1957: The JOY of BUDGETING | Panorama | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

Panorama’s Christopher Chataway took a look at the widely varying incomes of its viewers, inviting some of them to share breakdowns of their household budgets. People from three different income groups talked about their household bills, how they spent their money and what items took priority when parting with their hard earned cash.

Clip taken from Panorama, originally broadcast on BBC One, Monday 9 December, 1957.

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[martincooper]

The very first couple are my parents. the children must be me! I had heard about this but had never seen it before 😂

[RosemaryBrocklehurst]

The family of four children (they actually lived in Finchley are my family (Brocklehurst) and Dad was a butcher at Semple's Butchers in Finchley High Street. Mummy, called Jean, was aged just 30 in the film and died at 90 in Sydney, Australia in 2017. I was the eldest child- Rosemary. Its so strange to hear my parents speaking out of history. MacMillan was in power. Churchill was still alive. Mum, (Mummy) always talked in what was called received English or the Queen's English, but her voice here seems a little contrived for the cameras than I remember her true voice in daily life. She is smoking. Something she gave up in the late 60s. Dad always smoked a lot. Untipped woodbines then senior service and then cheaper tipped cigarettes. Think about that change! Mum looks stunning - four children before the age of 30. She went on to have another when we moved to Ainsdale, Lancashire in 1960. She was also a farmer's daughter as my grandfather had a farm at Shaw Green, Rushden Herts, until 1959 as well as a butcher's shop. Dad (Brock or Bill) was working class son of a steelworker and brother to miners, and seems to have erased his Chesterfield brogue early. He won a scholarship to Grammar School in Chesterfield, but was expelled for being a bit of a rebel and it was to do with a sadistic maths teacher. I remember Dad had a deeper voice later on and there were certain words he pronounced with a regional Derbyshire accent. Mum always said he was a good provider. As to budgeting - we always seemed hard up and Mum was worried about how to manage. She baked everything. Cooked from scratch. Shopped and scrimped and saved. She worked very hard as a housewife. But the house at 21 Abingdon Road, NW3, was paid for by mum's parents. It was at the back of a fire station where the BBC programme No Hiding Place (I think) was filmed. Whether Dad paid money back to his father in law my grandfather for the deposit for the small house, I don't know. But my maternal grandparents, Edna May Semple and John Semple used to help out with presents, and extras as well as lots of meat. We did not have holidays. A day in Southend perhaps and visiting my grandparents in Hertfordshire, and later when they moved, to Welwyn Garden City when my beloved grandmother Edna became ill with angina. We had no phone and used our neighbours telephone for emergencies. We had no fridge and mum had a larder covered in fly netting, and a small kitchen table with a formica cover and aliminum pots on the stove where she baked pies, and boiled cabbage and steamed traditional suet puddings. She made Parkin cake and toffee apples on bonfire night. The tiny kitchen opened out to a small garden with a shed and horse chestnut tree. A rag and bone man came round regularly. Milk was delivered. Dad has a grey butcher's van. Mum had a mangle for squeezing out water from clothes washed in a tub. Mum sewed, knitted cleaned, cooked plain food, roasts, puddings, pies and overcooked vegetables. She eventually went out to clean other people's houses twice a week or more to pay for extras which was amazing. I don't think she liked doing this very much, but did for the sake of the children I am pictured as the eldest sitting around the table with fair hair aged 8 playing draughts with my brother David, two years younger, who is on the table. Jane at 3 and and Susan at 5 are the two little girls sitting at the table. Dad studied for Butchers exams and won the silver medal for his knowledge of animal husbandry, diseases of farm animals and the butcher's trade in the Meat Marketing Board exams that year. He tested his knowledge on me. I remember he was disappointed not to get gold. He died in 1982 near Maidstone, Kent and his ashes were placed at Vintners Park Crematorium. I remember Chris Chataway (the former runner) coming to the house, He was a hero of Dad's because of his sporting achievements in athletics. Dad had been a Sgt PTE Instructor in the RAF before civvy street and watched Roger Bannister run the 4 minute mile record in Oxford a few years earlier. Chataway had been a team mate of Bannisters.

