Simon Matthews looks back on the Billy Liars, Arthur Seatons and Vic Browns of Britain’s postwar years before The Beatles

Sixty years after it appeared, the kitchen-sink genre of fiction, drama and film remains part of our national DNA. Responsible for phrases such as “I believe you, thousands wouldn’t” and immediately identifiable characters like Billy Liar and Archie Rice, where does this distinctly English narrative come from? Who were the angry young men, who caused so much trouble before the arrival of the Beatles?

They came from another world, an England clogged with coal smoke. Rising undisturbed from countless factories, yards and depots amidst perfect geometric rows of tiny houses. In settings like Leicester, Leeds, Stoke, Nottingham or possibly Bradford, Bolton, Halifax and Wakefield: dense, tangled old towns astride polluted rivers and canals, their main streets lined with gin palaces that glittered in the dark. Ornate civic buildings attesting to wealth and pride line broad avenues leading to sports grounds thronged with thousands on dull Saturday afternoons.

Most likely called Joe, though Albert, Arthur, Jimmy, Billy, Harry and Vic are also popular, he might be as old as his mid-30s or as young as 11. Some have memories of before the war, when people were hungry and brutally unhealthy. A time when a minor clerical job was best, working indoors with a pension, and a chance of night school to better yourself. Their unlucky fathers, brothers and friends toiled in industry, sometimes dying, worn out by disease at 50, looking 80.

Those who went through the war were never heroic. None were commissioned. Having seen the ineptness of their superiors at close range, in private they scorned them. Others endured national service, sweating, and avoiding death in pointless escapades in Malaya and Cyprus. Once demobbed they returned, becoming school teachers or junior college lecturers but feeling socially out of place. Typically single men, desperate to become independent, a few were university graduates or librarians with uncertain ambitions, drifting along and struggling to find a place in society.

Most remained at home, though some had lodgings. Our hero is white, about five feet nine inches tall and lean. As a child he was wiry and carried little body fat. His hair is short, brushed back and held in place by Brylcreem. His appearance is important to him and maintained by quiet rituals in cold sculleries where he shaves and washes. His complexion is pale and he smokes continuously. Clothing is dark, made of cotton, wool, serge and worsted. Grey, black, navy blue. Long overcoats with a scarf if required though a few ex-naval duffle coats survive too. Shirts are white, ironed and worn with a jacket and tie when going out, the tie the only drop of colour. Jumpers and tank tops suffice on cold days. No jewellery.

It is a time of full employment and he has the money to spare, so he also drinks. Beer, in copious amounts. His diet is plain: fried food, a lot of tea, bread, butter, jam, cheese, pickles, meat, fish, vegetables. An increasing amount comes from tins and some of the younger element drink coffee as well. None of them own a car, though they aspire to do so. Most have a bicycle or just accept walking about their home town and using the plentiful bus services, where they spread themselves out on the upper deck, smoking and arguing.

Disaffected, denunciatory, uncompromising: concerned about getting even, clashing with authority, amused by the ignorance of their contemporaries, deeply class conscious, jealous of their rivals, prone to envy, wanting the good things in life as often as possible, happy to embrace cheap materialism, no matter how farcical, they look on with bilious indifference as the affluent society destroys the older social structures that they had grown up amongst.

Sex looms large. In pubs, factory canteens and dance halls, young women are keenly observed. How to arrange beneficial encounters with them consumes a lot of his time. He dislikes courtship rituals. Going steady. Getting engaged. Buying the ring. He prefers adultery, and enjoyable casual sex with older women. Some get on by marrying the boss’s daughter. Others marry and move in with the wife’s mother. Life after marriage is dull, heavily circumscribed and straight. Sexual quirks hardly figure though a tiny number are privately fond of other men. The women sometimes explore mixed race relationships and have affairs with older men who have yet to be divorced. Pregnancy, abandonment, and abortion haunt the narrative. Both sexes have unsuccessful relationships.

Undecided, frustrated, one morning he packs a suitcase, and heads down to the station. On a long, slow train of blood red corridor carriages hauled by a grimy black steam locomotive he departs for London. Once he would only have gone down for the cup final, with possibly a discreet visit to Soho. Now, on a journey that takes a whole day, with some savings and the address of a friend or relative, he strikes out and pursues a new career in bedsit land amongst an odd collection of fellow lodgers. London is another country, full of young bohemians and even greater sexual opportunities. It provides music and entertainment late into the night. Some settle in soulless suburbs or new towns. Success brings money, consumerism, and more adultery, alcoholism, and failed marriages.

They don’t think of the north any longer, although occasional returns are permitted. Whatever their fate now, they couldn’t have stayed there.

This is an extract from Everything and the Kitchen Sink: UK Film, Music and TV Before The Beatles (Oldcastle Books, £19.99) by Simon Matthews. Buy a copy from bookshop.org here.

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

Simon Matthews writes on cultural and political history. Everything and the Kitchen Sink is his sixth book. His account of Winston Churchill’s disastrous tenure at the Admiralty, A Study in Failure: Churchill at the Admiralty 1939-1940 will be published by Oldcastle Books in May 2026. 

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