a walk while Mum prepared the lunch. Strangely, we often seemed to arrive at The Orange Tree pub at about noon, when they opened. My Dad would get a pint and buy me a lemonade or a Coke - a rare treat in those days - although by the time I was about fourteen, he would get me a cider, which I would consume surreptitiously in the pub garden.

Sunday afternoons were as boring as Tony Hancock suggests. Television - and we had just the three channels then - seemed to consist of an unremitting diet of old films, religious programmes like Songs of Praise, and gardening programmes, such as Percy Thrower's Gardeners' World. The films always seemed to be Westerns or war films; 633 Squadron and The Dambusters appeared to be permanent fixtures in the schedules. Even though by 1970 a quarter of a century had passed since the end of hostilities, the Second World War seemed to have a significant effect on people still, although for many, like my parents, there was some justification as they had, after all lived through it and in my Dad's case, been a combatant.* Mind you, even today many people, most of whom were not born till long after it, still invoke that conflict, for instance when England play Germany at football, or during Brexit negotiations.

The decade was one of great change for me, as I began the decade at secondary school, took O levels and A levels, and started work. Despite the fact that unemployment reached one million in 1972 - the first time since the 1930's - and had reached 1.5 million by 1978 - when I left school in 1976, it seemed that getting a job was relatively straightforward. In part, this was because many industries - including banking - were labour intensive; automation and computerisation had not yet taken hold and banks, insurance companies and the like took on large numbers of school-leavers every summer. I had two interviews and accepted a job with Midland Bank. Inflation was still a major problem - it reached 24% in 1975 - and large pay rises were the norm, in fact between my accepting the job with Midland and starting work, I received a pay rise of 20%. Having money was something of a novelty for me, although being used to doing without, I remained quite frugal for a while, more regular socialising put a bit of dent in my budget as Friday and Saturday evenings in the pub became part of my routine.

From school...

...to work.

The 1970's were my first experience of commuting. When I was transferred from my first Midland Bank branch at Gants Hill to Queen Victoria Street in the City of London, I had to use the railway regularly for the first time. Liverpool Street Station, where my train from Romford terminated, was dirty and dingy, still smoke-stained from the age of steam, not at all like the light and airy terminus it is today, while the trains were unreliable and decrepit (regular commuters today might think that little has changed).

Liverpool Street Station circa 1970

Romford Station in the 1970's. The sign "Frequent Electric trains To London"
was a hangover from the days when steam was being replaced.

While Sundays were boring, Saturdays were the day of the week I looked forward to the most, and the reason was football. I had started watching Romford FC in the late 1960's, and in the 1970's my Saturday afternoons were spent on the terraces at Brooklands watching my heroes in Blue and Gold.  In 1972 I started going to away games when money would allow- a trip to Wimbledon's old ground at Plough Lane was my first -and once I had started work and had more funds, went on the Supporters' Club coach to most Saturday away matches. Football, and going to pubs, were my normal social outlets, but the mid-1970's were a difficult time for my football club, which had spent heavily on the ground in a bid to gain promotion from the Southern League to the Football League during the 1960's, a gamble that did not pay off. Saddled with huge debts and falling attendances, the club sold their ground, pinning their hopes on a new stadium, which never materialised. In 1978 Romford FC played their last game and folded. Having the club one has always supported suddenly go out of business is almost like a bereavement. Initially, I flitted from game to game as a neutral, before eventually finding myself at Leyton Orient most weeks, and I was a season ticket holder there until Romford reformed.**

Romford FC 1973-74

Although football on Sundays was rare in the 1970's, cricket -in the form of the John Player Sunday League (JPL) - was a sport that thrived on the Sabbath. The JPL began in 1968, and along with the Gillette Cup and the Benson & Hedges Cup (B&H), limited overs cricket proved to be more popular in terms of attendances than the County Championship. Sunday League cricket at grounds all over Essex proved to be my introduction to the sport, and although Essex were usually among the also-rans in the Championship, they thrived in the one day game, winning the B&H in 1979 (their success in the one day game was accompanied by their winning the County Championship in the same year).

Getting tickets for that B&H Final proved to be a bit of a trial. Essex sold their entire allocation to Members, and I wasn't one. The venue - Lords - had none for sale, but more in hope than expectation, I phoned Surrey, who were Essex's opponents, who miraculously had plenty spare. I think about a dozen of us got tickets through them and went to the game. By coincidence, the day of the final was also the day on which I took my first holiday without my parents - a week at a B&B in Hove - and most of us who had been at Lords took the train from Victoria to the South Coast after the final.

Perhaps the most significant change that the country underwent in the 1970's came in the last year of the decade, when, on 4th May 1979, a Conservative government under the nation's first female Prime Minister was elected. Margaret Thatcher - until then best known as The Milk Snatcher for ending free school milk for children over the age of seven in 1971 - is revered by some, reviled by many. Whatever one may think of her, she had a profound effect on the nation and the changes that ensued in the next decade.   

The Conservatives swept to power in 1979, playing on fears of mass unemployment under Labour.

For all that the 1970's were a struggle at times and for all the shortages, looking back I can see that I had a lot of fun too. I had money for the first time, I had many friends with whom to share my interests, and apart from work, I had few responsibilities. The 70's weren't so bad after all.

---

* In 1992, the club was reformed, entering the Essex Senior League, and is still in business. The last twenty-seven years have been spent sharing grounds with other clubs, although a ground of their own is planned, but is still some way off being built. See https://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.com/2013/04/romford-1-manchester-united-0.html

** See  https://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.com/2013/06/through-france-on-cheese-sandwich_5.html