Impressive images by photographer Nick Hedges, who captured English slums on film in the late 60s and early 70s. This is how the working class lived en masse, below all poverty lines. Not the whole slave class, but most of it. In the late '60s, about 3 million people lived in such inhumane conditions, a huge number for England. I want to emphasize that the families in the photo below are not alcoholics, not bums, not declassed migrants, but families of ordinary English working class people living in the big cities of England (families are sometimes mixed). Many had no gas or heating, they couldn't even afford to put glass in their windows.
By the way, central heating in Britain and bathrooms/shower rooms in houses and apartments began to appear only in the late 60s/70s. Before that, the housing stock was simply not adapted to such "refinements". Up until the 70s, people often bathed only once a week, and daily hygiene was reduced to wiping the body with a damp sponge. Even if there was a bathroom in the house, it was quite expensive to wash every day. It was only in the 60s that mass construction of cheap municipal housing began, the quality of such houses was even worse than Khrushchev, but compared to the slums, it was a breakthrough for the working class and the influx of migrants, which just started around that time.
It always makes me laugh when they start comparing the standard of living of people in the USSR and America/Europe. It is not reasonable to compare with the USA at all, because the USA were the first and direct beneficiaries of the second world war. And in most European countries ordinary people lived very poor until the early 80s.
In the USSR in the late 60's and early 70's as in the photo below, lived only absolutely declasse elements, alcoholics and then in the villages. In big cities, if there were such slums, they were very few. Yes, there were communal houses, but ordinary people in Britain at that time had to rent only rooms, where large families also lived. But only the conditions of this dwelling were horrifying at times.
The most interesting thing is that the photos were in the archives all this time, it was forbidden to publish them, the authorities allegedly referred to the violation of privacy of those who are depicted in the photo. Yes, of course, people who lived with rats would be very upset about the violation of their privacy.
Liverpool, 1969
London, East End, 1969
Birmingham, 1970
Glasgow, the family has to live in a slum that has already started to be demolished, but they have nowhere to go
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This is another photographer, John Bignell, who shot in the most affluent and fashionable neighborhoods of London - Kensington and Chesley. This is what these neighborhoods were like in the 50s and 60s. It's also very poor and even ruined in places. By this time the center of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the USSR had already been completely rebuilt and restored after the war. One more thing - food stamps were abolished in the USSR in 1947, in Britain in 1954.
More photos:
https://solovyeva.livejournal.com/327023.html#
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