The Cold War. The Watergate Scandal. The Voyager program. Ceefax. These are just some of the things that defined the 1970s; the frequently seen snapshots, news clips and photos used to define the decade. But what was a day in the life of an industrial city like in the early Seventies?
A couple of years ago I was rooting through my attic. Lord knows why, it was April so I couldn’t have been searching for the Christmas tree. In the very back corner I found an old newspaper. It was a copy of the Manchester Evening News, dated August 2 1971.
It was an awesome moment. Not only because it was such a cool old relic,but also because it had obviously been sat in our attic for decades before I even moved into my house. After taking a snap and sticking it on Instagram, I put the paper in a drawer and completely forgot about it until this weekend.
I love the fact that there was some significance to this particular day’s paper – so much so that whoever used to live here felt compelled to keep it, probably because someone they knew was featured. Maybe they knew Sharon Banks, 14-year-old dancing champion featured on the front page. Perhaps they knew Stephen Kuitwer, a Manchester University student who was fined £50 for possessing LSD.
This newspaper is older than Greater Manchester itself, which was created in 1974 as part of the Local Government Act of 1972.It’s cool to see how journalism and the ways in which we consume news have changed. Here are some of the news stories that were causing waves in Manchester in August 1971:
BOMB GUARD ON HEATH’S YACHT
This headline is about Prime Minister Edward Heath’s boat being the subject of a bomb threat, which ultimately turned out to be a hoax. Firstly, can you imagine a politician owning a yacht these days? Talk about uproar. Never mind one yacht, Heath owned five throughout his life.
The Manchester Evening News claimed the boat, called Morning Cloud (at least it wasn’t called Austerity), was worth £22,000, which is the equivalent of over £304,000 pounds today. Heath was a Conservative PM, which goes a little way to explaining the way he spent taxpayers’ money.
There’s also very little column space dedicated to the terror threat itself, with most of it describing the boat and the number of races it’s won. It’s even more surreal given that only a few days earlier, there had been an actual bomb attack at the flat of John Davies,Secretary for Trade & Industry. I dread to think how the Daily Mail would have handled this story today.
HUSBAND JUMPED ON BONNET OF WIFE’S CAR
Today this would be more suited to an episode of Jeremy Kyle. “I lost my memory after jumping in front of your car. Now I want full custody of our three kids!”
That would accurately sum up the event in which, following an argument at home, the unnamed husband of Patricia Foster apparently jumped in front of her moving car after she’d gone for a drive to calm down.
The article explained: “Her husband received brain injuries after he apparently jumped on to the bonnet of the car which crashed into awall… Her husband’s injuries are such that at the moment he appears to be unaware that he is her husband”.
Amnesia, you sly dog you. What a genius way of getting out of a relationship you can’t be bothered with anymore. I imagine Jezza would have a field day with this story.
MOON SCARE AS ASTRONAUT TUMBLES
This is my favourite story from the paper. David Scott is famous for the Hammer vs. Feather video, which proved Galileo’s theories on the laws of physics. But in this instance, he’s making headlines for tripping over a boulder during a spacewalk.
The event was captured live on TV, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find a clip anywhere. The scare is somewhat exaggerated, seeing as after tripping over the boulder, Scott apparently got right back up again. This event probably wouldn’t get many column inches these days, if any at all. More likely it would be the kind of thing you’d find turned into an RKO video. OUTTA NOWHERE.
JOUST A MINUTE
National Jousting Championships. Seriously.
“Any holidaymaker who fancies himself as Sir Galahad can take on a knight in armour at Blackpool tomorrow.” The M.E.N. explains: “challenges are expected to be slow, as all 15 stunt men in the tournament have broken bones to prove how tough the sport is.” You had me at broken bones.
ROWDIES: ‘TOUGH POWERS NEEDED’
‘Rowdies’ doesn’t quite do football hooligans justice – it sounds more like a brand of ale that you’d see right next to Newcastle Brown. Travelling Manchester United fans decided to invade a Halifax shop en masse and throw things around.
Throwing things around a shop? Really? These days that’s an average Saturday in Primark; pretty meek stuff as far as hooliganism goes.
In a brilliant piece of irony, one of those arrested over the incident was called Michael Lawless.
‘FIGHTING PRIEST’ GOES ON TRIAL
What a headline. Fighting Priest should be one of those B movie titles that stands alongside Hobo With a Shotgun or Kung Fu Vampire.
In truth, this tiny report shows how little attention was given to Apartheid back then. Here’s a Priest, Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (not a typo), fighting for the same causes as Nelson Mandela, yet his campaign is condensed into two paragraphs, with less column inches than a jousting tournament in Blackpool.
After months of brutal interrogation techniques, Gonville was later found guilty of ten counts of ‘subversive activity against the state’, but his conviction was overturned less than a year later. He died in 1991.
Other Quirks
Plenty to see and do in seventies’ Manchester. Why not pay a trip to the ABC Cinema in Ashton-Under-Lyne and catch an evening screening of The Nympho (Certificate X) or The Erotic 3 (Certificate X)?
Or catch up on the latest sporting events, with the Pigeon results published for all you racing enthusiasts to see.
There were some interesting adverts in this newspaper too. Reading through it, it’s easy to forget how considerably recently the British currency system changed to decimalisation.
If all that confusing money talk gave you a headache, you could ease the pain with a dose of Phensic, ‘the powerful way to stop pain’. Not at all concerning that an advert for a pill with the ability to ‘soothe nerves’ doesn’t list a single ingredient. I checked it all out and Phensic is supposedly nothing more than aspirin and caffeine.
Phensic could also come in handy when a hangover strikes, perhaps after a night at new nightclub, Intercon. 111 Deansgate is now home to the Avici White nightclub.
Reading through the classic paper is a great historical insight, and when some classic film footage of Manchester is thrown into the mix, you get a great idea of the life and times of the early Seventies. You stay classy, Manchester.
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