1968: Those Were the Days E-Book

Brian Williams

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 294

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

1968 was the year when humans first glimpsed the far side of the Moon, but also the year the world was shocked by assassination, by the crushing of hope for reform and by wars that showed no sign of ever ending. To the old there seemed too much change, too quickly, with youth in revolt, though against what no one was entirely sure … 'Hey Jude', sang the Beatles, with a refrain that lingered long into the summer night, 'Don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better'...

Leseprobe

Remembering my father, whose heart sank that year most Saturdays, but whose optimism never wavered.

First published 2017

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Brian Williams, 2017

The right of Brian Williams to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All internal images Public Domain, except p. 107 © Phil Braithwaite.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 8619 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Introduction

Timeline

1 JANUARY – Backing Britain

2 FEBRUARY – Meditation matters

3 MARCH – Prepare for the worst …

4 APRIL – Dreams or nightmares

5 MAY – England swings, Paris rocks

6 JUNE – You want a revolution?

7 JULY – The professional approach

8 AUGUST – Free for all

9 SEPTEMBER – Exits and entrances

10 OCTOBER – Leaps into the unknown

11 NOVEMBER – If at first you don’t succeed …

12 DECEMBER – Where every prospect pleases?

Appendices

Further Reading

Introduction

‘DON’T MAKE IT BAD …’

‘Hey Jude’, sang the Beatles, whose Apple Corps launched a boutique shop offering psychedelic fashion at psychedelic prices. ‘The Fab Four’, still together, topped the charts yet again with the refrain that lingered long into the summer night, ‘Don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better’.

There were sad songs aplenty in 1968, but some cheer as well, and many people trying to make the situation better. It was the year when humans first glimpsed the far side of the Moon, but also the year the world was shocked by assassination, by the crushing of hope for reform and by wars that showed no sign of ever ending. To the old there seemed too much change, too quickly, with ‘youth’ in revolt, though against what no one was entirely sure, except that the word ‘freedom’ was repeatedly used.

Britain was surprisingly different in 1968, although some things never change: a government battling with the economy; austerity; self-questioning about Britain’s role in the world, in or out of Europe. How to get on with the Americans? And the Russians? And, of course, the French? Issues in the media were depressingly familiar: immigration, censorship, crime (‘watch out, there’s a thief about’). Northern Ireland’s Troubles were brewing. Foreigners were buying up London real estate, in this case a symbolic piece – London Bridge – sold to an American businessman, to be dismantled stone by stone and re-erected in Arizona. The Queen Elizabeth, Cunard’s pride, was also sold, and faced an uncertain future. People lost their money – the old sort – and gained some shiny new coins – the 5p and 10p pieces; there was news that the ‘ten-bob note’ (10 shillings) would also soon be gone, replaced by a seven-sided coin (50p). Yet, even after the 1967 devaluation crisis, people were, on the whole, feeling better off – this was, after all, the ‘Swinging Sixties’. And they were being urged to ‘back Britain’, eagerly promoting itself as the land of Carnaby Street, miniskirts and ‘with-it’ cool.

In 1968, the UK population was just over 55 million. There were more than 12 million motor vehicles and about the same number of telephones, all connected to land lines, though many people needing to make a call still faced a walk to the nearest public telephone box. There were no mobiles, no smartphones, no Facebook, Google or Twitter. The term ‘social media’ would have meant little and ‘Amazon’ was a very big river. Barbecues were what Americans and Australians had, and a takeaway almost always meant fish and chips, though the more daring could get an Indian or Chinese meal, or even a pizza, though this was probably only in London, where a Pizza Express had been open for just three years. Radio licences (still required) were held for 18 million households; slightly fewer homes (15 million) had television licences. In winter, most families sat around an open coal fire burning British fuel. Britain’s mines produced more than 160 million tons of coal a year. People took a bath, not a shower. Recent changes in building regulations had suggested the urgency of reducing heat loss, but in the late 1960s hardly any houses had double glazing.

So what was new? Concorde was new, and America’s jumbo jet, the Boeing 747. The Ford Escort was new, as was crossing the Channel by hovercraft. Tower blocks were newish, never really popular and even less so after a block of flats in London collapsed following a gas explosion. The Beatles flew off to India to meditate on peace and love; other bands and fans headed for Hyde Park or the Isle of Wight for a taste of a new experience – an outdoor pop concert/festival. Louis Armstrong sang of a ‘wonderful world’; it was certainly one in transition.

