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(JAZZ)
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This is a tremendous moment.
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The war is over.
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I cry a little.
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I think of my dearest friends,
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of those men fighting
in the services I've known.
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Piccadilly was already
a seething mass of people.
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The hoarding around Eros
was crowded with young people,
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mainly from the Forces.
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People were everywhere.
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On shop fronts, up lamp standards,
singing and shouting.
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00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:07,080
I can remember my father taking me
to school one day.
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There was a house absolutely flat
on the floor
14
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:14,730
and a woman standing outside and saying,
"I only washed my windows yesterday."
15
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,570
The nurses' home was hit in 1940.
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00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:27,280
Then again in 1941,
the whole hospital was hit
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00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,120
and it was completely destroyed.
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The main surgeon, Mr Grey, he was killed
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and quite a few
of the doctors and nurses.
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00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:41,570
And two wards of maternity
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00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,520
with about 50 babies and mothers
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and other casualties as well.
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I always... Every 3rd of May,
I could go over it again.
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00:03:06,520 --> 00:03:09,520
# When we go strolling
in the park at night #
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# All the darkness is a boon #
26
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,810
# Who cam if we're without a light #
27
00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:20,040
# They can't black out the moon #
28
00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:23,800
# I see you smiling
in the cigarette glow #
29
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:27,650
# Though the picture fades too soon #
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00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:28,720
# But I see all... #
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# Kiss me once
Then kiss me twice #
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# Then kiss me once again #
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# It's been a long, long time #
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# Haven't felt like this, my dear #
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# Since can't remember when #
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# It's been along... #
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Underlying our joy and thankfulness,
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there is one uneasy question.
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What about the future?
What will happen now'?
40
00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:58,480
Will we, the people
who have won the war,
41
00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:00,480
drive home our victory against fascism
42
00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:04,170
By defeating our pre-war enemies
of poverty and unemployment?
43
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,040
I think the expectation was,
44
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:12,810
'We are not going back
to the Britain of the 1930s."
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00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:14,840
'We're..." It was "never again".
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It wasn't only "never again" about war.
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It was "never again"
about that kind of peace
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where everything was run by rich people
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for rich people.
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00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:28,320
The mood among
the people that I was with
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00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:33,320
was that basically it was them and us.
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00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:36,960
The officers were
on one side of the barrier
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00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,690
and we were
on the other side of the barrier.
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00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,480
People were all very much afraid
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00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:46,480
that what happened
after the First World War
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00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:51,360
would happen after the second, which was
enormous poverty and adversity.
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00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:56,050
I mean, I worked with people in the last
war who, basically between the wars,
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00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:58,930
had gone long periods
without any jobs at all.
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00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:05,530
I don't think people were greedy
for a lot of things those days.
60
00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:07,640
They just wanted to live peaceful,
have a job,
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00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:10,560
have children and have a home life.
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00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:16,200
I think just everybody wanted a good
home life with their families, you know.
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00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:25,920
I was born 87 years ago
in the slums of Liverpool
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00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:27,730
off Great Homer Street,
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00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:29,690
a street called Mellor Street.
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00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:32,520
I was one of eight children.
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00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:36,440
And we slept five in a bed.
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In my bed there was three lads
and two girls.
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00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:46,050
We got into bed of a night
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with a bed full of vermin.
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When I say full of vermin,
I mean the bugs.
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The fleas were in hundreds in the beds.
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And we got in the beds.
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00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:08,120
There was nothing we could do about it
because they were in the building,
75
00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:12,040
behind the wallpaper,
in the skirting boards.
76
00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,810
And we just got in that bed
and lived with them.
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00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,640
And next morning
when we went to school,
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we would have the cane
for having dirty knees.
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00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:27,360
Every Monday morning,
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we were meant to take the bundles
up to the pawn shops,
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which were in the city area.
82
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And I'd get on the trams
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and the tram conductor would say,
"Dalgleish is the next stop."
84
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"Browns. I'll be at Browns
giving a good price today, ladies."
85
00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:53,320
And when it got to the terminus,
he'd say, "All away, Poverty Park
86
00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:56,970
And it really was a poverty park.
87
00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:04,570
The '30s for me, I can remember
quite vividly, was no shoes on my feet.
88
00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:08,530
Having spoonfuls of malt,
this horrible malt,
89
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,440
when we went into school
to try and stop the rickets.
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00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:16,120
And coming home from school
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00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:17,240
and you could smell some food
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coming from somewhere.
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00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:23,840
Then all we used to have was a bowl
of com flakes or something like that.
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00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:28,320
Coming home in the evening,
you'd probably have a big, big plate
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full of swedes and potatoes
with no meat.
96
00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,760
They didn't have a carpet on the floor.
97
00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:39,240
And when we used to visit,
they'd scrubbed the floorboards.
98
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:41,240
And if they'd just scrubbed
the floorboards,
99
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they actually literally had
paper down on the floor.
100
00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:46,960
My grandfather's suit had to go
101
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into the pawn shop on the Monday,
102
00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:55,520
in order that they had
some money not only to live,
103
00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:59,400
but also for the youngest son,
vino had a kidney complaint,
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00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:01,290
to pay for his doctor's fees.
105
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:04,240
Then they'd get it out again
when he got his money on a Friday,
106
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,080
so that he could wear his suit
to go to the pub.
107
00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:10,000
Bread and jam
was the usual thing they had.
108
00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:11,960
They talk about bread and dripping.
109
00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:13,850
You had to have beef to make dripping,
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00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:16,730
so the chances of having dripping
were remote.
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00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,450
It was more often than not
bread and jam.
112
00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:24,520
In our house there was
three children died
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between the ages of...
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...two and four.
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Two died at the same time.
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And I can recall
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putting two coffins across our knees
in a one-horse coach...
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00:08:46,560 --> 00:08:50,410
...and the one-horse coach
taking us to the cemetery.
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00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:53,160
And as I recall,
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00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:58,850
them two coffins went on top
of other coffins at the cemetery.
121
00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:05,570
The other thing
I can remember about the '30s
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00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:06,720
was the long periods
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00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:11,400
when, because of the militancy,
they closed the pit down altogether
124
00:09:11,400 --> 00:09:15,200
and we had to go
picking coal off the tips.
125
00:09:16,360 --> 00:09:18,930
My grandfather and my father,
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00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:21,000
when they heard the steam engine,
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00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:25,770
the steam train passing, they would
come out to the back of the house
128
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,730
to count the number of trucks
that were going up to the colliery
129
00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:32,570
because with that knowledge
they would know then
130
00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:37,280
whether they had work for a day or two
or for the week.
131
00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,360
They used to call it the umbrella pit
132
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because it was
constantly opening and closing.
133
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:50,810
My father took me
down to see the dole queue in Liverpool
134
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,720
and then he walked me
the full length of it.
135
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:57,440
Then he walked me back
so I could see all their faces.
136
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:01,320
And he said, "Now, remember that."
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00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:04,210
"Remember that and don't let it happen
in your day."
138
00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:08,930
And I was ten.
139
00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:20,480
We went to all the meetings
in those days.
140
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:23,400
They were mostly out in parks
or street corners.
141
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:28,240
And I got quite used to it,
142
00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:33,040
so I was really pretty well educated
as regards politics.
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00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:35,650
What really matters
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00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:38,880
is who controls industry
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00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,600
and the result of industry.
146
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:42,800
Hear, hear.
147
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:47,440
This rubbish about
the banking system is the greatest.
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00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:48,400
Hear, hear.
149
00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:52,280
You don't make money,
you don't make wealth
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00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,130
by passing bits of paper to one another.
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00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:59,890
Close up the ranks. Fall in.
152
00:10:59,960 --> 00:11:04,650
Join the great army
of the children of the night
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00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:08,560
marching to the conquest of the future.
154
00:11:08,560 --> 00:11:11,480
Marching to build Jerusalem
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00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:14,800
in England's green and pleasant land.
156
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:16,880
(CROWD CHEERS)
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00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:19,930
I was 25 years of age...
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00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:25,840
...when I read my first book,
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.
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00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:28,690
It just completely changed my life.
160
00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:35,360
I couldn't sleep after reading
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.
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I just thought, what fools everyone are.
162
00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:43,010
How we've all been taken in
and we're still being taken in.
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00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:48,080
We're just sucked into a false life
of what it's all about.
164
00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:53,600
When we were living in the slums
off Great Homer Street,
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00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:56,410
we were the greatest empire
in the world.
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00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:02,280
We had India, Africa, Canada, Australia.
167
00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:05,200
The greatest empire in the world.
168
00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:08,010
We were living
in the worst slums in Europe.
169
00:12:09,880 --> 00:12:13,890
My dad used to take
an orange box round to the docks
170
00:12:14,680 --> 00:12:17,720
and urge the dockers
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00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:20,560
to join a union, to band together
with all the other...
172
00:12:20,640 --> 00:12:24,360
"You'll never get anywhere
if you don't."
173
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,250
"You've got to be solid." You know.
174
00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:31,010
I was quite proud to go with him.
175
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I could hear the men saying,
"It's Johnny and the kid."
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00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,800
So I was quite proud
to be the kid with Johnny.
177
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:41,610
Well, I've been thinking
about the gaps between the houses.
178
00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:43,640
What comes down
has to go up again, you know.
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00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:48,360
Not like it used to be, I hope.
Not with all those slums and tenements.
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00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:49,400
That's just the point.
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00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:52,240
We've got to see
that the job's done decently this time.
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00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:56,080
Ya, but how? Do you think
we can do anything about it?
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00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:58,920
Well, why not?
If we can work together now
184
00:12:58,920 --> 00:13:00,880
to look after the lives
of the people here,
185
00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:03,850
I don't see why we couldn't work
together afterwards to clear up the mess
186
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:08,480
and help build a better world in which
these things can't possibly happen.
187
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:10,400
I'll second that.
188
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:13,360
It's people like us that have been doing
the work of the war,
189
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:18,080
and it's people like us that are going
to do the work of the peace.
190
00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:23,760
My mind goes back
to a meeting we had in a troop ship.
191
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:24,920
Then one lad got up.
192
00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:27,880
He said, "In the '30s,
we had mass unemployment."
193
00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:31,520
He said, "We don't have unemployment
in wartime."
194
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:34,400
He said, "if you can have
full employment killing Germans,
195
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:36,320
why can't you have full employment
196
00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:37,440
building homes, building houses,
197
00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:40,120
building schools, recruiting teachers,
198
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:42,090
recruiting nurses, recruiting doctors?"
199
00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:44,960
And that argument registered.
200
00:13:44,960 --> 00:13:47,840
We're starting something called ABCA.
201
00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:50,880
We're going to have an hour's discussion
every week on current affairs.
202
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:53,650
And it's going to come out
of working time.
203
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:58,480
If there is injustice, inequality,
ifs our fault for allowing it.
204
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:00,000
Why not write to your MP about it?
205
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:01,400
Yes, that's just it.
206
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:05,520
We've got a parliament
and it's up to us to say who goes there
207
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:07,760
and to make sure they do their job
when they get there.
208
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:12,000
"I am more and more suspicious
209
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:17,000
of the way this lecturing-to and
education of the forces racket is run."
210
00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:21,520
"I maintain most strongly
211
00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:27,290
that any of these subjects
which tend towards politics are wrong."
212
00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:29,200
"For the love of life,
213
00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:31,160
do do something about it
214
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:33,920
unless you want to have the creatures
215
00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:36,840
coming back all pansy pink."
216
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:41,760
The experience of the war
217
00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:46,320
taught people that when the stale needs
you lo be organised collectively,
218
00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:49,440
in fact, they'll force you into the army
to be organised collectively,
219
00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:51,320
and you can be incredibly powerful.
220
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:53,290
You can defeat fascism.
221
00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:56,000
And they came back
222
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,970
imbued with that spirit
of saying anything is possible.
