Remembering the 1930s

In the 1980s BBC Radio Leicester ran a series of programmes about Leicester in the 1930s (in 2025 these are waiting to be catalogued). The final episode was a phone-in that invited members of the public to comment on the series and add their own memories of the 1930s. Each caller gave their name and each quote below is attributed.

Skywriting

"Another thing that was in the ‘30s was skywriting. Every year there used to be Cobham's Flying Circus used to come to Leicester. And one of the gimmicks used to be skywriting. They used to put vapour in the exhaust. and write out adverts in the sky. That disappeared in the ‘30s. We also had a searchlight, which on certain nights when it was cloudy, used to be like a magic lantern. It used to flash an advert in the sky. As I said, that disappeared too.

"That was at the back of Southgate Street Station. There used to be a piece of waste ground, which is now a car park, and this searchlight had a big generator. And we cycled round all for nights trying to get a glimpse of this searchlight, but it was a massive thing. But you could see it all over Leicester." Len Hutchinson.

Cinema

Mrs Martin worked at a city cinema for a time and remembers a couple of the popular films.

"It had a lot to do with the films that came along, you see. And this was about just about in 1930. They had two films in particular that drawed the crowds like the Sound of Music has done in recent years. One was New Moon and the other one was Viennese Nights. They were so popular that the theatre opened at 12 noon and it was continuous performance right through till 11 o'clock at night." Mrs Martin.

Leisure

"The whole tone of everybody's voice (in the radio series) was one of gloom, which was completely wrong. It's true, there were depressed areas in the country, You cannot forget the people of Jarrow and their march, and you can't forget the high unemployment figures. But certainly in the Midlands, there was tremendous lot of employment. And although wages were not high, very much could be done with them.

"Almost every night of the week, you could find something interesting to do. There were any number of dance halls open. At the time I lived in the Aylestone district, where you've got the Aylestone Parish Hall, the Boathouse, the Adult School, and the Wheatsheaf in Knighton Fields Road. Four of them, and they all put on dances two or three times a week with real bands. There were billiard, small billiard halls where you could go to. Then come the weekend, there was the usual weekend activities of watching football or playing football, although teenagers generally didn't play very much because they, in the main, left school when they were 14 and there was not much for them to do in the playing aspect between 14 and 17. But they went and watched. Then Sunday there was cycling, which was a great joy of mine, and a lot of people. There was lots of cycling clubs that were very well attended. We had a wonderful freedom of the roads, because traffic was very much lighter than it is now, and it was real good companionship that took us miles every Sunday, and they were thoroughly enjoyable club runs." Larry Palmer.

The Leicester section of the Cyclist’s Touring Club was formed in 1896 and in 1925 the ‘standard ride’ became 130 miles in 12 hours (100 miles in 12 hours for the ladies). You can find out more about cycling in the sports section of our Post War Leicester website.

Unemployment

"I find the ‘30s a great time for contrasts. The contrast in as much as, in the early ‘30s, there was great depression and unemployment. Being married in 1930, I started out in life full of, hope, but within two years, my husband had lost his job and he was absolutely unable to find any type of work whatsoever in Leicester, which meant going under the dole and the means test. We had one child by then and our total income was made up of 25 and thruppence, which was 15 shillings for the man, eight and thruppence for the wife, and two shillings for a child.

(note: 25 and thruppence, or 25s 3d, or 25/3, was approx. £1.26)

"25 and thruppence wasn't much and by Tuesday you could go into the butcher's and get two pennyworth of bones for the dog to make soup. Having no dog, it was just one way of getting over an embarrassment. People, when they were in work, I think it was the fear of being unemployed, that... everyone was afraid to strike, no one dare complain about conditions. And I even remember people working from 7 in the morning till 7 at night without grumbling, which was overtime. You see, they did it thankfully, because they remembered the early '30s." Mrs Martin.

Education

"Well, certainly from my own point of view, educational opportunities existed during the '30s. As I can remember, at Medway Street, where I first started, one took a scholarship at the age of 11, and I believe that there were three categories. If you passed completely, you had the option of going to a secondary school, and that included the City Boys, Wigston, and Alderman Newtons. If you were in the next grade, you went to the intermediate school, which was a school such as Moat Road. And if you ended in the last category, you went to an elementary school, and I think Melbourne Road was one of those. Certainly these were the schools related to Medway Street."

"Was there any financial help for parents who were in dire circumstances?"

"I don't know about that, but certainly if the income level of your parents wasn't sufficiently high, the places were free at the schools. But there were grants available for uniforms. I can remember some of the pupils in the class going down at periodic intervals, whether it was each term or each year, I can't remember now. to collect a cheque from the Secretary's office. I thought this was slightly inhuman that the rest of us knew about it, although in fact I don't remember any recriminations being made towards people that collected these grants."

"One of our contributors to the programme on education made the point that at the school he attended there was a certain amount of discrimination by the staff against the scholarship boys as opposed to the fee-paying boys. Did you find any of this at your school?"

"No, certainly not. In fact, I can't even remember now who were fee-paying and who weren't, and I'm sure if there'd been any discrimination, one would have remembered the people concerned. In fact, I was talking to a bank manager last week about this programme. I mentioned this point to him. And he told me, in fact, that his parents did pay the fees at the school, which amounted to three guineas a term. And I didn't even remember that he was fee paying, so it couldn't have made very much impression. And therefore, one wouldn't have thought there was that discrimination." Donald Harmon.

Music

"Now the sheet music at that time was sixpence a copy. You could even hear the thing played over for you in the piano in the market hall or in a music shop. And like the children now buy pop records, we, if we had the money, bought sheet music at sixpence. And the popular songs, the tangos were coming in then. And Oh Donna Clara was one tango. I Once Had a Heart, Margarita and La Paloma. They were three popular ones in the '30s. Gracie Fields, she was very popular. She'd been making a few films then, and her voice, I think, was at its best in the '30s." Mrs Martin.

"Well, when the... thermionic valve came out and amplified the sound, it meant the whole family could listen (to the radio). When the whole family was listening round the radio set, it did away with outside interest. Before radio came about, you always had groups of musicians, dancing bears and what have you. This all disappeared, all for the fact of radio.

"Also, when the street musicians went out of fashion, it also put the disappearance of another thing that was pretty regular in Leicester, and that was when a person died, They always had a blackboard screwed to the outside frames of the house, so that the street musician wouldn't play outside the house where there was a bereavement. Well, naturally, when the street musician went, the blackboard disappeared. People said it was the war that brought about the changes, but this change came about in 1936. And it was only because there weren't the street musicians... they were regular visitors to the districts. Well, when they went, there were no further need for the blackboard." Len Hutchinson.