The Swinging Sixties were reshaping society, in sexual politics and marriage, as well as in fashion, but with change came unrest – industrial, economic, sectarian, racial and generational. Riots and protest made the news. Full of ideas, fervour and angry words, students marched, sat down and sat in, from the Sorbonne to Prague, in London’s Grosvenor Square and across America. The world’s superpower, already experiencing inner turmoil over civil rights and the Vietnam War, was in 1968 shaken by the murders of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy.

But revolution? Maybe next year, though it had already happened on stage. No more censorship, let it all hang out. And it did in Hair, the hippie musical with lights, music, naked action, four-letter words and audience participation. Meanwhile, a right-on commuter could show right-on radical leanings by carrying, or reading, Couples, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Sexual Politics, or No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation. For the family, there was a new programme on television, Dad’s Army, and much more to amuse or ponder on. John Lennon and Yoko Ono sat in a white bag at the Royal Albert Hall for their ‘Alchemical Wedding’ event; Britain narrowly failed to win the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Congratulations’; NASA sent Apollo 8 around the Moon and Gary Sobers smashed 36 runs in an over by scoring six sixes. It was an Olympic year, too.

It was a good year for Matt Busby, knighted after Manchester United won the European Cup; for Alec Rose, also knighted following his round-the-world voyage; and for long jumper Bob Beamon, whose gold medal at the Mexico Olympics was secured with a record-shattering leap through thinning air. It was a good year, too, for Cecil Day-Lewis, who became Poet Laureate in succession to John Masefield; for Colin Davis (new director of the Royal Opera House); for Trevor Nunn (new head of the Royal Shakespeare Company); and for George Best, Europe’s footballer of the year. A year to remember also for Virginia Wade, winner of the US Open tennis title, as the distinction between amateur and professional tennis was abolished. And when the twelve months were almost over, Leonid Brezhnev could pat himself on the back for clawing back the Czechs with the iron grasp of Soviet power. Richard Nixon could look at the mirror and smile, in the knowledge that he had finally made it to the White House. Harold Wilson could congratulate himself on still being in Number 10; George Brown could only wonder where it had all gone wrong. The weather was typically mixed: some unusually severe thunderstorms, floods, and parts of the country turned reddish-brown by sand blown in from the Sahara (the experts said); the summer was on the whole disappointingly dull, cool and damp for those seeking a healthy (it was still thought) suntan. An end-of-year bonus came for parts of the country: a white Christmas. And next year, the Americans promised, man would walk on the Moon …

Timeline

JANUARY

  5 Alexander Dubček becomes new Communist Party leader in Czechoslovakia

  8 Prime Minister Harold Wilson announces support for the ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign to boost the economy (suggestions include buying British and working half an hour a day without pay)

21 A US B-52 bomber crashes in Greenland, with nuclear weapons on board

23 USS Pueblo and eighty-three crew seized by North Korea

30 In the Vietnam War, the Vietcong launch their ‘Tet Offensive’ in South Vietnam

FEBRUARY

10 10th Winter Olympic Games begin at Grenoble in France

16 The Beatles and others – including Mia Farrow and Donovan – visit India to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

MARCH

  1Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, gets a first sung hearing at a London school

15 Foreign Secretary George Brown resigns, ending his career at the top of British Labour Party politics

12 Mauritius gains independence after 158 years of British rule

17 Anti-Vietnam War protesters pack London’s Grosvenor Square to mob the US Embassy; injuries and arrests result as violence breaks out

27 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is killed when his plane crashes

APRIL

  4 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr is shot dead in Memphis, USA

  7 Scottish racing driver Jim Clark is killed at Hockenheim, in Germany, when his Lotus leaves the track and hits a tree

18 London Bridge, dating from 1831, is sold to an American businessman, who wants to rebuild it stone by stone in Arizona. It ‘reopens’ at Lake Havasu City in 1971

22 Britain’s first ‘Open’ tennis event, the Hard Courts Championship at Bournemouth

23 New 5p and 10p decimal coins make their debuts

29 Broadway’s new musical Hair shocks audiences when cast members strip naked on stage

MAY

  4 Mary Hopkin sings on TV’s Opportunity Knocks, and is recommended to Paul McCartney

16 Ronan Point, a London tower block, partially collapses following a gas explosion in a resident’s kitchen

18 In the FA Cup Final, West Bromwich Albion’s Dennis Clark is the first substitute ever to get on the pitch in a final

22 The US nuclear submarine Scorpion is lost in the Atlantic Ocean, with a crew of ninety-nine. It is one of four submarines (the others are Israeli, Russian and French) lost during the year

