This isn't of much practical use to today's visitors to London, but a recent addition to the internet's wealth of old movies includes this instructional gem from London Transport in 1969 explaining how to use the ticket machines and automatic barriers of those days. It all seems so far away and long ago (my dear, the <i>hats</i>! - not to mention the prices, and the film-making style - and yet another jaunty catchphrase with dubious overtones):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UqO9tnRlcY

Love this! June, 1969 my first trip to Europe started with about two weeks in London.

Thanks so much.

In'69 I moved from London to Hampshire. I could commute to the city a couple of times a week because the fare was only £1 !!!!!!!

Where would this film have been shown?

London Transport couldn't have afforded 195 seconds of ads on Thames or London Weekend (even if ads so long were legal, which they weren't).

And I don't remember cinema ads that long then: just enough time for a picture of the mouth-watering delicacies at the Gunga Din curry house, a loving shot of flock wallpaper, a generic picture of a bloke in a turban licking his licks, then a mis-spelt juddering shot of the caff's name and Bob Danvers-Walker telling you it was "5 minutes from this theatre"

30 secs max.

So did this masterpiece get trundled round WIs?

Did we really look like that?
And where are all the crowds of people?

Newsreel before a film?

I think it must have been meant for cinemas, but maybe they hoped it wouldn't be treated as just another ad - more like something in the travelogue (Bal-ham - Gateway to the South) or "Look at Life" (remember them?) slot.

Did we have newsreels in 1969?

Certainly not at any of the fleapits I used to frequent in my undergraduate days. Ads, trailers and Butch Cassidy at the Odeon: Swedish suicide-inducing masterpiece, ads, trailers and Italian thing at the Moulin Rouge.

I well remember the ticket machines and having to search the list for the fare to pay, since we visitors never knew where we were going anyway. What always amazed me were the ticket collectors at the exits.

>>Did we have newsreels in 1969? <<

I have a feeling that by then they might have died, or been in the process of dying, or replaced by things like "Look at Life" - there was a TV documentary not so long ago about Pathe news that charted their rise and decline into travelogue/magazine films and eventual demise.

Hey PL,

What does 1/3 mean?

I don't recall much of my visits to London in the late 60's, except that I saw "Oliver!" on the stage and also "The Merchant of Venice," with Sir Ralph Richardson. "A Man and a Woman" at the cinema, also some other French movie where the wife drowns herself when her husband takes a mistress. It was very strange.

Is my memory correct that smoking was allowed in the cinema? I seem to remember ashtrays on the back of the seat in front of me.

We went to Trader Vic's (maybe in the Hilton) and the Playboy Club, the Cheshire Cheese and Simpson's on the Strand.

Surely I must have done some sightseeing, but I don't remember much of it.

I've always been intimidated by public transportation, so I may not have taken the underground. When I first took it in Munich, I didn't realize that one had to validate it before one got on the train. I guess I was what the German's call a "black rider."

But I digress.

1/3 means one shilling and threepence (pronounced thruppence). This was before the introduction of decimal currency in the U.K. in 1971. The pound was made up of 20 shillings, each of twelve pence. 1/3 was the equivalent of about 7p in new money.

For more than you really want to know about pre-decimal coinage and the changeover, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day.

Is my memory correct that smoking was allowed in the cinema? I seem to remember ashtrays on the back of the seat in front of me. >>

yes, and in theatres too.

AND they played the National anthem at the end of the performance.

"the past is another country...."

>>AND they played the National anthem at the end of the performance. <<

Ah yes, the great cinema steeplechase-cum-tutting competition as the patriots stood to attention and impeded the rapid exit of those trying to rush to the pub for last orders.

oh yes, Patrick - I'd forgotten that.

and do you remember how there was nothing, literally nothing, to do on Sundays apart from going to church? [just like that Hancock episode?]

>>and do you remember how there was nothing, literally nothing, to do on Sundays apart from going to church? [just like that Hancock episode?]<<

<i>I thought my mother was a bad cook, but at least her gravy moved about.</i>

There was visiting family for tea, of course ("Oh, Mum, must we?"); or going for an improving walk.

or listening to the Billy Cotton Band Show.

even tea at the grandparents was preferable to that. [plus got to read their sunday Mirror, which was MUCH more interesting than the paper my parents took, especially the problem page!]