Why was the nurse buying a mattress? Aren't both her and Morse in rented rooms, where the furniture is provided by the landlord? Even if she was due a replacement, I'm sure the Rigsby of the day would have got hold of a cheap secondhand one that 'would do'.
Going out with a 'coloured girl' would have had heads turning everywhere they went, and there would probably have been a fair bit of abuse. Sad, but true.
I'm convinced that no-one older than 25 is on the writing team. The series LOOKS good, the clothes are great (although I'm pretty sure Endeavour's suit contains lycra), but no-one seems to have a clue how people actually behaved then.
Why was the nurse buying a mattress? Aren't both her and Morse in rented rooms, where the furniture is provided by the landlord? Even if she was due a replacement, I'm sure the Rigsby of the day would have got hold of a cheap secondhand one that 'would do'.
Going out with a 'coloured girl' would have had heads turning everywhere they went, and there would probably have been a fair bit of abuse. Sad, but true.
I'm convinced that no-one older than 25 is on the writing team. The series LOOKS good, the clothes are great (although I'm pretty sure Endeavour's suit contains lycra), but no-one seems to have a clue how people actually behaved then.
When I was single, I lived in rented accommodation for years - but I always bought my own beds (never fancied anything offered by the landlords!). I find that fairly feasible?
There are a few weak areas around the period detail, but on the whole I find Endeavour very well researched. The writers are also having a whale of a time dropping us titbits referring to old films etc. (e.g. Alfie, James Bond) & Morse threads, and managing to keep the whole thing together. Dates & events fit (always easy to get wrong), as do places, which as an Oxonian I keep a close eye on. (I'm sure they run all that past old Colin before it goes out!) (The nice surprise this time was the accents - the local Oxfordshire accent is a unique one, & they always used to have actors just doing a basic 'ooh-aah' W Country accent, annoyingly. There's been a better effort in this series, I could really spot some local twang here & there!)
I've thought that. Although of course they haven't actually been seen out much as a couple - just in the bed shop which might have been stretching credibility a bit. But personally I'd rather it was like than it turned into a programme about racism. I don't watch Endeavour for that.
I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's the way things were and if they want to represent the past properly they should make it as it was. Society is very different now but you can't change the way things were then. Endeavour wouldn't be about racism because the Nurse simply wouldn't have been there.
Exactly what I said.
Also, although it makes a lovely story , Morse going out with a coloured person would not have happened in the early 60's. This was the time of'A taste of Honey'' I just wish researchers would do their research properly and not put today's values on those of 50 years ago, believe me life was very different.
With reference to "coloured person", I just wish some people would actually use today's values today.
That aside, what a fantastic series this is. Stunning in every way as far as I'm concerned. Why people are getting hung up on issues of race is beyond me. It's not a social history documentary, it's two hours of entertainment.
With reference to "coloured person", I just wish some people would actually use today's values today.
That aside, what a fantastic series this is. Stunning in every way as far as I'm concerned. Why people are getting hung up on issues of race is beyond me. It's not a social history documentary, it's two hours of entertainment.
I agree. And to be fair if I was Morse and the nurse was my neighbour I'd be chatting her up too!!!
While not common, it happened. Indeed been happening since at least WW2 and before. What may be less believable is everyone else's blind acceptance of seeing a mixed couple out together.
Did you notice the glances they made when they were kissing in the hallway as if they didn't want to get caught.
Yes we understand it was used then. I am well aware. Unfortunately it was used upthread and it does cause offense... to me and I'm sure others.
I'm a little puzzled about the nature of the offence. The original poster used the words 'coloured person' fairly obviously to use the language of the 1960s rather than to reflect his/her own current usage. The fact is that a young woman like the nurse would have been described by everyone in those days as a 'coloured girl'. Or worse. 'Coloured' was the politest possible word in use at the time, when 'Afro-Caribbean', 'black', 'African American' etc. were not yet invented.
