1968: A LIFE of NECESSARY EXTRAVAGANCE | Man Alive | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

You'd imagine having two good incomes, no children and a flat in an enviable part of London would make for a financially comfortable lifestyle.
Not for this young couple. They juggle money between their five bank accounts, spend half a week's pay at the races and write letters to millionaires picked out of Who's Who, asking for a loan of £500. Welcome to the extraordinary world of people living beyond their means.
Clip taken from Man Alive: Beyond Their Means, originally broadcast on BBC Two, Tuesday 4 June, 1968.
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[@nicholasm5465]

His overspending couldn't deal with that dodgy comb-over

[@Simpaulme]

BBC - your audience has spoken - we need a follow-up.

[@stephfoxwell4620]

But please put it in the context of man-made climate change

[@smegmadelhomme8551]

My guess is he’s bald as a coot

[@ColtraneTaylor]

@@stephfoxwell4620 and women's resilience in the face of it.

[@Venmaylove]

Tony entered Witless Protection and became an SEC compliance officer for Hewlett Packard; and Jill became a famous Norwegian forest cat breeder. Their new life in the states was a refreshing change

[@andymerrett]

@@Venmaylove Witless Protection LOL I love it.

[@garethwilliams4467]

so 9 minutes of a bloke tellng me how he deserves what he can't afford.

[@user-gi5nh6ng7g]

It’s amazing to think he’s quite young but looks like he’s in his early fifties.

[@user-ub1dz8js7s]

Keeping up with the Joneses - a miserable and unfulfilling endeavour - trying to fill an empty void.

[@ajs41]

Don't be judgmental.

[@misspurrr-fect3684]

..... Now keeping up with the Kardashian's .

[@Neverforget71324]

...voids are usually empty, so there's that...

[@Pulsonar]

We bemoan the BBC many times for all sorts of valid reasons, but they’ve always made wonderful documentaries. A snapshot of a bygone age that I remember very clearly as a child is really captivating. Particularly in how strongly a once Great Britain contrasts against social, environment, political and cultural mess of today. Only thing great today is the archive quality of this documentary 😊

[@ColtraneTaylor]

"a once Great Britain" ... in the minds of conservative Brits.

[@phillipecook3227]

​@@ColtraneTaylorHere we go. Party politics. Surprised you haven't mentioned Donald Trump.

[@ColtraneTaylor]

​@@phillipecook3227 Can the performativity.

[@squirehaggard4749]

@@ColtraneTaylorThe Conservatives are about to be trounced because so many non “conservative Brits” also don’t think there’s much great about today’s Britain.

[@user-gi5nh6ng7g]

@@phillipecook3227 yeah there’s nothing that political parties have done in the last few years that could possibly damage the standard of living of the average person. So why bring ‘party politics’ into it. I like to make whatever reactionary decisions at the ballot box I want. And I should not have to think about any of the consequences.

[@markwiles3485]

These two are pioneers for the many more who live beyond their means these days though not always through their own fault. It would be interesting to have seen how they got on through the 70s to today.

[@Simpaulme]

I agree - you always want a follow up.. and seldom get it 😞

[@garethwilliams4467]

how can it not be their fault ? At least she isn't asking who is going to pay for the children they've made.

[@kaitlyn__L]

“…and then we could start a business.” Ah yes, and never be in debt again! 😅

[@googlesucks6029]

They would make great fantasy fiction writers. Definitely in the wrong professions.

[@mAiSiEbOOOO]

He emigrated to New Zealand and became a successful businessman, and died in 2022.

[@markwiles3485]

Update: He spent £40 on a wig in 1972.

[@opencurtin]

I thought it was a dead cat .lol

[@oxouk]

He needed it for that bloody rats nest he calls hair.

[@dornierdo2172]

Bring back the comb over!!😮

[@jameshardy6277]

lmao

[@jameshardy6277]

£40 over 8 years at 29% APR. He rolled over the loan many times and is still paying it back to some back street debt collection agency.