223
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:06,760
Beveridge, a Liberal,
224
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:10,520
had been given the task
of looking at the world
225
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:12,360
after the war,
226
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:16,160
and he identified five giants.
227
00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:19,080
Poverty, unemployment, illness
and so on.
228
00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:21,960
Want must not be known again.
229
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:25,840
There must be no mass unemployment,
230
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,610
the giant evil of only yesterday.
231
00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:34,330
Ignorance, said Sir William,
no democracy can nowadays afford.
232
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,200
The evil of disease must be overthrown.
233
00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:40,280
The voluntary hospital
and the expensive nursing home
234
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,170
are not enough to maintain this nation
in good health.
235
00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:46,880
We are not fighting to preserve slums
236
00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:49,920
which breed our own diseases
just as swamps breed malaria.
237
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:52,730
No more generations
must be stunted in squalor.
238
00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:58,490
The Beveridge Report shows how to begin
overthrowing the five giant evils.
239
00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:00,370
It spurs us all to greater effort.
240
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:04,210
If we can produce so much for war,
much can be done for peace.
241
00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:11,770
You've got to realise
242
00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:14,800
there was only 21 years
between two wars.
243
00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:19,520
And most of the electorate
were well aware
244
00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:25,210
of the fact that after the
First World War, we had men out of work
245
00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:29,320
we had men standing on street corners
in blue uniforms
246
00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:34,040
with no leg or no arm,
something wrong,
247
00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:36,960
and there was no jobs for them.
248
00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:41,640
I don't think anybody
wanted to ever see that again.
249
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:42,640
Put Labour in.
250
00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:44,480
Vote Conservative.
251
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:45,610
Socialism must win.
252
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:47,360
Vote Liberal.
253
00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:48,360
I'm for Churchill.
254
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:49,400
Attlee's the man.
255
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,040
Posters to the right of them,
posters to the left of them,
256
00:16:57,040 --> 00:16:59,000
volley and thunder. On July 5th, the...
257
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,720
Partly, the Tory Party
was broken in its core
258
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:04,760
because of its attachment
to appeasement.
259
00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:07,680
So the coalition government,
Churchill,
260
00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:09,000
who comes to head in the war,
261
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:10,960
is actually a Labour administration
262
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:12,160
at its core.
263
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:15,360
"At its core" meaning the ministries
in charge of industry and employment
264
00:17:15,360 --> 00:17:17,890
and so forth are under Labour ministers.
265
00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:20,010
Churchill's at the head of this.
266
00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:21,960
Having come through the '30s
267
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:23,880
where there was mass unemployment,
268
00:17:23,880 --> 00:17:25,000
coming through the war years
269
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:26,800
where there was, you know,
270
00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:28,640
rationing and lack of food
271
00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:33,480
and where the housing standard
was very poor right across the country,
272
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,480
people who'd fought in the war,
273
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:39,200
people who'd supported the economy
in the war effort,
274
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:41,200
they were looking for some son of
275
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,080
if you like, it was
like a war or peace dividend.
276
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:46,810
Those were the key things
that they were looking for.
277
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,850
And that's what the Labour Party
Manifesto really addresses.
278
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:14,760
I mean, people looked back
at the years of the 1930s, the 1920s,
279
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:18,560
saw the mass unemployment,
the wars, the revolutions,
280
00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:22,400
the appearance of the dictators,
the misery that was caused
281
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:25,450
and said, you know, "There's something
about the system as it worked then
282
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:30,050
which was almost inescapable.
We've got to change it."
283
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:16,320
My father was not
an active trade unionist or anything.
284
00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:20,040
He got a map of the world and he put it
on the table and he said, "Look."
285
00:19:20,040 --> 00:19:22,850
He said, "They grow wheat here,
you get rubber from here,
286
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:26,760
you get oil from here
and you get fruit from here."
287
00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:30,680
"What we're looking for
is an integrated world system
288
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:33,520
where everybody has what they need
289
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,440
and everything is developed
for everybody."
290
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:39,200
I thought that was absolutely amazing.
291
00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:41,240
He said to me, "It's called socialism."
292
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:43,120
And, you know, as a kid of ten,
293
00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:46,010
I thought it was absolutely amazing
and I still do.
294
00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,010
All for one, one for all.
295
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,000
Well, ifs not greed.
296
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,920
No greed and selfishness.
297
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:50,250
Labour puts first things first.
298
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:55,000
Security from war, food, houses,
299
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:59,960
clothing, employment, leisure
and social security for all
300
00:20:59,960 --> 00:21:02,800
must come before the claims of the few
301
00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:06,680
for more rent, interest and profit.
302
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:11,680
We have shown that we can organise the
resources of the country to win the war.
303
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:14,410
We can do the same in peace.
304
00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:18,200
Churchill and the Tories
305
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,880
went so far as to print
tens of thousands of copies
306
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:23,960
of Friedrich von Hayek's
The Road to Serfdom
307
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,730
which is a book that basically says
308
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:28,680
if you start off interfering
309
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:30,560
with the economy just a little bit,
310
00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:32,520
if the government
just does just a little bit,
311
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:34,570
you set off down the road
towards totalitarianism.
312
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:38,240
You end up with Nazi Germany
or Stalinist Russia,
313
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:41,160
just by introducing
a little bit of welfare spending,
314
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,160
or maybe nationalising the odd industry.
The Tories printed this.
315
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:49,160
What a shame it would be
and what a folly to add to our load
316
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:55,600
the bitter quarrels
with which the extreme socialists
317
00:21:55,600 --> 00:22:00,600
are eager to convulse and exploit
these critical years.
318
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:05,160
For the sake of the country
and of your own happiness,
319
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:10,160
I call upon you to march with me
under the banner of freedom,
320
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:15,760
towards the beacon lights
of national prosperity and honour,
321
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:18,720
which must ever be our guide.
322
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,560
The election was fantastic.
During the war,
323
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:26,280
we'd always sat and listened
to Winston Churchill on the radio.
324
00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:29,080
Everybody did.
Everybody sat round the radio
325
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:30,440
and listened to Winston Churchill.
326
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,960
And as a kid, I mean, that was it to me.
He was the leader.
327
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:35,770
This was, you know, incredible.
328
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,760
And I say this is no time
to mince about,
329
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,530
to mince measures and fool around
with weak governments.
330
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:49,520
Therefore I say,
if you do not give a strong vote
331
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,170
to the National and Conservative
government, which I...
332
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:57,090
And then suddenly,
333
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,800
my family started talking
about something quite different.
334
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,520
We sat round and my father said
they were going to vote Labour.
335
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:08,520
And I asked, well, what did that mean?
336
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:12,280
He explained and I said, "Why aren't
you voting for Winston Churchill?"
337
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:16,210
And he said, "He got the guns out
to the Tonypandy miners."
338
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:25,080
I can only tell you
that an enormous mass of work...
339
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,330
(CROWD CHANTS)
340
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,160
And we campaigned
Number 10 Downing Street.
341
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:45,120
So, we went there and the whole
domestic staff were turned out.
342
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:47,040
It was like Upstairs, Downstairs.
343
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,810
And the butler said,
'We're all Conservative in this house."
344
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:54,650
The maid at the back
with the little bonnet said,
345
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:58,330
"And we'd lose our jobs if we weren't."
346
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,170
(NEWSREEL)
347
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:58,800
Labour will now have a majority
348
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:00,880
over all parties in a House of 640.
349
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:05,650
It was sensational.
350
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,560
Three weeks ago or more
when you recorded your votes,
351
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:12,360
very few of you would have prophesied
a working majority for Labour,
352
00:25:12,360 --> 00:25:14,410
much less one of about 200 seats.
353
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:19,040
Newspapers carried the astonishing news
to an amazed public.
354
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,010
Labour landslide.
355
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,840
On the polling day,
I went to Transport House,
356
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,680
into the little room where
we were watching the results.
357
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:35,680
On the epidiascope we saw
all the Conservative seats falling.
358
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,130
And it was obviously a landslide.
359
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:40,240
Then the door opened.
360
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:45,040
Out of the bright sunshine
into the dark room came Clem Attlee.
361
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,960
A BBC man said, "Will you say,
Three cheers for the Prime Minister?
362
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,800
And I was too shy to do that.
363
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:56,800
Then that evening, I went
to Central Hall, Westminster.
364
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,480
Attlee had just formed the government
and he brought them onto the stage.
365
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,240
I was up in the gallery.
366
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,120
And so it was
a very, very exciting period.
367
00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:11,120
This is the first time
in the history of this country
368
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:16,570
that a Labour movement
with a socialist policy...
369
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,010
(CHEERING)
370
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:26,520
I have this evening accepted
His Majesty's permission to form...
371
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:41,840
I ask from you all
support that we shall need
372
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:48,440
to carry us through, triumphantly,
through difficult years,
373
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,090
to the great era
which is opening before us.
374
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,920
It was a real triumphant day.
375
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:02,810
Everybody was joyous.
376
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,800
We had a little street party
where we were living.
377
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,640
It was a signal that things
were going to be different.
378
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:13,360
One wasn't going to be ruled
by old principles.
379
00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:18,080
There used to be messages coming down
on top of the empty drams
380
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:22,040
saying, "Labour seats here.
We won four seats."
381
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,760
All of a sudden he come out and said,
"Labour won a landslide victory."
382
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,840
And these hardened miners...
And they were a hard kin.
383
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,680
They were rough and they were tough
you know what I mean?
384
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,440
They would take anything
that the boss ever, ever threw at them,
385
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,290
but the tears were coming
down their cheeks, because...
386
00:27:39,360 --> 00:27:44,160
I said to my miner,
I said, "Well, what's the matter?"
387
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,800
He said, "At last. We are going to
take control of our own lives," he said.
388
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,760
"This new government
will make a change," he said.
389
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:53,560
There was no wild optimism,
390
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:55,680
at least not in the higher ranks
391
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,570
of the civil service and the government
392
00:27:58,360 --> 00:28:01,440
because everyone knew that we faced
393
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,080
an almost impossible economic situation.
394
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,200
The country had sold
all its foreign investments.
395
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,120
It had lost most of its ships,
396
00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:12,840
it had entirely run out of dollars
397
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,640
and industry was
about three-quarters engaged
398
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,680
in producing munitions of war
which you no longer wanted.
399
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,440
The economy had to grow
very, very rapidly
400
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:23,840
at the end of the Second World War.
401
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,200
If you could imagine
that only Britain and the United States,
402
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,090
it was only those countries' industrial
capacity that survived to any extent.
403
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,080
The rest had been razed to the ground
or had been dismantled
404
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,880
by the Nazis primarily.
405
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,800
So the world actually needed
a lot of manufactured goods to be made.
406
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,570
But Britain had gone through
a ten-year period of depression.
407
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,400
So, at the end of the war,
Britain had a very key role
408
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,320
to basically fill this gap
in products around the world.
409
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,120
And British industry
was very, very weak.
410
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,040
So the government decided
411
00:28:56,040 --> 00:29:00,000
that the key, if you like, inputs and
infrastructure that industry required
412
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,720
had to be nationalised
on a very large scale
413
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,760
to be able to step up that production.
414
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,600
We said we would bring the pits
into public ownership,
415
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,480
the railways into public ownership,
416
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:12,450
we would build up
the National Health Service,
417
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,200
we would build up industry generally,
418
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:21,000
and presented it in terms
of this list of objectives
419
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,080
you might have in wartime.
420
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,770
This is what you've got to do
and we'll do it.
421
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,730
And it was credible for that reason.
422
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,400
Of course for the Labour Party,
423
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:40,280
the natural language
424
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,120
for trade unionists
425
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,090
and for people struggling together
426
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,920
is that we should own things together.
427
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:48,760
It's not, "Let's fight each other
428
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:50,960
to see who can get on top
of the other one and benefit."
