1957: Blackburn's WAKES WEEK Holiday | Tonight | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

Future Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) directs a short film illustrating the effect on Blackburn of Wakes Week - the annual holiday in the Lancashire cotton towns.
This clip is from Tonight, originally broadcast 16 August, 1957.
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[@catherine59226]

I love these old films. Thank you so much for sharing them with us.

[@johnheald5404]

Loved the old chap at the end, locking up at John Baynes' Mill on Cicely. I was 13 months old when this film was made, and lived about 50 yards from the top of Cicely. Happy memories of my old hometown. Now changed beyond belief....forever.

[@jameslivanski2914]

agreed John. too many muslamics and the like around the area enforcing sheera law.

[@anythingbootneck]

Wonderful, I didn’t want this film to end!

[@robharding5345]

To think I was 9 days old, when this film was made ! My family moved from the smoke to this wonderful cotton town in 59. Things have changed since I was growing up here, and some not for the better. But a great piece of film all the same.

[@rosseccles5965]

I attended Four Lanes End School during WW2 and used to swim in both Freckleton Street and Belper Street Baths. All are now demolished! So this great old film brings back a lot of memories.

[@paulhease1007]

Getting some tripe for the ol mans supper. Stinking out the house and making pots black

[@andydixon2980]

Could watch hours of this..

[@mus139]

When Britain was Britain.

[@robharding5345]

looking at the 3 little girls playing in the back alley, it looks like Pendle street at the copy nook end, I used to walk up that alley every day, en route to St Marys school in the early 60's.🤩My mistake,4 .🥰

[@sammemrys8195]

The man at the end cut a lonely figure, indeed. And despite the fact it was a holiday, there weren't too many happy faces.

[@atomictraveller]

that closing scene

[@Charlotte66666]

Wonderful ❤

[@PlanetImo]

I love this channel. I'm fascinated by the filming and editing through the ages.

[@jeepy8067]

I feel I would have loved to live back then. So simple. But I'm sure wasn't all roses

[@th8257]

It was horrific. People had terrible lives. Poverty, terrible working conditions. Heavy drinking and poor diet. Life was short and brutal.

[@gooderspitman8052]

Notice nearly every man wore a tie? My Grandad always wore a tie, even when we went coarse fishing, what a time portal on a lost world.

[@AnimalLover-1111]

They were real gentlemen back in the day.

[@th8257]

​@@AnimalLover-1111people were no different than they are today. It was nothing to do with being a gentleman - it was to do with the rigid class system

[@th8257]

Yes. Working class people often only had a couple of sets of clothes at most. Britain was such a stuffy and class ridden place back then that it was seen as pretty much obligatory to wear a tie like that.

[@UKTransportVideos82]

Wow how Blackburn has changed these days

[@michelles2299]

Surprising how smartly dressed people where, and slim, not so now if you go into Blackburn these days

[@markbrown4039]

What was everybody chewing on at about 2:30?

[@shandywarhol4444]

Dunno, but rumour has it that some of the kids are still chewing now!! 🤭Kx

[@Mick_Ts_Chick]

Must be sticky cause they chewed it a long time!

[@Dharkhaze17]

Probably licorice?

[@davedogge2280]

Mr Matthews head teacher at St James Lwr Darwen (near Blackburn) taught me how to wooden clog dance in the early 80s, So these places have their traditions. Lets just say that these type of 'folk' have fled out of the inner city out into the surrounding countryside such as the Ribble Valley for 'reasons'.

[@timamor915]

The racism that dare not speak its name

[@rjjcms1]

@@timamor915I'm pretty sure that's cobblers. They did what people do when they've earned a few bob all over the world - they move out from the inner city into the suburbs where there's more space,cleanear air,less traffic,less congestion and usually less crime. Immigrants,on the other hand,flock more to the cities because that's where the employment is. Eventually,they'll make a few bob and probably move out to the suburbs and put down a few roots themselves.

[@Avid_Fan]

​@@timamor915yes, population replacement and displacement is a virulent form if anti-whiteism. Then again, there are always cowards that cheer it on because it's what those in power want.

[@depniff]

I think that baby's crying was dubbed. Or maybe they cried in a different way back then. Must have been all the coal dust. Lovely film.

[@danyoutube7491]

Yes it sounded dreadful didn't it, I'm not sure why they felt the viewers needed to hear an awful rendition of what is, in any case, an uncomfortable sound to listen to! It reminded me The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where there is that crying little boy with the awful dubbed over wailing.