[@SirDigbyMinge-or8md]

£1 in 1968 is the equivalent of £14.78 today. I really must get out more.

[@oxouk]

We don't know how to manage our money but we would like to open our own business. If they were interviewing for a business loan from a bank they would be turned down. BBC Archive is one of the most entertaining and educational channels to watch on YT.

[@romancenturion3507]

Also we gamble half our wages

[@Neverforget71324]

They'd fit right in with the average US politician.

[@triggerfish999]

Neither of them come across as happy.

[@FrankJCarver]

I believe the both of them are suffering from what is known as a 'stiff upper lip.'

[@ajs41]

@@FrankJCarver What they're suffering from is believing the world owes them a living.

[@noplace82]

Adjusted for inflation, they take home about £2600 a month and paid £500 a month for a one bed flat in London.

[@BigAL0074]

Absolute bargain, rents are stupid.

[@noplace82]

@BigAL0074 And that's Earls Court - cheapest one bed studio in that area is 3 times the amount. However, your average teacher in London with a few yrs under their belt would be taking home a lot more than £1300 a month nowadays.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Bet that flat, if still there, is no a million pound flat.

[@alexclark5874]

@@TheStevenWhitingno they knocked down all the affordable housing in Earl’s Court to build million pound flats

[@acefaces]

Not British, but does decimilisation of the pound affect the calculation of inflation from the before times?

[@Harmonyww]

Google turns up the obituary of a Tony Whitfield (1940-2022) who was married to a Jill Whitfield. If it's the same bloke he ended up moving to New Zealand and starting a business.

[@w1lf1ewoo]

A teacher, living for £8 a week , in the centre of London… thats bananas!

[@celestialteapot309]

l was 11 and living in a toilet with an outside house. The swinging sixties didn't reach Lancashire.

[@summerrr1]

He’s off his rocker.

[@maidinulster]

No ppl like this will never have enough

[@mriggst]

Born before their time.

[@mandrakethemadcoder]

There have always been people who think like this. "The world owes me, I'm supposed to have everything." With today's quick semination of such idiocy, you just see it much more frequently than you used to.

[@jameshardy6277]

lol

[@PassiveAgressive319]

No people have always been like this. We just like to look at the past through rose tinted glasses.

[@probono3284]

I heard that not long after the programme aired Tony won over £100,000 on the football pools. He told Jill that he wanted their name in the papers, so everyone would know how rich they were. “But Tony, darling, what about all the begging letters?” asked Jill. “Oh, don’t worry darling, we’ll still keep on sending them!“

[@unnamedchannel1237]

😂

[@timhill9189]

For the Brits here, he reminds me of Norman Tebbit.

[@5nowChain5]

Or Rab C Nesbitt

[@sutapasbhattacharya9471]

On yer bike!

[@sutapasbhattacharya9471]

Rishi reminds me of punkawallah - "Wee Breeteeesh!"!

[@Mtmonaghan]

Love or hate them, they are authentic

[@brianmmacu]

I would love an update on those two to see if this cruel,cruel world has given them everything they think they think they should have , or if it continues to " persecute" them Heartbreaking....

[@andypicken7848]

I was thinking that myself. My guess is that they got divorced

[@mAiSiEbOOOO]

Tony Whitfield and his wife Jill subsequently emigrated to New Zealand. He gave up teaching and became a businessman and died in 2022, aged 81.

[@markwardel6751]

So interesting to hear how voices have changed since then....no one speaks like that today.

[@spidyman8853]

BBC speak

[@5nowChain5]

Only in Kent and East Sussex.

[@markb5803]

To the comments I thought. Wasn't disappointed. It all makes sense now, it was weird embittered planks like this that taught me in the 1970s.