[BeatUpRecordsCDs]

No matter what income group these people fall in they all dress and talk impeccably.

[ivanahavitoff]

I keep a good table you know! What a lovely woman.

[elainekelleher]

I'm a '57 child and it seems to me that back then people thrived on simplicity, humbleness and common sense. Traits that are sadly lacking in today's messed up world.😢

[Knappa]

I love how earnest and sensible they are. Modest hardworking people.

[driftmetal]

How did we become so scruffy! These people look immaculate, you wouldn’t see them at the local store in their pjs! Sometimes progress doesn’t seem like progress. I bet they look after everything they own so well.

[jamiec]

I love the "back then we only had to put £25 down for the house".

[francestsoukalidis]

Although the 'joy' may have been ironic, it seemed to me that the ladies ( men marginally consulted) took satisfaction, if not pride, in managing their houses. ' Keeping a good table' was proof of a housewife's managerial and culinary skills. The standing of a housewife has lost that level of respect perhaps.

[yegezolhennypenny]

They had respect too for one another! I was born in 1957

[pamelamckenzie]

There was more respect then and we lived a simple life I was born in 1957 children was not killing each other we were not overweight we were fitter children we had treats not eat sweets every day fast foods home cooking simple foods and cooked meals at schools we was out playing made up our own games children today sitting in front of a comper or looking at a mobile no fresh air I loved my childhood it was smashing thank you for this little video

[zulfiqarali]

What an honourable middle class generation it was
Responsible compassionate and honest

[michaellucas]

Most people tended to be pretty independent and self-sufficient in those days, and rarely complained even though life could be something of a struggle at times. How things change.

[pearljam]

Everyone is so well spoken. What happened to us?

[dean]

And when people were poor, they didn't smash up the street where they reside...

[heinkle]

Those original Crittall steel-framed windows in the 1930s semis are divine. They were only c.20-25 years old at the time, and PVC couldn’t have been imagined in a domestic setting. The houses retained such charm.

[legsgood]

50 quid a week in 1957 was a very high income.

[andrewrussell]

An excellent review of the working classes.
That middle group where they preferred to eat simply and afford live in a nice house were termed ‘spam valley’ residents.
Note how everyone is well mannered, well dressed and courteous.
Where did all those attributes go to?

[jacqueline]

Food was cheaper. What was noticeable, to me, was the difference in the way people shopped, compared to today. Many didn't have fridges. Women went food shopping every day, or every couple of days, for the food they needed during that short period . Supermarkets didn't exist. They went to the butcher, greengrocer etc, They weren't faced with endless rows of rubbish, like processed crisps, biscuits, cakes etc., which people eat in abundance nowadays. ( adding pounds to the weekly shop, yet no nutrition). They home baked, and some grew their own vegetables, salads and fruit. It was a healthier, cheaper life, foodwise, if you were a good home manager

[BärbelPETRATibbe-Ferchländer]

People seem to respect another more in these days, I grew up in Germany in the late sixties, we had our own fruit and vegetables in the garden, flowers growing between, in the autumn my parents bought half a pig from the butcher and my mother and grandmother cooked meat and made sausages in the cellar, because we god an old oven there fired with coal and my grandfather, as a miner got coal as part of his income.We had trousers with braid trimming to extend the leg if they became short and nobody was ashamed of it, we all had to make ends meet. We played in the forest and had a bike to ride to school and to see our friends.
Nobody was afraid to let children play unobserved.
Nonetheless we had the chance to get a very good education for free, I could study with a loan from the government and became an anaesthetist.
We were a lucky generation, brands and devices didn't have the importance they have now and butgeting was my second nature all the years, my parents were proud to have no mortgages and so was I.
I am thankful for these times and understand the worries of the young, but I always encouraged my kids to learn and do budgeting.