Before Starbucks and Caffe Nero and all that cafeterias looking all the same, young Londoners of late 50's and early 60's met in places like these. Not swingin yet.
I was in the USAF and stationed at Bushy Park RAF Station in Teddington Middlesex from 1955 to 1960. We would go to the West End several times a week. Some of our favorites were Sabrina Bar, Heaven & Hell ‘The Macabre’ and a few others I can’t remember. I married my English Bride in 1959 and we are still hanging in there. Great time and great memories.
No it's definitely real. I was there, 1961 til 1970. Recognise so mush that is now gone. Lovely to see, even if only a few fleeting images. Of what I saw, La Roca was on the West side of Soho square. The white haired man doing star charts was Ernest, and he always sat in the As you like it. Coffeebar in later years of the 60's. I lived above the 2 II's for a while. Aaah memories.
@@claudiojunior9618 Welcome! I moved from the heart of "my" London on the 9th May 1983 to the very edge just 10 miles away and I miss her EVERY day, 39 years later, my friend though I am very near and yet so far :)
Thanks for this. We have lost something somewhere. Thank heavens for films like this being posted on U tube. My father owned a transport cafe in the 1960s, not quite the same thing - but similar. The thing thats not obvious is just how few places there were to eat out back then
I was born and bred in London lived there until 60s, now live out in the country, and if I never saw London again it would be too soon hate the place or rather hate what it has become.
What a wonderful little film. I love the dark haired actress earning £6 a week to keep "the wolf from my door." Bless her. I hope she got her break and had a very happy life.
This shows that people were able in those days to have a good time, enjoy themselves with friends without the need to get drunk and collapse in an intoxicated stupor in the gutter, rolling around in a puddle of vomit. How times have changed.
Great nostalgia here for me, a crowd of us girls used to go to 'The Macabre' and my friend Wendy Richard RIP always played 'Only the Lonely' on the juke box. Those were the days. I had a dance or two at 'The Two Eyes' as well.
I came to London 1960 and loved every minute of that time , I was working in the theatre and I am very grateful that my youth was spent in that era .Now it is not a nice place ,filthy streets and even filthier people .
Good points and I have seen your comments elsewhere but did ANYONE ,seriously, think we would not all choose to live and socialise, preferably, among the people that share the same look,culture and in some cases,Religion, as us. At School,College or Work you have no alternative but it's blatantly obvious that when walking down any High Street in London that Asians will be with Asians,Black people with other Black people,Jewish people with other Jews and Chinese with their own...
The guy on guitar at about 3.18,is Joe Moretti(I think).He was a session guitarist in England during the 60,s and a bit later.He played the searing lead guitar on "Shakin all over" by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.He later emigrated to South Africa,became a leading session player there and died in 2003.You can tell by the little clip of his playing he had great "chops" and graced many records with his stunning playing.
@Cockney Nutjob Where native Australians, Americans, New Zelanders asked??? At least you have white Prime Ministers and white people on top of every institution, not the case of the aboriginals you almost exterminated and stole. You such as fake.
such wonderful innocent times that my parents lived through great music hair and fashion wow now look what I have to live with scummy shit people crap music boom boom etc and absolutely not worth it Please give me a time machine Thanks for posting you made my day
William Taylor lol, why not make today and tomorrow and the day after that, good times? ~ you don’t have to live in the past or rely on certain conditions to enjoy life/have good times, in fact, you don’t need much at all really, it’s all in the mind ☺️
Sally Angelworks I know what you mean Sally, things have changed and I definitely miss the way things were and I have had to have a word with myself a couple of times, because it’s ok to miss the good things from our past now and again but living in the past, in the present, doesn’t bring anybody any joy. I’m autistic so change is a huge huge deal to me, but I know that things do change and if I don’t accept that, I’ll never be happy and that’s an even bigger shame than any change that could take place 😢 none of us should be unhappy long term and nothing outside of us can make us happy, so yeah, things outside of us, that we have little control over, do change but we control the inside and if we were happy ‘back then’ we can be just as happy now and we can create new good old days for tomorrow, to look back on 😆 that’s a lot of today’s, tomorrow’s and yesterday’s but I’m sure you get what I’m saying ☺️ wishing you a lovey evening wherever you are 💕
Andrea Gould That,s another reason for liking this Country all those years ago." For one " there was at least much more respect and discipline as well as consideration for your fellow human being. Much of modern life is built on selfishness and obsessions with bloody smart phones.
robert harding Technology is fine with me, but when you cannot walk anywhere with out people talking on their smart phones asking their friends what they are having for their tea some even riding their bikes (some on the pavement) while texting ! that,s when technology is being overused and the human race have lost the plot completely.Can we not have normal life back ? even if its pre -mobile bloody phone days.
