Butt - Leicester in the 1960s : ten years that changed a city

First published 2015

Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud
Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP

www.amberley-books.com

Copyright Stephen Butt, 2015

The right of Stephen Butt to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781445640570 (PRINT)
ISBN 9781445640907 (eBOOK)

Typesetting and Origination by Amberley Publishing.
Printed in Great Britain.

We all have our own history, a personal perception of the past that has been influenced and coloured by many different experiences. Social historians often generalise, using statistics to support their observations. It is written that Leicester in the 1960s was a prosperous city and a place of opportunity. It must have been so because the statistics inform us that there were less than 3,000 people unemployed across the entire city, the big textile and hosiery manufacturers were running at full capacity and the demand for labour meant decent wages, and money in the pocket to buy all you needed from a flourishing high street.

For some of Leicesters citizens this was certainly the case, but not for all. The Employment Exchange in Charles Street, the largest such building in the country by floor area, was still very active. There were still many streets of slums to be cleared in the Victorian residential areas of the city and, further out on the new sprawling council house estates, there were those who for various reasons were not part of the prosperity of the decade.

As with the decade that preceded it, the 1960s was a period of great social and economic change. Life changed for everyone. Over 2,000 railway stations closed as the motor vehicle grew in popularity and availability, National Service ended and colour television became available.

The decade has been described in many ways and it was certainly a revolution in social attitudes, reflected in the popular music of the time, in fashion and in the print and broadcast media.

Revolution always brings conflict in its wake. The Swinging Sixties saw a social conflict within families between parents and children, and within schools between teachers and pupils. Other institutions, notably the Church, found much to be concerned about with the new ideas and free thinking of the sixties generation, and almost every adult over the age of thirty disapproved of the outrageous behaviour and dubious values of the new pop stars, as well as being frightened by the deity-like attention given to them by the young. It was in March 1966 that John Lennon made his remark that The Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ. Despite the controversy that the remark provoked, more so in the USA than in Britain, many people in the Established Church silently agreed.

The BBC was another national institution that struggled to keep up with the speed of social change. The corporations response to pop music was mainly the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra and the Cliff Adams Singers performing cover versions of the bestselling songs of the day and the previous fifty years, whereas the vast majority of teenagers were listening to the real thing on Radio Luxembourg and from the extensive flotilla of pirate radio stations located off the shores of the UK. It was not until 1967 that the BBC finally accepted that its future audience were those millions who were not listening to the BBC Light Programme. As a result of the governments Marine Offences Bill, which sank most of the pirate radio stations, the disc jockeys came ashore and formed an almost-orderly queue outside Broadcasting House.

A busy Humberstone Gate, looking towards Charles Street, with the bridge between Lewiss and the Haymarket Centre under construction.

The Leicester Power Station overshadowing the canalised River Soar. The King Power Stadium stands here now. The cooling towers were a familiar sight to football fans at nearby Filbert Street.

The Lord Mayor of Leicester, Sir Mark Henig, the Postmaster-General, the Rt Hon Edward Short (right), and Sir Hugh Greene, BBC Director-General of the BBC (left), at the opening of BBC Radio Leicester on 8 November 1967.

Factory chimneys outnumber church spires in this view of Filbert Street photographed in the 1960s, with the still-industrial skyline of Leicester in the background.

In 1967, the BBC published posters and leaflets to publicise the launch of their first local radio station, which was to be located in Leicester. The corporation ran a prize draw to win one of twenty deluxe VHF radio sets, inviting Leicester people to identify five local celebrities. The personalities that were chosen, presumably as representative of the culture of the city, were comedian Bill Maynard, actor Norman Bird, Tony Lock captain of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, John Sjoberg captain of Leicester City, and Englebert Humperdinck. Norman Bird had actually never lived or worked in Leicester. He was born in Coalville and lived for most of his life in the West Midlands. Possibly one of his most memorable and significant roles was as a taxi driver in Richard Attenboroughs Shadowlands. Bill Maynard was born in Surrey, was educated in Kibworth and has been living in Burbage for some years.

It was a complex and confusing decade for those whose teenage years were the 1960s. Everything that they were being taught, in school and at home, were the values of the previous generation, but all around them was a new culture exciting, colourful and inspirational.

On the political landscape, responsibility for British policy during the 1960s was shared between the Conservative Government of 195164 and the Labour Government of 196470. Anticipating a new period of change internationally, Harold Macmillan gave his Winds of Change speech in South Africa in February 1960, forecasting a rise in national consciousness. There were three prime ministers during the period Macmillan (195763), Home (1963/64) and Wilson (196470). General elections were held in 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970. During the 195964 Parliament, the Conservatives held a majority of just short of 100. At the start of the 196466 Parliament, the Labour Government had an overall majority of just three and, during the 196670 Parliaments, a majority of around 100.

The Labour administration from 1964 saw several fundamental social reforms, which included the abolition of capital punishment and the liberalisation of laws on abortion, censorship, divorce, homosexuality and immigration.