I can see why the term is offensive in 2014, but there's no point pretending that it wasn't in general use in the 60s, and quite offensive to me to airbrush history and fake a past where racism didn't exist. Many black people had to fight through a nightmare of prejudice and abuse, and it's unfair to them to suggest that everything was tolerance and political correctness.
I'm a little puzzled about the nature of the offence. The original poster used the words 'coloured person' fairly obviously to use the language of the 1960s rather than to reflect his/her own current usage. The fact is that a young woman like the nurse would have been described by everyone in those days as a 'coloured girl'. Or worse. 'Coloured' was the politest possible word in use at the time, when 'Afro-Caribbean', 'black', 'African American' etc. were not yet invented.
I can see why the term is offensive in 2014, but there's no point pretending that it wasn't in general use in the 60s, and quite offensive to me to airbrush history and fake a past where racism didn't exist. Many black people had to fight through a nightmare of prejudice and abuse, and it's unfair to them to suggest that everything was tolerance and political correctness.
No pretending here. I'm referring to post 253 not post 266.
Yes we understand it was used then. I am well aware. Unfortunately it was used upthread and it does cause offense... to me and I'm sure others.
I'm very sorry if it caused you offence. As I said I used the terminology of that era as that was the phrase used then. We've come a long way in Society since then and thankfully that kind of prejudice has gone,but that's how it was then and if you are making a series about the 60's, you should make sure everything is as it was.
I'm a little puzzled about the nature of the offence. The original poster used the words 'coloured person' fairly obviously to use the language of the 1960s rather than to reflect his/her own current usage. The fact is that a young woman like the nurse would have been described by everyone in those days as a 'coloured girl'. Or worse. 'Coloured' was the politest possible word in use at the time, when 'Afro-Caribbean', 'black', 'African American' etc. were not yet invented.
I can see why the term is offensive in 2014, but there's no point pretending that it wasn't in general use in the 60s, and quite offensive to me to airbrush history and fake a past where racism didn't exist. Many black people had to fight through a nightmare of prejudice and abuse, and it's unfair to them to suggest that everything was tolerance and political correctness.
I'm very sorry if it caused you offence. As I said I used the terminology of that era as that was the phrase used then. We've come a long way in Society since then and thankfully that kind of prejudice has gone,but that's how it was then and if you are making a series about the 60's, you should make sure everything is as it was.
Fair enough greengran. My mistake. I interpreted it incorrectly. Interesting debate though.
...............it's a word that was used in Britain back then by a lot of white people who as far as i remember didn't use it with the intention of being offensive
It may have been used in the effete south, but it certainly wasn't in use in the north-east in the 60s. I won't mention the word used up there, other than to say it began with "D".
......................Incidentally I'd also take issue with the idea that things are all that different in some ways (though the Race Relations Act - Now Equality Act and 'political correctness' means that people have to watch what they say and the 'no blacks, no Irish, no dogs' signs have come out of the windows since the 60s).
I don't believe that people are watching what they say, I think the reason is far better than that. In the 50s and 60s people in the UK were very insular. There weren't many TVs, and very few people had foreign holidays. Hence there was an exoticism about those with dark skin. These days, I don't believe anyone sees a person as different just because of their skin colour. Or, indeed, because of anything else.
This won't apply everywhere - there will always be a few people whose sense of inadequacy is so deep that they need people they can feel they're better than. For whatever reason, and sometimes for none.
I can see why the term is offensive in 2014, but there's no point pretending that it wasn't in general use in the 60s, and quite offensive to me to airbrush history and fake a past where racism didn't exist. Many black people had to fight through a nightmare of prejudice and abuse, and it's unfair to them to suggest that everything was tolerance and political correctness.
Spot on - huge apologies for the cliché, but "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - airbrushing history and shoving your head in the sand isn't going to improve anything for anybody. What happened, happened - far better that we see an attempt to recreate that, surely?
Jesus, people don't half overreact on here. It's hardly airbrushing history because a programme set in the 1960s chooses not to confront the racism of the time.
Why can't folk enjoy programmes for what they are, not what they aren't?