[@JontyMaster]

@@danyoutube7491 As someone with misophonia, I agree.

[@user-yq3nu5hd6n]

Wow My time 1960 Newcastle, We had nothing Lovely child happiness Remember Parents only had children Nothing else to do but given us happiness It not rocket science 1950 /60 /70 Made England ❤ Golden years back then Love these programs Especially black and white Memory always Thanks Sad today England lost it way For wrong reasons Sad.... ..

[@fredo1070]

Last week of July 1957 and everyone is wearing overcoats. Just like this year.

[@julianl6369]

They looked old and careworn even when young 😮

[@gmc9451]

I think I'd have emigrated. You can almost feel the damp seeping into your bones.

[@shandywarhol4444]

That pub was demolished in 2012, i think it said. Prior to then it had been an Indian restaurant. Kx

[@JustDaniel6764]

I used to stay in that pub as a kid i was friends with the landlords son

[@shandywarhol4444]

Look at the kids leaving school, without the sign of a waiting parent.... Kx

[@hmq9052]

Wow. Look at it. The north is grim.

[@robharding5345]

No different from the south, both have their ghettos.

[@michelles2299]

Not so I live in Lancashire and we have some very nice villages and lots of green, unlike dirty London town the streets are minging

[@dropperknot]

Well, what a surprise, I didn't see one black face.

[@user-xe8kk3fw1x]

What has happened to the old Blackburn, hardly anything left of it even though its only 3% of the population wagging the tail of the dog!!Labour has so much to answer for,Mr Jack Straw😊

[@Traveller69]

Facinating. Just like the "Potters Fortnight" in Stoke which ran into the late 80s until Thatcher and Co did for the working classes. The Upper Classes were rightly forced into ending Colonialism and then simply shifted all the industry to former Colonies for cheaper labour and destroyed communities at home as a nationwide rebuff. Still taking us for mugs to this day. Oh well, at least I can be grateful I am not a Night Watchman staying at the Cemetery Hotel in Blackburn in 1957 though! 😂 Interesting to see John Schlesinger cut his teeth directing this. There are some similar clips, adverts and shorts of many Directors including Ridley Scott and David Fincher on here.

[@user-yq3nu5hd6n]

To day Most Asians live there Today

[@davidshurville3658]

What were they all chewing? Surely not gum in those days?

[@mushroomhead3054]

What has happened to our country 😔

[@atomictraveller]

nothing the ma5ons wouldn't want free west papua

[@SwazerSwazers]

Do you think that the slavery of the working class was a good thing? My grandparents spent their entire working lives in the cotton Mills. This was slavery.

[@Avid_Fan]

​@@SwazerSwazersI think you missed the point.

[@Avid_Fan]

...I suspect that you know what happened.

[@swiggsoclock]

⁠@@Avid_Fancome on, don’t be coy. Tell us what happened

[@josephsaleh7433]

Long gone of the days made in the UK most of the worlds manufacturing his made in China

[@buxvan]

What's become of our country ?

[@davedogge2280]

I think life was harder back then in different ways but there was more community cohesion and help back then

[@timamor915]

The quality of life has increased and there are holiday destinations with better weather than Blackpool

[@atomictraveller]

the ma5ons are an international event free west papua

[@adamcaldwell5646]

​@@dragonbillylee4781and an incredibly boring one.

[@sands7779]

@@dragonbillylee4781 The Irish migrated all around the world looking for work when they couldn't find jobs at home, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. For the unemployed or anyone that fell outside the societal constraints touted by Archbishop McQuaid and his ilk, Ireland wasn't the rose garden you imagine it to be.

[@yanikkunitsin1466]

That one strange American accent that 'factory worker' put on. That r and de instead of 'the' tells me that it's not trans-atlantic either.

[@Avid_Fan]

It's the accent in east Lancashire; Blackburn people are well known for the way they pronounce their "r", so no need to arrogantly put factory worker in inverted commas.

[@yanikkunitsin1466]

​@@Avid_Fan I, mee-self, live in inverted commas. Comma white, if you will.

[@whatamalike]

Something something immigration and pc culture

[@aurora_skye]

I can't tell if you're criticising these things or criticising those who do criticise them.

[@whatamalike]

@aurora_skye the latter my friend

[@maverick214]

What a bleak place England was, some 12 years after WW2.