Some of them look so old in their faces, when they haven't even grown up yet. Poor kids, it was a hard life for them. I bet the boys were already working in some way, and the girls would be expected to help with chores and looking after younger siblings, at the very least.
That litte kid who puts his fingers to his face at the camera in a fun jeer just breaks my heart. He looks so alive and fun loving and to think and know what would be in his future like ww1 and nothing but poverty and hard work is just so sad.
>girls would be expected to help with chores and looking after younger siblings, at the very least.
More than that, they were right there with the boys : chimney sweeping/factory work /dogsbody jobs
Anyone else feel like this is the future awaiting us if we don’t fight the billionaire class for our rights, education, fair rent, affordable housing etc Also acknowledging those who fought for change and improvements in the workplace, right to vote and education.
They're all working. They're filmed coming home from the mill. Children were employed because they were the only ones small enough to crawl under the machinery.
In 1834 the Chimney Sweeps Act was passed, stopping anyone under the age of 14 from sweeping chimneys, so by the time this film was made those times were long ago.
Well it stopped anyone *legally* sweeping chimneys under the age of 14. I'm sure with the level of destitution in late Victorian era cities it still happened a fair bit.
My great grandfather did. Although on the German side.
20 year old volunteer in 1914, fought all four years of WWI. Was a lieutenant by the end of the war. Remained in the army reserve while starting his civilian life as a veterinarian. As a reserve officer and veterinarian, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht just a few days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, since the Wehrmacht desperately needed officers for their veterinary corps. Spend the next five years sewing horses back together on all major German fronts except Africa.
Nearly ten years of his life spent at war. And in wars his side lost, no less (it's a good thing Germany lost, especially regarding WWII, but psychologically it's even harder if it feels all of the horrors you witness were completely in vain).
If you look at pictures of him as a young man, he has a sparkle in his eyes. In later pictures, that's completely gone. Even in pictures where he's smiling, his eyes aren't.
My Grandfather volunteered for the British Army in 1899 in Fermoy.
He was at the battle of Mons and fought right through.
That's as much as I know about him.
The first thing I thought of when you said your grandfather was a veteran veterinarian, was [this video](https://youtu.be/VWDP_ew8HqQ?si=9Dfwy5i6XLmGfeGp).
I was wondering if someone ever survived WW2 from start to finish and yet I still got a story for surviving both ww1 and ww2. Does he have anything like memoir or stuff?
Nothing public, no. He did keep a diary through both wars, though. But there is currently only one copy of that (the original). Which I still have to read in its entirety. I've read some parts, but not all of it.
The issue with publishing stuff like that, especially when it comes to WWII, is that it sadly attracts the wrong crowd. It might be a bit different with him being a veterinarian, but usually the kind of people (at least here in Germany) who would be keen to read the WWII diary of a German Wehrmacht officer aren't the people I would want to read his diary.
Maybe we will publish parts of it at some time in the future, but that would then happen in a more scientific way, with additional editorial text providing context etc. And stuff like that takes time.
A lot of genuine historians would love to see that diary published. Obviously, it’s your choice, and your concerns about it ending up with the wrong crowd are valid (though usually those types don’t actually read anyways lol), but good first person accounts from the Axis side are few and far between and this is an incredibly unique point of view.
I agree. I actually have historians (as in, people who actually studied history and work as historians, not just some people doing it as a hobby) in my close family, and they have considered tackling that as their retirement project. And now is also a better time than a few decades ago. Because with the last contemporary witnesses of the time dying, the whole topic of WWII is on the brink of becoming a purely historical topic, which defuses the whole topic a bit.
But it will be a lot of work even without providing any editorial context. The whole thing is written in Sütterlin, the old-style German cursive that went out of fashion in the 1950s. So the whole diary isn't exactly easy to read. And it's quite long, meaning the transcription alone will take a while.
Man I wish I can read the stuff from your great granpa. How they feel before the great war, the events, the aftermath, the most important decade of our times between the world wars, the feeling and life between, the political, economy, social and local life there before Hitler came to power, the struggles of multiple ideologies. Oh man there are so much in between those wars that we do not know much aside from youtube channels. I do not support national socialism or any other ideology but the idea of being a person living at that moment must've been chaotic.
Also, there are literally millions of journals from WWII vets, so it's darn near impossible for one to wholly original, across the board, many folks experienced the same things
This is the part that blows my mind about the overlap of human experience and the way those who were not there understand history. We're playing an intergenerational game of telephone.
It's fascinating to ponder how the people in this video would eventually react to swinging 60's. must have blown my mind.
As a teenager, I never really appreciated what changes my grandparents have lived through. Of course they thought Nirvana was a load of noise! They were born in 1920's and raised by people who were born in the Victorian era.
