what a difference!

[Michael Rolls]

just watched a fascinating clip on YouTube shot in London in 1967 - flower power, etc. It was a summer's day and nearly all in busy shopping areas. The only one I recognised was the Portobello Road Market, but just about everywhere was thronged. A number of things caught my eye:
1. The preponderance of young people - 20s or so - vastly outnumbering the elderly
2. Nearly everyone looked happy! I wonder what a similar scene would show today?
3. In a clip lasting nearly 8 minutes and in which many hundreds of people appeared, I saw just two black faces - two young women looking at items on a market stall, and one young woman who looked as though she might have been Italian or Spanish. Everyone else most determinedly white.
How things have changed in just 55 years.

[Diasi]

Is it this one?

There's another more recent clip in East London where it's only the bus & the car registration plates that show it wasn't filmed in Mumbai.

[Michael Rolls]

That looks like the one, Phil

October 19, 2022, 08:33:57 AM
yes - just run it for a few seconds - same clip (presuming it is 7:42 long)

October 19, 2022, 08:35:37 AM
just looked at the 2022 clip - depressing

[Ashy]

How did we ever manage without all that diversity?

[Michael Rolls]

how indeed!

[klondike]

Indeed. How lucky we are.

[Jacqueline]

I didn't feel unsafe walking the streets back then, that's how things have changed. 

[Alex]

We've all sat back and let ' them' do it 

[klondike]

Everybody is scared of the R word. Well most anyway.

[Alex]

True

[Ashy]

We can blame Harold Wislon for his race relations shinanigans, but if he hadn't done it to us, somebody would have by now.

There is no doubt that collectively the English have not welcomed foreign arrivals since 1948 and have been forced to put up with them.

[Alex]

We can blame Harold Wislon for his race relations shinanigans, but if he hadn't done it to us, somebody would have by now.

There is no doubt that collectively the English have not welcomed foreign arrivals since 1948 and have been forced to put up with them.

You're probably right Ashy although I don't remember 1948  However I do remember seeing black seamen in the 1960s, there were plenty of them too. This was the era of No Blacks, No Irish in B & B windows.

Personally I think the difference between then and now is firstly religion. Back then the incomers were Christian and secondly numbers were small (ish)
 
Now they're all muslim so have an alien religion being forced on us and numbers are out of control.