I went to the 'Macabre' coffee bar (the one with the skeletons, and with coffins for tables) one lunch time in 1961 and the place was completely dead. (haha). Nice film.
My mum used to work at the Lyons Corner House in the 50's as a "Nippy". Coventry Street, Marble Arch and the Strand. The Strand Corner House had a late night brasserie and bands would play there. One day my mum was carrying trays of soup and she dropped the lot right in front of The Ivy Benson Trio, but like pro's they carried on playing Ivy just winked at my mum.
I can't believe the look of this newsreel--that fantastic color! This is a beautiful print, the color seems as vibrant as it must have been when this was first shown.
You're right. People can hate me all they want to for saying it but it is the sole reason why I left the UK and won't go back. I don't recognise it anymore.
@@Fitzroyfallz Depends whether or not the changes are engineered or organic. And more importantly, whether or not they are improvements for the existing local inhabitants.
These powerful money monopolies want customers to make even more profits and are not bothered where they get them from and how it affects Joe public and their quality of life
@@jamara3330 What kind of frothy coffee are you talking about, then? Nescafé made with frothy hot milk? 😉 If so, I can assure you that a cappuccino is far better. 😉
Nick Gilbert We have been lied to by the Politicians.WE were conned when we changes over to decimal currency from pounds shillings and pence-we have been systematically fleeced over the decades by both Labour and Tory led governments. Our industries have been decimated - especially our fishing industry which was completely sold down the river by the agricultural and fisheries policies . We have been led into war on a blatant lie by corrupt leaders, l could go on but that should suffice.would you not say that was true ?
This is wonderful! More please. The opening music and credits bring back great childhood memories of going to the pictures in the UK - trying to see the screen through a fug of cigarette smoke!! Soho looks great, full of real characters and lovely old classic cars. Isn't the first waitress the actress Rosemary Leach? She later went on to be Ronnie Corbett's Wife in the sitcom "No, That's Me Over Here" in the late sixties.
Interesting look back at those times. One laughs of course at some of the silly pretensions, such as those wearing sunglasses indoors, no doubt losing their cool when stumbling over the furniture as they get up and leave. The skull ashtray was delightfully ironic.
crapple009 haha I noticed that too ~ that was back in the day when you could enjoy your smoke with a coffee instead of being outed to stand outside, although in many countries you can still enjoy your coffee with a smoke 💨 I always feels it’s such a shame I gave up smoking when I go to those places 😂
Sally Angelworks tell me about it 😫 to be fair though, I do feel better for not smoking though, I just need to find another nifty weight loss technique ~ smoking was great for that 😆
Beautiful well-mannered people with tattoos and actually interacting & talking to each other instead of looking at little disruptive technology screens, Only thing that was worse... smoking !
Ph MWU haha like you’re doing now 😂😂😂 I know I’m doing it, tapping away at a screen but I also go out and be well mannered and interact with people when I go to coffee shops, which I do most days - ain’t nobody sitting around looking at screens when I’m around, unless I’m not in a chatty mood of course ☺️
@@autumn5852 A senior checking the internet twice a week in the Library, I never owned a smart phone and am far from today's youth with smart phones using more electricity per year than a large fridge !!!
Ph MWU you’ve got the right idea ~ I think I might follow your example ~ I’ve been glued to my phone for a while now and I don’t like it. I don’t use it when I’m out but it’s getting too much when I’m at home. It’s been helpful while I’ve been unwell, but now I’m getting back on my feet I think it might have to go ~ it’s too easy to pick it up and check RU-vid etc. I very much like the idea of having to go to the library to access the internet. This could be a plan and I love libraries, it’s one of my favourite places to go to anyway and before I got the internet back on at home, I was going there to use their computers/access the internet, maybe I’ll go back to doing that when my internet contract comes to an end 👍🏽👌🏽✌🏼it sounds much more peaceful and I would very much like not having to pay so many bills! 🌟
StealthyMonk a cigarette with your coffee was definitely enjoyable mind but I’m also glad they don’t allow it now either ~ now that I’ve finally stopped 😆
@@dozz87 If you call a person "racist" for simply wanting England to be full of English people then you are anti-white. You wouldn't call me racist for wanting Nigera to be full of Nigerians or China to be overwhelmingly ethnically Chinese. So why do you attack white people for wanting to remain a majority in their own homelands? Because.. you are anti-white.
@@mythinktube dozz87 is obviously not anti-white. How did you get your head so twisted up that you thought that? Dear me. Life is not that long - don't waste it being hateful.
Idiot! Smoke has NEVER been healthy! My grandfather died a long and slow painful death due to lung cancer! Does THAT sound "Healthy" ??? Smoking Ban = Common Sense!