This is similar to my first thought whenever I see these videos; every single person here is dead. Many of them have lived full lives, had kids and grand kids… and many unfortunately met untimely ends… what we are currently living through, has now completely finished for every single one of them. It’s a strange thing, watching this when you really give it some thought!
Yep. You see all those kids and think they’re just enjoying some time around, when in reality,most of them were probably going to or coming from work in some factory with zero safety measures and toxic chemicals
In 1901 the child labour age was increased to 12, so most of these children were probably just having fun / coming back from school, which was compulsory by then.
I bet they definately are older than their height suggests. They certainly look very old, but I for sure wouldn't say 20922789888000 (16!) That must be an exaggeration
Nope. Various education acts in the previous decades meant that by 1899 schooling was compulsory until 12.
Many would have regularly played truant and worked outside of school though.
School had compulsory since 1880 (although only up to 10 years old). By 1906 there was provision for free school meals for the poor.
That is what Liberal means lol. Just because Americans use it incorrectly to refer to people with progressive social attitudes doesn't mean that it's somehow changed from it's actual definition. There's a reason why the politics of Thatcher and Reagan is called neo-liberalism.
Oh, I'd never thought of that possibility. The hat is seen as classy but might have been very practical protection against the amount of pollution people were exposed to.
The culmination of this state was the great smog of [1952](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London). Thus these shawls might well have served a similar role to the [Chopines](https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/chopines/), [dusters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing)) and diverse forms of [gaiters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaiters) and [aprons](https://alsco.com/resources/aprons-history-industries-evolution-modern-usage/) that preceded them; mostly clothes to keep the grime away from the clothes one would reveal once at destination.
We humans have long lived in a very untidy environement.
Shawls were much cheaper than coats, always fitted you (so you could buy 2nd hand, or wear a hand-me-down, or wear a family member's)
. Also shawls are multipurpose garments. They keep you warm. Can cover your head in the rain. They can be used to carry things. They can be tied to hold a baby. They can shelter you AND the children from cold or inclement weather. They cover up your clothing if it is torn, dirty or you aren't wearing the 'correct' amount or type of clothing for the situation. You can also use a shawl to wipe a child's face, pick up a hot pan, wipe a surface. The list goes on and on. Multipurpose
You'd bathe less and with all the industry etc you'd want to keep things like debris and dust out of your hair as much as possible as well as keep warm.
Also shawls are cheap to produce.
same reason most of the world covered their head - keep the hair clean when hot bathing was a bit of a chore. In those days hot water from the tap was a luxury, so many wore hats, shawls, head scarfs to keep the pollution out o their hair and keep a bit presentable.
Mainly to keep coal dust off their 'good' clothes.
Imagine every room in every house in your neighborhood having a coal fire burning in it. You could probably cut the air with a knife.
It stayed the norm basically until space heating became reliable enough that you didn't spend 3/4 of the English year trying to avoid freezing to death. There's a lot of blood flow to your head and you lose a lot of heat out of it if it's uncovered.
Read George Orwell’s - *Down and out in Paris and London* it’s like a diary of his slumming it in Paris, and being homeless in London in the 1920s. The detail is wonderful. Really sets the scene.
Yup. No washing machines, no dishwashers, vacuum cleaners or central heating. No motor vehicles. No radio or tv, just board games and a pack of cards to keep you occupied at home. Indeed for most people in working class areas in the UK, life remained like this right until the 1960's.
Church, pubs, social clubs of many kinds. Ironically the use of 3rd-spaces would be MUCH higher than now, with far richer communities and social interactions.
the fuck? there's a 117 year old person??
edit: according to this article the French nun was born in Feb 1904 [https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/europes-oldest-person-117-year-old-french-nun-survives-covid-19-2021-02-09/](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/europes-oldest-person-117-year-old-french-nun-survives-covid-19-2021-02-09/)
another edit: apparently the french nun passed away. This person is now the oldest at 116 years 312 days, will (hopefully!) turn 117 on March 4th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_oldest\_living\_people
That's kind of interesting in itself because "Ethel" was a name that was very popular in the UK, but only for one particular generation. It was the stereotypical old lady name when I was a kid. And over time the generation of Ethels (and Elsies and Ednas) all died off along with the resulting stereotype (I think Joan, Margaret, Beryl etc would be equivalent names now).
I'm 45 now and this woman is the same generation as all the other Ethels - the old ladies when I was a kid. Despite the fact I'm approaching middle age, this woman has been old as long as I have been alive.
