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I thought it would be useful to have a thread where we could explore and recall the social and political landscape within which the events of August 1961 were located and perhaps add our own thoughts and experiences.
Like the JtR events - the A6 murder was received and made sense of in terms of the social and political climate of the time. There was unrest about the death penalty and a strong civil rights movement was growing - partly in tandem with similar movements in the USA. Some of the people who campaigned for and with the Hanratty family were involved in other campaigns and as the west moved slowly but firmly and further along the path of what would become known as The Cold War - there seemed to be a yawning gap between he safe plodding old political and social system and a kind of New World view.
1961 began on a Sunday. In many ways it was going to be an important year politically. The 'young' President - JFK - was sworn in signalling a new Democratic Government in the USA but over in Europe political storm clouds gathered as Berlin was divided by a huge wall that would keep families and friends apart for almost thrity years.
Rock and Roll in its embrionic form was fading - Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochrane were dead and Elvis was turning to ballads but in small garages and sheds all over the UK - groups of boys were strumming cheap guitars and crashing around on drums in imitation of their US rock and roll heroes. In a few short years some of those boys would emerge to appear on our radios and screens with their own blend of rock and roll and blues renditions.
As the year 1961 dawned - I was a little over three years old. My older sister was already a teenager - soon to be courting her future husband (and still married to this day). My brother was fast approaching his teens so my early years were filled with the music of those days - as far as my very-straight-laced parents would allow.
I grew up in a late Victorian terraced house in what I consider to be a working class home where my father was a milkroundsman and supplemented his income with gardening and carpentry jobs. My mother was a typical housewife. They were good people who wanted us children to have the education they could not have had beyond the age of 14. They were very good people but sadly - both of them died before the 1960s ended and I often wonder what they would have made of today's world. I well recall my poor mother's outrage at my sister's fondness for Elvis and - horror of horrors- The Rolling Stones!
We had no luxuries at home. No television (too expensive to rent and in any case - immoral) - therefore - like many families at that time - we listened
to the radio. No fridge! No fridge? My own children can hardly comprehend the idea of no fridge. But then - my mother went shopping daily so we used up fresh food on the same day. There was no extra money to buy things for future use. Also - our kitchen had a 'cold room' - a sort of dark - stone-lined cupboard where milk could be stored during the day. No telephone. Hardly anyone in our street had a telephone.
So - 1961 dawned and as it was a Sunday you could be sure that my parents would NOT have been hung over from the events of the previous night. To be sure - we would have dressed very smartly on Sunday 1st January 1961 and made our way down the street to the little Baptist chapel at the bottom of our road for the Sunday morning service. Yards away - where the street ended - was a huge field where the old local dairy (Hitchmans) used to graze their horses. There was a path that ran around the field beside a brook called The Ching and at the end of the path was famous 'Stow' - Walthamstow Stadium - a greyhound track. I used to lay awake at night listening to the roar of the crowds and the muffled sound of the loud speaker. My parents forbade my sister and brother to 'go to the dogs' as it was called - but my brother was drawn to the crowds - the lights - the excitement and the promise of easy money.
Did Hanratty or Alphon ever visit 'the stow'?
Do you have a 1961 journey?
Like the JtR events - the A6 murder was received and made sense of in terms of the social and political climate of the time. There was unrest about the death penalty and a strong civil rights movement was growing - partly in tandem with similar movements in the USA. Some of the people who campaigned for and with the Hanratty family were involved in other campaigns and as the west moved slowly but firmly and further along the path of what would become known as The Cold War - there seemed to be a yawning gap between he safe plodding old political and social system and a kind of New World view.
1961 began on a Sunday. In many ways it was going to be an important year politically. The 'young' President - JFK - was sworn in signalling a new Democratic Government in the USA but over in Europe political storm clouds gathered as Berlin was divided by a huge wall that would keep families and friends apart for almost thrity years.
Rock and Roll in its embrionic form was fading - Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochrane were dead and Elvis was turning to ballads but in small garages and sheds all over the UK - groups of boys were strumming cheap guitars and crashing around on drums in imitation of their US rock and roll heroes. In a few short years some of those boys would emerge to appear on our radios and screens with their own blend of rock and roll and blues renditions.
As the year 1961 dawned - I was a little over three years old. My older sister was already a teenager - soon to be courting her future husband (and still married to this day). My brother was fast approaching his teens so my early years were filled with the music of those days - as far as my very-straight-laced parents would allow.
I grew up in a late Victorian terraced house in what I consider to be a working class home where my father was a milkroundsman and supplemented his income with gardening and carpentry jobs. My mother was a typical housewife. They were good people who wanted us children to have the education they could not have had beyond the age of 14. They were very good people but sadly - both of them died before the 1960s ended and I often wonder what they would have made of today's world. I well recall my poor mother's outrage at my sister's fondness for Elvis and - horror of horrors- The Rolling Stones!
We had no luxuries at home. No television (too expensive to rent and in any case - immoral) - therefore - like many families at that time - we listened
to the radio. No fridge! No fridge? My own children can hardly comprehend the idea of no fridge. But then - my mother went shopping daily so we used up fresh food on the same day. There was no extra money to buy things for future use. Also - our kitchen had a 'cold room' - a sort of dark - stone-lined cupboard where milk could be stored during the day. No telephone. Hardly anyone in our street had a telephone.
So - 1961 dawned and as it was a Sunday you could be sure that my parents would NOT have been hung over from the events of the previous night. To be sure - we would have dressed very smartly on Sunday 1st January 1961 and made our way down the street to the little Baptist chapel at the bottom of our road for the Sunday morning service. Yards away - where the street ended - was a huge field where the old local dairy (Hitchmans) used to graze their horses. There was a path that ran around the field beside a brook called The Ching and at the end of the path was famous 'Stow' - Walthamstow Stadium - a greyhound track. I used to lay awake at night listening to the roar of the crowds and the muffled sound of the loud speaker. My parents forbade my sister and brother to 'go to the dogs' as it was called - but my brother was drawn to the crowds - the lights - the excitement and the promise of easy money.
Did Hanratty or Alphon ever visit 'the stow'?
Do you have a 1961 journey?
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