On a train to Clapham Junction, glimpsed this view across the rooftops of Battersea that must be more or less unchanged since my childhood in the 50s and 60s. Classic British films back then such as The Lavender Hill Mob and Up The Junction made the area seem impossibly far removed from our lives in a sleepy East Anglian market town.
I rewatched Up The Junction last week, still a really powerful film even now. Back in the day it must’ve been truly shocking – almost all the major characers are women, almost all working clas, talking openly about sex without any moral frowning or horror-film comeuppance, and a protracted abotion section that really hammers the political point.
Growing up I has several year zeroes in my head; 1977 was one, and the mid 60s (OK, not strictly a year) was another. The world of 1970 seemed centuries beyond that of 1960. Yet looking back now the mid century is melding into one era. There’s not much to choose between the smoky backstreets of industrial London in the two movies you name, bar the colour film and brighter womens’ fashions. Put Kes into black and white and it could pass for 1950.