Anachronisms?


My wife's just watched episode 2 of the latest series, set (as far as I can tell) in 1968. She can't remember anyone wearing a hooded jacket similar to the one worn in one scene, or there being plastic rubbish bins on nature walks.
Anyone want to tell her she's wrong?

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There is plenty of double glazing too...

That said this series SEEMS to be doing a much better job than the previous for mostly avoiding these things, change of location management?

For someone that lives in County Durham it's quite funny seeing how they manage the locations, often when they are in the car driving while talking if you look closely you will see they are driving round in circles, around the same street over and over - clearly because the budget only stretches to decorating a handful of houses in the background.

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Yeah, Also a load of modern stuff in the background of shots, or when you can see out of windows. Doesn't spoil it for me though, it's still a brilliant programme.
When is Jimmy Nail getting his episode though? or Ant & Dec? Dennis Neville & Moxy have already been in it so it's only a matter of time :)

Go on Stanley, stick one in Jane Russell & win a goldfish.

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Can't comment on the hooded jacket. Would be fairly sure that the plastic bins are anachronistic.

The big one that is visible in Many episodes is UPVC replacement windows in just about any residential street scene.

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I've noticed a few others.

1) In "Gently Among Friends", the victim's wife is described as a basket case, sending money to Bangaladesh. It was still "East Pakistan" in 1969! That would have been easy for them to check!

2) "Train Station" several times - they were "Railway" Stations in those days. I don't think "Ms" was common in the UK in the late 60's either!

3) The one with the Sten guns seemed really far fetched to me. I was an ATC cadet and we had .303 rifles with a hole drilled in the breech and the firing pin removed. We didn't keep any working weapons on the premises (they were kept at firing ranges). Also, whereas rifles could be used for drill, Stens wouldn't be much use for cadets. Maybe one deactivated one for training, but there would be no reason to have a large number of working ones! Also, term "decommissioned" just meant taken out of active service. It didn't mean physically disabled until the arms treaties and Northern Ireland peace talks where they needed to make it obvious that something was out of use. Anyway, the usual term for firearms is "deactivated"

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In Gently Through the Mill, the young office assistant wears a low-cut dress that reveals more than enough of her ample bosom. I did office work in the '60s and I can assure you that NOBODY wore clothes that revealing! Absolutely no way a young woman working in an office wore anything that displayed bosom. We wore bras that covered us (harnessed us, more like) and very modest blouses and sweaters that began at the throat. Even evening gowns were pretty modest, although more revealing if strapless, of course, but they were not worn by modest young women. I was shocked to see the jiggly boobs on display for all to see. Not in a moral sense at all, but because it was so anachronistic of the times and "normal" office wear.

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The "Ms" was used by but a single character and the term did exist on both sides of the Atlantic by then (it was created in 1961, though it was not popularized until the very early 70s), even if only among the socially cutting edge. Since the coroner was treated as somewhat of a progressive sort, it doesn't seem too far out of character. It is an oddity, but not a definite anachronism. (Peculiar, but not impossible.)

As far as train vs railway station, apparently, train stationbegan to see more than very occasional use in the UK around 1960 and was uncommon, but not unheard of, in the mid to late 1960s. See this article: https://bridgingtheunbridgeable.com/2014/11/12/railway-station-or-train-station/ . So, again, it is probably overused for the time period, but is not impossible.

In the Sten gun episode it was said the base handled RAF supplies for the north of England. They say weapons pass through "all the time" and the Sten guns are there "at the moment", so it sounds as if they are simply being supplied to other RAF bases, not used for drill. Sten guns were used for airfield guards and other personnel, so not that unusual.

Absolutely correct about Bangladesh. And I am not certain about the terminology for gun deactivation/decommissioning, so no comment there.

EDIT: After writing this, I recalled there was a Sten gun in the seventh series as well, so if I replied about the wrong episode, then I apologize. I may have gotten that one wrong, since both also involved firing pins. I was thinking of the Burning Man from the first series.

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The "Ms" was used by but a single character and the term did exist on both sides of the Atlantic by then (it was created in 1961, though it was not popularized until the very early 70s), even if only among the socially cutting edge. Since the coroner was treated as somewhat of a progressive sort, it doesn't seem too far out of character. It is an oddity, but not a definite anachronism. (Peculiar, but not impossible.)


I remember, in the 70's, when the pronunciation of "Ms" had to be explained on TV. I can't see a police officer in the north east in 1969 being familiar with it. People pronounced it as "emm ess" for years.



In the Sten gun episode it was said the base handled RAF supplies for the north of England. They say weapons pass through "all the time" and the Sten guns are there "at the moment", so it sounds as if they are simply being supplied to other RAF bases, not used for drill. Sten guns were used for airfield guards and other personnel, so not that unusual.