429
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,880
The Peasants' Revolt, 1381.
430
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,840
You have John Ball
who is a, you know, hedge priest,
431
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,760
a priest who's been basically
expelled from the state Church
432
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,480
but is continuing to preach
to the commonality.
433
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,440
He says that nothing
will go well in England
434
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,330
until all things are held in common.
435
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:29,120
It reoccurs in the 17th century
in the English Revolution
436
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,080
with the diggers who take over
St George's Hill in Surrey
437
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:36,040
and begin to till the land
as common land.
438
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,680
It reoccurs in the early stages
of the Industrial Revolution
439
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,600
when the utopian socialists
like Robert Owen set up factories.
440
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:47,360
He was himself a factory owner,
but he sets up a kind of model community
441
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,240
with the idea that it will have
all things held in common,
442
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,360
that there will be some degree
of control in it.
443
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:57,000
So all the way through human history,
in one guise or another,
444
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,000
this thought is
constantly being reiterated,
445
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:04,720
suppressed, goes underground,
explodes again in a different form.
446
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,440
In all their many jobs,
they are Britain.
447
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:10,520
Public services.
448
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,290
Manual workers.
449
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:15,250
Cleaners.
450
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,160
Caterers.
451
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:20,960
Street sellers.
452
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:23,770
Government workers.
453
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,690
Distributive trades.
454
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:28,810
Women workers.
455
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:31,480
Miners.
456
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,450
Transport drivers.
457
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,320
Steel men.
458
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:42,160
For seven years we, the people
of Britain, fought a war for mankind.
459
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,080
Today we fight for our own survival.
460
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,850
This battle also we shall win.
461
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,280
I can't recall properly
how we got medical attention.
462
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:08,050
I think there was a place we went to,
a dispensary.
463
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,800
It was a huge place and there was always
a queue there every time you went.
464
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,680
A dispensary of some sort.
465
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,650
And you got
some son of medicines there.
466
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,570
But obviously it wasn't working...
467
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:29,120
...because funerals
were always going about.
468
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,200
Well, before the health service,
469
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,960
money was the prime mover,
470
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:35,000
or lack of it.
471
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:36,730
I think a farm worker
472
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:37,880
got six shillings a week.
473
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,680
He would probably
pay a shilling rent on that.
474
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,570
That left him very, very little,
and most had large families.
475
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,480
The money was not there,
so they turned to folk remedies.
476
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,320
"Oh, my grandma knows
what to do with that," type thing.
477
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,320
For instance, tonsillitis,
478
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:54,160
they'd get someone
479
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,960
that had got sweaty socks,
480
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:58,800
and something out of the sweat,
481
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,880
they'd put round their neck
and that was supposed to cure them,
482
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:06,650
but quite often
it resulted in ear infection.
483
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,480
For the working man
or the working woman,
484
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,200
there was
National Health insurance cover.
485
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:18,010
The panel.
You got onto the doctor's list.
486
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:19,200
Your family did not.
487
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:23,960
Your family might be covered
by some son of little insurance scheme:
488
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,960
The Hospital Saturday Fund
or sixpence or a shilling a week
489
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,570
that you paid for each in the hope that,
if anything did happen,
490
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:38,210
you'd be able to get
some son of cover for care.
491
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,170
You had to pay. And...
492
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,880
My mother was quite sick at the time.
493
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,760
My father was having to go to work
in agony, needing surgery,
494
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,600
but because they didn't pay sick pay...
495
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,570
This was before the railways
were nationalised.
496
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,520
They didn't pay sick pay,
so he was going to work in agony
497
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:03,360
to pay five shillings for the doctor
to put his foot on that doormat.
498
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:07,160
That was before you got any help,
you know,
499
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,000
advice on what was wrong with you
or anything.
500
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,850
But the so-and-so knew
my mother was dying,
501
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,610
so kept coming back
for his five shillings.
502
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,560
The doctors were private people.
503
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:24,400
They used to come and visit you.
504
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,040
They'd charge you
maybe half a crown a visit.
505
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,680
Then they'd probably charge you
half a crown for a bottle of medicine
506
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:32,800
or something of that kind.
507
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,080
And very often you'd got,
508
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,760
say, three or four in a family
509
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:39,800
that wanted treatment at the same time,
510
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:41,760
well, the doctor would do it on credit
511
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:46,450
and then he would often double up
as a credit collector.
512
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,320
We used to have collectors
513
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,200
who used to come on a Friday
at half past three,
514
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,080
ready to get out on the streets
by four o'clock.
515
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,080
The secret was to get the collector
into the patient's home
516
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,810
before the insurance agent arrived,
517
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,450
because if they paid
the insurance agent first,
518
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,480
there was never any money left
for the doctors' collector.
519
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,440
So you would occasionally go to a house,
520
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,200
walk up to the door.
521
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:12,160
You could hear life going on
522
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,080
behind the door.
523
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,040
And as soon as you knocked at the door,
dead silence.
524
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,680
Dead silence and you thought,
"I'm sure I heard somebody."
525
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,600
Knock again, still dead silence.
526
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:28,400
On one occasion, a little girl
eventually came to the door and said,
527
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,320
"My mum says she's not in."
528
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,360
My mother was on her tenth child
529
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,000
and she sent me up to get the nurse.
530
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,960
I run up and get the nurse because
every child had to be born at home.
531
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:45,960
She came down and I could just hear
mumbling and going on up there.
532
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:47,720
I heard the baby crying.
533
00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:52,560
Then the next thing, I see my mother
being carried downstairs on a stretcher.
534
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:56,320
And my brothers was crying.
535
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,200
Optimistic, I said,
"Our mam is going to be alright."
536
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,000
"Don't worry about Mam. Mam is good."
537
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,000
And as she went past,
she just squeezed my hand.
538
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,640
Somehow I knew things weren't right
and she...
539
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:16,720
I came home from school that day
and my cousin had come round to me.
540
00:36:16,720 --> 00:36:20,610
He put his arm round me
and he said, "Ray, Mam is dead."
541
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:24,320
And of course I cried my eyes out.
542
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,240
And what really
set the fire going inside me
543
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:31,160
was when my father was also crying.
544
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,080
The doctor put his hand out
and he said, "George," he said,
545
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,840
"Winnie died," he said,
for the want of a pint of blood
546
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,680
And he said,
'Winnie died for a hospital bed."
547
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:45,450
He said, "Winnie died
for the want of an abortion."
548
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,080
I ran up to the mountain
with my mother's bonnet,
549
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:50,960
and I said to that God up there;
550
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:53,840
Because we all went to chapel;
We were strong chapel;
551
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:55,800
"If you're a decent God up there,"
I said,
552
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,760
"my mam was
the most wonderful woman in the world."
553
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,520
My brothers and sisters have just been
dragged off to the orphanage."
554
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:04,520
"Give us our mam back.
Give me my family back."
555
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,640
I genuinely believed
when I went to bed that night
556
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:08,640
that my mam would come back
the next morning.
557
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,480
From that point on, I was an atheist,
558
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:16,200
because I realised
that the only thing,
559
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:20,090
the only persons that could improve
the situation was ourselves.
560
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,450
This leaflet is coming
through your letterbox one day soon,
561
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,170
or maybe you've already had your copy.
562
00:37:39,240 --> 00:37:41,050
Read it carefully.
563
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,960
It tells you what
the new National Health Service is
564
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,920
and how you can use what it offers.
565
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:53,800
Hospitals and specialist services,
medicines, drugs and appliances,
566
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,640
care of the teeth, care of the eyes,
567
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,360
maternity services,
home health services.
568
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:02,400
The grand ambition really
569
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:07,120
was to provide healthcare as necessary
to the public at large.
570
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,080
It was very exciting, you know.
571
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,760
One knew that there wasn't
very much stuff around to do it with.
572
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:14,800
We had old stock,
573
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:15,880
the hospitals,
574
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,680
we had very maldistributed
medical services across the country.
575
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:21,400
There were some areas
576
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,330
which were very poorly supplied
with hospital services.
577
00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:29,200
Bevan was an extraordinary man.
578
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,080
He nationalised the whole damn lot.
579
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:37,880
Everything that claimed to be
a hospital was nationalised,
580
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:42,680
which was not at all what the
Labour Party had expected or voted for.
581
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:47,520
They had all expected
for the hospitals to be owned and run
582
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,130
by local authorities,
by local government.
583
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:53,280
He made a lot of enemies that way.
584
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,000
But you, the public,
585
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,080
are interested in health no less
than doctors and in health services too.
586
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,800
We all want better health services
and better health,
587
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:02,920
but in organising them,
588
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:07,480
let's make sure that your doctor
doesn't become the state's doctor.
589
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,360
Nye Bevan was demonised,
590
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:13,360
as I'm sure you're well aware.
591
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,320
The British media have a way
of picking on somebody
592
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,040
and turning them into a demon.
593
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,080
They were aided and abetted in that
by the BNIA
594
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,970
who regarded him as evil incarnate.
595
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,600
It's obviously quite a job
596
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,560
sending out the BMA plebiscite
to 56,000 doctors
597
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,440
asking them, roughly speaking, whether
they approve of Mr Bevan's scheme.
598
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,200
Lord Moran, as president
599
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,160
of the Royal College of Physicians,
600
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,960
did the deal with Nye Bevan
which brought the NHS into existence.
601
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,800
He managed to persuade Bevan
602
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:56,600
to drop the notion of a salaried service
for general practitioners.
603
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:01,280
That sort of killed a lot of the fear
amongst general practitioners.
604
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:03,360
But he also got the agreement
605
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,130
to allow private practice
to continue for the consultants
606
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,840
and also for merit awards
and various other things,
607
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:12,840
which, as you may recall,
608
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:17,840
enabled Nye Bevan to say shortly
afterwards when asked how he'd done it,
609
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,530
"I stuffed their mouths with gold."
610
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:26,480
Well, this is the
birth of the National Health Service.
611
00:40:27,240 --> 00:40:32,240
This is Nye Bevan
and the matron, Anne Dolan,
612
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:37,800
walking from the main building
down towards a gate.
613
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:42,640
They said this was
handing over the key of the hospital.
614
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,560
There wasn't a key handed over.
615
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:49,440
It was just... That was just the way
they said the health service was born.
616
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:51,280
The thing that stands out,
617
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,280
it sounds so petty, this,
but we had jam scones for tea.
618
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,920
Do you remember that?
Each and every one of us.
619
00:40:57,920 --> 00:40:58,970
Food was still rationed.
620
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,760
We had jam scones for tea
and, oh, dear God, that was marvellous.
621
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:08,520
I never met the man myself, but I do
realise that he was a visionary.
622
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:13,240
He was very, very passionate
about this vision of his.
623
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:18,440
I admire anyone who can take
and drive through a scheme that big,
624
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:21,080
countrywide.
625
00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:29,680
People don't have
to worry about being ill.
626
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:30,760
When they are ill,
627
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:35,400
they know that they will get
the best possible impartial treatment,
628
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,400
because there's no commercial element
629
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,080
to the relationship
between a doctor and a patient.
630
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:43,160
So if you go to your doctor
631
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,000
you know the advice that you get
632
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:46,920
will be based on
633
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,760
what's best for you clinically.
634
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,800
It won't be about selling you care
if you can afford it
635
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,640
or withholding care from you
if you can't afford it.
636
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,480
I'd been to see a family
637
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:04,480
in which there was a child
that was coughing, pretty sick.
638
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,120
So I left a bottle of medicine,
as one did in those days.
639
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,840
I came back the next day
and the mother met me at the door.
640
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:14,720
I said, "Hows little Johnny?"
641
00:42:14,720 --> 00:42:16,760
And she said, "Oh, he's fine."
642
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:21,400
I heard a lot of coughing and
spluttering at the top of the stairs.