[@deb4908]

I’ve always appreciated how well my parents managed within their means but now I admire them even more. At the same time when these two were living their extravagant lifestyle and spiralling into debt my parents were supporting 4 children on what I imagine was around half the amount these two were earning (as neither of my parents were professionals). They worked incredibly hard and we never wasted a single penny. My mum worked in the fields picking fruit (and she was able to take me with her). Yes ‘times were tough’ as they say, I knew we were poor compared to other children I went to school with (and I was envious) but we also had wonderful evenings as a family playing games and laughing together. That’s priceless. I’m thankful that because of their sacrifices they were able to enjoy many years of retirement and happiness in Brittany and helped set me and my sisters on a better path.

[@andymerrett]

Amazing watching two 1968 films back-to-back; this one versus the compulsory purchase orders in Oldham wrecking family homes and businesses. Different worlds.

[@JohnDoe-tx8lq]

He has some really strange logic. And he doesn't seem to understand Banks make money from all interest he pays them on on his loans 2:48

[@andypicken7848]

JohnDoe Agreed. His attitude is bog basic though its a combination of consumption and victim hood. Like you said his attitude to the lender was most bizzare

[@tessanderson2431]

Not a lot of logical thought processing going on under that comb over. Hope he wasn’t a maths teacher.

[@Loupdelou-ly1ve]

🤣🤣

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Economics teacher

[@tessanderson2431]

@@unnamedchannel1237 🤣🤣🤣

[@5nowChain5]

My granny bucked the trend back in the day, She bought her white formica 26" colour TV outright, but she was running a Small hotel in Torquay. The Luxury TV was a business expense to get the tourists in. As the other hotels had blsck and white. Just a Pity she prefferd nylon bed sheets (horrible nights sleep) as easier to boil wash daily.

[@Ryan-on5on]

Ran a small hotel in Torquay, eh? Your gran wasn't married to a certain Basil Fawlty, was she?

[@smegmadelhomme8551]

I’d be more worried about my combover 😂

[@unnamedchannel1237]

If you think this is a combover you never seen my highschool social studies teacher . Combed over one way then combed back again the other way lol

[@daniellamcgee4251]

The grass isn't always greener.

[@HappyCodingZX]

I never knew Bobby Charlton and George Best actually lived together in 1968.

[@andrewtmartin500]

😂

[@cheech7900]

The shade is thrown & IT IS GOOD! 🫡👏👏

[@jacmar44]

A household income of 2k in 1968 per CPI figures is circa 30k in today's money as of time of this comment. So a pair doing 40 hours per week on minimum wage these days would make 40k before tax. Though of course, the cost of housing has gone up a fair bit more than CPI would indicate.

[@Millennial_Manc]

Different decade, same problems. People deciding to live beyond their means. Champagne lifestyle and lemonade money.

[@JiminyCricket8899]

Let her speak mate

[@markb5803]

Noh not in 1968

[@julieannu]

My dad was earning £10 a week with a non working wife and two kids in 1968. Renting a flat in Fulham

[@horrortackleharry]

Interesting that he is a 'schoolteacher' (apparently), but has no qualms about appearing on national TV openly spouting his idiocy. Nowadays he'd be sacked within a week for one dodgy post on social media.

[@andypicken7848]

horrortackleharry He is certainly not thick but is lacking in common sence

[@Slarti]

Exactly, who would want to employ someone as irresponsible as him.

[@spidyman8853]

@@andypicken7848 Sense not sence

[@Slarti]

It's amazing how cheap everything was back then and they still spend above their income. What is so interesting is that they don't actually know what they are spending their money on. They are so irresponsible - I would not want to employ these sorts of people. "We resent people who have money too" - what a messed up character! I have kept track of every penny I have spent for the past 17 years using Microsoft Money and I am still surprised at how people don't know what they are spending money on.

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Hold on Microsoft Money is still able to be run on a modern computer or have you had the same computer for the last 17 years 😂

[@graceperry2623]

I don't remember everything being cheap back then, anything I wanted I had to save up for after I had paid the rent on my bedsitter.

