A Scottish Road Trip - 1961

Hi, MC,

That was certainly a blast from the past! As you said, fascinating to see what has changed and what has not. The roads certainly seem to be in better condition then than they are now. No Forth road bridge! Edinburgh looked so clean!

Funny to see the Tigh Mor hotel called the Trossachs Hotel. It hasn't been that for years. Men wearing suits to the beach, and wifies wearing dresses and head scarves.

No Sky TV back in those days. Once you left the central belt, there was just BBC (one channel only). STV started in 1957, and Grampian in late 1961. No colour TV at all, despite Baird having invented it in 1928.

It would be fun to able to travel back to those halcyon days, even for just one day, but it would also be good to know that you could return to the present whenever you wanted. There are so many modern conveniences to which we've become accustomed, but there is so much of that simpler life that we look back on nostalgically.

MC, thank you for sharing that!

Mike (Auchterless)

Hi Mike

I can be wary about sharing nostalgia stuff as sometimes there is a nasty agenda behind it, this one just felt right though.

What I found looking at it was the formality of the clothes in informal occasions, no polo/rugby shirts, definately no football shirts! The 1950s were still alive in 1961, but in reality a decade in fashion has been generally about 20 years long, so the 1950s would not start to end until about 1965!

It was also interesting, the streets had less litter so they were cleaner on that side, but because of the use of coal and leaded petrol it was also a lot dirtier and would have been less pleasant in towns and cities. And of course a film like that is edited to the best bits, which means we don't see the bad bits of the society and time either. But get me a Tardis and I will be travelling around a lot! I am reminded that what feels like a utopia for someone, feels like a dystopia for others and vice versa, and another historian pointing out that as you go further into the past your own country becomes a foreign one.

With the Forth Bridges, I'd have loved the camera to have shown the Road Bridge being built, a reminder that for such a long time Fife, like the Black Isle further north and placed equivalent in other countries, was effectively an island.

Fascinating to see, but not sure I'd want to spend more than a few days on holiday! As for STV, colour TV would not really come to the UK until the 1970s, and I remember relatives having black and white sets as a child, both the BBC and some of the ITV companies used to put 'COLOUR' on their logos into the 1980s. The English Midlands company, Birmingham based ATV, got into trouble for making programmes in colour for sale to the US, with the UK version filmed at an angle from B&W cameras!

Hi again, MC,

I just finished watching the video again. At 4:23, cars are getting on the old ferry at Hawes Pier to cross the Forth.

Your mention of the coal fires and leaded petrol brings back memories of my visits to Scotland in the early 1970s. All of the B&Bs we stayed in back then had coal fires in the sitting room. There were no en-suite rooms back then - everyone shared a common tub and toilet down the hall. Smoking was allowed, so there was usually a pall of smoke in the sitting room; guests puffed away while watching the small black and white telly! There are some things that I wouldn't want to return to! Mrs A and I love our en-suite rooms! (And our colour telly!)

It wasn't until the early 1980s, if I recall, that they started sandblasting the buildings in Glasgow to remove the decades of soot and grime. I still have photos of Glasgow from 1975, before the cleanup started.

I wouldn't mind having one of those little Anglias, though. No seat belts in those days!

All the best,

Mike (Auchterless)

That was really interesting, MC! I loved seeing the old cars and formal clothes. I would have been 6 years old then, and I still remember how men and women always dressed up more. No tees and shorts on the street! Of course the men wore suits down to the beach—and no pants for women! I loved seeing the groups of people heading into Edinburgh Castle. I'm sure they didn't have to book a timed ticket. :-)

Such a difference from today. Thanks for sharing that!

Well, that was a fun watch!

I have had a few more pop up, so if they look ok I might add,

Mike, one thing the buildings comments reminded me are a couple of TV series. The Doctor Who serial 'City of Death' (Fourth Doctor and Romana, written by Douglas Adams), one of the best stories and best ratings, but ITV was on strike. Went to Paris. They showed off that they went to Paris, though the best scene is in a gallery with Eleanor Bron and John Cleese. Partly the film used Paris, but also the coal and petrol meant Paris was grimy. The other any 1970s location scenes on Van Der Valk (Thames TV) Amsterdam is the same. Very clear when you see the 1990s version right after.

As for the Ford Anglia, it was a reminder of how small the cars were compared to their equivalents now.

And, completely forgot, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Forth Road Bridge 60 years ago this week

Movietone newsreel, so, even before clicking you know the voice of the narrator!

Same week in 2017 she opened the Queensferry Bridge, the Second Forth Road Bridge and the first was closed to general traffic. Leaving Edinburgh Airport for the north and this is the one you will cross. Very interesting the protocol is different in both and exactly the same!