I also believe that people swore in the 60s? Yet watching Endeavour you'd think nobody effed and jeffed. Airbrushing history still though isn't it?
When I was single, I lived in rented accommodation for years - but I always bought my own beds (never fancied anything offered by the landlords!). I find that fairly feasible?
There are a few weak areas around the period detail, but on the whole I find Endeavour very well researched. The writers are also having a whale of a time dropping us titbits referring to old films etc. (e.g. Alfie, James Bond) & Morse threads, and managing to keep the whole thing together. Dates & events fit (always easy to get wrong), as do places, which as an Oxonian I keep a close eye on. (I'm sure they run all that past old Colin before it goes out!) (The nice surprise this time was the accents - the local Oxfordshire accent is a unique one, & they always used to have actors just doing a basic 'ooh-aah' W Country accent, annoyingly. There's been a better effort in this series, I could really spot some local twang here & there!)
I know Oxford well too - Chipping Norton (Chippy!) born and bred, and although I've lived in Jersey for nearly 24 years now I still have family there and visit. I recognise much of what you say, and especially your frustrations with the tendency for people to adopt a generic 'ooh-ahh' type accent which they assume is a one size fits all countryside accent when nothing else seems to fit! The Chippy accent is even stronger, very strong hints of Gloucestershire (not surprising when I could see Gloucestershire - in the shape of Stow-on-the-Wold - from my bedroom window in Chippy!) - I used to get asked if I was from Bristol sometimes! Although of course a Chippy/Cotswold gateway accent isn't as thick as that, and is very subtle, unique and very hard to reproduce if you're not 'from there' (also sentiments I'm sure you'd recognise!) but I suspect when people aren't familiar the subtleties of a regional accent they try and 'hang it onto' the nearest thing they can, in my case something more West Country! It's the same with anything set in Norfolk/Suffolk - my Dad's sister settled there nearly 60 years ago and all of her family are born and bred in that neck of the woods, and it's an accent that is, again, unlike any other, and very hard to get right.
As for the authenticity of the 'life and times' portrayed by Endeavour, I thought I'd read somewhere that Colin Dexter was keeping a very close eye on things like that - he was very anti about the whole idea of a 'prequel' to Morse to start with (they took about five years to convince him it might be a good idea, didn't they?) so he's not going to sit back now and let some TV whipper-snapper ride rough-shod over things he remembers well, such as the social mores of Oxford in 1966. I wonder if, being the rather odd mix of both bohemian and yet traditional through the mix of students and university life in the city, Oxford was perhaps one of the places where social strides were made faster than elsewhere at the time. Large parts of the provincial UK of the late sixties/early seventies were certainly much, much slower to catch up, but (and I don't know how you feel about this as an Oxonian yourself) I've been pondering, albeit with no evidence, whether Oxford would have been one of the few places outside of 'swinging sixties' London (where anything went!) where a mix of skin tones would have been less jarring to the general population. After all, students came to Oxford from all over the world to study, so it wouldn't have been such a shock to see a cultural mix of people in every day life.
Jesus, people don't half overreact on here. It's hardly airbrushing history because a programme set in the 1960s chooses not to confront the racism of the time.
Why can't folk enjoy programmes for what they are, not what they aren't?
I also believe that people swore in the 60s? Yet watching Endeavour you'd think nobody effed and jeffed. Airbrushing history still though isn't it?
Nobody I knew in the 60's swore like they do nowadays. Then you were very shocked if you heard a swear word. Any swear word, whereas now you can't go out the house without hearing all the words and usually by 10 year olds.That's not progress.
I'm convinced that no-one older than 25 is on the writing team. The series LOOKS good, the clothes are great (although I'm pretty sure Endeavour's suit contains lycra), but no-one seems to have a clue how people actually behaved then.
Russell Lewis is the "writing team" and he was born in 1963 according to IMDB. Though I suppose it is possible some of the lines are changed at the filming stage?
