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(The 1970s - beneath the tinsel, more tinsel)

Hard to imagine the 1970s as a decade of turmoil and self-doubt. Compared to the last nine years of this decade, the 70s seem almost sane and dull by comparison. But I guess it proves the point that every decade, no matter which one is loaded with fear, anxiety, loathing and self-doubt. Just seems natural, in a strange way.

A few years ago, BBC Radio 4 aired a documentary in three parts called "The 1970's: The Decade of Self-Doubt".

It primarily covers the financial, social and political upheavals that took place in Britain from 1970-1979. Some of the issues don't apply that much to America in the 1970s, but there are enough to feel an eerie sense of deja-vu coming on, particularly with the Women's Movement and the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher.

But a lot of it deals with the financial and labor problems that beset England right at the end of 1969 and continuing on throughout the 1970s, such as the continuing labor troubles at the National Theatre as recalled by Sir Peter Hall:

Sir Peter Hall: “The country was having a prolonged nervous breakdown, and there was obviously a very serious situation about the power of the unions and how much a democratic society the unions could actually do to the rest of the society. The National Theatre, I found to my horror was a kind of metaphor for the whole country. We had unofficial strikes, we had pickets declared official by unofficial strikers so that the actors wouldn’t cross the picket We had Workers Revolutionary Party Shop Stewards unfurling red flags on the top of the National Theatre. We had an unholy alliance among the stage staff, between the kind of extreme right-wing South London heavy mob, and the extreme Trotskyites.”

Much of what happened in England in the 1970s wound up visiting us in the 1980s via the Reagan Years and the Bush years.

This is part one and two of a three part series. I will post the third and final installment later on this week.

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(Teenage gang members of the 1950s - West Side Story for real)

One of the upshots of the leaps in technology of the 1950s was the tape recorder - yes, that strange contraption with reels, part of that substrata lovingly referred to as "analogue".

When tape recording became popular, especially in broadcasting, it created a whole new generation of gathering news and documentary material that wasn't available before. Because it was portable (and reasonably light-weight), it was now possible to get up close and personal with the subjects you were trying to shed light on - take things to the streets, as it were.

And because of that, a whole series of documentaries started cramming the airwaves, covering everything from Atomic Bomb tests to Cow milking.

One series of documentaries, produced by a special department of CBS Radio News was called Unit One. Several weeks ago I ran another Unit One Documentary called "38th Parallel U.S.A.".

This Documentary, aired on April 21, 1958 and narrated by Edward R. Murrow, focuses on the rise in juvenile delinquency in New York City. "Who Killed Michael Farmer?" looked at the problem of teenage gangs in the 1950's through the eyes of the gang members and the court system.

Gang member: “It was ten-thirty when we entered the park. We saw couples on the benches in the back of the pool and they all stared at us. I guess they musta saw the gang there, I don’t think they were fifty or sixty feet away. When we reached the front of the stairs we looked up and there was two other gang members on top of the stairs. There were two smaller ones, and they had Garrison belts wrapped around their hands. They didn’t say nothin’ to us, they looked kinda scared.”

Gang member #2: “I was scared. I knew they were gonna jump them and everything but I was scared. When they were comin’ up, they were all separated and everything like that”.

Gang Member: “I saw the main body of the gang slowly walk out of the bushes, on my right. I turned around fast, to see what Michael was gonna do and this kid come runnin at me with a belt. Then I ran myself and I told Michael to run.”

Interesting material that wasn't covered this way before. Remember, we're looking at a slice of society from 51 years ago that was, for the most part, ignored by the mainstream press. In 1958 they started pointing a microscope at it. In many ways, it helped change the perception of our society.

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(An army of cripples, an army of mourners and an army of thieves)

When the Korean War finally came to an end, the agreed dividing line between North Korea and South Korea was the 38th Parallel - the dividing line which exists today. The armistice took effect on July 28, 1953. With negotiations for the Armistice taking place, CBS Radio did a documentary on how the Korean war affected the lives of people living along the 38th Parallel in the U.S.

Hosted by Will Rogers Jr. the one hour documentary goes from coast to coast, collecting thoughts, opinions and experiences of the average American on what the war meant to them.