1964: LEICESTER - the life of a MIDLANDER | Two Town Mad | Voice of the People | BBC Archive 

I was 98 years old when this was filmed in 1964. How times have changed since the 19th century when I was young.

Frighteningly accurate portrayal of Leicester in the 60’s. It captures not just the photographic detail, but so much more, the emotion of the city of my teenage years.

Love the fashion of the 1960's. Those sharp suits and rockabilly hairstyles! 20 years before I was around, but would've loved to have experienced this era in Britain.

These old archives are wonderful to watch 🇬🇧🇬🇧

In 1964 I was seven years old. I can just about remember what things were like then but only vaguely. At the age of eighteen I left Leicester to go to University and have not lived there since. Leicester was never the richest city in Europe, that is a myth, but for a period in the fifties Oadby had the highest average per capita income of any European suburb. Leicester had its poor but in the main it was an affluent place with a remarkably diverse industrial base: Hosiery, Evans lifts, Invicta plastics, Shoe machinery, Shoe manufacture, Imperial typewriters and sundry small light engineering concerns afforded it a significant degree of shelter from the winds of depression that blighted many single industry Northern towns in the seventies and eighties. It was not a friendly city compared to places I lived after University. In 1975 it was a considerably less attractive place than Nottingham, just up the road. But it was recognisably English when I left and it is not now. A friend who came from Mowmacre Hill recently described it as a sad old place and she was right. It’s my home town, I still go back because I love its sports teams. But I grieve for its lost mores.

How times have changed.

What a startlingly refreshing conversational voice over!.. So natural! It's like I am sitting next to him on the bus... Only I can't be as I cannot smell that horrible, yet wonderfully overpowering nostalgic melange of second hand cigarette smoke, diesel fumes and warm vinyl seat-covers. Best wishes from a boy from the Leicestershire/Northamptonshire borders, now making armour in a French forest. ⚒️🇬🇧🌞

I left Leicester after living there all my life two years ago... I certainly won't be ever going back again. That film was amazing it shows just how far Leicester has fallen over 60 years... and how its soul has been ripped out.

I'm born & bred in the fair city of Leicester. Born the same year as this video was recorded. Love the place, the people & our fantastic football & rugby clubs - Proud to be from Leicester!

I dig that motorcycle at 09:00..it will still look modern today!

I like this guy's voice. It's very suave.

Wow, that whole area around the clock tower has been pedestrianised for decades! Can’t believe it used to be a road back then.

I find the most amazing thing is the buildings that are still relatively the same, that shot from the top of Lee Circle car park at 2:19 (the Auto Magic Car Park!) looking north down Byron Street, that building that is now Thrify so clearly visible and virtually identical today, many of the other buildings in the same shot too. Difficult to locate the 'Ten Pin' from the shot of the front, I initially thought it was the building to the West of the South end of the car park, over on Charles Street that now has a Wilkos at the bottom (where the shot at 6:06 was taken from). But we also see the same building as the car is parking at the top of the car park and from there we can see that the windows were then as they still are today, not quite the same. A bit more digging (I should have heeded the clue 'above the ten pin our multi-storey wheelie wheelie'), it looks like it is the building on the South East of Lee Street, opposite Eldon Street. This whole area was clearly all new in the 1960s. I think the other multi-storey car par park that was shown in construction must have been what is now NCP Abbey Street, which would make the hills in the distance Bradgate Park I would guess. Brings back memories of when I got my car locked into that car park back in the late 1990s after a night at Alcatraz and clearly hadn't noticed the closing times!

"In Leicester you make things".....not any more. My heart was so sad. How I miss my home. The real home.

Wow! Brilliant watch

I grew up in Leicester - I was 13 when this was made. And I really can't agree that Leicester had no proper accent. If asked to give an example of a pure Leicester accent, I always cite a fellow pupil in Junior School who put his hand up, and when called upon by the teacher, said "aya gorra rubba worracan borra?" Now that was a Leicester accent. My dear Mother always spoke with a Leicester accent, having spent her life in Leicester, the vast majority of it as a housewife. Her accent was a little more delicate than the previous example... for example she was always admonishing me in my teens to "go bed respekable", by which she meant to retire as a 'respectable' hour.