[@RocketRocket-ce3ke]

You have odd logic. Cheap compared to today, but not compared to incomes back then

[@mia56]

He is doing all the talking , wonder if they are still married ?? Alive even !!!

[@andypicken7848]

mia56 I doubt they are married

[@avrilj1191]

Probably somewhere on facebook banging on about the younger generation needing to give up avocado toast

[@unnamedchannel1237]

He was a dick in this . His girl started to talk a little sense then he hushed her and spoke over

[@digeme69]

The racecourse looks like Ascot. A £10 spend for the day! Would cost well over £100 today just for entry for the pair especially if it was the Royal meeting. A couple of pieces of chicken and chips would cost over £20.

[@joelehane1]

400 actually

[@digeme69]

@@joelehane1 As i said, it will be well over £100 but it depends on which enclosure. One can purchase tickets today for Tuesday in the Windsor Enclosure for £49 each or in the Queen Anne for £90 each.

[@ramruma6330]

Epsom rather than Ascot I think, and possibly free on the inside (you can see the stands are on the other side of the course). Probably the day before Sir Ivor won the Derby, the week before this episode of Man Alive was shown.

[@digeme69]

Possibly right, i thought at first glance it was Ascot, and I've been to both tracks, but I am not going to spend too much time researching it.​@ramruma6330

[@joelehane1]

Made me laugh out loud 3 times

[@sarahlouise7163]

this guy's a teacher? what a very strange man

[@unnamedchannel1237]

It’s why the following generation are F’d now because of muppets like this

[@garypoulton7311]

Twits, I wonder how it ended up, lucky for them, high inflation was just around the corner, and if they stopped digging the hole, the debt would diminished rapidly

[@dornierdo2172]

She was a hottie back then.❤

[@matthewtrow5698]

A 1 room flat in the centre London, £8 a week! I think it's more like £500 a week now, if not more. Doing some math, in 1968 the average teachers salary was around £1600 PA, in London now, it's around £37000 That's roughly 23 times more. If we take that £8 a week and multiply it by 23, that's £184 pounds. It's therefore almost 3 times more expensive to rent in central London now, than it was in 1968. And this video shows how people struggled back then - to us looking back, it feels a whole lot better than where we've got to, doesn't it?

[@misspurrr-fect3684]

240 pennies in £1 back then .

[@danh9922]

£500 in 1968 is the equivalent to £7388.65 according to Bank of England inflation calculator for April 2024

[@KainedbutAble123]

Would love to know what became of the Whitfields. How much is their flat in Kensington worth today!?

[@BigAL0074]

It was rented but I bet its worth a couple of million.

[@noplace82]

Drawn a bit of a blank on this pair. All I can find is that they lived in Earls Court, Tony was 25 when this was filmed, went to Liverpool Uni and taught at a Girl's Comp school in Southwark.

[@euskryhtbnfvse4i7ehs4hnvf]

@@noplace82 and he had one hell of a combover

[@professormcclaine5738]

​@@noplace82Did he have an advanced DBS check... 🤔

[@davidlister370]

I've never heard such an entitled person! Brilliant!😄

[@opencurtin]

I wonder what ever happened to them there after ?

[@unnamedchannel1237]

In the poorpa house

[@5nowChain5]

She probably divorced him for marital abuse.

[@dommidavros2211]

£5k a year and he'd be happy?? Bloody Hell he's easily pleased!! 🤔

[@BoninBrighton]

I wonder if they are living an affordable retirement? I would guess not…unless they inherited money?

[@Loupdelou-ly1ve]

Or someone fell for their begging letters...

[@unnamedchannel1237]

They got their $500 and lived off That for rest of their life

[@KingKenny.]

Christ he was punching ! She's a stunner !

[@sutapasbhattacharya9471]

You should go to Specsavers.