I LOVED THE CAFES OFF OXFORD STREET AND MET MY FIRST LOVE THERE WHO SANG A SPANISH SONG CABARETERA. WE DANCED AND LOVED EACH OTHER. A WONDERFUL MEMORY WHERE HAS IT GONE.....
G`hod I used to hate these things...You go off to the cinema to see Waterloo or Jungle Book or whatever never quite sure whether the start time was for the main event or the preamble, and youd have to sit through 2 or 3 of these telling you about all the bloody obvious things you saw everyday! Its only now that they really come into their own. Now they are a fabulous social history record. Thank God they bothered to make them!
chanctonbury63 I agree, this is a great film for a bit of nostalgia, but there are many things about our modern day lives that we do not take unto account. Unless they inherited wealth most of the younger people in these films would be going home to live with their parents, especially the girls. Others will be living in bedsits with shared bathrooms and sometimes the toilets were outside and even the most luxurious would probably not meet standards viewed as acceptable today. Most of the food was very bland and whilst the quality of tea being served was excellent, most of us had yet to taste a decent cup of coffee.
Yes, £6 a week was alright, wworking in a shop. I did the sales at Austin Reeds in Regent Street and took home £10 a week - though if you were living in Kensington or Knightsbridge your rent for a crummy basement room would take half that. There were very few 'incidental' expenses like parking meters and buses were very cheap.
wonder if the number of fatty's is proportional to the number of cars on the road, takeaways in the area or parents , car running their kids to school?
@@version736ha2 can confirm, I was one of 3 'big' kids in the entire school, in the mid 80s ... picked on to no end for being different ... I visit a school today , and my god, the vast majority have similar or more mass as my old self.
Yes but Henry observe the difference in manners and politeness! Thats why the only crime back then was confined to a few gangs ( Krays etc). I guarantee you that your Mum or Granma would not be mugged in the street. People had standards back then!
"They reckoned a cup of coffee costing tuppence to tuppence ha'penny to make could be sold from ninepence to one-and-six." A similar ratio of cost to sale price could probably apply today in the likes of Caffe Nero, if I could be bothered to work it out!
The Casbah was the coffee bar that got the Beatles started. Yay Coffee! Bach even wrote a coffee cantata and remember the Coffee house in Black Adder Ink and Incapability.
If I recall that theme music at the end correctly, this was one of the "Look At Life" series, which were shown in picture theatres before the main feature, here in NZ when I was a lad in the late 50's/early 60's. Even then at a young age, I could detect and was repelled a bit by the patronising tone. Young people like me reacted against that crap by dropping out and becoming Hippies. So they say.
Why not BRING BACK Coffee ☕️ and Tea ☕️ houses. Get rid of the stinking American Starbucks!!! If one person opens it in an area where sadly the good old shops have been shut down ( BHS, by the Greedy Phillip Green).. then others will follow. Don’t forget to include the good old English scones and clotted cream. It’ll be a nice place for the social gathering.. Hopefully they’ll respect each other as well. Good luck in advance for starting it. My prayers are with you 🙏🏼
That is why we visit the restaurants in a couple of local garden centres. Also Manchester, Bolton, Altrincham and Warrington have many independent cafes. We patronize the Morrisons' eatery nearby sometimes too. My Mum reminisces fondly about milk bars. I don't know quite what teenagers would make of them - might be a positive reaction if there was the internet and music. There are few places young people can congregate now.
Heli-Crew HGS As an ardent admirer of Pie and Mash living in South London, I have to agree. I don’t have anything against the chicken shops being halal, but not only are they incredibly unhealthy, virtually all of them are just so incredibly generic/characterless. The handful Pie and Mash shops that survive (most over a century old), on the other hand, Cooke’s, Arment’s, Manze’s...Each of them tastes distinctive-and unlike fried chicken, they are proper meals. Losing any of them, then, is losing an intricate part of London’s existence as a whole. We’ve lost so many such places along the way, and that’s part of the reason why a lot of people don’t feel they belong to this town anymore, I guess.
Yes,back then,most did look very similar in the 1960`s...but then you were not charged £3 for a cup of Coffee...which is the going rate for today`s so called Coffe houses....Oh take me back,when you could get a good cup of tea,pretty much anywhere,for less than a pint of Milk...Lyons Tea houses come to mind. Ah well,so much for progress...Not?
5:26 On this day 60 years ago, Iron Foot Jack died who was desribed as "a more agreeable kind of Alistair Crowley [sic] in a poorer way of business." He described himself as the "King of the Bohemians".
I really regret that the iconic Troubadour coffee house in Earls court was not in this video. Started in the early 50s and still there, I spent the 90s there every day.
I wish I had been around in the 50's. Cafes are pretty boring today with so many space cadets using mobile technology to communicate with the other side. Makes me yawn.
