1950's Britain

THE BEST PRIME MINISTER WE HAD

1957: Britons 'have never had it so good'

HAROLD MACMILLAN brought to his delicate and exacting task a strong combination of intellectual ability, imperturbable temperament, and reputation for efficiency. As a successful publisher he was shrewd and business-like, and not unaware of the need to project a favourable public image of himself and his party. His three main ministerial assignments had been accomplished with success: as Minister Resident in North Africa from 1942 onwards, as Minister of Housing between 1951 and 1954, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1955 to 1957. R. A. Butler, by dint of long experience and distinguished ministerial record, might have been expected to succeed Eden But in the peculiar circumstances of Eden's sudden retirement, and on the advice of Lord Salisbury and Churchill it was Macmillan whom the Queen first approached. His more infectious optimism and buoyant confidence, his greater flair for personal publicity, made him at that moment what Butler had ruefully called Eden - 'the best Prime Minister we have'. The next seven years were the era of Macmillan.

'LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS'

Superficially, at least, the most apparent forms of American pressure on British life were those affecting popular culture and public taste. They operated at almost all social levels. The business world increasingly resorted to mass advertising and used as its media newspapers, glossy magazines, and television. Britain's educational system, especially at the level of technical colleges and universities, was repeatedly compared disadvantageously with the American system. The middle classes, followed closely by the newly well-to-do working classes, spent more of their money on cars, television sets, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and a wide range of other electrical gadgets. Teenagers spent their new-found wealth (the consequences of full, employment and the well-paid youthful labour force it produced) on long-playing records of 'pop' singers, on transistor sets, scooters, and cosmetics, and created for themselves, a fantasy world of juke-box delights confined within the realities of late-night cafes. The kingdoms (and the fortunes) built up by mass publicity and the blare of advertisements existed in Britain on a pattern very closely assimilated to those of the United States. Cultural bulldozers were at work.

ROCK ‘N ROLL MUSIC

Rock ‘n roll music emerged as the popular music of the day by the mid-1950’s. Its background is a blend of rhythm and blues and country and western music. Jazz and the big band sound was popular in the 1940’s, but by the 1950’s, a new-found affluence among working class people brought about an interest in a new and simpler sound which would appeal particularly to young people. With the advent of the electric guitar in the late 1940’s and its increased use in country and blues music, the creation of this new and appealing sound was imminent. The first rock’n roll musicians would be Elvis Presley, Little Richard (Richard Penniman) and Bill Haley, who began recording in the United States in 1953. The release of Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’ in 1955, which was a very popular new song, is believed to be the launching of the new sound, which was referred to as ‘bop’ music. In 1956, a disc jockey from Cleveland, Ohio, called Alan Freed christened the new music as ‘rock ‘n roll’. Musicians such as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Fats Domino, were soon to follow. Rockabilly was a form of rock ‘n roll which blended the rocking guitar sound with a hillbilly beat.

Rock ’n roll started in Britain in 1956, with Tommy Steele’s recording of ‘Rock With The Cave Man’ in November of that year. Tommy was soon followed by many other singers such as Billy Fury and Cliff Richard. A band from Liverpool, known as the Quarrymen, would ultimately become the Beatles, the group that would dominate popular music in the 1960’s. Rockabilly music was extremely popular in Britain and very young singers were starting to emerge. The Brothers Gibb, later to become the Bee Gees, began as child rock ‘n rollers in the late 1950’s. Peter Frampton, who was born in South London, the same area in which Rockin' Oliver! takes place, was playing electric guitar with a rock 'n roll group at age 10 at this time also. Rock ‘n roll was an expression of the newly-found affluence of the working people and the rebellion of young people against what they considered to be rigid and outdated ideas of their parents’ generation. However, the 1950’s were still an era of innocence and family togetherness. Rockin’ Oliver! is a salute to that era and the realization of the kind of society which Charles Dickens would have dreamed of.