I can assure you it was indeed like this, Stevenage was virtually new out of the box! For working class people, Stevenage was a pretty good place to be in the 60s, it had good council housing, lots of good jobs, and some very good schools. If that sounds boring, for a lot of people it was a Godsend. It also had an 'out of London' community feel to it, and was a very young and forward-looking place. Oh yes, and it was the 60s!!!
+Paul Revere Good point - my parents had been married for 4 years in a "grotty" flat in a London suburb when it was announced that the firm my Dad worked for were opening new premises in Stevenage. They were amazed at the choice of three bed houses they could have for the same rent that meant they could start a family. Today, while many of the residential areas are still not too bad, the town centre has got worse and worse over the last 20 years or so.
I can't believe that this is how Stevenage looked 50 years ago when you compare it to the way it looks now. It's a disgrace that the council have allowed the town centre to fall into such a bad state of repair :( I also love the way people spoke back then! Their accents are amazing :)
Although I had seen this video before many years ago, this is the first time I have realised where the sequence from 1:05 to 1:16 took place, because the road layout is so different now (and was when I moved to Stevenage in 1983). The woman is walking along to the end of Valley Way at 1:05 and crosses the single carriageway road to reach the bus stop. At 1:08 we see a bus turning left from Broadwater Crescent onto a single carriageway road at a T-junction. At first I thought there was a continuity error but then I realised that we were looking at the area where there is now a roundabout and a filling station. As Valley Way and Broadwater Crescent are not aligned with each other, that is why the roundabout is an oval shape. The aforementioned single carriage way road was Broadhall Way, which has been a dual carriageway since 1983 or earlier. At 1:14, there is a view in the general direction of the roundabout where Monkswood Way and Broadhall Way meet (although you can't actually see the roundabout). Since the cycle path that goes past the primary (JMI) school and the football ground is so far to the left, you can determine that they built the two new carriageways on either side of the strange stretch of decaying tarmac between them. This means that the decaying tarmac, which was never dug up and extends under the 'non-roundabout' for the road along the edge of Fairlands Valley Park that was never built, is the course of the original single carriageway Broadhall Way. The lack of cars back in 1962 is astonishing compared to the volume of traffic today.
Stevenage 1962 - Daddy works in a new drawing office, mummy takes the london country bus into town for some shopping, and the kids are settled at Barnwell School. Stevenage 2017 - Daddy has left home. Mummy takes the Arriva bus to sign on, while dragging a new child around in a buggy, and wondering who the father is. The rest of the kids are spraying paint on the subway walls while smoking weed.
I was on that bus as an extra when they were filming ,the lady comes across from valley way to broad hall way, in broad hall way and junction of broadcaster crescent, I always for years wonderd what it was all about LOL till I found it by accident online
The town center toilet blocks should be relocated and turned into a large european style cafe with the platform above the current toilet blocks used for cafe tables with canopies, live music, ice cream stall etc all overlooking the fountain. Its a cheap obvious design solution to make the town center look fabulous. I hope this idea happens one day.
When I was a young lad in the mid-to-late 1970s. I used to frequent Stevenage quite a lot and it looked more less the same as it looked in this video back then. I went back around 2004/2005 and it looks a complete hellhole. Stevenage Borough council have let the whole town centre become rundown and really really tired. When I visited it in the 1970s all the streets really clean and tidy and there wasn't a lot of litter about the place either. Yes some of the comments about how well people dress back then are right. We have seriously dropped the ball in Britain nowadays in a whole load of ways. You go to most towns and cities in Britain today and the streets are filthy dirty add rubbish overflowing out of bins and the wind blowing it everywhere. We seem to take a big like a pride in our country and state of our towns and cities nowadays. I really do think it's a disgrace and very disappointing. You look at the gorgeous way women used to dress back then. Not the young nowadays will filthy dirty trainers and showing all their skin. Sitting around in gangs smoking and drinking. Getting load of ugly tattoos and piercings as well. There's no very very classy ladies around the place nowadays. They have also let themselves go. Unfortunately there's no mind-blowing draw dropping darling looking women around nowadays. It's all tatty ripped jeans. Trainers and hoodies. You look the state of paving and paths in our towns and city centres nowadays. You get lazy utility company is picking it up and not putting it back right either. Les Paul work with ship going on with lack of Pride in the Building and construction industry nowadays. You no longer see Council cleaners going around cleaning the place either. The whole affair is a shoddy mess. We have got to go back to having and taking pride in our appearance and our cities and towns. Come on British people get back your pride. When I was young in the the late 1960s to early 1970s. Everywhere was just so clean and tidy and immaculate. Oh my god what has happened to our country? Right this is my rant finished. Pure.
Have another look in a couple of years. Much of it is being flattened and redeveloped. More than £1 billion involved. Check in 2026 to see if they got it right. As for the people you describe, they are not unique to any one place that is across the country,
You're not wrong . I was born in Stevenage in 1961 and I remember it being just like it is in this film. It's a shame how it's gone down hill My mum n dad moved into a brand new council house in 58 ,in the shephall area and they couldn't believe their luck . Dad often talks about how lovely it was back then . I still live in Stevenage and where I am is still quite nice . I remember the yellow and blue SB 1,the price to town from the top of shephall near ken Browns was 12 p lol
Just like when I went with my late mother on the old London Transport Country Area RT’s on the 339’s from Brentwood to Harlow. Those really were the days at Harlow New Town, hadn’t been to Harlow in 30 years, so wondering how it’s changed?.
Moved from Tottenham in London to Stevenage in 1965 and yes, it seemed like a dreamworld by comparison. In london we could never go out because the streets had constant heavy traffic and there was always black dust (I think soot and traffic fumes) blowing up into your eyes. In Stevenage until we got more used to it we were always outside - just cos we could! But it wasn't all as sweetness and light as the film makes it look. For example, on the cycle tracks it was very common to find the underpasses with loads of broken glass in them from where some of the more stupid kids had been smashing milk bottles in them - you can take the kids out of the city.......... also there were a lot of sour notes - for example we found a box with about a half dozen tiny dead mice in Monkswood - who'd all been killed in a very nasty way. The police were very frequent visitors to a house just up the road from us where there were frequent (I assume intra family) fights which sometimes overflowed into the street. So, let's not all get too rose-tinted about Stevenage in those days. Let's remember Pathe always made places look their best. But I do agree when we go back to Stevanage now (having left in the 1980s) it does look a lot more seedy than it did.
“Look at all that luxury - it’s turnin’ folks soft! Bring back those hard graft days of the ‘30s and ‘40s - Depression and War! That’ll make ‘em be glad to be alive. It’ll put hair on their chests (even the women!) and lungs”. Stevenage of the late ‘50s and early 60s seems a world away from Orwell’s shocking descriptions of the England of the 1930s.