29 Manchester United are the first English soccer club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica of Portugal at Wembley

JUNE

  1 Helen Keller, blind and deaf from the age of 18 months, who became famous as author, lecturer and inspiration, dies at the age of 87

  5 Bobby Kennedy is shot in a Los Angeles hotel while campaigning for the US presidency, and dies next day

10 NHS prescription charges are reintroduced, having been abolished in Britain in 1965

25 Comedian Tony Hancock commits suicide in Australia

JULY

  4 Lone yachtsman Alec Rose sails home to Portsmouth after a solo circumnavigation lasting 354 days

  6 Billie Jean King (USA) wins the women’s singles title at the first ‘Open’ Wimbledon tennis tournament

25 In his encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI tells Roman Catholics they must not practise birth control

AUGUST

  1 New hovercraft passenger service begins between Dover and Boulogne

11 British Rail runs its last steam-hauled passenger trains, charging enthusiasts more than £15 for the privilege

20 Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the reform movement begun under the leadership of Alexander Dubček

22 In Chicago, USA, police clash with anti-war protesters at the Democratic Party Convention

24 France tests its first hydrogen bomb

31 West Indies cricketer Gary Sobers hits six sixes in one over for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan at Swansea, the unlucky bowler being Malcolm Nash

SEPTEMBER

  6 Swaziland in Africa becomes an independent kingdom within the Commonwealth

16 The Post Office’s new two-tier system introduces first- and second-class stamps

17 The MCC cricket tour of South Africa is cancelled after the South African apartheid regime refuses to accept Basil D’Oliveira as a member of the England party

27 Portugal’s dictator António Salazar steps down after thirty-six years as prime minister

OCTOBER

  9 Harold Wilson holds talks with Rhodesia’s Ian Smith aboard HMS Fearless, but fails to find a resolution of the crisis caused by the colony’s white minority government’s unilateral declaration of independence

11 US spacecraft Apollo 7 is launched with three astronauts – the first manned test flight of the Apollo Moon craft

12 The Olympic Games begin in Mexico City; the Games are marked by a spate of world records and ‘Black Power’ demonstrations by US athletes

23 The Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth sails from Southampton on her final passenger-carrying crossing to New York, before being retired to Florida as a hotel

20 British Crazy Gang comedian Bud Flanagan dies; his last recording is ‘Who Do You Think You are Kidding, Mr Hitler?’ for the BBC’s Dad’s Army

20 Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the late President Kennedy, marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis

24 The US X-15 rocket plane retires after setting several flight records, including a 1967 speed record of Mach 6.72 (4,534mph/7,927km/h)

31 President Johnson announces that the United States will stop its air and other attacks on North Vietnam

NOVEMBER

  5 Richard Nixon wins the US presidential election, beating his Democrat rival Hubert Humphrey

22 The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ (officially The Beatles) is released

28 Children’s writer Enid Blyton (Noddy, Famous Five …) dies

DECEMBER

17 Mary Bell (11) is sentenced to life imprisonment for killing two small boys in Newcastle upon Tyne

20 Nobel Laureate writer John Steinbeck dies in New York City

21 The Apollo 8 spacecraft is launched. With three astronauts aboard, it flies around the Moon and back, orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve

30 Death of Trygve Lie, Norwegian diplomat and the UN’s first secretary general (1946–52)

31 Russia announces the first flight of the Tu-144, the world’s first supersonic airliner, which pips the Anglo-French Concorde as the first supersonic transport in the air

1

January

BACKING BRITAIN

‘The good times are blowing our way …

A new year brings new resolutions. The start of 1968 marked the launch of the ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign, begun by five office workers in Surbiton who were willing, they said, to give up half an hour’s pay a day to help the country out of its economic difficulties. Newspapers scented a five-minute wonder. Prime Minister Harold Wilson (never one knowingly to miss a media trick) declared his support for the flag-waving campaign: buy British and save the pound. So did millionaire publisher Robert Maxwell, but he wanted his own slogan. Up sprouted carrier bags emblazoned with Union flags; on went T-shirts claiming the wearer was ‘Backing Britain’ (some were made in Portugal, but then the Portuguese were our oldest allies). Bruce Forsyth did his bit for the movement by recording the eponymous song, written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. Its lyrics included the optimistic line ‘the good times are blowing our way’. Perhaps they were, but it took a little time.

