All in black and white

I like a gritty drama, or what was termed social realism or just a kitchen sink story in the heyday of such productions in the 1960's.

Nowadays we are quite numb and unresponsive to issues which some 5 decades ago were still not mentioned, brushed under the carpet, undertaken behind closed curtains, just did not happen or remained very much taboo subjects.

The pioneers of this New Wave in British Cinema tackled the heavy subjects of abortion, prostitution, homosexuality, the early days of a multicultural Britain and inter-racial relationships, alienation, alcoholism, extra-marital affairs and deprivation.

Perhaps most striking was the move away from a London-centric setting and with the colourful frankness and face value honesty of regional dialects rather than the plummy, upper class tones of the home counties. It is common now for the conclusion to a contemporary TV drama to include a telephone number to call if afflicted by or exposed to the same traumas as seen on screen, even before the 9pm watershed. I have not been tempted to jot down the freephone number because I lead a comparatively quiet, reserved and sheltered life but no less satisfying, fulfilling and demanding for that.

I do have a few favourite gritty dramas filmed in the essential black and white , typically unbalanced audio with a lot of peripheral noise and local interference, bright natural light or conversely very, very shadowy and with action taking place in the dim,grim darkness, everything is left up to the imagination of the individual.

Many of the films of the genre and period were set and posed but so naturally as to resemble a real-life documentary. It is fascinating now to see the detail in the streetscenes and crowd scenes, very much a priceless and authentic social and economic record of the times. The row upon row of densely packed terraced and back to back housing, streets clear of private cars when such items were an expensive luxury, lines of laundry across back yards, the corner shops, men wearing hats, women in long formal coats, large prams and a lot of bicycles.

Classics such as 'A Taste of Honey' show its Salford and Manchester locations ,warts and all and even though some 20 years after wartime damage and with some recovery from post war austerity there is very much a depiction of urban decline, dereliction and squalor. This is set against a backdrop of heavy industry, belching smoke stacks, a majority going to and returning from work and the recreation of a hard working population.The children are grubby, scavenging urchins with no educational or employment prospects. The story is one of a young girl, in the care of an alcoholic and selfish and downtrodden mother,who becomes pregnant by a black sailor, shares a flat with a gay man and is constantly in a state of war and rebellion with her elders and the prejudices of society. I recall I first saw it late one night when in my teens and babysitting for a neighbour and re-visiting the film today, even after being exposed to a much more desensitised world, it is still strong, vivid and poignant a very stark image.

Other late night screenings were a regular feature of taking on babysitting duties and I was able to see such classics as 'A Kind of Loving', 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning', 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' , 'This Sporting Life' and 'Billy Liar' amongst many others on other peoples televisions. As a typical teenager it would be some years before I  realised that the films had been based on books and plays but I did get round to enjoying them in their original format, eventually.

No doubt these films are now studied and analysed in microscopic detail on socio-economic, physchological and multiple levels in intellectual and academic circles but they remain as a superb record of how we used to live and the perception at that time of what we now regard as commonplace and mundane, part and parcel of everyday modern life.

It was all just black and white then but so much more colourful in every aspect.