The bank robbers were using Sten guns stolen from a school's CCF unit. There is no way that functioning sub machine guns would be kept on school premises. We had .303 rifles and they had a hole drilled through the breech and the firing pins removed. The bolts and magazines were stored separately from the rifles themselves. These were deactivated weapons and they were still kept securely. We used the local training ranges for live firing, including rifles and Bren guns stored there - but not Sten guns. I didn't get to use a pistol or SMg till I was an adult.

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I'm watching the missing baby episode, and the parents' house seems way too modern. Natural wood kitchen cabinets with inset panels, a whimsical mural on the wall of the nursery, photos in modest wood frames instead of those horrible, overdecorated steel ones we still have lying around, plain beige carpeting instead of awful, garish-patterned shag...

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Something that bothers me generally is how there's no mention of the Beatles or other mod bands. No one notices the two detectives are named George and John or that John dresses like John Lennon. No one tells him to cut his hair. He never changes his haircut at all over several years in the middle of the biggest fashion shift of the 20th century.

I'm not asking for roving bands of Teddy boys and hippies and girls in minidresses and caftans. But for heaven's sake, haven't the production team watched The Italian Job or There's a Girl in My Soup? Where are the loud shirts and mustaches?

Gently isn't even seen wearing a dashiki on his days off (you CAN'T TELL me he wouldn't). (Okay, maybe you could.)

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Re: "several years" -- The series occurs over 5 years (1964 thru 1969), and JB's hair does change -- take a look at 1x1 and any ep from series 7 (at present, all are on yt). Btw, in 6x3, GG teases Bachus, saying that a higher-up he just met with "did mention a haircut," implying that JB's is too long.

Re: the clothes -- I (who can remember the fashions back then) think the production team is on target, given that this is a small city in the north. Smaller and/or more-conservative cities never have the most daring of trendy clothes -- the demand just isn't there (with the exception of demand from some university students, as you can see in 3x2). The clothes we see thruout are the right length, have the right lines/collars/lapels, and have the right palette; I think the wardrobe department has used actual 60s clothing.

Take a look at clothes for young women in the US, 1969. Bold patterns, tho not uncommon, weren't ubiquitous:

https://www.google.com/search?q=seventeen+magazine+clothes+1969&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS599US599&espv=2&biw=1407&bih=697&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5083gjJDKAhUG4CYKHambCyUQ_AUIBigB&dpr=0.9


Also, men in smaller/more-conservative cities don't grab hold of the latest fashions in apparel and grooming (plus, please don't assume, based on some movies of the era, that big staches were ubiquitous -- they weren't).

Take a look at some better-known/semi-edgy musicians of the era, most of whom were stache-less:

http://rockhall.com/media/assets/inductees/default/buffalo-springfield.jpg

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2007/10/25/timestopics/jeffairplane2.jpg

Velvet Underground: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/cms/binary/8594957.jpg?size=620x400s

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."

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Gently in the blood - as an anachronism would there have been whole gangs of Asians with such thick local accents that would mean that they would have had to have been born at the end of the war? This is most unlikely, my own Father was Burmese and spoke with RP because he went to a public (private) school. But for this particular lot of Asians to pick up such a thick accent so early does not strike me as right. Most of us talk like our parents for quite a while then we talk like our mates, typically Asians in the early / mid 1960s would have stuck with other Asian groups and it would be decades before whole gangs would develop such thick (divvent kna him - I didn't know him) local accents.

At best one or two might, but in general most of this lot would not have been born in the UK (although the main protagonist did say he was born in Britain) and would have only been in the country 5 years or less at this point. The group would have sounded far more Asian than Broad Geordie that Neville Hope would have been proud of 15 years later.

It just sits very odd with me that there is not a single non-thick Geordie accent amongst them in the 1960s.

'tler

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I recall both, metal (70s), then plastic (80s). What astounds me now is how my parents managed a whole week with such tiny bins and three kids. Don't recall a wheelie bin appearing in my life until the very early 1990s.

'tler

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In the first 1969 episode, the caution they used was:

‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

This was introduced in the 90's. There was some controversy about it because it removed the suspects right to silence.

The original version was:

"You do not have to say anything if you do not wish to do so, but anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law."

They made a joke about it on “Life on Mars”. When Sam Tyler used it, Gene Hunt corrected him...

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Plastic bottles were used in the 1900 and during WWII metal was at a premium so maybe there were plastic trash bins maybe rubber but I think most of that went to the war effort

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Hooded sweatshirts 1939 Jackets 1973-74 ( popularized)

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