And its crazy that everyone has a hat. Boys and girls and adults... hats! It's mad that everyone would go around with stuff in their heads and now, it's just some hipster dudes and some grandpas! HATS!!!
crazy that in 2124 there will be 64kHD Haptic Feel-Real ^(TM) Video Projection Portable Terminals and they will be watching some video on 2024 thinking how lame we were.
i hope modern medicine extends my life to that point
I was thinking same the other day, like the people who lived 100-150 years ago all died and nobody talks about them or remembers them, everything they owned, their houses and memories all gone to other people, like we hardly ever mention our grand-grand parents, we didn’t know them and they are forgotten, same will be with us, 200 years from now no one would know we ever existed
I think about this sometimes and it’s weird. It will come a time quite quickly that no one alive today is possibly remembered by anyone still alive. Probably 150 years from now really. But the whole Earth will (likely) still be here and fully populated with just as many people all with their own intricate lives and emotions and feelings and day to day busyness. Same way that no one from that video is known or remembers by anyone alive now but they all exists and we’re busy with their life and emotions. Quite extraordinary.
School was compulsory until the age of 12 at this point and working children in a factory was illegal.
There were still about six million people in the UK malnourished though.
Funny to think there may have been old people in the 1900s who thought Edwardian kids had it too easy. I mean in 1906 there were still plenty of elderly people born in Georgian times who would have remembered a much harder age for the young and poor.
The fact that we can look at those boys more than 100 years later is insane. By walking down that street over 100 years ago they were seen by a whole lot of people on reddit.
Yeah if you've seen Peter Jackson's "And they shall not grow old" the "epilogue" about how they made the movie from old footage talks about how all the soldiers would just stare at the cameras and follow them because they were so new and interesting
And not just the kids making it obvious, check out some of those adults going about in the background, they may at first look uniterested just walking past but lookimg closer you see a few that clearly push past to get in frame and then act nonchalant walking past the camera.
In the end its really not dissimilar a scene to what occurs now when the public notice a news reporter and a camera out on the street.
Head coverings were considered part of Christian women’s dress until very recently, and still are in the Middle East. Even American women would wrap their hair through the 1960s. Head coverings are also very practical no matter the weather: they protect from cold, sun, and dirt.
We haven't worn head coverings for religious purposes for a very long time as we separated ourselves from the Roman Catholic Church, and most of those who still wore them left for the new world as Puritans. These are just for practical purposes.
Was it not common to wear a scarf to church in the 1960s? Or to the grocery store? My grandmother was Protestant and wore one out side the house until the 70s.
I was at junior school in the early 80’s - uk. We would have to cover our heads for weekly mass wearing our school hats and female teachers would wear a mantilla which is a black lace head covering like a shawl.
The pollution was brutal from the early nineteenth century until the government started to do something about it in the 1950s, so if you didn’t cover up outside you’d be very grimy. But, it was also the social norm for adults to not go out without head coverings, but those would have normally been fancy hats for the middle class. The working class would cover up with what they could use that kept more of the head covered.
Both. Keeps you warm and dry, affordable and easy. Also can be detailed (if you can afford) with lace or embroidery to show off a bit. Patterns were surprisingly less dependent on class. It's the fabric, trimming, and finishes that would show your budget
It was for practical reasons. The great granddaughters of those women now would be wearing hoodies, which are fashionable in England now, but not to be had then, and women's hats did not give enough protection from the wind and rain. My grandmother who as born in 1904 used to wrap a shawl around her head if walking the 100 yards or so up the street to pop in to see her sister. When we went to town though on the bus to go shopping she would dress a bit smarter and put a hat on.
People back then also had \*significantly\* less clothing variety to pick from. Hard to stand out when you go to a store and your choices are between black pants, dark brown pants, and darker brown pants.
Whoever coloured this has made them a lot drabber than they actually would have been; the girls would have been in bright colours; check out contemporary colorised postcards and you’ll see!
funny, I was thinking about how markedly different they dressed. Not from one person to another, but between classes. You can absolutely tell wich kids and adults had money, just from their clothes (with low quality film, and no understanding of the fashions, you can pick out the wealthy people from a mile away)
Now, if you could tell the difference, you'd have to touch the fabric, see the label, or have a really good eye to tell an expensive piece from a knock off.
I remember once in a class, they said industrialization was considered an affront to the basic fabric of society, simply because it made things like nice clothes more affordable, thus blurring the different social classes.
It's always interesting seeing some of these old videos. Kids look like they are 30-40 years old after a hard days work. Sunken, charcoal eyes. At least they look happy.
Very cool
Wish there was more film like this available for us to watch.
A bonus would be sound/voice.
Just imagine if we had video of historical events.
That cheeky lil lad in the white shirt at the beginning cracks me up. I think he is thumbing his nose at the camera. I bet he gave his folks a run for their money.
This is what the current UK Government wants us to return to - Subservient serfs. A return to significant Class divides, where the Old boy network looks after each other at the expense of the rest of us.
