Were The 60s Really Swinging?, Cilla Blacks show on Yesterday Options

[enrique]

Dont know if anybody watches Yesterday, but last night they had a show where this plonker tries to tell us that the 60s were really sedate with the youngsters, wearing sensible clothes etc, the folk they were interviewing must have been students from those days, i mean the suggestion that the mini skirt came into being in 65 is a load of twaddle i was dancin with lassies in 62 in all the local halls and they were wearing them, the suggestion was that only when tights came into fashion did the mini skirt take off (so to speak), well i ask you, aye we could only get coffee and ice cream in the halls , but you loaded up at the nearest boozer before you went in, i remember all my clothes were made to measure even some of ma shirts, we maybe had not hit the drug era yet, but we still had a great time, according to them most of the couples prefered to be married before the bedroom gymnastics could start, i, maybe thats whit you told anybody who asked, but wee no different dont we, you wonder where they get those researchers and for Cilla to nod her head in agreement well that amazes me, although i always thought she would be a bit of a tease.

Come on give me some back up here if you were young and free in the 60s lets hear about your experiences.

[Dexter St. Clair]

You've got it mixed up with the seventies. Possibly due to drugs being ingested at the time?

There's plenty of threads on here would give a more realistic picture of the sixties.

What cafes and Dance halls were you haunting? Did you wear a suit and tie to gain entry to the dancing.

Any photos of your good self in 1962? or any other year in the sixties.

[Jupiter]

Just watching 60s icon Sandie Shaw on German tv wearing green boots.Shockaroonie,mythbuster.
Yesterday+1 channel.

[TeeHeeHee]

Of course the 60's were swinging. I spent a season on the Isle of Man when the Merseybeat was becoming well established and rubbed shoulders with the best of them there, Watched Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball die the death there too. I saw Kenny Ball giving out copies of his "Sukiyaki" and having them tossed back when the kids realised what they'd just been given. I got real close with Paul Jones of Manfred Mann's band back then too and it was all fun, fun, fun. JFK, the Cold War, sex and drugs and rock and roll and a spell on bombers in the RAF; what more could a young man ask for.

[beth]

Think I must have slept through it. I remember the changes and I remember loads of fun, but think possibly lived in different circumstances and was possibly too young to enjoy it and then jumped into marriage at 18. Allan did wear a suit and tie when we went out and he definitely had on a suit and tie the night I met him at the late night in Barrowland and that was 1969.

[GG]

I can't comment on the swinging - or otherwise - sixties, but here's a short promo for the programme on YouTube...

Presented by Liverpool’s Queen of Showbiz, Cilla Black, Cilla’s Unswung Sixties – part of the Spirit Of The Sixties season – tells the real story of Britain’s popular culture in a decade synonymous with music and fashion. Drawing on her own memories and experiences Cilla – the original girl next door turned 60s superstar – reveals what the Great British public was really wearing in the 1960s, what records they bought and what they liked to do at the weekend.

Debunking myths and sidestepping stereotypes through the testimonies and archives of people who were there, Cilla’s Unswung Sixties shows a very different but equally colourful decade, as experienced by ordinary men, women and families in the UK.

GG.

[ashfield]

Enrique, I think you are getting confused between short skirts and mini skirts, the mini was definitely introduced in 1965. I can even remember the first one I saw, walking down Renfield St at Gordon St, a young lady who looked like a model, walked across the road. The general populace, men and woman, stopped in their tracks to watch. At the time I thought it was a publicity stunt for one of the theatres or a new pub opening.

I only discovered the 60s were "swinging" long after it was gone. There was none of the stuff that seemed to be going on in London, but in retrospect, we did enjoy a greater amount of freedom of expression than our predecessors.

[bilbo.s]

Late 50s early60s it was all hooped skirts with multi-layered petticoats. Great fun !

[Melody]

Och bilbo.s but they must have played havoc wi' yer stockings. Sorry couldnae help it.

[bilbo.s]

Och bilbo.s but they must have played havoc wi' yer stockings. Sorry couldnae help it.

Did ah know you then ?

[Melody]

Naw ah was far too young for that bilbo.s.

[dizzybint]

well aye ah wiz a teenager in the 60s... but I think a missed the boat with flower people, drugs and wild sex.. I went to the ice skating at Crossmaloof for three years and had a ball.. that was ma fun...and a night at the Barrowland wae a vodka and orange. and thought a wiz tipsy... naw a didnae hiv a swinging time.. a hid a great time.. but no whit others portray of the 60s..

[jakka13]

I had my first wean in 1960 and second in 62 ,third in 64.so I wasn't much into fashion.Don't think I wore a skirt above my knees till quite late in the sixties.

[rikkiduncan]

Swinging sixties, well as for fashion, it was mod style for me, neat suits, dress shoes, smart Ben Sherman shirts nice tie, tidy hair and of to the Locarno in Sauchiehall St, or the Lindela Club in Union Street at the weekend, casual gear for through the week was dessert boots, Levis or Wranglers, Pringle polo shirts. oh aye and a Vespa if you could afford one.

[Elma]

Like you Jakka but mine came in '61, '63 and '65! I did wear the mini skirt though but it was going out of style and the maxi coming in by the time we came to Canada in 1967 where the mini was just getting popular so the dresses I brought with me were still in style

The swining sixties were out as far as I was concerned but I did have a great time in the fabulous fifties!!