[@mrlotusmic]

Society doesn’t change.

[@stephfoxwell4620]

Oh yes it does.

[@ramruma6330]

£20 a week as a teacher. Today he'd be on around £900 a week based on the mid-range of the teachers' pay scale for inner London that goes from £37k to £57k pa.

[@RobertVTR]

That’s a hell of a lot for a teacher.

[@tjm3900]

He was a school teacher ! I wonder is he taught Maths ?

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Economics

[@Neverforget71324]

Imaginary numbers, no doubt.

[@annwe6]

So... there's always been entitled twots about then.

[@ajs41]

Or you could call them ambitious.

[@annwe6]

@@ajs41 I guess so, in a pathological kind of way.

[@5nowChain5]

Minimum Weekly wage was £40 a week upto 1999. Thats a long time for the population to be trapped in poverty.

[@Johndoe10007]

Gambling and drinking and smoking and a quiet 🤫 wife submissive to her husband even if he’s not wise … ahh bring back the good old days 😊

[@gump5ter01]

These 2 would have had an only fans and a tik tok channel

[@mbenn8168]

To be fair, he is punching a bit with Jill. She seems quite nice and pretty, but he seems very sour and chippy. I reckon that in 1974 Jill found a well-endowed 1970's moustachioed He-Man with chest hair, flowing locks and a big gold medallion, while he was left snivelling in a damp flat heated by one candle, moaning about being poor and jealous, and slurping cold Bovril out of an empty Fray Bentos pie tin.

[@andymerrett]

She was a cutie, love that little wry smile she has the whole time. :)

[@eduardo0796]

This is the kind of people that messed up your future.

[@Hurc7495]

Something something kids of today something something not like it used to be.

[@gannet58555]

Amazing ...to think people like this now ...mostly cant even add up and talk correctly....not a tat in sight...lovely hearing them speak

[@paper_gem]

Keep in mind, BBC didn't go around looking for weird people.

[@michaelt8682]

@@paper_gem that was literally what they did in order to make this 'weird and wonderful' segment though...

[@noplace82]

His accent is an affectation. You can hear the Northern accent bleeding through at times. Something he no doubt honed whilst at University.

[@evelynwilson1566]

What????They wrote to total strangers to ask for loans???!!!!😮 I get they complain about benefits scroungers as well. Nae cheek nae chance I suppose😮

[@RocketRocket-ce3ke]

Dont be so harsh on them. Today it is called GoFundMe. They were pioneers.

[@ajs41]

Nothing wrote with asking, you never know how people might reply.

[@mav45678]

Frightening.

[@mrmeg01]

I wonder where these two are now

[@Loupdelou-ly1ve]

At the nursing home - still writing begging letters 😂

[@tonycoxall7370]

@@Loupdelou-ly1ve Haha! It would be interesting to find out. ( Who knows... maybe they've changed over the years and are embarrassed by how they behaved in the past).

[@AndrewWilsonStooshie]

And people think millennials are entitled.

[@ColtraneTaylor]

👍

[@andymerrett]

Lives above his means in a posh area of London and then gets annoyed at his neighbours for having money!

[@borderlands6606]

This was the era of the playboy. Hard to be a high roller and pay interest.

[@solsol1624]

Wow....

[@misscoutts6193]

His accent is very 'clipped'; he sounds upper class but working class did not go to university back then.

[@janel342]

@misscoutts It was 1968! Not 1568 (You must be very young!)

[@timhill9189]

Odd guy. "You (e.g. J.P. Getty) give us money, and we may make a contribution to humanity."

[@fburton8]

How did they find the Gettys' Burg house address?

[@ajs41]

In the phone book. It contained addresses and phone numbers. Everyone was in there, including rich and famous people. Marilyn Monroe's personal phone number was available to everyone in the 1950s when she was famous. You can see how disciplined most people were at that time from the fact that she was happy to have her phone number available to tens of millions of fans without being afraid of being pestered all the time. I can see how a lot of people today would find what I've just written difficult to believe, because people today wouldn't have the same discipline in not pestering their favourite celebrities.