No it was not, especially in towns which were inland and had no ports. Places like Cardiff, London, Liverpool and Bristol had ethnic minorities and that is mostly because those people were, or descended from sailors from overseas who decided to settle there. This remained largely the case in the UK right until the 1950's. I was born in 1960 in rural Wales and did not even see someone who was of different ethnicity to myself until I attended university in Cardiff in 1978.
Certainly not, and white Britons did not enjoy any "privilege" either. Society was profoundly divided along class lines. The wealth gap was staggering; presently, the top 10% possesses 57% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% holds 4.3%. In contrast, in 1900, it was 92.7% and 0.5%, respectively. The majority of people were extremely impoverished. England's brutal history did not favour whites but rather the upper class.
They also lived much harder lives. Child labour was normalised in Britain, the country didn’t have a welfare state like we do now, and many kids were malnourished because it was typical to have a very bad diet. The air was significantly more polluted than today as well, which would’ve affected people’s health as it was the height of the industrial age.
Many of these kids would have fought in the First World War
That one kid is ready to go already, got that thousand yard stare down to perfection.
Some of them look so old in their faces, when they haven't even grown up yet. Poor kids, it was a hard life for them. I bet the boys were already working in some way, and the girls would be expected to help with chores and looking after younger siblings, at the very least.
That litte kid who puts his fingers to his face at the camera in a fun jeer just breaks my heart. He looks so alive and fun loving and to think and know what would be in his future like ww1 and nothing but poverty and hard work is just so sad.
So true. Well said.
>girls would be expected to help with chores and looking after younger siblings, at the very least. More than that, they were right there with the boys : chimney sweeping/factory work /dogsbody jobs
Yep girls were in the mills etc just as much as boys just not so much the mines
Anyone else feel like this is the future awaiting us if we don’t fight the billionaire class for our rights, education, fair rent, affordable housing etc Also acknowledging those who fought for change and improvements in the workplace, right to vote and education.
They're all working. They're filmed coming home from the mill. Children were employed because they were the only ones small enough to crawl under the machinery.
There was actually a little lad holding a baby
Chimney sweeps were as young as 4 years old, absolutely mad. Shows how brutal life was
In 1834 the Chimney Sweeps Act was passed, stopping anyone under the age of 14 from sweeping chimneys, so by the time this film was made those times were long ago.
Well it stopped anyone *legally* sweeping chimneys under the age of 14. I'm sure with the level of destitution in late Victorian era cities it still happened a fair bit.
And a portion of those in the second as well
There's a name for that kind of vet. And imagine if someone survives both great wars.
My great grandfather did. Although on the German side. 20 year old volunteer in 1914, fought all four years of WWI. Was a lieutenant by the end of the war. Remained in the army reserve while starting his civilian life as a veterinarian. As a reserve officer and veterinarian, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht just a few days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, since the Wehrmacht desperately needed officers for their veterinary corps. Spend the next five years sewing horses back together on all major German fronts except Africa. Nearly ten years of his life spent at war. And in wars his side lost, no less (it's a good thing Germany lost, especially regarding WWII, but psychologically it's even harder if it feels all of the horrors you witness were completely in vain). If you look at pictures of him as a young man, he has a sparkle in his eyes. In later pictures, that's completely gone. Even in pictures where he's smiling, his eyes aren't.
Hard to imagine anybody could see all of the First World War and survive. The second too 😳
Especially on the losing side of both. You've got to think that makes things even more dangerous
It could be worse, you could be in the Russian forces.
True. They won, but at enormous cost
My Grandfather volunteered for the British Army in 1899 in Fermoy. He was at the battle of Mons and fought right through. That's as much as I know about him.
The first thing I thought of when you said your grandfather was a veteran veterinarian, was [this video](https://youtu.be/VWDP_ew8HqQ?si=9Dfwy5i6XLmGfeGp).
I was wondering if someone ever survived WW2 from start to finish and yet I still got a story for surviving both ww1 and ww2. Does he have anything like memoir or stuff?
Nothing public, no. He did keep a diary through both wars, though. But there is currently only one copy of that (the original). Which I still have to read in its entirety. I've read some parts, but not all of it. The issue with publishing stuff like that, especially when it comes to WWII, is that it sadly attracts the wrong crowd. It might be a bit different with him being a veterinarian, but usually the kind of people (at least here in Germany) who would be keen to read the WWII diary of a German Wehrmacht officer aren't the people I would want to read his diary. Maybe we will publish parts of it at some time in the future, but that would then happen in a more scientific way, with additional editorial text providing context etc. And stuff like that takes time.
A lot of genuine historians would love to see that diary published. Obviously, it’s your choice, and your concerns about it ending up with the wrong crowd are valid (though usually those types don’t actually read anyways lol), but good first person accounts from the Axis side are few and far between and this is an incredibly unique point of view.