While wandering up and down the high street (which most town centres retained in the mid-1960s), patriotic shoppers could take comfort from the thought that much being sold in the shops bore a ‘Made in Britain’ label. This was true especially of clothes. The latest rag trade fashions were British, even if outsourced for manufacture, and high-street icons such as Marks & Spencer could still claim that their clothing was made in Britain. In much of the fashion trade, traditional styles prevailed, though in more ‘modern’ materials, such as Terylene, while the shrinking length of women’s skirts meant more minis per square yard of fabric. For those backing Britain whose dress was neither ‘mod’ nor ‘hippie’, a conventionally styled suit or tweed sports jacket could be theirs from a high-street tailors’ store. A man’s tweed jacket cost 7 guineas from Dunn & Co.; the guinea (21 shillings, equivalent to 105p today) remained the popular retail way to pricing items such as clothes and furniture.

Harold Wilson was not about to swap his Gannex raincoat for a psychedelic kaftan, but his government saw no reason why pop and patriotism should not unite to boost the economy. Amid the psychedelia in shop windows, on album covers and posters, an outbreak of Union flags and slogans urging people to ‘Back Britain’ might seem incongruous, but the message could be woven into most media, with a little imagination. The Union flag was cool enough to be applied anywhere, and ‘backing Britain’ became almost a dummy run for ‘cool Britannia’.

‘Backing Britain’ at least sounded positive, at a time when Prime Minister Wilson was trying to restore his reputation for financial acumen following the 1967 decision to devalue the pound. Then, doing his best to sound like Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister had appeared before the British public puffing his pipe and earnestly assuring them that the ‘pound in their pocket’ was worth the same after devaluation. Few believed him.

Another cloud gathering on the monetary horizon was decimalisation. The devalued pound in purse (or pocket) was still a pound, a paper note rustling among an assortment of familiar jingling coins – shillings and pence. But change was coming. Politicians had decreed that the country would go decimal, a change three years away, but already evident. In the twilight of its long history, dating from the late 1400s, the shilling still reigned, but alongside an upstart twin – the new 5p coin that first appeared in 1968. As did a larger 10p piece, which people were told was the same as a 2-shilling piece (the florin). Since every child knew there were 12 pennies in a shilling (not 5), and 24 pennies in 2 shillings (not 10), many viewed the interlopers, and forthcoming decimalisation, with suspicion.

High-street banks were changing too. The local bank was a landmark of solidity in towns across the country. Most people with bank accounts called there at least once a week, if only to cash a cheque. There were no plastic cards, and Britain’s first cash machine was just a year old. The bank was familiar and trusted, unaltered on the outside for decades and little changed inside. Typical high streets had four or five, as well as the larger building societies. Then in 1968 two of the old familiar names, National Provincial and Westminster, announced an amalgamation to create a bigger bank, NatWest. The famous grasshopper sign of another bank, Martins, was also shortly to disappear, gobbled up by Barclays in 1969.

To watch the news and see how the ‘Backing Britain’ campaign was doing, families could rent a colour television for 25s a week. Rental TV was a popular alternative to purchase, for television sets, still somewhat temperamental, were liable to go wrong and require the attention of a technician. Time in many households was spent twiddling knobs to adjust the picture. The advent of colour TV in 1967 had been a boon to manufacturers and advertisers alike, but in 1968 only one channel (BBC2) was transmitting programmes in colour. BBC1 and ITV followed in 1969.

‘Backing Britain’ by buying British was all very well, but the country still faced a major problem with its balance of trade, and trade figures were seldom out of the headlines. Today’s financial barometers tend to focus on ‘consumer confidence’ (retail sales) and credit debt. In 1968 everyone worried about the trade gap, and with Britain’s imports (£7.9 billion) exceeding exports (£6.4 billion), there was much political wrangling about trade and industrial performance. Labour’s ambitious National Plan was now minus its leader, George Brown. Having departed Economic Affairs for the Foreign Office, Brown was in 1968 about to say goodbye to government for good. To kick-start economic growth, the government sponsored regional economic development councils, nicknamed ‘Little Neddies’, after the National Economic Development Council (‘Big Neddy’) which had been around since 1962, supposedly to plan industrial strategy. These hung on without much consequence until scrapped by the Major government in 1992.