643
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,360
I said,
"He doesn't sound terribly good."
644
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,320
'Would you like me to go up
and see him?"
645
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:27,480
She said, 'Well, Doctor, no,
646
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,280
it's not Johnny,
ifs Bill, his brother."
647
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,120
"I've given him some of the medicine
that you left for Johnny."
648
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:34,960
I said, "Well, let me go up
and see him."
649
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:38,720
She said, "I'm sorry, Doctor.
We can't afford it."
650
00:42:38,720 --> 00:42:43,720
And I said, "Today, July 5th,
it'll cost you nothing."
651
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:50,290
And I was able to go up and I've never
forgotten that moment in my life.
652
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:52,080
Dentures.
653
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,120
Of course, dentistry was free
under the NHS initially.
654
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:58,080
It jolly well ain't now, as I know it.
655
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,960
But I think that was it.
There was this huge surge.
656
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,840
People got spectacles
for the first time in their lives.
657
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,640
I actually know one old man
who carried it around with him.
658
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,480
It was the bottom of a bottle
a glass bottle.
659
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:15,240
He used to use that
as a spyglass to read with.
660
00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:18,960
He got his first pair of specs
when he was about 70.
661
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,800
Julian Tudor Hart
is an extraordinary GP.
662
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,690
He works in a small mining village
in the Welsh valleys called Glynncorrwg.
663
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,410
There he revolutionised the way
GPs provide care for their patients.
664
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:36,360
They identified all those people
665
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,280
who they knew needed looking after.
666
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,280
The people with high blood pressure.
667
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,960
So they made a register
and they called them in.
668
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,000
Instead of saying,
"Come back when you feel sick,"
669
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:48,960
they said,
"I'm going to see you regularly
670
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:50,840
and sort your blood pressure out."
671
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:55,640
By so doing, they reduced the deaths
by complications by nearly 50 percent.
672
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:00,240
Ever since then,
we've had proactive healthcare.
673
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,080
I think
we can use the health service
674
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:07,160
as a model for socialism.
675
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,920
I think we can learn how to be socialist
in the health service.
676
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,920
I think the health service,
a free service where we pool the risks
677
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:20,560
so that everybody feels responsible
for everybody else,
678
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,400
we are our brothers' keepers
and our sisters' keepers.
679
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:26,360
- Hiya, Tom.
- Good morning, Doc.
680
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:27,360
How are you?
681
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,200
I think my chest
is worse than usual.
682
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,600
I think I caught a cold. I'm full up.
683
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:33,600
Feeling comfortable
684
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,890
with being your brother's
and your sister's keeper
685
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:37,800
is very, very important.
686
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:39,760
It means you are
a more civilised country.
687
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:44,480
I am very proud that our country
produced the National Health Service.
688
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:45,560
If I were an American,
689
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,360
I would be ashamed
that I live in such a rich country
690
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,080
that still can't afford
to have generous ideas.
691
00:44:57,960 --> 00:44:59,920
Well, there'd been a debate
692
00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:02,840
going on for almost 40 years
693
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:07,600
about the benefits
of nationalisation of the railways.
694
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:12,320
They saw the waste
and the duplication of railway lines
695
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,320
and the bureaucracy
of the private companies
696
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:19,960
and said that society would benefit
from public ownership.
697
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,040
It formed a sort of unstoppable argument
698
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:24,960
to say that the railways
699
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:26,800
had to be nationalised
700
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:28,720
for the public interest
701
00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:32,480
and also in order
to rebuild the country.
702
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,360
It was a queer system of working
703
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,360
because we could have a train
704
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:41,250
leave Exeter Central
705
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,970
going, say, down to North Devon,
706
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:47,840
and he could go down the bank
707
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:51,800
and stay there 45 minutes
for a pathway through Exeter St David's,
708
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:55,680
because the signalmen
on the Great Western
709
00:45:55,680 --> 00:46:00,680
were told to give preference
to the Great Western.
710
00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:05,240
You were working against each other.
711
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,120
The whole history
of the railways in Britain
712
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,960
is an example of why railways
are a natural monopoly.
713
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:13,880
Numerous railway lines were built,
714
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:15,850
often connecting
the same cities together.
715
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,640
Subsequently the companies
that owned them went bankrupt.
716
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:24,520
The clear lesson of that is that
the railways are a natural monopoly,
717
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:30,130
in the same way that providing
drinking water or providing electricity
718
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,480
or gas or any other utility item.
719
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:34,760
(NEWSREEL)
720
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,370
In 1947, by Act of Parliament,
721
00:46:38,720 --> 00:46:41,530
Britain set up
the British Transport Commission.
722
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,370
Its task:
To make all transport work as one.
723
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,400
Don't forget, it wasn't
the nationalisation of the railways.
724
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:54,080
It was public ownership
of all forms of transport,
725
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,080
which was road haulage,
it was airways,
726
00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:00,920
it was, you know, everything that...
and the canals, everything.
727
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,760
One of the first dramatic steps
728
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,600
was to get rid of something in Euston
called the clearing house
729
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:12,600
which was a huge office,
full of about 400 clerks
730
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,240
whose job was to pass chitties
from one to another
731
00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:21,040
representing charges
from one private railway company
732
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:22,960
on another private railway company
733
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,680
for use of their engines, their wagons,
their rolling stock,
734
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:30,680
their signal boxes,
whatever it might be.
735
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,410
So there was a sort of a paper economy
736
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:38,320
to represent the charges
and the notional costs
737
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,360
between the different
private railway companies
738
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:44,080
which employed
hundreds and hundreds of clerks
739
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,880
in essentially
a completely unnecessary task.
740
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:52,800
In 1948, with the creation
of the British Railways Board,
741
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,600
that clearing house was abolished
742
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:57,560
and those clerks went to do other jobs,
743
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,200
productive, socially useful jobs
in the railway industry.
744
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:10,120
The advertising department
seemed to have a heyday
745
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:12,880
because they recruited more staff
746
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,840
and they had ladders
and buckets of paste and so forth.
747
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,450
They were altering everything.
748
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:24,440
Wages increased under nationalisation.
749
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,200
Eventually, in the 1950s,
it brought about
750
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:32,080
probably the most important
industrial agreement in Britain
751
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:33,960
ever negotiated by trade unions,
752
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:35,040
which was an agreement
753
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:38,840
which effectively meant no compulsory
redundancies for railway workers.
754
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:42,720
# Without rhythm #
755
00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:46,400
# A train could never go without rhythm #
756
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,240
# A troop could never roll
without rhythm #
757
00:48:49,240 --> 00:48:51,200
# The day would never go because rhythm #
758
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,160
# Is the thing that makes
the world go round #
759
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:54,970
# Without rhythm #
760
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,960
# A poet couldn't rhyme without rhythm #
761
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,840
# Could never tell the time
without rhythm #
762
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,760
# Wouldn't hear the chime because rhythm #
763
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,640
# Is the thing that makes
the clock go round I
764
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:07,640
In the 1930s, first of all,
765
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:11,440
there was a tremendous depression
in the coalface.
766
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,360
The mines were run
by private enterprise.
767
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,200
They were opened and closed
at the drop of a hat.
768
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,960
Markets determined whether miners
worked or did not work
769
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,960
and it was a really, really bad period.
770
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:25,880
On the onset of war, obviously,
771
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,600
the government couldn't allow
these coal owners to run the mines
772
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:31,640
in the fashion they'd run them before,
773
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,480
not only opening and shutting,
but a lack of investment,
774
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,440
which showed tremendously up
775
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:40,280
the inadequacies of the industry.
776
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,160
The coal industry
was vital during the war.
777
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:46,000
That's why the government,
the National government,
778
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,770
had to take over
the control of the coalmines.
779
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,410
The priority was coal.
The priority was always coal.
780
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:07,160
You got paid for the number of drams,
coal tubs, that you filled per day.
781
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,960
You didn't get paid for putting props up
to keep the roof up.
782
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,880
And I was working with my miner
and he was a lovely guy.
783
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:18,600
I was looking at the top and I could see
that we hadn't got any posts up.
784
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:19,720
We should have put the posts up,
785
00:50:19,720 --> 00:50:23,480
but then the horse come up
with an empty tub.
786
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:27,200
They said if you can fill this quick,
we'll give you another one.
787
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:31,120
So, bugger the post, bugger the props,
smash into the coal.
788
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:35,000
And then all of a sudden,
down came the roof. Down came the roof.
789
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:39,760
Now, I was on the far end of it
and I got covered.
790
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:44,560
But when I looked up, I could see Fred.
I could see Fred.
791
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:48,320
He was under this huge rock
and his feet were kicking.
792
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:50,360
And I screamed and I run down.
793
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:53,120
I got the big, big wedge,
794
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,120
which we put in front of the drams
in case it runs away.
795
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:58,880
I ran up and I was screaming,
"Fred, Fred, Fred!"
796
00:50:58,880 --> 00:50:59,920
I tried to knock this.
797
00:50:59,920 --> 00:51:01,920
I was screaming all the time it happened
798
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:05,720
and the other miners
were all coming down.
799
00:51:05,720 --> 00:51:08,600
Eventually we picked it up,
but Fred was dead.
800
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:10,480
And why did he die?
801
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,400
He died because the priority was coal.
802
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:17,240
And the least priority of all
was safely.
803
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:24,840
There's only one word
to describe the coal owners.
804
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:27,810
They were tyrants. They were tyrants
who not only owned the mines,
805
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:30,920
they thought they owned
the people who worked in the mines.
806
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:33,520
And to a degree, they did.
807
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:38,520
A man's sons had been stealing apples
off a tree in the coal owner's grounds.
808
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,280
The man was dismissed
and thrown out of his house.
809
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:46,080
That was the type of people that were
running the mining industry in Durham.
810
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,960
Some were related to the royal family,
of all people.
811
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,760
The Bowes-Lyons
were big coal owners in Durham.
812
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:54,560
Lord Lambton
was a big coal owner in Durham.
813
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,440
Lord Londonderry
was a big coal owner in Durham.
814
00:51:57,440 --> 00:51:59,440
These people were there
for only one thing: Profit.
815
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,320
They made sure they got profit
816
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:05,160
and anyone who stood in their way
was treated very, very harshly.
817
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,080
When you look at Denaby
and Cadeby, what happened there.
818
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:09,920
They evicted all the miners
819
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:10,970
for withdrawing their labour.
820
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:12,840
The miners and their families.
821
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:13,960
Threw 'em out of their homes
822
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,760
just because they withdrew their labour
823
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,560
to increase the wages.
824
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:21,480
Them sort of people are despicable.
825
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:23,400
That is the right word, isn't it?
826
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:25,930
(NEWSREEL)
827
00:52:27,240 --> 00:52:29,120
One of the ceremonies
828
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,000
marking the transfer of the ownership
of British coalmines
829
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,080
took place on the roof
of Lansdowne House in London
830
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:38,720
where Lord Hyndley, the chairman,
hoisted the National Coal Board flag.
831
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:43,560
And so the mines
passed into national ownership
832
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:45,600
on the first day of the New Year.
833
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:48,480
Though nationalisation is,
of course, a long-term policy,
834
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:54,010
January 1st, 1947, was undoubtedly
the day the miners had been waiting for.
835
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,160
We had these fantastic speeches
836
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:57,960
and the cheers were going up.
837
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,000
"At last we're going
to have safety in the mine."
838
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,840
'We're going to have water infusion
in the colliery."
839
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,600
"Safety is going to be
the key priority. We have won."
840
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:09,560
And I thought, "What a wonderful day."
841
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:13,320
And everybody was cheering,
laughing, crying, dancing.
842
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:15,290
Even the wives were up there as well.
843
00:53:16,240 --> 00:53:19,160
At High Blantyre,
Lanarkshire, is Andrew McNulty,
844
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:21,880
veteran fighter for miners' rights
845
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:24,000
and contemporary of Bob Smillie
and William Small.
