HOWTO ride a London Bus, Colonial Film Board 1950
This incredibly patronizing 1950 Colonial Film Board short film explains the intricacies of bus-riding to ignorant foreigners newly arrived in London, unravelling the mysteries with helpful advice like, "Be sure to board a bus headed to your destination," and explaining that drivers aren't allowed to run over school-children. Journey by a London Bus (1950)
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Actually I thought that was pretty enlightened and helpful for 1950. Sure, it was a little patronizing, but the African students are shown interacting naturally with the locals and generally being treated by their fellow passengers as humans. Not to mention, the idea of African students being constructive citizens is taken seriously. Probably pretty reasonable to help recent immigrants understand the social mores of 1950s Britain so they can successfully integrate with the 'natives.'
Lets contrast that with American busses in the 50s and 60s - I think I recall seeing images of black people being pulled off busses and beaten by angry mobs in this US almost 20 years after this film was made. Interesting historical document, but certainly not the patronizing insult you make it out to be.
Hey, a bus overview could come in handy for newcomers. I almost got flattened by a bus on my first night in London. I forgot that the traffic was reversed and was looking the wrong way for the bus to come.
I think it's pretty awesome that there's both a driver and a conductor.
Agree with anonymous - this isn't particularly patronising, more of a practical guide in the cheery style of 1950s british broadcasts. However it doesn't reflect the attitude of the greater part of the british administration of the time which certainly was very patronising and didn't even begin to change until the 1970s. There was always an underlying racism in the british colonial administration's dealings with Africa (and India and ..) but there also an aspiration, expressed by a minority, to the enlightened, just and ordered society of the Commonwealth exemplified by this film where London Buses are 'always punctual' and people are kind to 'cripples'.
The tip to get on a bus that is going to the part of London you want to get to is extremely useful. Even to Londoners.
Thanks for this.
I agree with the first poster's points actually. I'd add that even in 1950 the notion of regular bus service wasn't all that common in many parts of the world. My father was a merchant marine and had some great stories about the elaborate nature of the bus system (a lack there of) that ran across parts of India in the 50's.
People visiting England at the time might have been embarrassed or nervous about asking, what to us, sound like ridiculous questions. Working in a library I've found that many immigrants and visitors are, sadly, often scared to ask questions or make seemingly strange assumptions based on god knows what. Like the woman who sheepishly asked "how much books cost to check out" and "do we take credit cards?"
I think the movie is quaint.
The two students left the gate out in the country open when they started for the bus! The sheep could get out!!
I would agree with the first poster. Rosa Parks could sit anywhere on those buses.
Way to go, Captain Obvious! I had no idea that buses aren't allowed to kill kids! Thank you also for telling me that Africans are kind with kids, now I can take my 34-year old boy outside for once!
Jeez.
It pays not to judge historical works of art,literature or film by modern standards.
I've seen similar furore raised over the French comic Tintin that was created in the early 30s.
'Tintin in the Congo' was featured (not sure if on Boing or elsewhere) and there were lots of angry comments about the racism and patronizing attitude towards Africans-forgetting that such behaviour was pretty commonplace in the 30s!!
I remember seeing this a few years ago, I think it was on archive.org, great stuff!
In other countries even today a bus driver isn't likely to stop for people to cross, pedestrians would just be expected to wait for a gap in the traffic.
Nowhere in this video does it say "the bus driver stops so as not to plough through a group of children", he's stopping to let them cross.
What's with the kill kids interpretation? He says the bus will stop when he merely sees kids lined up. Ah well. It is perhaps a bit odd they point any of this out. But the voice over is endearing.
I agree with #1. The "thoughtless" passenger was a bourgeois-looking white dude.
As someone who relies on the East Bay AC Transit buses, the film - which shows cheerful drivers, on-time service, and clean, quiet, and kind passengers - appears as if a document from a magical fairyland full of wonder and goodness and beauty and light!!!
They see us rollin'....
I really enjoyed the film, but then I enjoy most UK public information films.
As for patronising, well these films are all ptronisisng but in a very even handed way.
African students and cripples alike are talked down to, as well as women the poor even the thoughtless man.
