Comprehensive Schools were a deeply contentious issue in the 70s. Highlighted by the indignation raised by children’s television series Grange Hill.
The education debate was just one symptom of a consensus cracking apart.
Changes in the lifestyle of older men, meant that young men lost the moral guidance of their elders, and the upswell of football hooliganism and violence.
And yet despite the crisis in the stands and fighting in the streets, most young boys shared the same dream. Being a footballer. The stars of the day were paid more than ever before. Their lifestyles were increasingly touched with glamour and celebrity.
Edward Heath wanted, more than anything else, to get Britain into Europe. To join the Common Market, the world’s most lucrative single-market.
Perhaps never before had the language of Voltaire been subjected to such a battering. But while Ted Heath was hardly one of history’s great linguists, his speech had sent an unmistakable message.
The introduction of the Access Credit card fuelled a spending frenzy on a buy mow, worry later philosophy. Britain the credit nation was born.
For two centuries, Britain had been number one. Thanks to the Empire, British goods, British ideas, British culture, even British sport, had penetrated every corner of the world. But now the Empire had gone and the world no longer cared.
In the ’70s, British Leyland became emblematic of everything that was wrong with British manufacturing; Militant unions and distrustful workers.
Maybe saluting your boss, Korean-style, was a step too far but there’s no doubt that in the 70s, the militancy of the unions, of ordinary workers flexing their political muscles, was becoming a chronic threat to our national interests - a very British disease.
The Clapham Omnibus is the representation of the average man on the street. Typical of the 70s working-class individual, as seen by Adam Shaw.
The notion of the squeezed middle is more than just middle-class moaning, average real earnings fell by over 3% in 2011 and that’s the largest one-year fall for 30 years. Little wonder the government’s just reversed its plans to raise the duty on fuel.
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