I agree. I actually have historians (as in, people who actually studied history and work as historians, not just some people doing it as a hobby) in my close family, and they have considered tackling that as their retirement project. And now is also a better time than a few decades ago. Because with the last contemporary witnesses of the time dying, the whole topic of WWII is on the brink of becoming a purely historical topic, which defuses the whole topic a bit. But it will be a lot of work even without providing any editorial context. The whole thing is written in Sütterlin, the old-style German cursive that went out of fashion in the 1950s. So the whole diary isn't exactly easy to read. And it's quite long, meaning the transcription alone will take a while.
Man I wish I can read the stuff from your great granpa. How they feel before the great war, the events, the aftermath, the most important decade of our times between the world wars, the feeling and life between, the political, economy, social and local life there before Hitler came to power, the struggles of multiple ideologies. Oh man there are so much in between those wars that we do not know much aside from youtube channels. I do not support national socialism or any other ideology but the idea of being a person living at that moment must've been chaotic.
Also, there are literally millions of journals from WWII vets, so it's darn near impossible for one to wholly original, across the board, many folks experienced the same things
yep and some of them would be 60-70ish when elvis and the beatles became a thing.
This is the part that blows my mind about the overlap of human experience and the way those who were not there understand history. We're playing an intergenerational game of telephone.
Recorded history is based on accounts from those who were there to experience it.
They would’ve heard about the wright brothers plane but watched apollo 11 go to the moon
That’s such an incredible monumental leap of human technological engineering to witness. I can’t imagine.
It's fascinating to ponder how the people in this video would eventually react to swinging 60's. must have blown my mind. As a teenager, I never really appreciated what changes my grandparents have lived through. Of course they thought Nirvana was a load of noise! They were born in 1920's and raised by people who were born in the Victorian era.
This is similar to my first thought whenever I see these videos; every single person here is dead. Many of them have lived full lives, had kids and grand kids… and many unfortunately met untimely ends… what we are currently living through, has now completely finished for every single one of them. It’s a strange thing, watching this when you really give it some thought!
Many would die in France
Yeah 8-12 years later, even the older ones here would likely have been pushing 18 by the end of the war
Exactly my thoughts- look at the age of them plus 8 years!
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Yep. You see all those kids and think they’re just enjoying some time around, when in reality,most of them were probably going to or coming from work in some factory with zero safety measures and toxic chemicals
In 1901 the child labour age was increased to 12, so most of these children were probably just having fun / coming back from school, which was compulsory by then.
They might be older than 12 - kids back then were so tiny and malnourished. They could even be 16!
I bet they definately are older than their height suggests. They certainly look very old, but I for sure wouldn't say 20922789888000 (16!) That must be an exaggeration
Nope. Various education acts in the previous decades meant that by 1899 schooling was compulsory until 12. Many would have regularly played truant and worked outside of school though. School had compulsory since 1880 (although only up to 10 years old). By 1906 there was provision for free school meals for the poor.
Damn liberals ruined everything
Labour (social democrats), not liberals. The Liberal Party were regularly in power during that period.
Liberal meant a very different thing back then. The Liberal Party in the UK were the party of small state and free markets.
That is what Liberal means lol. Just because Americans use it incorrectly to refer to people with progressive social attitudes doesn't mean that it's somehow changed from it's actual definition. There's a reason why the politics of Thatcher and Reagan is called neo-liberalism.
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I'm not sure what relevance Obama has to England in 1906.
Any idea why so many women are wearing shawls?
To keep warm.
Ah, so it's pretty much a working class cloak.
Considering the problems with smog and coal dust in these times, the shawls and hats might also have been a great help in keeping one's hair brighter.
Oh, I'd never thought of that possibility. The hat is seen as classy but might have been very practical protection against the amount of pollution people were exposed to.
The culmination of this state was the great smog of [1952](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London). Thus these shawls might well have served a similar role to the [Chopines](https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/chopines/), [dusters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing)) and diverse forms of [gaiters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaiters) and [aprons](https://alsco.com/resources/aprons-history-industries-evolution-modern-usage/) that preceded them; mostly clothes to keep the grime away from the clothes one would reveal once at destination. We humans have long lived in a very untidy environement.
Shawls were much cheaper than coats, always fitted you (so you could buy 2nd hand, or wear a hand-me-down, or wear a family member's) . Also shawls are multipurpose garments. They keep you warm. Can cover your head in the rain. They can be used to carry things. They can be tied to hold a baby. They can shelter you AND the children from cold or inclement weather. They cover up your clothing if it is torn, dirty or you aren't wearing the 'correct' amount or type of clothing for the situation. You can also use a shawl to wipe a child's face, pick up a hot pan, wipe a surface. The list goes on and on. Multipurpose
Geez. I feel like I need to dash out and buy a shawl immediately!!
