‘Fun in the Fifties’ was title of talk to Shepshed Probus Club
THE September meeting of Shepshed Probus Club was held on the third of the month at Junction 23 Truckstop.
President Horace Lister welcomed members, our guest Carl Foulds and our speaker David Jones whose talk was on ‘Fun in the Fifties.’
Mr Lister also read out a letter from Mike Ferguson, our June speaker who had donated his fee to the Mercy Ships who duly replied to Mike and the club to thank them.
The club secretary conducted club business before Stan amused everyone with his humourous tales. Lunch was followed after Grace was said. After lunch David Jones got up to remind us about the fun we forgot we had in the 50s.
People talk about how bad the economy is now, forgetting how bad it was after the war. The country didn’t really recover until after the Queen’s coronation in 1953.
Things were of course much different people (gentlemen in the main) going to football matches, all wore caps and ties and violence did not occur. Very few women attended the matches.
Children’s comics were Eagle, Beano and Dandy for the boys and Bunty for the girls. There was a Saturday morning picture show - Flash Gordon, Roy Rogers, Superman, Skippy and Shep.
At home very few families had televisions, so the whole family would listen to the radio and especially popular were The Goon Show, Educating Archie, Dick Barton Special Agent and The Archers.
There were not many voluntary organisations for youngsters in the 50s either apart from Scouts, Guides, St John’s Ambulance Brigade and The Boys Brigade. Army Cadets were being re-formed along with Sea and Air Cadets.
Mr Warrall produced “I Spy” books which are still popular today and in the 50s you could go to Curry’s to buy toys like Muffin the Mule and Sooty.
To cap it all, along came the Teddy Boys who were off-duty Guardsmen who were dressing up, Cecil Beaton the photographer, being the most flamboyant of them, so didn’t we have fun!
Club members were given the opportunity to ask questions before the meeting closed.
The next meeting will be held on Monday, October 1, when Stephen Flinders will be talking about ‘Stanton at War.’