So, I know this is going to sound like an odd request, but in an RPG I’m running, much of the action of the upcoming session will be taking place (via time-travel) back in 1958 in England. I’m looking for insight into what the nation was like around that time. Politics, lifestyles, style-of-dress, etcetera. The game has a supernatural twist (Based on the BPRD / Hellboy comics), so if there’s anything weird / spooky to add to it, I’m all ears.
Any help would be, well… Helpful.
There’s a book called Jennie, about a boy’s adventures through London and elsewhere after he is transformed into a cat. I believe it takes place around this period, and gives a good feel for it.
There are bombed-out houses; and the docklands in east London are still being used (freight containerisation had not yet happened). I think the London tramways were still in use in 1958 (if not they had not been removed for long). Also, people were still heating with coal, so there’s all that smog as well. I have read that the decade immediately after the Second World War was rather threadbare for Britons, with rationing for quite some time after the war. There was also the Festival of Britain in 1951.
1952 saw the last tram. However, you can still find remains today, even in the heart of the city - http://underground-history.co.uk/kwupass.php
Regarding smog, 1958 puts you at the time it was actively being tackled - Clean Air Act 1956 - Wikipedia is a place to start.
February 1958: Munich air disaster.
The Great Smog happened in December of 1952 - the air got so bad that thousands of people died from breathing it (or, well, not breathing it, as the case may be.)
The Chronicles of Narnia were published in the 1950s. If you focus on the wardrobe parts and not the lion or the witch, there may be some chapters that show the Britain of the time.
But the setting is during World War 2.
Try and get hold of the *New Doctor Who * 2nd season episode The Idiot’s Lantern (warning - contains spoilers for episode). It’s set in 1953, at the time of Elizabeth’s Coronation, and seems to get the feel down pretty well. Also, spooky
Post-war England was extremely heavily regulated, legally speaking. We’re not talking Jackbooted Thugs here, just very heavy controls on everything from beer to housing.
If you watch the first chapter of the Beatles Anthology, you’ll get a good glimpse of British culture of that time.
Ah, my memory failed me. Never mind then.
Before my time 
but I’d say pretty buttoned up and hide bound. Things had moved on since the early 50’s - austerity was over and Macmillan (the Prime Minister) had made his speech saying Briton’s had “never had it so good” but the the swinging Sixties had not yet arrived. Plays and books were still censored by the Lord Chancellor’s office and “Rock and Roll” as played by Bill Hailey and the Comets was the appalling new fad from America corrupting the young!
1958 is the year after the Suez crisis and Briton’s were just beginning to realise the Empire was coming to an end and Britain was no longer a first rate power. The Conservitive Party had been in power since 1951 but had made no effort to role back the statist measures introduced by the post war Labour government (National Health Service, nationalisation of the railways, coal mines, electricity generation).
You might want to bring in Teddy Boys- youth gangs of the period. This was the time when the first wave of Black immegration from the Caribbean was underway and Teddy Boys were associated with the racist Notting Hill Riotsof 1958.
I don’t know if they are still available but Dennis Wheatley was writing supernatural stories during the 50’s. See *To the Devil a Daughter *and The Ka of Gifford Hillary. For a general feel of Briton in the 50’s try some the detective stories of the time - personally I like Ngaio Marsh’s books.
Britain is, like many countries, a more liberal place now than it was in the 1950s, but I’m not sure that it was especially heavily regulated then, by the standards of the time. I don’t know what you’re referring to by controls on housing. Beer, well there were restrictive licensing laws, but they persisted into the 2000s.
Anyway, I think this thread is dwelling too much on the early 50s. By 1958 we were on the cusp of the 60s, we had Elvis, Teddy Boys and a prospering economy, and politicians were using slogans like “you’ve never had it so good” (actually a misquote, but the sentiment was apparently widespread enough for the incumbent party to win an election). Very different from 1953, when rationing was still in force and popular music meant Syd Lawrence or Rosemary Clooney.
[ETA] Damn you MarcusF! But I’ll let it stand, because it took me a while to type…
Not to be too specific, but perhaps to get a feel for that time, imagine a small village on an offshore island. Maybe off the coast of Scotland.
Things are smaller, older. The people are poorer, and so tend to make do. They use less fuel, homes are colder and darker. Some, perhaps most places seem to be in poor repair. People dress for the weather. The TV is very limited. The local cinema is more important as is pub and church life.
People eat less, but work harder preparing meals. People tend to do things themselves. They paint their own houses, some even raise chickens or keep gardens. Choices for food are more limited and based more on the season.
Does that help?
I haven’t read it, but Peter Hennessy’s Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties is the obvious recent generally well reviewed history of the era. It’s a sequel to his earlier Never Again.
Though it’s also worth mentioning David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 as the runaway critically acclaimed and commercially successful competitor to the latter as the instantly standard social history of the immediate postwar years.
In late December, in Godzone county, was born a baby boy destined for greatness. Unfortunately, he lost the plot and ended up as yet another software programmer.
I was born at the tail end of the fifties to a middle class family. Here’s a list of things we didn’t have that a lot more people have today:
car
telephone,
fridge
television
portable radio
means of playing recorded music
washing machine
central heating
So domestic tasks were much more labour intensive – and servants no longer available to most people. Few married women worked, even fewer who had children. if you wanted to travel you took the train or bus, if you needed to telephone someone you went to the phonebox at the end of the road. Public transport networks were far more extensive however and you never had to go far to find a phonebox. Shopping for fresh food was done daily in specialist shops, but the shops weren’t open on Sundays (Sundays were in fact deadly dull with a huge roast dinner as the highlight). Corner shops were pretty much literally on every corner in urban areas. Houses were cold, heating of any kind uncommon in bedrooms and bathrooms.
Socially class divisions were sharper and more marked eg by accent. Deviation from cultural norms was shocking and the norms more narrowly defined. Even in London it was hard to escape the consequences of breaking the rules. Contraception was less available, abstention in marriage surprisingly frequent as a method of family planning. Divorce was difficult and commonly viewed as disgraceful, homosexuality unthinkable. Unmarried single parenthood was so stigmatised and made difficult by legal and social restricions – like access to housing – that few attempted it.
Edited to add nearly everyone was white, even in the big cities.
I was a Teddy Boy in the 50s and there is a thread about my experiences somewhere.
You could try finding it, I’ve had no luck
An old theatre person tip–the Sears Catalogue is a great research tool for what clothing/furniture/toys etc looked like in any given year. If England happens to have a rough equivalent, maybe even indexed online somewhere, you might be able to find pictures to help you visualize the scene…
While still factually true, mass immigration had been underway for some time (the Windrush arrived in 1948). See this article about the 1958 Notting Hill riots, including the figure of 100,000 immigrants from the Caribbean living in London. I’m thinking that perhaps it’s partly because of your middle-class background that you didn’t see much of this. (There’s another interesting angle, with this summary of black footballers through the years.)
I don’t understand it either.
I was born in 1940 and lived in England from 1958 on. I just don’t recognise this “heavily regulated” society.
It’s true our licencing laws (due to to change in WW1 - I believe) were archaic but the rest…
I’d like to read further clarification from smiling bandit about this.