This episode of the podcast celebrating growing up in Britain during the 1970’s and the part television played in our lives looks at Public Information Films. These government sponsored short films were effective, sometimes horrific and always effective.
Our host Oliver counts down his Top 10 which includes warnings of danger in the most unexpected places, Rolf Harris telling us to learn to swim and the technology behind TV detector vans. He’s joined by a listener to consider the impact of Jo and Petunia and the Tufty Club on 70’s children and whether the Establishment used these films to keep us all in our place. Plus we recall Green Cross Code Man and his extremely tight fitting bodysuit.
When I was 5 in the early 1970s, we too had a visit from the Tufty Club at school where they laid out a black and white mat in the playground with two wooden Belisha Beacons as a Zebra Crossing. We were supposed to hold hands and cross over in pairs. A particularly officious teacher was urging us to look up and down. “Come on! Come on! Look up and down! Look up and down!”
If she’d bothered to specify “up and down the road”, I probably wouldn’t have looked up at the sky and down at the ground thinking – why am I having to be doing this when it’s traffic I’m supposed to be looking out for? And anyway surely it ought to have been “look left and right” as there wasn’t an up or down direction for the non-existent road.
Several of the appalling harpies who formed the teaching staff sneered “What a stupid boy!”
Despite their efforts, I worked out how to cross the road safely. And I got my revenge on my final day at school six years later when some of us were asked to stand up in Assembly and give examples of what memories we’d take away from the school. I stood up, told this story and they were furious.
What a great memory – thanks for sharing. I do think we had the zebra crossing mat and beacons too but until you mentioned them I’d completely forgotten~!
Thanks Stevo and sorry for the delay in replying – your message got caught up in our message filter for some reason.
What a great story! Thanks for sharing.