This five-part documentary series, produced by future movie director John Boorman for BBC West (Bristol), observed the day-to-day lives of five very different people in an attempt to capture the mood and flavour of life in 1963 Britain.
The five subjects profiled by the pursuing cameras were shown as being typically representative of people confronting, conforming, and simply reacting to the problems and pressures of life at the time.
First before Boorman’s cameras was Barry Langford, an enterprising and flamboyant young businessman from Brighton who commuted to London each day for work and loved to gamble in his spare time.
Next came a look at the world of Richard Callicott, a police inspector in Bristol, who was also a family man with four sons who kept Alsatian dogs.
The third week introduced the story of Marion Knight (pictured), an intelligent but rebellious 16-year-old girl at a secondary-modern school in Portsea. Marion was adopted and had rejected the strict religious upbringing of her adoptive parents.
Episode four followed the story of Tich Aldridge, a West Country shop steward at a famous tyre-making factory, and the final instalment introduced viewers to scientist Frank George, a lecturer in cybernetics at Bristol University who liked to play cricket when he wasn’t inventing computers.
The series aired on Wednesday evenings between 28 August and 25 September 1963.
Boorman returned the following year to produce The Newcomers – a series recording a six-month period in the lives of young married couple Alison and Anthony Smith as they awaited the birth of their first child. Eleven years later, producer Paul Watson would take this TV life-study format to almost epic proportions with The Family (1974).
Marion Knight passed away in 2013.
Cast James Dewar
Richard Callicott
Barry Langford
Frank George
Marion Knight
Tich Aldridge
Dave Marks
David Mills
Nigel Banister
Trevor Stent
David Arney
Episodes
Barry Langford | Richard Callicott | Marion Knight | Tich Aldridge | Frank George
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First before Boorman’s cameras was Barry Langford, an enterprising and flamboyant young businessman from Brighton who commuted to London each day for work and loved to gamble in his spare time.
