OK, totally fascinating

[winterbadger]

With thanks to john_arundel, who alerted me to it.

COLOUR film of London vignettes, circa 1927

Totally fascinating! On top of the basic reaction (I miss London!), I was interested by the mixture of omnibusses, motor cars, and horse-drawn carts. The lack of roadway markings in most areas (although the tiny "In" and "Out" signs on the gates of Hyde Park were wonderful). The volume of traffic on the Thames, with even the small motor launches clearly still coal or oil fired, rather than gasoline engines. Traffic policemen. TRAFFIC POLICEMEN! What a marvelous idea, snuffed out by electric lights. Hats. EVERYONE (men, women) wearing hats (OK, probably 80-90% of people). Even a small boy buying peanuts has his hat (and his tie!) The fellow at the Oval who had made a makeshift Havelock with his pocket handkerchief to keep the sun off the back of his neck (but no matter how "blazing" hot it is, everyone in the crowd is wearing his sturdy jacket and hat...) People, people everywhere, streets filled with dense crowds, hundreds and thousands of people who had a totally different experience of what were "current events" or recent history, who didn't know what the next 20 years would bring, who lived in such a different world to this one.

My dad was six when that film was shot. Some of those 'busses might have been used in France ten years before as troop transports during World War I. The stock market crash was still two years away. Forget travelling to the Moon or Mars, that same year was the first time someone flew nonstop across the Atlantic.

Such a different world....

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I was surprised to see so many men wearing brown suits. I've been told, repeatedly, that "a gentleman doesn't wear brown to town." Of course that might be some Victorian era aspiration observed more in the breach than the keeping.

[winterbadger]

That's interesting; I had never heard that expression, but it sounds very ....like something Victorians would say :-).

I can think of several possible explanations. The patented colour process is a bit off, but not enough to make black look brown. But if that was a Victorian stricture, I wonder if it became relaxed with time (especially with whatever effect the war had on people's perceptions). Also, probably very few of the people we see in that film are, or would think of themselves as, gentlemen. Maybe it's a very class-based stricture.

I need someone with greater knowledge of clothing history than I have. :-)

[tysolna]

This is absolutely fascinating indeed! I've watched it twice now - the skyline has changed so much, even Big Ben has a different spire! Yet so much has stayed the same, especially the traditions like the Changing of the Guard.
It seems like a quieter time, somehow. But that's only hindsight.

[winterbadger]

It seems like a quieter time, somehow. But that's only hindsight.

Yes, and that's one of the things that I find fascinating about studying history--how much the passions of the moment are different for different eras, but still equally crucial and immediate.

Survey educated, politically involved people in the UK today, and I imagine almost none of them could describe the principal doctrinal differences between Catholicism, Lutheranism, Arminianism, Calvinism, and the leading sects of the Dissenters. But 250-300 years ago, the differences between the theologies of these groups threw Europe, including Great Britain, into a series of debilitating wars that in some places wiped out human habitation and civilization.

What are we hugely exercised about today, what moves human ingenuity and emotion and passion, that in 50 years or 100 years or 500 years, students in some classroom are going to scratching their heads trying to figure out what on Earth drove us to be excited about something so boring and pointless? :-)

[ban-leodhasach.livejournal.com]

That was terrific! I was staying in a hotel next to the Tower of London last week and astonishingly I recognised some of the streets. Around that area has changed but not the road lay outs obviously!!

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing it. It is amazing to see that which has changed but even moreso that what has stayed the same.