The 70s

BBC2 has been running a 1970s season. This has meant the airing of some classic 70s cinema; One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest; Mean Streets and Cabaret, but also the documentary series by Dominic Sandbrook called 'The 70s'. 

 

As I grew up in the 70s I thought I'd give this 4 part series a go, if just for the nostalgia. There was that aplenty in the soundtrack but other than that it was a deeply unsatisfying in format and content. Made up entirely of archive clips and Sandbrook's voice over and to camera commentary, it gave a broad sweep of the decade under the premise that the 1970s shaped the world we live in today. Well duh! You could say that about any past decade. Society is not static and is forever changing; old traditions and ways of life fall away and new ones take their place. There was certainly some significant shifts in British society in the 70s. 

Consensus politics were on the way out, global economics began to bite, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976 were to start to change the lives of millions (though sexism and racism are still with us). Yet there were no interviews with the people involved or affected. The whole series was just Sandbrook's personal view - a view which seemed to come from the middle-class right and say 'no wonder Thatcher came to power in the end'. And that was about the sum of it.

In contrast 'The Lost World of the Seventies' presented by Michael Cockerell, an hour long programme which focused on 4 'characters' of the 1970s, was far more satisfying. Using archive footage and interviews with people involved at the time, these snapshots gave a far more interesting perspective of the times and in a way was more convincing about the changes the 70s made. 

 

Starting with General Walter Walker, who sought to protect Britain from 'the enemy within', the archive interviews show a man with genuine fear of the 'Red Menace' and who was trying to gather around him like-minded individuals that would, if necessary, take over Britain to save us from Marxists. There were many who did fear such a thing. In the end though even the Telegraph undermined him and the old general with his paper army faded away. In Britain we don't go in for coups. 

Next up was Lord Longford aka Lord Porn and notorious visitor of Myra Hindley. Longford headed a campaign against pornography after the Obscene Publications Act had been amended to allow more salacious material to be published. An old school moral campaigner his investigation and report was ignored by government. 

Next was Jimmy Goldsmith, billionaire financier and tycoon, who's business dealings were subject to scrutiny and criticism by the BBC's Money Programme and by Private Eye. Goldsmith went on to try and use the criminal libel law against Private Eye, which though in the end only cost the magazine a full page add apologising and retracting its allegation that Goldsmith had helped old friend Lord Lucan flee after the murder of his children's nanny, all Goldsmith actually achieved was dislike and increasing the sales of Private Eye. 



Last up was Robert Mark, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1972 to 1977, who came to fight corruption in the CID. Corruption, was rife especially in the Flying Squad and Obscene Publications Squad and Mark was determined to root it out. Several high profile arrests followed. Mark in the end resigned though when government sought to make an independent police complaints authority. He had kept his investigations 'in-house'.

 

The world has changed since these characters were in  the news. You can't image some old general now talking about the need to fight any kind of menace if government fails nor some old lord campaigning on such controversial issues. No, too campaign now and be listened to means you have be a celebrate chef and/or have lots of followers on Twitter and Facebook. Goldsmith's story though perhaps does have more of a parallel today; no doubt now he'd have taken out a super-injunction. Big business men still don't like to be criticised - look at Murdoch. As for Mark's crusade against police corruption, it was long over due and still with us - Murdoch again - though not so rife as failure to make timely investigations (see this)

This post has kind of got away from me a bit but I guess the point of the comparison is that when it come to making programmes about recent history it's the documentary maker not the historian who wins hand down.