Leicester born and raised worked at Corah's and left England in 1962. I will always be proud to be English 😆😆

I enjoyed my teenage years going to Leicester. NYE round the Clock Tower, going to Il Rondo, the Trocadero, spending time at the Lido. 😊

As a kid in the 1960’s I remember more about life in the West End (Narborough Road) area. But I am blown away by prosperity and affluence of the shops and social amenities on offer at the time in the city. I was born and bred here and still live in Leicester. But it breaks my heart to the see the soul-less, semi-abandoned place it is now.

My uncle lived in Ascot Road, he moved. It’s called The Khyber Pass now by real locals.

I like the philosopher at the end.

Was it just me who looked up 40 Bushland Road Northampton, to find Ray's home.

A great insight into someone from a working class background who went to university. The lads in the pub have it so good, they don't know what to do with themselves!

At 3:47 I was surprised to see a bus driving over the kerbstone, lucky no kids were loitering there..

Nice to hear Ray’s voice again - usually unappreciated.

I'm from here mixed views about the place, I live on the outskirts groby which is fairly nice.

@AutoShenanigans lovely view of the Leicester car park.

Leicester really was a thriving city in the mid 20th century

Now the area around the clock tower has been pedestrianised I suppose it resembles a central ‘square’ more nowadays

I have lived in Leicester since I was one in the early 1970s, bar around six years. Still love the city despite its faults.

Lovely.🇦🇺

I love “birds” with loose morals!

It’s funny this makes me feel nostalgic but I’ve never even been there.

4:19 *Met my future wife at The Granby School of Dancing above Burtons on the Clock Tower !*

1:36 That’s Lee Circle

My god what a luvli vid. Born and bŕed here all old buildings gone now shame ❤❤❤❤

Very American with all the drive-thru services and parking garages. I like it. (I'm American.)

There were slums; our house was pulled down in the sixties and so was the whole of St Matthews. I had to walk through the rubble to get to my school.

I like his accent!😊

The "Drive in Bank" (7:20) They'll make a few tweaks to it. You'll get used to it, mate.

I actually remember this documentary. At school we didn't like it!

Great video! I was born in Lincoln which I suppose is technically the east midlands but I 100% feel northern

I’m surprised drive though banks/post offices never caught on into the 70’s and 80’s and early 90’s

8:50 Boy was he right about getting a machine to do that work. Everyone of those people was out of a job within about 10-15 years.

Leicester has changed a bit OMG 😳😳

Don't give up on Leicester... something good is coming your way in 2016. But get to the bookies first 😂

The Dunlop factory in evington?

They really changed that part around the clock tower, no way you'd have buses rolling by like that now they'd be running down the M&S shoppers. 😂 Cool to see parts of it from the past.

What did he say they call Liverpidlians at the start?

WOW! It's a good thing it's so much better now🙀😂

The size of bloke waiting for a pint at bar wow big lad

After watching this video, all the comments have the local accent as I read them.

I'm from Leicester and it's mad how the 'rough' guy at the end is supposed to be a 'bum' - he'd be upper class and a straight-laced guy by today's standards

I was born there and im 8

Wow what a fantastic city, one of the riches in Europe. its very different today a wouldn't go there as a ghost. so sad. All the people all over the world wanted to come.

That shows a different Leicester in '64 to the place I remember, I have a few fond memories of the place, but not many, preferred the villages round the city.

The town centre destroyed by the hideous theatre, now shut, and the vile Haymarket centre not to mention what they did to dear old Lewis's. Upvc windows and a feeling of scruffiness too. Pubs shut by the dozen and bulldozeed factories is the only legacy now. Multiculturalism and cultural battles in the streets, all in my life time.

Narrator seems to downplay the city being part of manufacturing, back when. Little did he know! Now I suppose it relies upon service industries as the main sources of employment. It's not that manufacturing disappeared; it just went somewhere else. Greetings from a Brit residing in the USA.

Plenty chips, Plenty chapatis

My Dad worked at BSS for 40 years near the multi car park .what is now a listed building. BSS moved and was being turned into flats. All flats now and like being in a different country 😢

Shame they didn't preserve The White Swan, looked like a lovely pub!

Ray died in 2013

09:55 If he's talking about the Swan & Rushes, he's dead right. It was still a nutter's joint at the start of the 2000's.

