The images alerted the public and MPs to the devastating housing issues in the country's inner cities. Photo / Shelter
The images alerted the public and MPs to the devastating housing issues in the country's inner cities. Photo / Shelter
More than four decades ago, stark images of poverty-stricken children in cities across the UK shocked the nation.
Between 1968 and 1972, photographer Nick Hedges captured a series of images showing the grim reality of life on the breadline in Britain's cities.
And a documentary tonight is set to revisit Slum Britain and find out how, some 50 years on, the subjects of those iconic images are faring now.
A mum is pictured with her youngest child in Sheffield. Photo / Shelter
Photos from the Swinging Sixties often paint Britain in a hedonistic and carefree light, showing mods and rockers, glamorous models, pop stars and hippies striking a pose in Carnaby Street and partying until dawn at festivals.
But Hedges' project captured the reality of what lay beneath - those with no money, hot water and little food in squalid living conditions as the nation was gripped by a housing crisis.
His project run by housing charity Shelter aimed to expose the abject poverty some three million people were living in in post-war Britain.
The Channel Five documentary this evening will revisit the families in those images - and in some cases, show little has changed.
One of Hedges' subjects was six-year-old Paul Pryde. He was photographed in 1969 along with his family, who had moved from Ireland to Moss Side in Manchester.
He and his seven brothers and sisters had no bathroom or hot water, and would be washed by their mother in the kitchen sink.
In tonight's show, Mr Pryde says: "Looking at it now, it's grim but we never gave it a second thought then. We were poor, but so was everyone else around us."
He is asked if life has changed for him, to which he replies: "No. The difference is I am working and I can eat better than I did back then. But losing a pay cheque could change that drastically."
Last Christmas, he needed help from a charity just to put food on the table. "You have no idea how that made me feel," he added.
The Rump family lived in a 'permanent state of gloom' with no heating and barely any light. Photo / Shelter
Hedges also took photographs of the Rump family living in a semi-derelict basement in London's Whitechapel in 1969.
With hardly any daylight and no bathroom, the conditions were bleak and the children were suffering.
After visiting them, he said: "The flat really was a hole, a cave, oppressive and restrictive to both mind and body."
Claire Evans, formerly Shirely Rump, is pictured, far right, with two of her siblings in the late 1960s. Photo / Shelter
Claire Evans, now 53, and her brother Michael Rump, now 58, lived there with their parents and four siblings.
After being shown the photos, Claire said: "When you look at it now, you think, was that really us? I can't understand why anybody would want to bring kids to a place like that." Claire was forced to share a bed with two siblings because her family could not afford heating - and she said she had a dummy until the age of six to keep hunger at bay.
Her family were moved to Peterborough after Shelter intervened.
She added: "Life tends to make you hard, doesn't it? I think the bonds were close because we had nothing but each other.
"We ended up with a house and a garden but nobody was better off than we were because we knew where we'd come from."
Claire, pictured today, is part of a new Channel 5 documentary called: "Slum Britain: 50 Years On". Photo / Channel 5
For Claire's brother Michael, the memories are still raw. Now a forklift driver living in Dagenham, East London, he says: "Obviously I am still angry about it. I used to come home from school and for dinner would be a tin of rice or something.
"It brings back bad memories, but good ones too. I was over the moon when I got my first wage as I could afford things I had to steal before."
Hedges also visited the Newlove family in Bradford in 1969 where six siblings slept in one room.
Colin Newlove, reveals how he feels guilty for previously blaming his mum for the conditions he grew up in. Photo / Channel 5
Colin Newlove told the programme: "I hated school. I hated living there. I used to have anger problems, causing trouble, getting into fights and nicking stuff.
"But as I got older I realised it wasn't right. I got myself an apprenticeship, joined the Army and just worked.
"I am driven because I don't want to go back to what I had... nothing." Two of his sisters stayed in Bradford, while a brother moved to Merseyside.
But Colin added: "They're still living in the same conditions - in council properties that are run-down."
The Newlove family were pictured by Nick Hedges in their Bradford, West Yorkshire, home. Photo /Shelter
Fifty years ago, the charity Shelter was set up to shine a light on the desperate housing problems gripping the country.
Fast forward to 2016, and families up and down the country remain at crisis point, struggling to find anywhere they can call home.
Nick Hedges said: "When I was commissioned by Shelter to take these photographs, I never imagined that decades later they would still have such impact.
"The poverty and terrible conditions I witnessed shocked me to the core.
"I hope that all these years later, by reconnecting with some of those I photographed, I am able to hear good news of what happened to the families."
The documentary also features the Coleman family, who are among tens of thousands of families in temporary accommodation. Photo / Channel 5
This Christmas more than 120,000 children in Britain will wake up homeless.
A spokesman from the charity said every day it sees the heartbreaking toll homelessness and bad housing takes on people's health and wellbeing, the way it breaks up families and communities.
The documentary on Channel Five at 10pm this evening will revisit the shocking images, contrasting the lives of people who lived in the slums of the 1960s with those living through the housing crisis of today.
