The bingo age
A survey of social changes in Britain in the last decade which ministers have been studying for the past six weeks states that the strong flood of violence among youngsters has swept in since commercial television began.
It also says that the amount of gambling in Britain is now stupendous; that we have become a nation of debtors; that there is a basic discontent with what has become very strongly an era of materialism which expresses itself "in a grasping after unearned wealth" and that the number of married women at work has achieved a "housewives' revolution."
In its references to the effects of television, the report states that it is a matter of opinion whether crimes of violence are instigated by the incessant programmes of violence on television, but it notes a most alarming development in crime among boys and young men.
It states that the main social effects of almost universal and highly concentrated television viewing cannot be assessed for probably some years to come, but among its side effects are a recrudescence of family life, particularly on Sunday evenings, and a fall of 64 per cent from 1950 to 1960 in the amount spent on cinema-going.
The estimated turnover in 1961 on all forms of gambling was £762 million - nearly £14 per head of population. The lowest estimate of the amount spent in 1961 in commercial bingo clubs, which sprang up as a result of the Betting and Gaming Act, 1960, is £25 million, but, states the report, the total in a full year will be much greater.
The report forecasts that some trends apparent in the last decade will continue in the next. The main population developments, even to such factors as early marriage and early birth of the first child, will continue.
"The main social trends will certainly be desired. More people will want to move into an outer suburban life, buy cars, educate their children longer, suffer their surgical illnesses in private rooms of hospitals, spend evenings staring at television, spend more, gamble more, buy more washing machines on hire purchase, take holidays in Italy, lay their own parquet floors, and so on.
"The only certainty to be drawn from the 1950s seems to be that Britain could not lapse back into working-class poverty, as during the 1930s. The average man now has much more to lose, and has made too great an investment in his own future as a middle-class citizen and householder."
The report states that we are healthier and wealthier than in 1951; that there are two movements of population - one into the great conurbations, and the other from city centres into an outer fringe of suburbs - a process accelerated by the decontrol of rents; that we have become a nation of debtors for our houses and particularly our cars; that we are eating more; and spending more time (with more frustration) in commuting.
This article is drawn from the archive at the Newsroom