Brian Foster discusses the evolution of Stevenage over time

Transcript:

I was very aware very much of the changes – as it grew it evolved different personalities. You know there was the original sort of idealistic group, getting organised and then there was. By the late 50s you had, everybody became much more home-focussed, ‘cos they had their televisions, they had their babies, they had money to go out to eat, right so there was probably less socialising and that was the period when even though family moved to proximity, physical proximity, a lot of people in Stevenage, the amount, number of times we got together was fading and in the 50s it was quite common on both sides of my family to have big family reunions and on my father’s side you know the men would wrestle a big beer, wooden beer barrel right into the kitchen, tap it and – those got less and less. Now it’s virtually unknown.

Foster 2015