846
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,760
Above Dickson Pit
where his father and grandfather,
847
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:28,760
victims of two great disasters,
lie buried,
848
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,680
McNulty unfurls the flag
of the National Coal Board.
849
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:35,360
The ceremonies mark the taking over
of the mines by the nation.
850
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:39,240
When I was the youngest member
in 1947, they unveiled a plaque.
851
00:53:39,240 --> 00:53:41,240
They just sent for us down there.
852
00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:44,160
Never got nowt, like.
You had to still do the same shift.
853
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,000
My father had to come up with us.
854
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,000
My father thought
I'd done something wrong.
855
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:50,720
He said, "What have you been doing now?"
856
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:52,640
I says, "I haven't done owt wrong."
857
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:54,680
They took us up and unveiled the plaque.
858
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,450
They had the youngest member,
I was the youngest member,
859
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,290
and the oldest member,
somebody called Ford.
860
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,120
The atmosphere
wasn't quite the same this year.
861
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:09,120
For the first time,
the management was invited.
862
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:12,880
This was the first Durham rally since
the pits were handed to the people.
863
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:15,770
Coal Board representatives
took part in the celebrations.
864
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,170
The mines were now owned by the people
865
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,400
and run for and on behalf of the people.
866
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,320
The elderly miners, obviously,
it was their utopia.
867
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,280
They'd been promised this since 1919.
868
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,970
The whole country is watching
869
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:35,000
to see how this great new organisation,
870
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:39,800
this new adventure,
this new experiment, comes out.
871
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:44,520
The great experiment of socialism
in a democracy
872
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:45,570
depends on you.
873
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:52,480
The way nationalisation was done
was on a centralized system, top down.
874
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:56,040
The chairman of the National Coal Board
ran all the pits
875
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:58,040
in the way the private owner used to.
876
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:02,720
I'm not saying it wasn't
a better system, because it was.
877
00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:06,560
But at the same time the idea
that people vino worked in industry
878
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:11,440
had any say in how the industry was run
was a completely foreign idea.
879
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,360
I got myself well annoyed
I'll tell you for why.
880
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:17,160
A leopard cannot change its spots.
881
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:22,080
We had officials at this colliery
that still had that in their mind,
882
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,880
you know, that they
would not pull their weight
883
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,760
the same as they would
under private enterprise.
884
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,640
In fact, at a meeting
of the consultative committee,
885
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:34,400
I accused them of indirect sabotage
of production
886
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:36,360
since the mines were nationalised.
887
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:40,160
And I say the best thing we could have
done when the mines was nationalised,
888
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,120
put them into a boat with a false bottom
and put them into North Sea
889
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:46,880
and let them swim back.
That's what they should have done.
890
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:51,880
Now, the first humiliation I ever got
was our own agent and manager.
891
00:55:53,720 --> 00:55:56,480
I'm going to quote his name
on this incident.
892
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:57,560
He was called Major Brookes.
893
00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:00,440
He was publicly denounced as a tyrant
894
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:04,360
by our own lodge officials
in the branch,
895
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,170
because of his attitude
towards the men. A tyrant.
896
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:11,920
And yet that man was made
chairman of the Regional Coal Board.
897
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,840
That was the first humiliation.
You can understand how I felt.
898
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:18,560
Who's put him there?
This was the Labour government.
899
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:22,440
Now, the second incident, I'm standing
against Manny Shinwell at Durham.
900
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:24,400
He was Ministry of Fuel and Power.
901
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:29,160
He gets up and he says, "I take great
pride in being the man responsible
902
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:33,920
for appointing Lord Hyndley
as chairman of the National Coal Board
903
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:37,760
Lord Hyndley spoke against
nationalisation, didn't believe in it.
904
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:41,760
I says, 'What sort of a nationalisation
have we got?"
905
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:44,450
"The same old hand back in power."
906
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:51,160
I think the rest
of the communities, the welfares,
907
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,240
the libraries, the reading rooms,
the miners' homes,
908
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:56,960
that was improved under nationalisation.
909
00:56:56,960 --> 00:56:59,080
Dramatically improved
under nationalisation.
910
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,800
But in the pits, it was
still the same old struggle.
911
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:06,600
Our safety improved tremendously.
Safety committees were set up.
912
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,360
Investment went in,
which meant safety was more important.
913
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,250
It must have felt like it was
the beginning of a new world.
914
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,520
It succeeded
915
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:01,400
because you had central planning.
916
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:05,120
The capital cost of building
power stations and transmission systems
917
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:06,240
across the whole of the UK,
918
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:09,920
in current-day costings, you're talking
tens of billions of pounds,
919
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:13,770
so you needed central control
to be able to fund such an operation.
920
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:22,560
Most of the gas, water and electricity
921
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:27,320
was part of the local authority
council-run services.
922
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,090
There was no national structure to it.
923
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:36,000
Gas, electricity, water;
They tend to form natural monopolies.
924
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:38,880
They tend to be things
that can only be done efficiently
925
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:40,720
on a very, very large scale.
926
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:43,720
There's not much point building
two separate distribution systems
927
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,560
of water in a city.
You have one and everybody uses it
928
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,400
because it's the same stuff
that comes out of the tap.
929
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:53,120
If you allow private competition
to be that one supplier,
930
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:57,160
all the advantages that are claimed for
private enterprise suddenly disappear.
931
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:00,960
So you take it into public ownership
and that way you can set the prices,
932
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:03,840
you can set long-term investment
for the utility,
933
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,450
you can start to control and manage
how the thing's distributed.
934
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:22,920
At the end of the war,
we had two problems.
935
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:27,840
We had the inherited slums from the '30s
and we had the war damage.
936
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:32,560
We had millions of people coming home
from the war wanting to get married,
937
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:36,450
set up home and there was
an acute housing shortage.
938
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:41,200
So what the Labour government did
was to authorise local authorities
939
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:44,970
to build houses for rent
rather than for sale.
940
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:49,960
I think it's very hard on the young
people out of the forces, newly married,
941
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:52,760
who don't stand a chance at all.
942
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,600
I should be really very happy
when my husband comes home
943
00:59:55,600 --> 00:59:58,400
and I have a house for him
to come to from Singapore.
944
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:01,360
Well, I only want to say
I put my application in in 1935
945
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:03,360
and I'm still waiting for a house. Why?
946
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:06,130
With repeated applications renewed...
947
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:09,120
Well, I've been married six years now.
948
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:11,840
Two children and in one room only.
949
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:13,800
One room for four. I think it's a shame.
950
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:15,720
It's about time something was done.
951
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:19,560
I used to go queue up at
the council offices every Monday morning
952
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:22,400
and there'd be a queue
about a mile long,
953
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:26,200
all the women grumbling, of course.
Everybody trying to get in there.
954
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:29,120
One particular morning,
955
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:31,200
this lady came out in a fur coat
and held up a key.
956
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:32,960
"I've got one," she said.
957
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:35,960
"I let him lock the door
and have what he wanted."
958
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:39,650
So I said, "Well, if that's the way
I'm going to get one, I'll go without."
959
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:45,480
Well, they told us we'd have
to have another 60 points at least
960
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:49,320
before we stood a chance
of having a place.
961
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:51,320
We'd always planned
to have four children.
962
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:54,120
So I said to Ben,
'Well, let's have another baby."
963
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:55,960
'We'll get a house then."
964
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:58,920
So after a lot of persuasion,
we decided.
965
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:01,000
We had another baby.
966
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:04,680
We got down there and they said,
'We're very sorry, Mrs Adams,
967
01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:07,650
but about 300 other couples
did the same as you that night."
968
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:09,560
And we were back to square one,
969
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:13,360
in a worse position, really,
with another baby on the way
970
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:15,280
and, you know, no place to put it.
971
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:18,120
We had to find out everything
972
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,120
about this great city
we were planning to rebuild.
973
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:23,920
Everything about its history
and its geography,
974
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:25,840
its people and the way they live.
975
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:30,600
We had to find out how much of it had
been totally destroyed
976
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:32,600
and how much of it
was in such a bad state
977
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,400
that it would have to be rebuilt anyway.
978
01:01:35,400 --> 01:01:38,210
And that didn't just mean
the bombed buildings.
979
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:46,000
The housebuilding
programme is enormous.
980
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:49,840
Target of 200-300,000 homes a year
constructed after the end of the war.
981
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,760
This is an economy
that is absolutely battered
982
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:55,600
as a result of six years
of total warfare.
983
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:58,560
So the scale of the ambition
of what was being achieved
984
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:01,400
is really quite unbelievable.
985
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,200
First, let's look
at one of the neighbourhoods
986
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:06,240
and see how that's arranged.
987
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:10,880
Here, near the centre,
is the junior school.
988
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:14,720
The people would live in streets
or squares of terraced houses,
989
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:16,760
each with its own private garden.
990
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:19,560
So it's not an inhuman plan at all,
991
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:24,440
but one that is designed to make life
better and pleasanter for all of us.
992
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:29,440
And so we started in 1945 with great
expectations, with great enthusiasm,
993
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:35,050
to try and build the new London, to make
good all the devastation of wartime,
994
01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:40,800
to really provide a new London
for the people who deserved it,
995
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:46,490
trying to give them a better kind of
environment than they'd ever had before.
996
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:51,320
It was Bevan. He was
the Minister for Health and Housing.
997
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:54,120
He very much saw the need for housing
998
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:59,000
in terms of the knock-on effects
poor housing was having on health.
999
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:04,000
The need at the present time
is to build houses for poor people.
1000
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:06,640
(APPLAUSE)
1001
01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:11,640
I am not prepared
to associate myself with a policy
1002
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:15,320
where well-to-do people
can afford to build luxury homes
1003
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:17,320
and poor people go without homes.
1004
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:19,290
(APPLAUSE)
1005
01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:24,960
His attitude was, "Nothing but the best
is good enough for the working class."
1006
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:27,720
'We are going to have
really good houses."
1007
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:29,000
And he built really good houses.
1008
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:33,610
The Labour government not only housed
people, they housed them well.
1009
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:40,280
The broadest objective
was human welfare.
1010
01:03:40,280 --> 01:03:45,000
Human welfare in terms of health,
so that everybody could be healthy,
1011
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:48,840
everybody could have a reasonable diet,
1012
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:51,720
everybody could have
a reasonable space to live in.
1013
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:55,520
There would be no illnesses
consequent on bad housing,
1014
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:58,480
so obviously, housing
was the most important priority.
1015
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:01,480
He insisted on certain minimum standards
1016
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:03,280
which many at that time
1017
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:05,280
thought were probably too good
1018
01:04:06,040 --> 01:04:07,960
for ordinary working-class people.
1019
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:11,040
I shall never forget
the uproar that occurred
1020
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:15,640
when he proposed
to put upstairs and downstairs loos
1021
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:17,720
in order that the kids
didn't have to go upstairs
1022
01:04:17,720 --> 01:04:19,690
every time they came in from the garden.
1023
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:23,970
Planning is absolutely important.
1024
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:27,320
I mean, if you look at all the most
successful housing developments
1025
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:31,200
where there are libraries and parks
and even a swimming pool
1026
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:34,920
and all sorts of facilities
provided as part of the development
1027
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:37,800
or whether it's the new towns.
1028
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:40,760
The schools were being planned
alongside the housing
1029
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:45,400
and the doctors' surgeries
and the employment.
1030
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:48,290
So it was just perfect
for young families.
1031
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:55,160
The new house had French
windows.
1032
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:58,000
We laid in this room
on these mattresses.
1033
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:00,880
When we woke up in the morning,
there was all this light.
1034
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:02,880
There were stairs and a bathroom.
1035
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:04,640
You know, like that.
1036
01:05:04,640 --> 01:05:05,720
So, yes, it were brilliant.