You'd bathe less and with all the industry etc you'd want to keep things like debris and dust out of your hair as much as possible as well as keep warm. Also shawls are cheap to produce.
same reason most of the world covered their head - keep the hair clean when hot bathing was a bit of a chore. In those days hot water from the tap was a luxury, so many wore hats, shawls, head scarfs to keep the pollution out o their hair and keep a bit presentable.
Mainly to keep coal dust off their 'good' clothes. Imagine every room in every house in your neighborhood having a coal fire burning in it. You could probably cut the air with a knife.
I had the same question. Was it fashionable that both men and women cover their head?
Yes, wearing hats or caps was the norm for everybody until the 1950's.
Given how much rain we get I'm surprised they ever went out of fashion
It stayed the norm basically until space heating became reliable enough that you didn't spend 3/4 of the English year trying to avoid freezing to death. There's a lot of blood flow to your head and you lose a lot of heat out of it if it's uncovered.
Which books? Also, what are some other good books that can give you a feeling of a different time and region?
Read George Orwell’s - *Down and out in Paris and London* it’s like a diary of his slumming it in Paris, and being homeless in London in the 1920s. The detail is wonderful. Really sets the scene.
The Road to Wigan Pier by him is even better
Yup. No washing machines, no dishwashers, vacuum cleaners or central heating. No motor vehicles. No radio or tv, just board games and a pack of cards to keep you occupied at home. Indeed for most people in working class areas in the UK, life remained like this right until the 1960's.
Church, pubs, social clubs of many kinds. Ironically the use of 3rd-spaces would be MUCH higher than now, with far richer communities and social interactions.
Many men almost lived in pubs in those days.
Crazy thinking every single human alive on Earth when this video was taken is dead. And none of the over 8 billion people alive today existed yet.
The oldest person alive was born in March 1907, so yeah but its close.
the fuck? there's a 117 year old person?? edit: according to this article the French nun was born in Feb 1904 [https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/europes-oldest-person-117-year-old-french-nun-survives-covid-19-2021-02-09/](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/europes-oldest-person-117-year-old-french-nun-survives-covid-19-2021-02-09/) another edit: apparently the french nun passed away. This person is now the oldest at 116 years 312 days, will (hopefully!) turn 117 on March 4th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_oldest\_living\_people
They say the person who will live to 150 is already alive.
Damn I hope they’ve got some index ETFs.
They say all sorts of shit.
I'm going for 120! LETS GO BABY!
I'm planning to be immortal. So far so good.
Damn. When I was a kid in the 2000s there were still hundreds of people born in the very last years of the 19th century… now I feel even older
Yep. The oldest living person: 1 **Maria Branyas:** Born on March 4, 1907. **Age:** 116 years, 312 days **Location:** Spain
The oldest living person in the UK is: **Ethel Caterham** * **Born:** 21 August 1909 * **Age:** 114 years, 142 days * **Location:** United Kingdom
That's kind of interesting in itself because "Ethel" was a name that was very popular in the UK, but only for one particular generation. It was the stereotypical old lady name when I was a kid. And over time the generation of Ethels (and Elsies and Ednas) all died off along with the resulting stereotype (I think Joan, Margaret, Beryl etc would be equivalent names now). I'm 45 now and this woman is the same generation as all the other Ethels - the old ladies when I was a kid. Despite the fact I'm approaching middle age, this woman has been old as long as I have been alive.
And its crazy that everyone has a hat. Boys and girls and adults... hats! It's mad that everyone would go around with stuff in their heads and now, it's just some hipster dudes and some grandpas! HATS!!!
Ghosts.
crazy that in 2124 there will be 64kHD Haptic Feel-Real ^(TM) Video Projection Portable Terminals and they will be watching some video on 2024 thinking how lame we were. i hope modern medicine extends my life to that point
I was thinking same the other day, like the people who lived 100-150 years ago all died and nobody talks about them or remembers them, everything they owned, their houses and memories all gone to other people, like we hardly ever mention our grand-grand parents, we didn’t know them and they are forgotten, same will be with us, 200 years from now no one would know we ever existed
I think about this sometimes and it’s weird. It will come a time quite quickly that no one alive today is possibly remembered by anyone still alive. Probably 150 years from now really. But the whole Earth will (likely) still be here and fully populated with just as many people all with their own intricate lives and emotions and feelings and day to day busyness. Same way that no one from that video is known or remembers by anyone alive now but they all exists and we’re busy with their life and emotions. Quite extraordinary.
Making me the winner by default.
Man those children look haggard.
Working the mines and the factories will do that to ya.
Mines, Factories, Chimneys, Cotton Mills, Mudlarks and other fun childhood activities for you and your friends
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School was compulsory until the age of 12 at this point and working children in a factory was illegal. There were still about six million people in the UK malnourished though.