Machinery, motor vehicles and chemicals were key foreign trade earners for Britain, followed by textiles. Financial services, today so crucial to national income and tax receipts, made few headlines, and ‘banker-bashing’ even fewer: finance in the public conception of how the economy worked mattered far less than manufacturing, shipbuilding, steel-making or coal mining. In the 1960s City traders were often old-school gents in suits, whose use of technology was restricted to tickertape machines and telephones. Financial transactions relied largely on mechanical equipment, though electronic tickers were being introduced. The first awkward steps towards computerised trading were being made, but the trading floor was still largely in the hands of humans, at least for another year or so; all this would begin to change in the 1970s.

Patterns of trade were shifting too. In the late 1960s, the UK’s main trade destination for exports was the European Economic Community (EEC), or the Common Market as it was generally known. Euro-trade accounted for about 20 per cent of exports; yet Britain was not a member of the six-nation European club. Efforts to join the Common Market had begun under the Conservatives in 1961, but when the Macmillan government applied for membership, its overtures were rebuffed by the intractable opposition of France’s president, Charles De Gaulle. De Gaulle, for all his wartime links with Britain (or because of them), regarded the British as unreliable partners, and (if admitted to the Common Market) a potential threat to French leadership of the fledgling European union. He was even more suspicious of the United States, and had pursued an independent path since pulling France out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1966. De Gaulle was not ready to admit the British to the organisation where France had primacy.

The year 1968 was an important one for the Common Market nations: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. They took an important step towards closer trade integration by establishing a customs union, abolishing all import tariffs between them, and harmonising tariffs on goods imported from outside. Britain watched from the sidelines, a frustrated spectator. France still played a dominant role in the Common Market; West Germany was a growing industrial and financial powerhouse, but did not yet assert equal diplomatic muscle.

In Britain, government policy centred on correcting the balance of payments deficit; there would need to be defence cuts, and NHS prescription charges were reintroduced. The commitment to raising the school-leaving age, from 15 to 16, had to be postponed, and from September 1968 secondary school pupils would no longer enjoy free milk in the mid-morning break. Hardly surprising then that Labour was behind in the polls and losing by-elections at Dudley, Oldham West and Nelson & Colne. The Conservatives enjoyed an opinion-poll lead of about 20 per cent, Labour councillors were turfed out in the May local government elections and mutterings grew in Westminster corridors. To add to the angst, the Scottish Nationalists were becoming uppity, following Winnie Ewing’s by-election win at Hamilton in 1967, and were encouraged when Conservatives at their party conference offered a Scottish Assembly. There were disturbing reports of political troubles brewing in Northern Ireland, where later in the year (August and October) civil rights marches took place, and – in Londonderry – sparked violence.

Harold Wilson remained outwardly imperturbable. He carried on, and if that meant pretending to be a Bruce Forsyth fan in 1968 – just as he had been a Beatles fan in 1965 and a World Cup Willie fan in 1966 – so be it. Besides, not all of it was gloom; there were some green shoots of recovery, while the ‘Backing Britain’ rallying cry might make people feel more cheerful, thus spend more, and so give the economy a boost. In truth, the ‘Backing Britain’ campaign always had a hollow Tin Pan Alley ring, and its impact was muted; in retrospect it received a hardly more favourable response than had Wilson’s 1965 decision to give the Beatles their MBEs (John Lennon’s medal reportedly rested on top of his auntie’s television).

Back in 1968, aunties, even grandmothers, might admit to liking the Beatles – though an overt fondness for the Rolling Stones might seem a step too far. There was too much sex about, many people agreed, and there was much tut-tutting about all that drug taking encouraged by pop stars. The moral climate had not changed completely, however: a minor row at Edinburgh University caused the satirical journalist Malcolm Muggeridge to resign as rector over what he felt was a moral issue, when the university offered contraceptive pills free to students. That was taking ‘Backing Britain’ too far.

Trouble finding second gear?

In January 1968, following a change in divorce law, the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage became sufficient grounds for divorce. Disregarding any pessimistic symbolism, the government hailed a new industrial marriage between two big players in the British car industry. British Motor Holdings, still commonly known as British Motor Corporation (BMC), would merge with Leyland Motors to form British Leyland (BL). After a bright start, BL was destined for a turbulent history.