1037
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:07,450
Me and my dad,
1038
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:08,640
we set about building a garden.
1039
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,440
You loved to get rocks
and make rockeries and do all that.
1040
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:14,200
So yes, it were brilliant.
1041
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:19,200
I moved into a council house
not long after I got married.
1042
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,840
It was the best thing
that ever happened in my life.
1043
01:05:23,840 --> 01:05:28,680
To see a house with a bathroom in it
and a back garden...
1044
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:31,560
I was completely taken in.
1045
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:36,320
And the council houses for people
in them days
1046
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:38,370
was the bat thing
that ever happened for them.
1047
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:44,970
My grandfather started to hear
about the new-town proposals
1048
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:46,880
after the election.
1049
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:49,840
So, they applied for a council house.
1050
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:52,730
He was offered work building the houses.
1051
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:59,440
This arrived in April, 1947,
1052
01:05:59,440 --> 01:06:03,330
only a year after Stevenage
was designated as a new town.
1053
01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:07,080
"Dear sir, I am now able to inform you
1054
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:09,120
that the house
will be ready for your occupation
1055
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:12,800
about 19th of April, 1947."
1056
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:14,880
"The rent will be, until further notice,
1057
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:19,560
17 shillings and four pence per week,
including rates and water charges."
1058
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:21,560
"Yours faithfully,
Clerk of the Council."
1059
01:06:21,560 --> 01:06:23,400
Ah, gosh!
1060
01:06:24,440 --> 01:06:29,120
And this is some photographs of him
1061
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,960
with his workmates
building various things in the new town.
1062
01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:35,770
That's the bandstand that he built.
1063
01:06:38,720 --> 01:06:40,760
You say he carried this
round with him?
1064
01:06:40,760 --> 01:06:44,450
Yes, he carried it
in his wallet for the rest of his life.
1065
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:46,640
There were only a few things
he carried in his wallet.
1066
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:50,240
The telegram he received
when he was working in the West Country
1067
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:51,360
to say my mother had been born
1068
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:56,000
and the letter of commendation
he'd got from the Festival of Britain.
1069
01:06:56,000 --> 01:06:59,930
So it was up there in the sort of
great events of his life, I think.
1070
01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:10,450
I think the achievements
of that government
1071
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:14,210
rank alongside the achievements of
any other government that's ever been,
1072
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:15,320
anywhere in the world.
1073
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:20,000
I think that took British people
from real, real poverty
1074
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:21,280
where they didn't have any hope.
1075
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:23,960
It brought full employment,
it brought housing,
1076
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:25,920
it brought many, many opportunities.
1077
01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:30,720
The people who got that through should
be looked upon as working-class heroes.
1078
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:35,410
They lifted us from an era
when poverty was rife,
1079
01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:37,400
when illness was rife,
1080
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:42,400
and it allowed everybody to have
healthcare from the cradle to the grave.
1081
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,000
And anybody vino tampers with that,
1082
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:49,880
people should attack them
in as many ways as possible.
1083
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:51,800
# Life is just a bowl of cherries #
1084
01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:54,650
# So live and laugh at it all #
1085
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:14,730
I would just like to remember
some words of St Francis of Assisi
1086
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:20,200
which I think are really just
particularly apt at the moment.
1087
01:08:20,200 --> 01:08:23,920
"Where there is discord
may we bring harmony.
1088
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:26,960
'Where there is error,
may we bring truth."
1089
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:29,800
'Where there is doubt,
may we bring faith."
1090
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:33,450
"And where there is despair,
may we bring hope."
1091
01:08:33,920 --> 01:08:35,840
Along came Thatcher
1092
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:37,880
and suddenly
it was all about the individual.
1093
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:41,760
You know, the important thing was
let's get rich and it's all about me.
1094
01:08:41,760 --> 01:08:45,480
And the public services
really suffered under this.
1095
01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:50,200
British industry
had become uncompetitive
1096
01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:52,920
because of a lack of investment.
1097
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:56,720
The second factor was that
there was a mass overcapacity
1098
01:08:56,720 --> 01:08:59,640
in the world's, you know,
production bases.
1099
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:02,640
And suddenly it all came
to a crashing halt in the mid '70s
1100
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,440
and then again at the end of the '70s.
1101
01:09:05,440 --> 01:09:08,320
And Britain and the world was faced
1102
01:09:08,320 --> 01:09:11,200
with trying to reduce
the industrial capacity.
1103
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:13,080
But also in Britain in particular,
1104
01:09:13,080 --> 01:09:17,040
they tried to increase
the rate of profit.
1105
01:09:17,040 --> 01:09:21,680
And there's a real intellectual assault
on the ideas of Keynesianism,
1106
01:09:21,680 --> 01:09:23,680
of nationalisation,
of state intervention
1107
01:09:23,680 --> 01:09:25,720
which Margaret Thatcher
starts to carry through.
1108
01:09:25,720 --> 01:09:27,440
Buys into it wholesale.
1109
01:09:27,440 --> 01:09:30,480
So rather than the state being seen
in its traditional reformist role,
1110
01:09:30,480 --> 01:09:33,200
as something which controls industry
1111
01:09:33,200 --> 01:09:38,120
and is a partial barrier between the
working population and the free market,
1112
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:42,880
it becomes something which facilitates
the influence of the free market
1113
01:09:42,880 --> 01:09:45,720
in privatising and deregulating
the economy,
1114
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:48,720
and in generating
the dismantling of the welfare state.
1115
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:51,440
It was driven really by people like
1116
01:09:51,440 --> 01:09:55,360
Milton Friedman and the Chicago School
1117
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:59,240
who developed a model of capitalism
1118
01:09:59,240 --> 01:10:04,010
which said that capitalism
should be completely uncontrolled
1119
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:07,240
that it should be
let rip in every direction,
1120
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:09,880
every form of control removed,
1121
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:15,680
and that it would find its own solutions
under its own momentum.
1122
01:10:18,720 --> 01:10:21,640
It meant
actually taking on the working class
1123
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:23,440
to reduce their wages,
1124
01:10:23,440 --> 01:10:26,320
but also, you know, for the redundancies
that we saw in steel,
1125
01:10:26,320 --> 01:10:29,130
in shipbuilding, in the coal industry.
1126
01:10:29,880 --> 01:10:33,680
And it was a necessity of,
if you like, the private economy.
1127
01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:36,640
And that means
they have to break the unions.
1128
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:39,480
It means they have to have
the ability to hire and fire.
1129
01:10:39,480 --> 01:10:43,280
It means they have to have the ability
to reduce wages and welfare.
1130
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:46,490
These treble lines of blue
1131
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:52,090
that escort the scabs
through the gates,
1132
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:54,040
where the pickets cannot picket.
1133
01:10:54,040 --> 01:10:56,160
They cannot talk to them.
They cannot get to them.
1134
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,960
They cannot get anywhere near.
1135
01:10:58,960 --> 01:11:02,760
Now, the police are not neutral.
That is very important.
1136
01:11:02,760 --> 01:11:06,640
The police have been shown to the
British people that they're not neutral
1137
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:09,610
when the working class
decided to fight for their rights.
1138
01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:19,120
This is the thing you want
to be filming. It's a police state.
1139
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:22,080
You saw yourselves. There was men
just standing on the car park.
1140
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:25,800
The police came in
inciting, pushing men about.
1141
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:28,610
If that's not police incitement,
I don't know what is.
1142
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:38,210
# There are slanderous tongues #
1143
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:39,360
# Always ready to wrong #
1144
01:11:40,120 --> 01:11:42,240
# And murder the fine reputation #
1145
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:44,960
# Of the lads with big feet #
1146
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:46,000
# Who by pounding the beat #
1147
01:11:46,000 --> 01:11:48,880
# Are protecting the peace of the nation #
1148
01:11:48,880 --> 01:11:51,800
They got me on the floor,
spread-eagled me,
1149
01:11:51,800 --> 01:11:53,720
a copper on each arm, one on each leg.
1150
01:11:54,520 --> 01:11:55,640
Then they started to hit my arms
1151
01:11:55,640 --> 01:11:58,520
and legs with a truncheon, methodically,
1152
01:11:58,520 --> 01:12:00,400
until I had no power
1153
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:02,160
or grip left in my arms.
1154
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:03,920
Then they just proceeded
1155
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:05,840
to twist them straight up my back.
1156
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:06,920
I think he wanted to take it home
1157
01:12:06,920 --> 01:12:08,680
for a souvenir.
1158
01:12:08,680 --> 01:12:10,680
Now why do police go in with such venom?
1159
01:12:10,680 --> 01:12:15,680
They seem to enjoy inflicting pain
and suffering on the working man.
1160
01:12:16,400 --> 01:12:20,360
Why? Who tells them
to go beat a picket's head?
1161
01:12:20,360 --> 01:12:24,200
Who tells them to inflict pain,
try to kill him?
1162
01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:26,120
Because that's what they're doing.
1163
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:28,930
You stand there in the push
and all you feel, all of a sudden,
1164
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:31,880
a fell a at the side of you
collapses in a pile on the floor.
1165
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:34,090
'What's up with you?"
He's just been kneed in the groin.
1166
01:12:34,840 --> 01:12:35,960
I've seen police do it.
1167
01:12:35,960 --> 01:12:40,720
I've no skin left on my shins where
they've run their boots down your shin.
1168
01:12:40,720 --> 01:12:43,560
But if you look at him the wrong way,
you're nicked.
1169
01:12:43,560 --> 01:12:46,400
I want to know,
who gives them the power to do this?
1170
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:51,280
Who tells them to beat me,
a working man, with a stick?
1171
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:53,200
Who is it? I want to know.
1172
01:13:24,960 --> 01:13:27,800
I think it was a betrayal
of the British people
1173
01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:32,600
because the mines were owned
since 1947 by the government,
1174
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:35,410
for and on behalf of the British people.
1175
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:41,200
There's no work
whatsoever in these communities.
1176
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:45,040
No industry is being brought in,
none whatsoever.
1177
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:48,930
Without work, you cannot have dignity
and you cannot have respect.
1178
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:55,640
At least in mining
it was rough and it was tumble,
1179
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,600
but you got the comradeship.
You got discipline.
1180
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:02,400
A lot of it was self-discipline
that you taught yourself.
1181
01:14:02,400 --> 01:14:04,320
You were reliant upon each other.
1182
01:14:04,320 --> 01:14:08,040
You were making sure
that anybody working with you
1183
01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:10,880
learnt how to do the job properly
1184
01:14:10,880 --> 01:14:13,800
because it could be your life at risk
and not only theirs.
1185
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:22,440
Communities are full of drugs,
1186
01:14:22,440 --> 01:14:25,360
they're full of problems
of all sorts of types
1187
01:14:25,360 --> 01:14:28,330
that were never there
when the mines were working.
1188
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:53,160
What that government done
1189
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:56,120
destroyed all them structures
that you had,
1190
01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:58,920
all your nationalised industries,
1191
01:14:58,920 --> 01:15:01,840
and although
they always gave her fantastic credit
1192
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,800
for giving working men and women
1193
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:06,680
ownership of their own homes,
1194
01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:09,440
I thought one of the biggest disasters
1195
01:15:09,440 --> 01:15:11,440
was the selling off of council houses.
1196
01:15:11,440 --> 01:15:14,210
We all lived in crofts and avenues.
1197
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:18,130
Nice houses, all, you know,
close to where you were working
1198
01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:21,640
on top of the docks in Birkenhead
where I lived.
1199
01:15:21,640 --> 01:15:24,560
But they were good houses, good houses.
1200
01:15:24,560 --> 01:15:28,360
And the people there were decent people,
good people, good neighbourhoods.
1201
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:47,960
We're looking after
the people in Liverpool now.
1202
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:50,840
Everyone else has deserted us
so well look after our own.
