Man Alive

From the Cradle to the Grave: Thirty Years On (1973x7)

Air date: Feb 21, 1973

In the middle of the Second World War Sir William Beveridge produced his blueprint for peace: a Welfare State 'from the cradle to the grave.' In this specially extended edition, Man Alive reviews the successes and failures of the Welfare State through two families. Erlend and Clare Copeley-Williams live in an Essex farmhouse with their three children. They are middle-class and comfortably off. Fred and Muriel Wadsworth live in a Manchester council house with their two children. They are working-class and struggling to make ends meet. Jeremy James and a film team compare the families in four key areas: income, housing, education and health. In the studio Desmond Wilcox examines how much we have achieved - 30 years on.