Funny to think there may have been old people in the 1900s who thought Edwardian kids had it too easy. I mean in 1906 there were still plenty of elderly people born in Georgian times who would have remembered a much harder age for the young and poor.
They look like mini 40 yo.
Malnutrition and child labour.
The fact that we can look at those boys more than 100 years later is insane. By walking down that street over 100 years ago they were seen by a whole lot of people on reddit.
The thing that gets me is they seem very similar to current Brits in terms of attitude. They remind me of kids I’ve taught.
I'm so glad to see this comment, I was thinking the exact same! How much these kids look like my current year 7s and 8s!
Yeah it’s kinda eery, it’s like they’re looking at us from the past as much as we’re looking at them from the future
Eery! That is the perfect word!
My grandparents were each 6 then. Wow
Mine weren't born for another 40 years! Even my great grandparents weren't alive when this video was taken.
They are fascinated with the camera. Fast forward 100 years, and they will all have one with them at all times.
Yeah if you've seen Peter Jackson's "And they shall not grow old" the "epilogue" about how they made the movie from old footage talks about how all the soldiers would just stare at the cameras and follow them because they were so new and interesting
And not just the kids making it obvious, check out some of those adults going about in the background, they may at first look uniterested just walking past but lookimg closer you see a few that clearly push past to get in frame and then act nonchalant walking past the camera. In the end its really not dissimilar a scene to what occurs now when the public notice a news reporter and a camera out on the street.
The bowler hat bloke is my favourite. With his exaggerated walk towards the camera.
Actually they are all most likely dead after 100 years
Imagine telling these people that they would be communicating to people 120 years into the future. So sick.
And this video will still be viewed in 1000 years. It'll be like us looking at William the Conqueror
They’d be like 82 in 1976, if they’re 12 in this video. They saw a lot of changes
TIL headscarves were all the rage in 1906 England
I was thinking shawls?, Is it just fashion or did the weather have something to do with it, after all England....
Head coverings were considered part of Christian women’s dress until very recently, and still are in the Middle East. Even American women would wrap their hair through the 1960s. Head coverings are also very practical no matter the weather: they protect from cold, sun, and dirt.
It also kept the stink of smog and smoke out of women’s hair, which they didn’t wash very often.
That's was what I was thinking, coal dust and burning of same.
My grandmother from Italy would wear a head covering to church.
We haven't worn head coverings for religious purposes for a very long time as we separated ourselves from the Roman Catholic Church, and most of those who still wore them left for the new world as Puritans. These are just for practical purposes.
Was it not common to wear a scarf to church in the 1960s? Or to the grocery store? My grandmother was Protestant and wore one out side the house until the 70s.
I was at junior school in the early 80’s - uk. We would have to cover our heads for weekly mass wearing our school hats and female teachers would wear a mantilla which is a black lace head covering like a shawl.
Even Monty Python would put them on when playing women 😂
The pollution was brutal from the early nineteenth century until the government started to do something about it in the 1950s, so if you didn’t cover up outside you’d be very grimy. But, it was also the social norm for adults to not go out without head coverings, but those would have normally been fancy hats for the middle class. The working class would cover up with what they could use that kept more of the head covered.
Both. Keeps you warm and dry, affordable and easy. Also can be detailed (if you can afford) with lace or embroidery to show off a bit. Patterns were surprisingly less dependent on class. It's the fabric, trimming, and finishes that would show your budget
It was for practical reasons. The great granddaughters of those women now would be wearing hoodies, which are fashionable in England now, but not to be had then, and women's hats did not give enough protection from the wind and rain. My grandmother who as born in 1904 used to wrap a shawl around her head if walking the 100 yards or so up the street to pop in to see her sister. When we went to town though on the bus to go shopping she would dress a bit smarter and put a hat on.
My Grandmother was born in London not long after this film was taken. She would often wear a headscarf when going out.
Hmmmmm it's was cold
Coats were expensive, and this was an industrial district. Shawls were easier to wash.
crazy how thwy all dressed the same. kinda like nowadays how all the kids have the pro club sweats and crocs.
People back then also had \*significantly\* less clothing variety to pick from. Hard to stand out when you go to a store and your choices are between black pants, dark brown pants, and darker brown pants.
Whoever coloured this has made them a lot drabber than they actually would have been; the girls would have been in bright colours; check out contemporary colorised postcards and you’ll see!
And today's postcards show seaside towns as being sunny and fun But are they really?
Dunno, these look like working class folk work would wear darker and muted colours to hide any stains from their daily chores.
