Britain on Film

During the 1960s - a decade that witnessed profound shifts across Britain's political, economic and cultural landscapes - many felt anxiety about the dizzying pace of change. Look at Life reflected the increasing social and moral unease in films that tackled subjects ranging from contraception to immigration, from increasing stress at work to the preservation of the Sabbath, and from the environmental implications of waste management to the threat of nuclear weapons. Through these films, we can glimpse many of the seismic societal transformations of the Sixties developments that polarised the nation and changed life in Britain forever.

This episode delves into the fast-changing world of childhood, a life-stage that was being transformed by sweeping changes to the British educational system including the introduction of radical technologies and teaching methods in schools and the emergence of new organised leisure activities that gave a generation of children the freedom to enjoy play as never before.

This episode focuses on the films that examine the implications of Britain's identity as an island nation, a geographical reality that has influenced not just our coastal landscape but our national psyche too. Featuring footage from well-known offshore isles like Wight and Man to the more isolated, culturally-distinctive and splendidly-idiosyncratic places like Harris and Cromer, which was inhabited year-round by just a single family of four.

This episode is devoted to the activity that occupies so many of our waking hours - our working lives. During a period when new technology was transforming our factories and fierce competition from overseas was forcing many employers to make far-reaching changes to production processes and patterns of working, these films hint at the enormous challenges confronting workers in Britain's increasingly fragile industrial economy.

This episode concentrates on the unprecedented upheavals in Britain's transport systems during a period when the popularity of air travel soared, rail networks were comprehensively dismantled and towns and cities were being reshaped to accommodate the unstoppable rise of the motor car.

Look at Life captured almost every aspect of British society and culture, but its producers had a special fascination for one aspect in particular - our inordinate fondness for boats. This episode examines the films that documented a period that saw a raft of British sailors seeking endurance world records; boatmen and women striving to halt the decline of our rivers and canals; and high tension on the high seas, as disputes over fishing rights prompted the government to send gunboats to escort our trawlers.

Archive-based series on British life in the 1960s continues with an episode devoted to some of the most monumental challenges of the post-war period - how to tackle desperate housing shortages, rebuild shattered cities and meet the rising expectations of an increasingly affluent and consumerist nation. As these films show, 1960s Britain embraced ambitious solutions by building high-rise homes in our cities and New Towns in the country.

Look at Life's film-makers also travelled abroad, visiting countries like Australia that were of special interest to British audiences, or to places in the news, including Chile during a state visit by the Queen, or to places of increasing relevance to Britain like Brussels, which was establishing itself as the centre of Europe's new Common Market. Britain on Film features some of the best of the footage captured by Rank's film-makers during their foreign excursions, including rare colour images of the reindeer herders of Lapland and film of the young Dalai Lama living in India following his exile from his native Tibet.

This episode salutes the Rank filmmakers' attempts to reflect our near-obsessive national preoccupation with a range of competitive sports, ranging from golf and cycling to skiing and stock car racing. Featuring vintage prose praising the idiosyncratic appeal of cricket by the incomparable commentator Richie Benaud, as well as rare colour footage of the England football team in training shortly before their greatest-ever triumph in the 1966 World Cup.

Offering more fascinating depictions of the 1960s as witnessed by the cameras of the Rank Organisation, Britain on Film continues with an absorbing exploration of the prevailing attitudes and values that shaped our society. Rank's outstanding and rarely-seen high-quality colour footage captures the post-war emergence of dynamic youth cultures, and celebrates an age when creativity was flourishing in the music industry and an increasingly multicultural nation was embracing more cosmopolitan tastes.