1203
01:15:50,840 --> 01:15:52,600
We are disgusted over it,
1204
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:54,800
that that union is throwing
the towel in, and we're not.
1205
01:15:55,480 --> 01:15:58,400
We're not going to throw the towel in
yet, until we get a proper deal.
1206
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:16,760
There's no such thing
1207
01:16:16,760 --> 01:16:18,600
as registered dockers now.
1208
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:19,640
Anyone goes on them docks now,
1209
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:21,370
they're just going there,
1210
01:16:21,440 --> 01:16:23,360
doing a job and then getting chased.
1211
01:16:23,360 --> 01:16:24,400
So that's it.
1212
01:16:24,400 --> 01:16:25,450
It's soul-destroying.
1213
01:16:26,200 --> 01:16:28,200
The situation we have now, you've got
1214
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:32,000
maybe two generations in the family
1215
01:16:32,000 --> 01:16:34,080
who've never, never been in employment.
1216
01:16:34,840 --> 01:16:37,800
Because of the nature
of the trade union Labour leadership,
1217
01:16:37,800 --> 01:16:40,760
they've virtually capitulated.
1218
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:43,600
There's been no serious opposition.
1219
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:45,520
The miners were left in isolation.
1220
01:16:45,520 --> 01:16:47,400
The dockers were left in isolation
1221
01:16:47,400 --> 01:16:51,200
when they fought their last struggle
in the '90s.
1222
01:16:52,200 --> 01:16:57,130
And the trade union laws
prevent the trade unions
1223
01:16:57,880 --> 01:17:00,960
organising collectively
against political decisions.
1224
01:17:00,960 --> 01:17:02,760
Now, as far as I'm concerned,
1225
01:17:02,760 --> 01:17:05,680
the TUC should say, "Well,
we're not interested in your laws."
1226
01:17:05,680 --> 01:17:09,370
"Let's organise and defeat
these people." That hasn't happened.
1227
01:17:15,360 --> 01:17:17,200
When you start a debate,
1228
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:21,730
'Will we be able to build the next stage
of massive power stations?",
1229
01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:24,880
I don't believe that the current
companies, one, can afford it,
1230
01:17:24,880 --> 01:17:27,840
and have got the ability
to actually coordinate and plan it.
1231
01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:31,130
They are all competing with each other
across the whole country.
1232
01:17:31,440 --> 01:17:33,400
They can't sit down and actually say,
1233
01:17:33,400 --> 01:17:35,480
"We need one power station in Scotland,
1234
01:17:35,480 --> 01:17:40,170
or, "We need a supplementary power
station in the east coast of Britain."
1235
01:17:40,800 --> 01:17:44,680
I think that's where
the historical planning of one body
1236
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:49,320
that was responsible for the production
of electricity planning could deliver.
1237
01:17:55,600 --> 01:17:57,560
Within three or four years,
1238
01:17:57,560 --> 01:18:02,280
that had developed
into an absolute farce
1239
01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:05,250
and then a tragedy
with repeated fatalities,
1240
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:09,040
large-scale loss of life
in a number of different train crashes.
1241
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:13,880
Effectively in 2002, the government
was forced to step in
1242
01:18:13,880 --> 01:18:18,720
and take the infrastructure company,
Railtrack, back into administration,
1243
01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:20,610
because it had gone bust.
1244
01:18:22,520 --> 01:18:27,520
There's this huge and complex web
of financial debate,
1245
01:18:28,320 --> 01:18:33,320
argument and blame and recrimination
that goes round and round and round,
1246
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:38,960
every week of every year under
the privatised railway in this country,
1247
01:18:39,720 --> 01:18:41,530
and it's a nonsense.
1248
01:18:44,480 --> 01:18:48,440
People were proud to be a railwayman.
Very, very proud to be a railwayman.
1249
01:18:48,440 --> 01:18:50,410
There was a public-service ethos
1250
01:18:51,160 --> 01:18:54,080
which was passed on to new people
who started in the industry.
1251
01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:57,080
Now, what happened after privatisation
1252
01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:00,960
is that a deliberate
and concerted attempt has been made
1253
01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:04,680
to erase that history
within the railway workers.
1254
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:10,370
So, for example, somebody recruited
to work on the railway today
1255
01:19:10,640 --> 01:19:14,440
isn't even taught to think of themselves
as a railway worker.
1256
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:18,680
We're losing an industry
that we invented in this country
1257
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:22,600
and which people love
and which young people need.
1258
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:26,480
I mean, we've got a million young people
unemployed in Britain today.
1259
01:19:26,480 --> 01:19:29,320
A million young people unemployed.
1260
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:34,040
They should be being employed,
some of them at least,
1261
01:19:34,040 --> 01:19:38,880
learning how lo do railway engineering
skills, railway operational skills,
1262
01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:41,720
to deliver the kind of services
that this country needs
1263
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:46,680
in order to develop a new, green
public transport system.
1264
01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:57,520
In 2003,
the market was liberalised.
1265
01:19:57,520 --> 01:19:59,360
Other companies could come in
1266
01:19:59,360 --> 01:20:03,130
and collect mail from businesses
who are posting it, sort it,
1267
01:20:03,760 --> 01:20:06,840
then pass it on to Royal Mail
to deliver. What that has done
1268
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:10,880
is it's undermined Royal Mail's capacity
to provide a universal service
1269
01:20:10,880 --> 01:20:12,930
which is subsidised
by business postings.
1270
01:20:13,720 --> 01:20:16,720
The cost of the universal service
for everybody
1271
01:20:16,720 --> 01:20:21,850
is no longer supported to that degree
by what businesses do.
1272
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:24,320
In simple terms,
1273
01:20:24,320 --> 01:20:26,240
people used to get their mail earlier.
1274
01:20:26,240 --> 01:20:27,240
Now they get it later.
1275
01:20:27,240 --> 01:20:29,080
They used to have two deliveries.
1276
01:20:29,080 --> 01:20:30,130
Now they get one per day.
1277
01:20:47,320 --> 01:20:49,290
The reform of the health service
is, of course,
1278
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:51,560
to bring it back into the marketplace
1279
01:20:51,560 --> 01:20:55,450
and degrade it back again
into making healthcare a commodity.
1280
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:57,600
So it's not reform at all.
1281
01:20:57,960 --> 01:21:01,880
It started when Margaret Thatcher
started contracting out domestics
1282
01:21:01,880 --> 01:21:05,600
and porters and laundry services.
1283
01:21:05,600 --> 01:21:07,640
Again just the process of administering,
1284
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:10,440
asking people to bid for contracts
1285
01:21:10,440 --> 01:21:11,560
costs money in and of itself
1286
01:21:12,280 --> 01:21:13,840
to write the contract for what you want
1287
01:21:14,200 --> 01:21:15,360
rather than just have domestics
1288
01:21:15,360 --> 01:21:17,120
doing the cleaning.
1289
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:20,160
But then to win the contract,
you have to put the cheapest bid in.
1290
01:21:20,160 --> 01:21:22,120
So, the ward I worked on at the time,
1291
01:21:22,120 --> 01:21:25,720
we had two full-time cleaners on
in the morning
1292
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:27,760
and a part-time cleaner on
in the evening.
1293
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:29,760
When I finished at the hospital,
1294
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:32,600
they had a half a cleaner on
in the morning
1295
01:21:33,400 --> 01:21:36,440
and then one between about ten wards
in the evening.
1296
01:21:36,440 --> 01:21:40,280
It wasn't cheaper
when people get MRSA and infections
1297
01:21:40,280 --> 01:21:43,970
which then might cost the whole
of what you've saved on the contract
1298
01:21:44,600 --> 01:21:46,650
on one person
if they're in intensive care.
1299
01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:49,920
I mean, there was a real feeling of
ownership about the NHS when it started.
1300
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:52,680
People felt they were
doing it themselves,
1301
01:21:52,680 --> 01:21:53,800
that it was their possession.
1302
01:21:53,800 --> 01:21:55,640
And they've lost that.
1303
01:21:55,640 --> 01:21:58,440
So, the cost of running
the health service,
1304
01:21:58,440 --> 01:22:01,400
the admin cost, was about six percent
before that started.
1305
01:22:01,400 --> 01:22:03,400
Then they moved up to about 12 percent.
1306
01:22:03,400 --> 01:22:06,960
Now they're heading in the direction
of American costs
1307
01:22:07,040 --> 01:22:10,840
for running the health service,
anything between 18, 20, 25 percent.
1308
01:22:10,840 --> 01:22:12,800
You can see the politicians have chosen
1309
01:22:12,800 --> 01:22:16,720
to waste a huge amount of money
on marketising the service.
1310
01:22:16,720 --> 01:22:20,520
I've got a big picture of Aneurin Bevan
I looked at every day.
1311
01:22:20,520 --> 01:22:23,360
I think, "Where are the people?"
And What he says is,
1312
01:22:23,360 --> 01:22:26,200
"All the time the people
have got the faith to fight for it."
1313
01:22:26,360 --> 01:22:30,250
We've been out on the streets and people
said, "They'll never privatise the NHS."
1314
01:22:30,360 --> 01:22:33,090
'Why are you getting so up the wall?
They won't do that."
1315
01:22:33,360 --> 01:22:36,320
And people just didn't believe
they would do it.
1316
01:22:36,320 --> 01:22:39,210
It seems to me
there's a sort of blindness
1317
01:22:39,480 --> 01:22:43,200
to the enormous advances
that have been made in British medicine
1318
01:22:43,200 --> 01:22:45,120
as a result of the NHS.
1319
01:22:45,120 --> 01:22:48,120
I mean, there are many things
that have taught the rest of the world
1320
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:50,000
so far as the NHS was concerned.
1321
01:22:50,000 --> 01:22:55,770
This was a very inventive organisation
with lots of new initiatives.
1322
01:22:56,160 --> 01:22:58,040
I do hope
1323
01:22:58,040 --> 01:23:01,880
we don't go down the American system
whereby the first thing you met,
1324
01:23:01,880 --> 01:23:04,880
as you come in with broken legs
or whatever,
1325
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:08,680
is someone with a clipboard
who says, "Are you insured?"
1326
01:23:09,440 --> 01:23:12,440
When there's money there,
the private sector is happy to be there
1327
01:23:12,440 --> 01:23:15,250
taking the cash, thank you,
and paying its shareholders.
1328
01:23:15,840 --> 01:23:18,840
When the money isn't there, as we saw
locally after only a couple of years
1329
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:21,560
of involvement in primary care,
they were off.
1330
01:23:21,560 --> 01:23:25,560
People are ready to defend
the National Health Service.
1331
01:23:25,560 --> 01:23:29,360
They do know about it.
They do know the rewards of it.
1332
01:23:29,360 --> 01:23:32,480
They do know about the care
and the treatment they get.
1333
01:23:32,480 --> 01:23:35,480
They're all going there every day.
You can see it.
1334
01:23:35,480 --> 01:23:37,400
I can see it more than ever.
1335
01:23:37,400 --> 01:23:41,120
I've got a lot to be thankful for,
and so has my wife,
1336
01:23:41,120 --> 01:23:44,000
on the National Health Service.
I think it will happen.
1337
01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:47,850
I think they will understand
the situation on the NHS.
1338
01:23:48,520 --> 01:23:53,240
That is the one institution from 1945
1339
01:23:53,240 --> 01:23:55,200
that needs to be defended.
1340
01:23:55,200 --> 01:23:58,200
We've lost most of the others,
if not all the others,
1341
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:02,000
but the National Health Service,
if they attack,
1342
01:24:02,000 --> 01:24:06,800
the right, Tories, Lib Dems,
attack the National Health Service,
1343
01:24:06,800 --> 01:24:10,600
if we don't understand
that we've got to do everything,
1344
01:24:10,600 --> 01:24:14,360
up to and including breaking the law
to defend the National Health Service,
1345
01:24:14,360 --> 01:24:16,090
then we're finished.