Nobody I knew in the 60's swore like they do nowadays. Then you were very shocked if you heard a swear word. Any swear word, whereas now you can't go out the house without hearing all the words and usually by 10 year olds.That's not progress.
I was just thinking the same, I can't remember ever hearing the f word back in the 60's but nowadays its every other word for some folks
Nobody I knew in the 60's swore like they do nowadays. Then you were very shocked if you heard a swear word. Any swear word, whereas now you can't go out the house without hearing all the words and usually by 10 year olds.That's not progress.
So true, hearing children swearing as part of a normal vocabulary is awful, but then they hear their parents doing the same, so I suppose it's inevitable.
It was most definitely not like that in the 60s.
Jesus, people don't half overreact on here. It's hardly airbrushing history because a programme set in the 1960s chooses not to confront the racism of the time.
If they wanted to avoid the issue and just have family entertainment, they could have made the nurse white. By choosing to make the character be black, and not including any racist issues in the script, they were deliberately painting a picture of tolerance and racial integration. This IS airbrushing history, and the fact that it's happening in family entertainment makes it more dangerous rather than less.
I know Oxford well too - Chipping Norton (Chippy!) born and bred, and although I've lived in Jersey for nearly 24 years now I still have family there and visit. I recognise much of what you say, and especially your frustrations with the tendency for people to adopt a generic 'ooh-ahh' type accent which they assume is a one size fits all countryside accent when nothing else seems to fit! The Chippy accent is even stronger, very strong hints of Gloucestershire (not surprising when I could see Gloucestershire - in the shape of Stow-on-the-Wold - from my bedroom window in Chippy!) - I used to get asked if I was from Bristol sometimes! Although of course a Chippy/Cotswold gateway accent isn't as thick as that, and is very subtle, unique and very hard to reproduce if you're not 'from there' (also sentiments I'm sure you'd recognise!) but I suspect when people aren't familiar the subtleties of a regional accent they try and 'hang it onto' the nearest thing they can, in my case something more West Country! It's the same with anything set in Norfolk/Suffolk - my Dad's sister settled there nearly 60 years ago and all of her family are born and bred in that neck of the woods, and it's an accent that is, again, unlike any other, and very hard to get right.
As for the authenticity of the 'life and times' portrayed by Endeavour, I thought I'd read somewhere that Colin Dexter was keeping a very close eye on things like that - he was very anti about the whole idea of a 'prequel' to Morse to start with (they took about five years to convince him it might be a good idea, didn't they?) so he's not going to sit back now and let some TV whipper-snapper ride rough-shod over things he remembers well, such as the social mores of Oxford in 1966. I wonder if, being the rather odd mix of both bohemian and yet traditional through the mix of students and university life in the city, Oxford was perhaps one of the places where social strides were made faster than elsewhere at the time. Large parts of the provincial UK of the late sixties/early seventies were certainly much, much slower to catch up, but (and I don't know how you feel about this as an Oxonian yourself) I've been pondering, albeit with no evidence, whether Oxford would have been one of the few places outside of 'swinging sixties' London (where anything went!) where a mix of skin tones would have been less jarring to the general population. After all, students came to Oxford from all over the world to study, so it wouldn't have been such a shock to see a cultural mix of people in every day life.
Sorry, lots of thinking out loud there!
Well hello there Chippy bod - I was born and bred in Witney (so was amused to hear that Morse had been doing his 'light duties' there! ) I suppose like any other area, locals can pinpoint an accent almost from town to town (when we used to go out to Swindon, you could always spot the accent variation!). I was quite impressed with the accent of Morse's old boss in last week's episode - he definitely could have come from West Oxon? (When I moved to London, my nickname was 'Farmer Giles', and I've lost count of the number of 'Zummerzet Zyders' I've had yelled at me down office corridors - on the whole, people can't tell the difference, so I think Colin D may have had a hand in this too?)