I grew up in Leicester and everyone I know left immediately as soon as they could. Not a single member of my family or friend is still there. It was awful.

Might visit Leicester now.... lol

Absolutely love clips like these 🥰 love the narration speaks in proper english unlike people nowdays as its all slang talk ...also i notice so few cars on the road & people on the streets compared to now X please post more clips like this xx

Interesting the accents sound different.

halcyon days

A place with birds with loose morals...sounds alright, me duck

Leicester is my hometown he ain’t got a LESTA accent because he’s not from there. Whatcha on about duck it’s the best of the Midlands! Always friendly, always up for a laugh LESTA is the place to be! Don’t take any notice of this dreary piece of journalism

Lee Circle needs uplifting.

I was born the year this was made. In my lifetime, this nation has become alien to me.

Lineker prefers todays Leicester.

All towns and cities change, none are like they used to be, maybe it’s for the better maybe its not… If it’s for the better we’ll that’s for the locals to decide, those that have lives their all their lives.

Leicester use to be a really nice place, and Lee circle looked much better then today, but being a BBC documentary, I guess you all aren't ready to talk about why it's like it is today.

Leicesterstan

Lovely video, what a great shame Leicester has become, we all know what's happened to it many towns and cities have suffered the same fate...

It’s certainly changed , that’s for sure..

At least he has Gary Lineker.

I am from west of Swansea. I worked for 4.5 years in Leicester in the 80s. It was already very different from the footage here. I then spent two years in Coventry. I have no feeling for Leicester at all. Cold hostile place. I had studied in Cardiff - that place too has no charisma either, apart from on match days. I do sympathise with the loss of industry & culture & homogeneity across Leicester & Nottingham. Textiles & shoes. Betrayed by the powers that be at all levels.

But when you own a big chunk of the bloody Third World, the babies just come with the scenery...

When this was a proper country.

Men were just so cute then. Awwwwe.

Find a "Mrs someone you worship".....

im thankful to not have a scouse, geordie or brummie accent weird to see cars going around the clock tower

I used to like Ray Gosling but disagree with many of the sentiments voiced here, a little too whimsical to my liking. He mentions factory work 'making things that don't last long' whoops thats offended a lot of ppl straight away and factory work bringing no satisfaction, I disagree again, look back at any weeks effort and that is an achievement surely. Never mind, was always looked forward to, RIP old fella left this Earth 2013 age 74.

He's a Midlander, he sits on the fence.

What a change since then, I've been Leicester for 52 years and I'm all about diversity as you see I married an oriental, but what have we become?

What did he say people from Liverpool are called besides scousers?!

1:44 "No slums", " to find the poor you have to look very hard". That folks was how it was in post war Socialist Britain. Look how far this nation has fallen in the past 40 years .

Those were times when people were stronger 💪 and were not afraid 😳 of a little second hand smoke.

I've lived in Leicester all of my fifty-five years and it has not changed for the better. There is no civic pride anymore, once decent neighbourhoods are going to rack and ruin. It's become a melting pot of all nationalities to the extent that I feel like a stranger in my own town. In short it now resembles something more like 1970s New York with garbage everywhere and a prevailing underclass.

Leicester the furthest place away from the sea in the country.....Gary linaker .....red Leicester cheese .....walkers crisps...

I went to Leicester about 12 years ago and it was pretty well spot the white man

That’s still the East Midlands boring, bland and largely forgotten, many claim it doesn’t even exist. Though I must admit I greatly enjoying not being part of that most boring debate of north vs south

Brilliant video. Looked like a nice place once. Shame

To buck the inevitable "oh what a shame it's changed" comments, I think Leicester is far more interesting now than it was then. I can't get misty eyed over the construction of a carpark. Growing up there taught me to respect difference, and I'm forever grateful for that.

Bradford and Leicester two city's about the same size, with very similar demographics and a very similarexperience, so why do Leicester people have no angst, Not in the least bit lairy like Bradfordians, not as weather beaten and world weary either, I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing 🤔

All big cities are unrecognisable from fifty years ago ,in fact the country is

10:08 MEN actually, more men used to visit pubs in the 60’s/70’s that women and you would never find families in them like you do these days