1346
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:33,960
We were defending a flawed project.
1347
01:24:33,960 --> 01:24:37,760
This is the worm in the apple of 1945.
1348
01:24:37,760 --> 01:24:39,600
This wasn't workers' control.
1349
01:24:39,760 --> 01:24:42,600
This wasn't popular engagement
with the control.
1350
01:24:42,600 --> 01:24:44,600
This wasn't controlled from the base up.
1351
01:24:44,600 --> 01:24:48,400
There weren't committees in every
locality managing the council housing.
1352
01:24:48,400 --> 01:24:52,240
There weren't shop stewards running
the steel industry or the coal industry.
1353
01:24:52,240 --> 01:24:54,160
This was a set of state bureaucrats
1354
01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:57,080
replacing a set
of corporate bureaucrats.
1355
01:24:57,080 --> 01:25:01,520
Whereas socialists are talking about
the transformation of the economy
1356
01:25:01,520 --> 01:25:05,280
into a different type of economy
that's not driven by the market,
1357
01:25:05,280 --> 01:25:08,160
but driven by the common needs
of society.
1358
01:25:08,160 --> 01:25:10,210
I think that's the big difference
that we're seeing.
1359
01:25:10,320 --> 01:25:12,400
If there's a need
and there's no profit in it,
1360
01:25:12,560 --> 01:25:16,250
the need goes unanswered.
1361
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:37,200
A caring capitalism.
1362
01:25:38,280 --> 01:25:42,170
Miliband is talking about
this socially responsible capitalism.
1363
01:25:42,800 --> 01:25:46,690
It's a bit like the Arabian phoenix,
isn't it?
1364
01:25:46,840 --> 01:25:49,760
Everyone's heard about it.
Nobody's ever seen one.
1365
01:25:49,760 --> 01:25:54,560
We have to face up to the fact
that, again, it's the market.
1366
01:25:54,560 --> 01:25:56,520
It's the system that says
1367
01:25:56,520 --> 01:25:59,490
that profit is the most important thing
that makes the world go round
1368
01:25:59,600 --> 01:26:03,320
that we have to...
that we have to take on.
1369
01:26:03,440 --> 01:26:08,440
It's a hard struggle,
but this system what we live under
1370
01:26:09,080 --> 01:26:12,800
is absolutely rotten and corrupt
as far as I'm concerned.
1371
01:26:12,880 --> 01:26:16,570
From top to bottom, it's rotten.
1372
01:26:17,600 --> 01:26:20,600
And the quicker it goes, the better.
1373
01:26:34,840 --> 01:26:37,920
In the face of the failure of the right,
if you like,
1374
01:26:37,920 --> 01:26:42,640
the neo-liberals and their assault
on the public services, their failure
1375
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:46,480
terrible financial global failure
at the moment of the market,
1376
01:26:46,480 --> 01:26:50,320
we still are trying to make the case
1377
01:26:50,320 --> 01:26:54,040
that actually we should go back to
working together for the greater good.
1378
01:26:54,160 --> 01:26:56,360
And I think the NHS has been
a terrific example of that,
1379
01:26:57,000 --> 01:27:00,040
as have many things in this country;
Education and the welfare state.
1380
01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:03,800
What's so shocking is the people
who are dismantling this at the moment
1381
01:27:03,800 --> 01:27:06,760
are the people who grew up
and benefited from that system.
1382
01:27:06,760 --> 01:27:08,760
The idea of socialism
is weak in this country
1383
01:27:08,760 --> 01:27:12,440
and the idea of capitalism
is very strong.
1384
01:27:12,440 --> 01:27:15,090
Capitalism itself is not strong,
it's falling apart,
1385
01:27:15,280 --> 01:27:18,010
but the idea of capitalism
is very strong.
1386
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:23,080
The paradox in the situation
is that the ideas which come together
1387
01:27:23,080 --> 01:27:25,880
and which have traditionally been
called socialism
1388
01:27:25,880 --> 01:27:29,640
exist in a sort of atomised way
right across the political spectrum.
1389
01:27:29,640 --> 01:27:33,600
When you see the Occupy people
1390
01:27:33,600 --> 01:27:36,440
say that they are anti-capitalist,
anti-free market,
1391
01:27:36,440 --> 01:27:40,080
the corollary of that is that you're
in favour of some kind of planning
1392
01:27:40,720 --> 01:27:42,680
even if that's not an articulated view.
1393
01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:45,720
They want some kind of
democratic control over the economy.
1394
01:27:45,720 --> 01:27:48,440
Thai is the essence
of the socialist idea,
1395
01:27:48,440 --> 01:27:50,480
whether or not you choose
to call it socialist
1396
01:27:50,480 --> 01:27:53,210
and whatever colour you paint it.
1397
01:28:15,840 --> 01:28:17,680
Well, I think we were hijacked.
1398
01:28:17,680 --> 01:28:21,440
The working-class organisations
were hijacked by the middle class.
1399
01:28:21,440 --> 01:28:23,520
That's my opinion.
Especially the Labour Party.
1400
01:28:24,280 --> 01:28:29,160
The Labour Party was a working-class
organisation at one time.
1401
01:28:29,800 --> 01:28:31,640
In no way, shape or form
1402
01:28:31,640 --> 01:28:34,720
can you call the Labour Party
a working-class organisation any more.
1403
01:28:34,720 --> 01:28:38,360
The working class
haven't got any big organisations
1404
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:40,400
that can take the establishment on.
1405
01:28:40,400 --> 01:28:44,120
They don't realise that strength
they've got, do they'?
1406
01:28:44,120 --> 01:28:47,040
They don't realise
that power they've got.
1407
01:28:47,040 --> 01:28:50,840
The working class
can change the whole history.
1408
01:28:51,320 --> 01:28:54,210
As quick as... as quick as that.
1409
01:28:54,840 --> 01:28:57,680
They just don't realise.
They haven't grasped it.
1410
01:29:11,360 --> 01:29:16,360
One day, I think the dream
that those miners had underground,
1411
01:29:17,120 --> 01:29:19,960
before the war, will become a reality.
1412
01:29:19,960 --> 01:29:22,080
We will be able to take
real control of our own lives.
1413
01:29:22,080 --> 01:29:24,040
We will have a manufacturing industry.
1414
01:29:24,040 --> 01:29:28,840
The day when you see our kids
walking the streets of Caerphilly
1415
01:29:28,840 --> 01:29:32,520
and walking the streets of Abercynon,
1416
01:29:32,520 --> 01:29:34,560
18 years of age
and they've got their GCSEs,
1417
01:29:34,560 --> 01:29:38,170
and they've got their hands
in their pockets and their head down
1418
01:29:38,240 --> 01:29:41,200
and they seem as if they've got
no future and their eyes are dull,
1419
01:29:41,200 --> 01:29:44,120
I think those days
will one day come to an end,
1420
01:29:44,120 --> 01:29:48,880
coming out of the dream
that those miners had so many years ago.
1421
01:29:48,880 --> 01:29:53,680
I am absolutely convinced
that the older generation,
1422
01:29:53,680 --> 01:29:57,440
rather than being a burden on society,
1423
01:29:57,440 --> 01:30:01,210
has got an absolute duty to come forward
1424
01:30:01,840 --> 01:30:04,760
and join with young people
and talk to them and explain.
1425
01:30:04,760 --> 01:30:07,760
I say to pensioners,
turn off the television,
1426
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:10,640
take their plugs out of their ears
1427
01:30:10,640 --> 01:30:15,490
and start talking about
what was the vision in 1945.
1428
01:30:15,640 --> 01:30:17,800
What did we want?
How did we see it progressing?
1429
01:30:17,800 --> 01:30:20,640
What did it mean,
"from the cradle to the grave"?
1430
01:30:20,640 --> 01:30:24,320
What did it mean
to have common ownership
1431
01:30:24,320 --> 01:30:27,320
and for sharing and communities?
What does it mean?
1432
01:30:27,320 --> 01:30:32,320
Start to rebuild that understanding
of what sort of life we want.
1433
01:30:32,960 --> 01:30:35,800
I think we've got a real chance
to do that.
1434
01:30:39,600 --> 01:30:45,600
Now, friends, this is the first time
in the history of this country
1435
01:30:47,400 --> 01:30:51,250
that a Labour movement
with a socialist policy...
1436
01:30:51,400 --> 01:30:53,370
(CHEERING)
1437
01:30:56,080 --> 01:30:57,920
I ask from you all...
1438
01:30:58,920 --> 01:31:02,760
...support that we shall need
1439
01:31:02,760 --> 01:31:07,640
to carry us through, triumphantly,
through difficult years,
1440
01:31:07,640 --> 01:31:11,360
to the great era
which is opening before us.
1441
01:31:11,920 --> 01:31:14,450
(CHEERING)
1442
01:31:22,840 --> 01:31:25,920
# Blue skies around the corner #
1443
01:31:26,680 --> 01:31:29,760
# Walk round the corner with me #
1444
01:31:29,760 --> 01:31:33,440
# Just round the comer you'll see #
1445
01:31:33,440 --> 01:31:37,360
# Those blue skies #
1446
01:31:37,360 --> 01:31:41,160
# Blue skies, there's nothing wanner #
1447
01:31:41,160 --> 01:31:44,960
# Won't you feel happy to be #
1448
01:31:44,960 --> 01:31:47,840
# Sharing the sunshine with me #
1449
01:31:47,840 --> 01:31:51,880
# Under those blue skies? #
1450
01:31:51,880 --> 01:31:55,680
# Trouble may come but troubles will go #
1451
01:31:55,680 --> 01:31:58,520
# Don't you ever worry any more #
1452
01:31:59,480 --> 01:32:01,280
# Look at those skies #
1453
01:32:01,280 --> 01:32:03,200
# They're not telling Ya #
1454
01:32:03,280 --> 01:32:07,120
# That's what they were put there for #
1455
01:32:07,120 --> 01:32:10,920
# Blue skies around the corner #
1456
01:32:10,920 --> 01:32:14,680
# Everything's gonna be right #
1457
01:32:14,680 --> 01:32:19,640
# never a cloud
in those bright blue skies #
1458
01:32:35,920 --> 01:32:37,840
# Without rhythm #
1459
01:32:37,840 --> 01:32:40,760
# A train could never go without rhythm #
1460
01:32:40,760 --> 01:32:43,720
# A troop could never roll
without rhythm #
1461
01:32:43,720 --> 01:32:45,560
# The day would never go because rhythm #
1462
01:32:46,360 --> 01:32:48,360
# Is the thing that makes
the world go round #
1463
01:32:48,360 --> 01:32:50,200
# Without rhythm #
1464
01:32:50,200 --> 01:32:53,120
# A poet couldn't rhyme without rhythm #
1465
01:32:53,120 --> 01:32:56,000
# Could never tell the time
without rhythm #
1466
01:32:56,000 --> 01:32:58,000
# Wouldn't hear the chime because rhythm #
1467
01:32:58,000 --> 01:32:59,920
# Is the thing that makes
the clock go round #
1468
01:32:59,920 --> 01:33:00,970
# Without drums... #
1469
01:34:01,360 --> 01:34:05,120
# When we go strolling
in the park at night #
1470
01:34:05,120 --> 01:34:08,160
# All the darkness is a boon #
1471
01:34:08,160 --> 01:34:11,960
# Who cam if we're without a light #
1472
01:34:11,960 --> 01:34:14,880
# They can't black out the moon #
1473
01:34:14,880 --> 01:34:18,720
# I see you smiling
in the cigarette glow #
1474
01:34:18,720 --> 01:34:22,440
# Though the picture fades too soon #
1475
01:34:22,440 --> 01:34:26,210
# But I see all I want to know #
1476
01:34:26,280 --> 01:34:29,090
# They can't black out the moon #
119505
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