BMC had itself been the offspring of a commercial splicing, brought about in 1952 by the amalgamation of Austin and Morris, two founding names of British car-making, and incorporating other famous marques such as MG, Riley and Wolseley. In the early 1960s the outlook had been rosy with the success of the 1960s’ iconic car, the Mini, designed by Alec Issigonis. Despite the Mini’s captivating appeal, BMC was by 1968 struggling to retain market share and profitability; it simply had too many marques (Austin Mini, Morris Mini-Minor, Riley Elf, Wolseley Hornet …) competing for the same mini-market. The 1966 acquisition of Jaguar had added to the company’s problems.

The 1968 merger was the brainchild of the Labour Government, and particularly of technology minister Tony Benn, who chaired the Industrial Reorganisation Committee. Led by Donald (later Lord) Stokes, Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) had a good track record in making commercial vehicles, owned known brands such as Rover, and was thought to have a more hard-nosed, realistic management. Stokes duly became boss of the new conglomerate.

Despite being Britain’s largest car manufacturer by volume, with 40 per cent of sales, British Leyland was encumbered by an oversized, outdated model list. The days of the old Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge models were numbered, and the popular 1100/1300 range was also showing its age by 1968, though still one of Britain’s best-selling cars. Competition was largely US-backed: Ford (American-owned) and Rootes, recently acquired by Chrysler. Most people still thought British factories made decent enough cars – after all a Hillman Hunter (Rootes) won the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon, and a Hillman Imp won the RAC British Rally Championship. Also, Ford had a new model that looked promising, the Escort, to run alongside the Cortina and Corsair, and was also about to launch the Capri.

British car salesmen could tell themselves, truthfully, that most customers still bought British. Cheap foreign imports were practically non-existent, and foreign-made cars were generally held to be expensive, luxury items. The Japanese had, however, begun to spy out the UK market; the Daihatsu Compagno, today almost forgotten, had been a trailblazer in 1965, and in 1968 the Nissan Datsun brand made its UK debut. But for most buyers, British was still best on the local forecourt, and the desire to own a car was insatiable. A Triumph 1300 cost under £1,000, about the same as a teacher’s starting annual salary; but it came with refinements – adjustable seats, a boot light, air-flow heating and ventilation. Car radios were still usually extras. Satnav, of course, was a fantasy notion – drivers used maps, even to check where the services were on the newest stretch of motorway. The M1 had just been extended to Leeds, and a further section of the M8 in Scotland was opened during the year.

BL seemed, briefly, to offer promise of a new industrial strategy for the 1970s: the new corporation combined car-making with buses, trucks, components manufacturers, construction machinery and metal casting. The seven divisions of the new conglomerate incorporated some 100 companies, and at its peak BLMC owned more than thirty-five manufacturing plants. The merger plastered over deep-seated industrial relations ailments, some of which today seem astonishingly parochial (for example, Austin workers were reluctant to work on Morris cars), and the two ‘badges’ remained competitive though now part of the same company (there were Minis bearing both badges). It was a thorough muddle, and the proliferation of assembly plants and supply chains inevitably meant increased costs, with too many models chasing the same buyers and too few outstanding export models to achieve volume-sales success.

Faced with its ageing backlist and strong competition, British Leyland needed new models for the 1970s: this need produced the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro, cars that, while selling reasonably well, did little to enhance their manufacturer’s reputation. The five-door Maxi (1969) was the last BMC design from Issigonis, more innovative and ‘Continental’, but despite this, the British Leyland name never really caught on with the public, either in the UK or abroad. Hit by appalling industrial unrest, BL was partly nationalised in the 1970s, before being reorganised; today the BMW-owned Mini, Indian-owned Jaguar Land Rover, and US-owned Leyland Trucks are heirs to this troubled automotive kingdom.

While BL was eased into the world, Ford was at the Brussels Motor Show launching its new Escort. Brought in to replace the popular Anglia, the Escort was built at Ford’s Hailwood plant in Merseyside. Its 1968 launch heralded a success story, with 2 million cars manufactured in the first six years. The Escort’s styling was 1960s conventional but with innovative touches, notably the ‘coke bottle’ indented waistline and ‘dog bone’ radiator grille. An estate version arrived in March 1968. The original January models were two-door, but a four-door version went on sale the following year. Although the original Escorts had modest capacity engines (1100cc and 1300cc), the car’s performance was sufficiently sporty to appeal, especially to the young – an appeal enhanced by the sports success of the twin-cam rally Escort which won the 1968 Saloon Car Championship. Escorts went on to become among the most successful rally cars in autosport history, and five succeeding generations took the Ford’s modest supercar into the twenty-first century.