[@classlessbozo317]

Bobby Charlton had let himself go…

[@brocktoon8]

They're like Gen Z: resentful, entitled, self-victimized, and ungrateful even though they have a perfect life.

[@LeighRichards27]

Theyd probably both be tory MPs now 😉

[@hopebgood]

tbh I have no idea what blah blah blah an amount of money meant back in 1968. I'm too young! I just know I've never been in debt just to keep up with the neighbours in some meaningless tit for tat competition. And ffs they actually wrote begging....sorry, "loan" letters to people from "Who's Who"????? 🙄

[@76ToneCrome]

What a sad pair of...

[@timhill9189]

We are as far from this now as they were from 1912.

[@5nowChain5]

Did he later become Rab C Nesbit ?

[@hypercomms2001]

I wonder how their lives turned out... ? This would be an excellent documentary follow up, but now they might have passed away..

[@hypercomms2001]

Living beyond ones means, just to keep up with a certain upper-class strata of life, is not a formula for a long and happy life.... And being a good wife, she is doing what she can for her husband, but one can imagine that she would like to have a family, and so the family should Focus on what they need not what he needs....

[@user-tb7og1ji9k]

Dont you realise that the world owes us a living 😂😂😂

[@hopebgood]

Little bit of Crass there....

[@gramorris9430]

Living in cloud cuckoo land

[@jojonesjojo8919]

This geyser is a bit weird.

[@stephfoxwell4620]

An excellent metaphor for 14 years of Tory Government

[@garethwilliams4467]

Pure jealousy .. doesn't see why other people should have more money than him. Nothing changes

[@ThatGuyThanus]

State of them, though..😂

[@misspurrr-fect3684]

There were 240 pennies in £1 back then .

[@vantheman1238]

He’s a middle aged man before his time. Chill out bruv and make Jill a happy woman 😂

[@felinegroovy]

I wonder if the man in this video has watched it recently and thought how insufferable and smug he sounded, as though those being fiscally prudent were just suffering from a lack of imagination or some such failing.

[@ed9763]

Very interesting😃. As an Arab I would have advised you to write to an Arabian shaik or emir they would have been more forthcoming. They are much looser with their cash.

[@Mick_Ts_Chick]

Hey, thanks for the tip. I might do that when I get hard up for money! 😅

[@spidyman8853]

Fat chance. They are not as you quoted much looser with their dough. Some one I know wrote to an Arabian Sheikh (years and years ago) and surprise surprise got no reply. Says it all really.

[@Derekconlon]

I think it would be the funniest thing in the world it turns out, on follow up in our own time, that these two are complaining about the "entitled kids these days". They're so delusional I'd well believe it. Never seen such brazen entitlement.

[@Ess-w3g]

What a horrible couple. Immature and ntitled

[@PassiveAgressive319]

He comes across as thoroughly unpleasant.

[@tedwards1604]

He is absolutely delusional, both about their debt and writing begging letters to millionaires. Mentalists.

[@Spendarellaa]

Punching

[@AKandfriends-yt2yz]

spoke some wisecwords

[@naysmith5272]

There was a very sad ending the last time we looked up what happened to someone from BBC Archive Clip.

[@noplace82]

There was a sad ending when a few nasty, small-minded people made baseless claims about the subject in the video. You can't stop those people from commenting, they would make the same comments regardless of whether any additional information was found or not. There are already dozens of derogatory comments, most of which are about Tony's hair and there has been no additional information posted, that could ellicit or encourage anything like what was said on the video you're referring to. People are curious, it's human nature. Sadly, some people can be mean, which is, again, human nature.

[@KarenBeadle]

strange attitude 🤔

[@Neverforget71324]

... what would you say, Jill? Is this Biden?????????????????????