Late last week I was watching a fascinating documentary on the YouTube. It was on the British Film Institute’s channel – well worth seeking out, I might add – and documented the history, design and building of new iron and steel works in South Wales after the Second World War.
As I watched, I was struck by two things. First, the attitudes to health and safety of the time, and second, how there was a tinge of melancholy to the film. There was a sadness felt by the 21st century watcher that large swathes of land had to be gobbled up for the massive project, but also sadness that the optimism of building modern steelworks didn’t really last more than half a century. The site today is a fraction of its 1950s size, and where it employed over 20,000 when at its height, it now employs only a few thousand – and the site’s future is by no means clear.
Watching other BFI archive films from the immediate post-War period, it also struck me that so often the producers were looking back, rather than forward. Travelogues showed, more often than not, agricultural scenes, people working with horses, thatched cottages, winding lanes, and so on. In the “real world”, by contrast, a new welfare state and health service were being forged, and industry was gearing back up to export to the world once more as Britain staggered back to life after a hard-fought world war.
These thoughts rattled round my head, thinking I might make a post about them. I wrote notes, did some screen shots as illustration, but realised I didn’t really know what the point was I was trying to make. The blog muse had wandered off, and so you’re left with this half-baked post instead. Sorry.