East is East and …

Post Brexit referendum, the discussions in 1968 of ‘Britain’s place in the world’ seem both other-worldly and yet curiously familiar. Was the country’s destiny linked to that of its European neighbours? Or was its future bound to far-flung links, now largely post-imperial, with countries beyond Europe’s shores? Europe in 1968 was starkly reflective of the post-war settlement; the Cold War was still icy, the Iron Curtain still in place, the Berlin Wall a brutal symbol of division. Events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were to reinforce Western nervousness about the Soviet iron fist that still retained its grip on the satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact.

Prime Minister Wilson had stated (December 1964) that the country could not afford to give up its world role, but this was hot air. Defence Secretary Denis Healey had made it clear: Britain would withdraw from operations east of Suez, and in January 1968 the prime minister confirmed that the cutback was being brought forward, to save money. The new priority was European defence and the ‘central front’ – the defence of West Germany from Soviet aggression. The army and RAF would no longer keep such large forces overseas, since the escalation of tactical nuclear arsenals (and Soviet tank forces) required capable (and expensive) conventional forces in Europe. The navy might have to reconsider the role of its two remaining Second World War-vintage aircraft carriers (plans for three modern replacements having been cancelled in 1966). For modern strategists, this makes an interesting comparison with the UK’s situation following the 2010 Strategic Defence Review, which reaffirmed the decision to build two new carriers, both bigger than the 1960s variety.

Where once British defence planners had their eyes on colonial maps and wide blue oceans, now Europe was the concern. Europe meant operating under the NATO umbrella, free of colonial responsibilities, and with the prospect of closer relations with both Western European allies and the United States. The lure of Europe was the song of the sirens on the rocks. There was a general feeling in Britain that somehow Europe was doing better than we were. Since the Treaty of Rome (1958) Community wages had outstripped prices, so the six members of the Common Market looked more prosperous. European cities rebuilt after the war were modern looking, visitors to the Continent no longer returned with horror stories about hotel plumbing, the railways seemed to work better than ours – and Germany had always had Europe’s best roads.

The Macmillan government had begun the wooing of De Gaulle, but if ‘Supermac’ hoped memories of the old wartime alliance would smooth the path towards a happy outcome, he was to be disappointed. De Gaulle was deeply suspicious of Britain, even though in the immediate post-war years Churchill (with whom De Gaulle, as leader of the Free French in exile during the war, had had a prickly relationship) had been a Euro-enthusiast. Churchill had envisioned a unified Europe as an economic bulwark against Soviet expansionism, and the idea of unity out of conflict appealed to his sense of history. The British people were less romantic. Euro idealists hoped for a Europe of collaborating liberal democracies, a counterweight to the United States and USSR. Others saw the whole Euro plan as a birthday party for bureaucrats, and yet more felt they could not abandon historic ties of Empire. How could Britain turn its back on what had been the Empire, our kith and kin?

De Gaulle had militant opinions about most things, but especially about defence. France would not readily abandon its colonial past – and the scars from the war in Algeria (ended only in 1962) were still raw. De Gaulle was building up French forces, not scaling them back. His hostility to British membership of the EEC was fuelled by history, and by his paranoia concerning Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States.

That relationship, always unequal, was by the 1960s far less intimate. Old wartime colleagues (if not always friends) had left the scene, and there was a stark disparity in ‘hard power’ between the two countries. The elder statesman Macmillan had struck up a relationship with President Kennedy, but Wilson felt no comparable warmth from Johnson, the tall Texan now in the White House. The prime minister and the president talked, about Vietnam and other issues, but Britain’s refusal to take part in the Vietnam War had strained the old alliance. The United States was the superpower: only the USSR came close to matching it militarily. The Russians could amass vast land forces, with tanks and missiles, and they had terrifying numbers of intercontinental missiles, heavy bombers and nuclear submarines, but the Soviet Navy had no aircraft carriers, no oceanic fleets to rival the global reach of the US Navy.