As far as foreign influence and racial mixing is concerned, I think mid-late 60s Oxford may have been a little bit ahead of its time (my long-haired hippy brother lived there fairly comfortably, with a Malaysian girl - they didn't report any trouble?!). Of course, over in West Oxon we had Brize Norton (USAF until 1969, RAF after), so we were more used to seeing a whole variety of faces around. Oxford itself has always been 'town & gown' (the students living a separate life from the locals), so even though students from all continents would have been seen there, there was probably very little chance that they would have been mixing with native Oxonians.
If they wanted to avoid the issue and just have family entertainment, they could have made the nurse white. By choosing to make the character be black, and not including any racist issues in the script, they were deliberately painting a picture of tolerance and racial integration. This IS airbrushing history, and the fact that it's happening in family entertainment makes it more dangerous rather than less.
Perhaps they are setting it up for something to happen in the next episode?
Comments
Going out with a 'coloured girl' would have had heads turning everywhere they went, and there would probably have been a fair bit of abuse. Sad, but true.
I'm convinced that no-one older than 25 is on the writing team. The series LOOKS good, the clothes are great (although I'm pretty sure Endeavour's suit contains lycra), but no-one seems to have a clue how people actually behaved then.
There are a few weak areas around the period detail, but on the whole I find Endeavour very well researched. The writers are also having a whale of a time dropping us titbits referring to old films etc. (e.g. Alfie, James Bond) & Morse threads, and managing to keep the whole thing together. Dates & events fit (always easy to get wrong), as do places, which as an Oxonian I keep a close eye on. (I'm sure they run all that past old Colin before it goes out!)
With reference to "coloured person", I just wish some people would actually use today's values today.
That aside, what a fantastic series this is. Stunning in every way as far as I'm concerned. Why people are getting hung up on issues of race is beyond me. It's not a social history documentary, it's two hours of entertainment.
I agree. And to be fair if I was Morse and the nurse was my neighbour I'd be chatting her up too!!!
Did you notice the glances they made when they were kissing in the hallway as if they didn't want to get caught.
What's South Africa got to do with it?
it's a word that was used in Britain back then by a lot of white people who as far as i remember didn't use it with the intention of being offensive
Yes we understand it was used then. I am well aware. Unfortunately it was used upthread and it does cause offense... to me and I'm sure others.
I'm a little puzzled about the nature of the offence. The original poster used the words 'coloured person' fairly obviously to use the language of the 1960s rather than to reflect his/her own current usage. The fact is that a young woman like the nurse would have been described by everyone in those days as a 'coloured girl'. Or worse. 'Coloured' was the politest possible word in use at the time, when 'Afro-Caribbean', 'black', 'African American' etc. were not yet invented.
I can see why the term is offensive in 2014, but there's no point pretending that it wasn't in general use in the 60s, and quite offensive to me to airbrush history and fake a past where racism didn't exist. Many black people had to fight through a nightmare of prejudice and abuse, and it's unfair to them to suggest that everything was tolerance and political correctness.
No pretending here. I'm referring to post 253 not post 266.
Kind regards
I'm very sorry if it caused you offence. As I said I used the terminology of that era as that was the phrase used then. We've come a long way in Society since then and thankfully that kind of prejudice has gone,but that's how it was then and if you are making a series about the 60's, you should make sure everything is as it was.
This^^^^^^^^
Fair enough greengran. My mistake. I interpreted it incorrectly. Interesting debate though.
Kind regards
Call me thick, but I've no idea what your remark actually means.
It may have been used in the effete south, but it certainly wasn't in use in the north-east in the 60s. I won't mention the word used up there, other than to say it began with "D".
I don't believe that people are watching what they say, I think the reason is far better than that. In the 50s and 60s people in the UK were very insular. There weren't many TVs, and very few people had foreign holidays. Hence there was an exoticism about those with dark skin. These days, I don't believe anyone sees a person as different just because of their skin colour. Or, indeed, because of anything else.
This won't apply everywhere - there will always be a few people whose sense of inadequacy is so deep that they need people they can feel they're better than. For whatever reason, and sometimes for none.