I am surprised that there was no mention of the cautiuon with which you should alight the routemaster omnibus, as you can eeasily fall out of one of these if you were an african student or a cripple.
That is not patronizing. In 1950 Americans thought it normal to do things they had never done before. They fully expected everything to come with instructions, even foreign countries. You might have noticed that American sports events always have announcers to tell the spectators what they are looking at, but the rest of the world never does.
This is a wonderful find. I love the poster's comments on YouTube: "Very much beloved of Victor Lewis-Smith, this production by the Colonial Film Unit tells those finding themselves foreign, how to use London's bus service. Note to writers of American television programmes: this is exactly what life is still like in Britain, and you are quite correct to groundlessly assume that everyone still speaks in either a plummy BBC accent, or is a cockney urchin. And yes, the terms 'Britain', 'England' and 'London' all refer to exactly the same place. "
Does anyone have some more context for this film? Who was the intended audience, what was the Colonial Film Unit?
@#9 Tintin is Belgian, not French.
Was London really "The Largest City in the World", even in the 1950's, as per the opening statements in the film?
According to http://www.ncge.org/resources/geoclub/activities/DataSets-25Cities_1950and2000.pdf :
New York, NY, at 12,3M was #1. Meanwhile London, UK, at #2 had 8.7M.
But I wonder how they counted/decided what parts to count because according the same PDF, the population of London dropped (!) to 7.6M in 2000.
Those Africans are great with kids, all of them, yep.
And they're so far from punctual.
I think that this film, or something in the same style, could be quite useful in Bogotá, Colombia, but not for foreigners, but local ones,
I'm all for helping recent immigrants to blend in and feel comfortable, but how can our African students hope to do so when this film fails to point out that they're the only people in London not wearing hats?
My Mother arrived in London in 1950 from rural Ireland. She didn't know to put milk in her cornflakes or use the bus network.
Every September I see groups of freshmen being shown how to use the el train. Having grown up in the suburbs many have never used public transportation.
Today this film would have dialog more along the lines of:
"Now a group of schoolchildren has boarded the bus. They speak using profanity and ethnic slang, and play music at high volumes over their mobile telephones. The other passengers mustn't complain, however, as they may find themselves being stabbed in response. Children in London are treated by all as a threat to public order, when there are no terrorists about."
It depends how you enumerate London and indeed how you enumerate New York. 'London' in 1950 was usually the County of London, which consisted of 29 boroughs and the City of London (which is one of the smallest cities in the world at one square mile and a resident population of less than 10,000), and Outer London, as defined by the Metropolitan Police as the area outside of London but in their jurisdiction. This had a joint population of 8.3 million in 1951. In comparison, the Five Boroughs of New York City had 7.9m in 1950, which is probably where the comparison lies.
I'm not sure if it's that accurate as New York probably had a bigger residential area than London even then, and, as mentioned above, London consisted of about 45 boroughs, many of which would have had urban populations of 200,000 or so.
The population of London has fallen since then. The 50s and 60s were probably the peak of its growth, and again, depending how you measure it, the current population is between about 6.9 and 7.3 million, although migration and emigration have kept it approximately the same for the last 20 or 30 years.
What's up Cory, have they taken away your visa? Why the anti-British vibe to your description?
I find this video quite refreshing. It demonstrates the proactive attitude of the 1950s to integrate immigrants from the colonies. Far better to encourage integration, even if in a slightly patronising way, then to leave immigrants to live in small closed communities where racial tensions quickly form with the native population. Todays Britain could learn a lot from the attitudes expressed in this video. It was over a decade after this was made that the British government of the time introduced their disastrous 'multiculturalism' policy. They abandoned all attempts of integration and kick started the racial tensions that exist in most British cities.
Right, because films such as this totally prevented racial tensions from developing in the 60s and 70s.
More realistic alternative dialog for this film might include something like "here are two young Caribbean men returning into town from where the police dumped them last night..."
It would have been easy enough to make a film for newcomers to London (from anywhere) that said something to the effect of "You may have bus service where you come from, but if you're a little confused about buses in London, here are some helpful tips: buses run to a regular schedule, which is posted at the stops; fares are set by distance and you pay the conductor when you board; a map of London bus routes may be obtained in such and such a place; etc."
