How Ordinary Brits Rebuilt Their Lives in the 1950s

Comments · 36

• LI

  @lindaliriel · 1 month ago

  Aw that Nurse story is so sweet!

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• V.

  @v.a.993 · 3 months ago

  I loved watching this and learning about "average" people.

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• OL

  @oldsguy354 · 3 months ago

  What a great program. :) <br>I guess everything Sir Tony touches turns to gold. :)

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• JI

  @jimmcharg1889 · 1 month ago

  We moved to Basildon in &apos;62 from Glasgow... I had some great childhood years there. I have fond memories of the area. Thank you for this episode.

• JO

  @jolaynemichaud4377 · 3 months ago

  This was really fun to watch! Enjoyed it immensely.

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• ST

  @steinermarty3944 · 3 months ago

  WONDERFUL!!!! THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH!!!!

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• NB

  @nbwelsh · 2 months ago (edited)

  I remember the rag and bone man in the 70s in Bootle and his horse Neddie. &nbsp;Now currently living in Atlantic Canada 🇨🇦

• ED

  @EdLeslie-h4w · 2 months ago

  Taken back to my days as a little lad. 😊 Thanks guys.

• ME

  @mercderkler · 5 days ago

  Tony&apos;s hilarious and interesting.

• VI

  @VivianHyde · 3 months ago

  I love Britain ❤🇬🇧🌹💯👍🥰

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• IR

  @irondwarf66 · 3 months ago

  😊❤😊❤l❤watching Tony Robinson 😊😊😊😊❤

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• AN

  @anitapeludat256 · 3 months ago (edited)

  Very enjoyable and informative for this 66 yo American .<br><br> &nbsp; I love history from the ordinary citizen experience. It&apos;s much more authentic. I know what post WWII &nbsp;and WWI was like for my Grandfather and my disabled Father. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>I have often been confronted by many British folks during my travels overseas. Living and working in Germany gave me exposure to travel more , meeting new people and cultures which I love. <br><br>It&apos;s very unfortunate that an overall impression many people had, especially in Britain is that all Americans are pretty lumped together as all identical, that is always very odd to most of us, especially in the 60&apos;s and 70&apos;s. &nbsp; Also, its very unfortunate, even today, that it&apos;s assumed ALL Americans are wealthy to some degree, in all 50 incredibly diverse states. &nbsp;That isn&apos;t reality now and certainly not post WII. &nbsp;Or during WWII.<br><br>Yes, we didnt have mass destruction of the entire infrastructure of our cities and towns. That, in itself , was a blessing. &nbsp;<br><br> I have always admired the British fortitude and perseverance in building London back, once again, for starters, to even better. Very impressive, indeed.<br> And surviving the Blitz itself is just phenomenal. &nbsp;Not to mention the nightmare and loss of life in WWI. <br><br>My grandfather was in the Calvary, then. &nbsp;Sadly, his horse was one of some 600,000 that were killed. But, his primary demon was the Mustard gas. &nbsp;He remained a man that stood tall, even when completely penniless, and ill post war. <br><br>My grandparents and my parents, both lived in opposite states. &nbsp;Detroit, Michigan in the north and the deep south in Alabama. &nbsp;<br><br>Both grew up rather poor, polio was a huge danger for &nbsp;many years, which my Aunt contracted.<br>After the flu epidemic , much earlier. &nbsp;But, everyone was poor and jobless for years. The great &nbsp;drought and Dust Bowl , affected many states, which affected the entire country.<br><br>There was great rationing, of fuel, tires ,silk, and all scrap metal for building WWII war crafts, &nbsp; food was sent overseas, early on, sometimes sunk to the bottom by germans. It also went into the K-rations for the American soldiers. &nbsp;And the food drops over Berlin to keep people on the ground from starving. British pilots joined them and they both continued for many months together. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>My father was shoeless and ploughing fields as a young boy , behind an old mule and picking cotton with his 9 brothers and sisters. &nbsp;Yes, white folks were dirt poor alongside the black folks in that region . &nbsp;Fortunately, that bit of deep country, everyone helped everyone else, &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; regardless of color out in the sticks where they were, &nbsp;most certainly, and tragically that was not wide spread in that area. <br><br>It was enlightening to see the experience of the black soldier from Jamaica. &nbsp; In conversations, Brits will tell me there was no racism back then or now. <br> The awful signs on their shops about certain people were also on American shops. &nbsp; The no Irish was primarily in Boston and New York City. &nbsp;Both homes of clusters of British settlers. &nbsp;It is an additional piece of the puzzle of the &quot;WHY&quot; &nbsp;in historical fact gathering. &nbsp;It didn&apos;t last as long, however, and we had an Irish Catholic president in the late 50&apos;s. He was not assassinated for it, however. <br><br>My father entered the war in Germany and the Ardennes. &nbsp;He was facially disfigured by a mortar in Belgium and nearly drowned in his own blood. <br>His 4 older brothers had been overseas for 3 years prior, sadly one brother was KIA. &nbsp;It took a couple of years for my Dad to recover, with a year in the hospital first. &nbsp;He was a &quot; Man of the broken faces&quot;. A category of men, from our Civil War and then in WWI, where , 2 women and 2 male doctors , learned from the two in our Civil War, just how to make masks. <br>The British two, improved on the method and created wonders for many men. &nbsp; &nbsp; <br><br>The one major &nbsp;insulting disappointments for both my Grandfather and Father was routinely being told they showed up too late. By British citizens and the press. &nbsp; &nbsp;What did my father do wrong? &nbsp;He was too slow in showing up in sub zero weather in Belgium and leaving half of his blood in the dirt in Belgium,? Too late to please the British ?? &nbsp; <br><br>And at my age, &nbsp;in 2026, they insult me, &nbsp;their direct ancestor. &nbsp; I can&apos;t imagine treating any soldier with disrespect and perceived insults from anywhere.<br><br>It&apos;s pretty clear there are a great number of British folks that base judgement on pure assumptions. &nbsp;You folks don&apos;t have factual information about what was happening in America during and before and after both wars. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>Hating an entire population because of what was egregious by the leadership, or what was ASSUMED was valid about the leadership, but , outwardly criticizing Soldiers and their families and the dead is abominable. &nbsp; Yet, acceptable in your public life, normalized even, &nbsp;while many actually believed Hollywood propaganda for decades to now and our Government propaganda for decades. &nbsp;Why on earth does a country of people rightfully proud of their educational system, &nbsp;decide that being gullible to swallow it all, hook,line and sinker was OK?<br><br>We Americans know it&apos;s bullsh*t propaganda. &nbsp;Always has been. <br><br>Too many British sre not willing to be curious enough to ask questions, &nbsp;fear strangers or are not very adaptable to cultural differences, instead of understanding them. &nbsp;<br>Our differences are immensely diverse as are our American English variants , because we are a nation built by immigrants. &nbsp; <br><br>And NO, you cant rent a car in NYC and take an &quot;American road trip&quot;, for a quick day trip to the Grand Canyon and back. &nbsp;<br>For goodness sake, at least look at a globe before you leave your own country. &nbsp;SURELY, YOU KNOW WHERE YOU CAN BORROW SOMEONE&apos;S.! &nbsp; Talk about people that don&apos;t know their geography....... You have it so convenient to travel so easily, but, feel its pleasurable to judge others. &nbsp;That can&apos;t be healthy.

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