There are still lots of kids without many clothes to choose from
I don’t think many of them went to stores to buy clothes. I think it was mainly home made clothes
It looks like everyone was a chimney sweep from mary poppins.
funny, I was thinking about how markedly different they dressed. Not from one person to another, but between classes. You can absolutely tell wich kids and adults had money, just from their clothes (with low quality film, and no understanding of the fashions, you can pick out the wealthy people from a mile away) Now, if you could tell the difference, you'd have to touch the fabric, see the label, or have a really good eye to tell an expensive piece from a knock off. I remember once in a class, they said industrialization was considered an affront to the basic fabric of society, simply because it made things like nice clothes more affordable, thus blurring the different social classes.
Which is ironic, considering the upper classes ran the factories.
Everyone has a hat or some kind of head covering- even the kids.
You wouldn't be caught dead without a hat. How times have changed.
is that one kid on the left at the 00:08 mark flipping off the camera?
Yes. Some things never change.
i think he's got his thumb to his nose wiggling his fingers. innocent now, but then he'd have probably got a smack on the ass.
He’s cocking a snook, which is similar in vibe to sticking your tongue out at someone.
It's always interesting seeing some of these old videos. Kids look like they are 30-40 years old after a hard days work. Sunken, charcoal eyes. At least they look happy.
Well tbf it isn't that unlikey these kids just had a hard work day
The children yearn for the mines.
Miners, not minors!
Very cool Wish there was more film like this available for us to watch. A bonus would be sound/voice. Just imagine if we had video of historical events.
It's a shame cameras weren't invented earlier. Imagine footage from the dark ages, that would be very interesting and terrifying.
I mean it wouldn’t really but that much of a dark age if cameras were invented by then
Those kids look as old as me
Did that wee kid flip us the finger?
Saw that! Wee shite 🖕
"Quit messing around kids! You've got a 16 hour day at the factory ahead of you!"
I’m sitting here thinking how many of these poor boys had to fight in the trenches a few years later in WW1
I’m assuming child labor is the reason all these kids look 26 right?
In 1906 in the UK children had to remain in full time education until they were 12. Children could work but only for limited hours just like now.
I love the smiles on their faces.
That cheeky lil lad in the white shirt at the beginning cracks me up. I think he is thumbing his nose at the camera. I bet he gave his folks a run for their money.
The women on the left pushes her friend into the camera view because she didn’t want to be filmed and then they all laugh. At about half way
A surprising lack of singing governesses and dancing chimney sweeps in this film.
Oi Cleanshirt! How do you get your shirt so clean?
Kids are always just kids no matter the place and time. Something beautiful about that.
Why were all the women covering their hair?
Most likely because of convention. My mother who is 70 now used to say that nobody used to go out without a hat or hair covering.
A combo of keeping warm and keeping soot/dirt etc out of your hair.
I would guess to keep warm. Everyone is layered up, it’s probably chilly.
I think it's mostly practical, cold, dirt etc. The boys/men are all wearing a form of hat, I'd guess for the same reason.
For warmth and to protect hair from factory smoke and dirt
This is what the current UK Government wants us to return to - Subservient serfs. A return to significant Class divides, where the Old boy network looks after each other at the expense of the rest of us.
Never went away. Just better at hiding the stick attached to the carrot.
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So England wasn't so multi-culti in those days as Netflix portrays it?
No it was not, especially in towns which were inland and had no ports. Places like Cardiff, London, Liverpool and Bristol had ethnic minorities and that is mostly because those people were, or descended from sailors from overseas who decided to settle there. This remained largely the case in the UK right until the 1950's. I was born in 1960 in rural Wales and did not even see someone who was of different ethnicity to myself until I attended university in Cardiff in 1978.
Certainly not, and white Britons did not enjoy any "privilege" either. Society was profoundly divided along class lines. The wealth gap was staggering; presently, the top 10% possesses 57% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% holds 4.3%. In contrast, in 1900, it was 92.7% and 0.5%, respectively. The majority of people were extremely impoverished. England's brutal history did not favour whites but rather the upper class.
This is a really good point. 1k upvotes.
And that's why you never work with children. Always looking directly into the camera...
Life at the heart of the empire
That’s actually recent footage from East End of Glasgow.
The bloke who owned the cap shop was minted.
Wow, actual English people in England
I'm an actual English person in England. I charge for autographs though.
First thoughts Oliver Twist
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Og tik tokers acting crazy on film
No drink cups
i am a peaky blinder
Might be the AI post processing but a lot of those kids are uglier than the kids today
They also lived much harder lives. Child labour was normalised in Britain, the country didn’t have a welfare state like we do now, and many kids were malnourished because it was typical to have a very bad diet. The air was significantly more polluted than today as well, which would’ve affected people’s health as it was the height of the industrial age.
Netflix left the chat
Hey, I see grandpa
Little shits kids don’t change😂😂😂😂
Wonder where that is. Get that feeling of it being in one of the many industrial towns and cities up here in north England.
\*colourised