In fact, along with the condescension apparent in the narration, this film is an interesting document of a number of the anxieties held by white people in post-war England. Even comments such as those about queuing up touch on fears about the "disorderliness" of non-white immigrants and colonials.
The film was made in 1950 when the National Party in South Africa had started introducing its Apartheid laws - the film might have been addressed towards Africans who might have been unsure whether they could safely ride buses in London or if they could talk to white passengers. As poster # 1 noted, it wasn't safe for them to do it in parts of the United States at the time.
It seems like they made some weird decisions about what to put in the film. Nothing about how to figure out the bus routes or timetables, how to signal the driver that you want to stop, etc. But loads of info on how nice and pleasant it is, how friendly people are, and how punctual the buses are. It's less of an instructional film and more of just a propaganda film --- come to London and ride the wonderful bus system!
It's less of an instructional film and more of just a propaganda film
That's the tenor of all instructional films from that period. Menstrual cramps? Put on some lipstick! Schools taught Civics classes, which were just instructions on how to fit in with everybody else. I imagine that a 2008 Japanese film trying to explain the bus system to gaijin would be pretty similar.
@#16 I dare you to find someone who watches cricket without commentary.
Actually, having been on the receiving end of similar "helpful" advice to gaijin on living in Japan, I can somewhat relate to how the intended audience of this film might feel upon viewing it. On the other hand, I was lucky enough not to grow up in a society where I was already considered "second class."
Really, I don't need to know that Japanese people place a lot of importance on speaking politely to authority figures. What I need to know is who do I speak to about the local bosozoku running their scooters up and down at 3am (no-one, as it turns out).
That narrator sounds so much like Leslie Howard.
I know he died in the forties, but still, sounds just like him.
7/7/2005. Rest in peace.
Let's see 'em make a film about the Oyster Card system.
To really understand how much you should pay a la Oyster Card, you need a complex logic tree and, ideally, a dual-processor computer,
Consider...
How many zones will you "usually" travel across?
How frequently do you wish to purchase a periodic card? (ie, do you want a weekly card? and monthly card?)
How often will you travel outside your normal zones?
How much cash should you put on your periodic card?
Do you want to pay tthe kicker cost for outside your zone? (It's cheaper if you pay out of the cash portion of your Oyster card or else you can pay at the window on the train-side of the turnstiles.)
Aww, I liked it! I want to visit London in the 1950's!
I want to be in this world right now, with that soundtrack playing.
At 7:05, one of the African students tickles the little white boy under the chin. If he had tried that on a bus in Alabama in 1950, they would have arrested him or worse.
#22, I think there are two reasons that the African students are not wearing hats. First, they are the main characters of this film. We are watching their journey. The hats would be distracting. Also this film was made with 16mm black and white film stock. It was shot on location (and very much on a budget, there is no sync sound) with the available light.
Under those conditions, getting a good exposure of the black actor's faces would have been very difficult. Under the shadow of a hat brim, most of the details of a face would have been lost. You would have not been able to see the facial expressions of the main characters.
I am with the folks who just see this as a historical artifact and not particularly racist. It's not a profound piece of film. And I wonder if it was useful for the foreigners who saw it. But I also wonder if it wasn't intended for the average English people who would have seen it, likely as a short in theaters. A bit of reassurance that, why yes, we have people from different parts of the world coming here to London and it's all good, it's all normal. Be cool, be cool.
Back in the day, that wasn't a half bad message. I could think of some places, some suburbs in the so-called heartland, on this side of the pond that could use some levelheaded advice like this.
I like the music...
Jacke,
jacke,
Your URL can go on your profile page. Thanks.
We need something like this for Alaska. There are a lot of us having to move to Anchorage from the tundra-sticks. (Moving to Wasilla is only for rich folks.)
Don't sneer at checking to see where the bus is going.
I now live near two bus routes. The 36 bus goes downtown in one direction; the number 7 bus goes downtown also, but in the opposite direction (from the other side of the street.)
Unlike rumors of undergrounds, if you take the bus in the wrong direction, you can't simply ride on until the bus circles back. One is forced to get off at the end of the route; then take another bus and another bus fare back again.
very cute, the song, probably never released to audiences.