Why can't folk enjoy programmes for what they are, not what they aren't?
I also believe that people swore in the 60s? Yet watching Endeavour you'd think nobody effed and jeffed. Airbrushing history still though isn't it?
I know Oxford well too - Chipping Norton (Chippy!) born and bred, and although I've lived in Jersey for nearly 24 years now I still have family there and visit. I recognise much of what you say, and especially your frustrations with the tendency for people to adopt a generic 'ooh-ahh' type accent which they assume is a one size fits all countryside accent when nothing else seems to fit! The Chippy accent is even stronger, very strong hints of Gloucestershire (not surprising when I could see Gloucestershire - in the shape of Stow-on-the-Wold - from my bedroom window in Chippy!) - I used to get asked if I was from Bristol sometimes! Although of course a Chippy/Cotswold gateway accent isn't as thick as that, and is very subtle, unique and very hard to reproduce if you're not 'from there' (also sentiments I'm sure you'd recognise!) but I suspect when people aren't familiar the subtleties of a regional accent they try and 'hang it onto' the nearest thing they can, in my case something more West Country! It's the same with anything set in Norfolk/Suffolk - my Dad's sister settled there nearly 60 years ago and all of her family are born and bred in that neck of the woods, and it's an accent that is, again, unlike any other, and very hard to get right.
As for the authenticity of the 'life and times' portrayed by Endeavour, I thought I'd read somewhere that Colin Dexter was keeping a very close eye on things like that - he was very anti about the whole idea of a 'prequel' to Morse to start with (they took about five years to convince him it might be a good idea, didn't they?) so he's not going to sit back now and let some TV whipper-snapper ride rough-shod over things he remembers well, such as the social mores of Oxford in 1966. I wonder if, being the rather odd mix of both bohemian and yet traditional through the mix of students and university life in the city, Oxford was perhaps one of the places where social strides were made faster than elsewhere at the time. Large parts of the provincial UK of the late sixties/early seventies were certainly much, much slower to catch up, but (and I don't know how you feel about this as an Oxonian yourself) I've been pondering, albeit with no evidence, whether Oxford would have been one of the few places outside of 'swinging sixties' London (where anything went!) where a mix of skin tones would have been less jarring to the general population. After all, students came to Oxford from all over the world to study, so it wouldn't have been such a shock to see a cultural mix of people in every day life.
Sorry, lots of thinking out loud there!
Nobody I knew in the 60's swore like they do nowadays. Then you were very shocked if you heard a swear word. Any swear word, whereas now you can't go out the house without hearing all the words and usually by 10 year olds.That's not progress.
Russell Lewis is the "writing team" and he was born in 1963 according to IMDB. Though I suppose it is possible some of the lines are changed at the filming stage?
I was just thinking the same, I can't remember ever hearing the f word back in the 60's but nowadays its every other word for some folks
So true, hearing children swearing as part of a normal vocabulary is awful, but then they hear their parents doing the same, so I suppose it's inevitable.
It was most definitely not like that in the 60s.
I totally agree. Even on a rough council estate in Newcastle, no-one would dream of swearing in front of a woman or child.
If they wanted to avoid the issue and just have family entertainment, they could have made the nurse white. By choosing to make the character be black, and not including any racist issues in the script, they were deliberately painting a picture of tolerance and racial integration. This IS airbrushing history, and the fact that it's happening in family entertainment makes it more dangerous rather than less.
As far as foreign influence and racial mixing is concerned, I think mid-late 60s Oxford may have been a little bit ahead of its time (my long-haired hippy brother lived there fairly comfortably, with a Malaysian girl - they didn't report any trouble?!). Of course, over in West Oxon we had Brize Norton (USAF until 1969, RAF after), so we were more used to seeing a whole variety of faces around. Oxford itself has always been 'town & gown' (the students living a separate life from the locals), so even though students from all continents would have been seen there, there was probably very little chance that they would have been mixing with native Oxonians.
Perhaps they are setting it up for something to happen in the next episode?