Halcyon days, the same story could be told by millions of people not just at Raleigh but all over the UK. Thank goodness that films like this exist not only in that they illustrate our heritage and history but that our economy could flourish today if we controlled corporate greed, globalism and the lies of media and politics. I am proud to be of the generation represented in this production. Words like job security, good wages for a fair days work and a cohesive society are an alternative to the rip off Britain of today, the Britain we have less and less say in as our long fought for democracy is eroded.

@radiowyn1703

Ай бұрын

You are bang on! Corporate greed, they didn't want to pay people in this country a decent wage. Cheap labour abroad has since been exploited. They bulldozed our manufacturing away.

My grandfather had bought a raleigh bicycle in 1950s to go to his office which was 5 km away from home,after that my farther has used it to go to school and after that he has used it to go to office ,thereafter i used it to go to school and still i ride it at my leasure time,most of the parts are still the original ones,respect the manufacture quality ,through out the past 70 years its' service is 👌

@JuCarlos-ex8ip

Жыл бұрын

Great , u still have the bicycle how cool

As a 10 year old boy in Southern California, I was privileged to have received a beautiful new red colored Triumph 3 speed bike. I absolutely loved it. It was the best Christmas gift I ever had. The year was 1965. My parents never knew how far I rode on it. I would often take rides through suburbs that were easily 10 miles or more from my home. I used to show off to my friends that I had a real “Made in Nottingham, England “ bike. It was definitely the fastest bike in the neighborhood. Thank you to you wonderful Brits for making my life better as a child.

@barblessable

2 жыл бұрын

Yes , Raleigh works was on Triumph road in Nottingham ,those Sturmey Archer 3 speed gears could be a menace if not adjusted properly they could slip usually when going up hill and you were out of the saddle and really pushing hard ,this was very painful as the crossbar[ boys bike] and genitals came crashing together, ouch , unanaethetised vasectomy lol . The Raleigh All Steel bike was used by the local police ,yes I'm that old , it was common to see local "BOBBY"on his bike in 1950s/60s.

@JuCarlos-ex8ip

Жыл бұрын

How lucky you were

@v8pilot

Ай бұрын

I worked for HP. I had a colleague who worked in Palo Alto and he told me how his dad brought him a 3-speed bike from England. He said he called it 'his English Racer' as it was much faster than other kids single speed American cruiser bicycles.

@muckle8

Ай бұрын

@barblessable. I know only too well! - experienced this particular idiosyncrasy on many a ride out - I thought it was just me! We could form a club maybe ha 🚲 😡 🏥 💀

I worked for 25 Years I was a traveler and they become my family god bless my family at the Raleigh 💗 industry my family Gone But Not Forgotten thank you Raleigh for giving a gypsy a job for 25 Years 🚲👍

@Roscoe.P.Coldchain

2 жыл бұрын

Well done mate, where did you end up settling? Still in notts..? 👍

Nothing beat my childhood more than me as a 10 year old boy on my chopper in the 70s :)

Really enjoyed watching this.. what a great caring firm to work for... So sad to see it demolished at the end. Very rare to get companies like that these days.. we are now just a number. Nobody cares about anyone these days. Well mostly.

My Grandad Albert Arnold (Burt) used to work at Raleigh and always spoke highly of the firm. I had Raleigh bikes as a kid in the 80s…..along with boots and JPS, the most famous Nottingham company. It’s true …people seemed happier than today and more satisfied with their lot in life….

Every night in the pub. Try doing that on the type of wages people get today. Those days of decent jobs for the working class have gone. As she said "Its all gone.' Raleigh is not the only big company that has vanished. What we have today is. Hire and fire, minimum wage and horrible working environments. People think we have moved forward, unfortunately we have not.

@Roscoe.P.Coldchain

2 жыл бұрын

So true that ☝️

@saswatamaitra2765

2 жыл бұрын

Very true vision and statement!!!!!!

Have a special place for Raleigh in my heart!

My first ten-speed was a Raleigh in the ‘70s. Rode it for 15 years then sold it to a neighbor. Loved that bike and love this film history with the makers!

My first bike i paid for myself was a raleigh scorpio in 1977, $150 Australian dollars

great video. thanks for posting.

Good film - good company.

I Left Berridge Road Senior School Nottingham in 1959 and started at Raleigh .. I was allowed half day off school to do the interview on my way going down Wilkinson Street New Basford I hit a car while fastening up my pedal clips so I arrived with blood bleeding leg ... They was filming Saturday Night and Sunday Morning .. then i left and got a Job at Stanton and Stavely iron works ... then in 1968 I emigrated by myself to Australia ... still here on the beach in Sunny Queensland.with two Aussie grown-ups living near London ... its a funny ol'd world... thanks for reading ... !

A loyal Raleigh bike rider, first the Raleigh strika, then it's big brother the Raleigh grifter, them a Raleigh pro aero BMX (with tange tubing from Japan), and finally a Raleigh eclipse road bike. I enjoyed them all.

Thanks for making great bicycles.

@doronron7323

Жыл бұрын

They don't do that here anymore.

@stuarthirsch

Жыл бұрын

@@doronron7323 Glad I found one and restored it. Don't ride it but it reminds me of my childhood when I had one that was made in England.

Christmas 1956 just after my 10th Birthday I had Triumph Palm Beach Tourer with Sturmy Archer 3 speed gears. As a child it was about the best Christmas present I had. At weekends together with my brother who had a Rudge (same name) rode them for miles.

I have a Raleigh I bought in 1975. Still my main bike. I have replaced a lot of parts over the years as it has seen a lot of use. It’s a shame that they stopped making them in Nottingham, to me that was the essence of it. I have had three of them over the years. My first bike was a Hercules though, got that used. I wouldn’t buy another Raleigh because it doesn’t have the Nottingham badge or Made in England script.

Yes. My favourite was the classic Raleigh superb bike. With the locking front forks .used to use union cylinder key section ngn on the older ones .then switched to Lowe a fletcher. I still looking for a superb as collector piece.

Rode my Raleigh Dyna-tech XC 50 bike today to meet up with cycling friends. Built in Raleigh's special lightweight division which made the Tour de France bikes. Still going strong with original equipment still working. I have the card showing the person who put in together.

@stevezodiac491

2 жыл бұрын

I had two raleigh titanium dyna- tech bikes. They both cracked on the down tube gear hanger hole curcumferentially around the down tube. They were shite. I also had a 531c Raleigh road ace made at the special products division also, with a shimano 600 groupset. This bike was the most comfortable steel bike I ever rode. These steel bikes have been completely bettered these days by carbon fibre bikes. My current road bikes are a cannondale system six dura ace and a cannondale super six evo sram red, far far better, lighter and faster than anything produced in Raleigh's day. I also have a Dunlop hotta perimeter carbon TT bike and a Trek speed concept TT bike, all carbon and far lighter and faster than steel.

@tobycolin6271

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevezodiac491 A modern steel frame is only 800g heavier than carbon fibre, less Tyring to ride , more environmentally friendly. I’ve got carbon, steel and aluminium giants from that period and the steel is superior in every way. It took 20 years for carbon development build a bike as good as steel.

My Mum Renee Hallam and most of my Mums Sisters worked at Raleigh … I did a year in the ‘wheel shop’ back in 1981 ….

Loved the film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.......a good friend and I are always talking about it and quoting parts of the dialogue ie Did you see the muck in that kitchen? Strewth I've been bleeding shot.She told me that ,in the scene where old Ma Bull gets shot in the bum by Arthur ,she was shot from a window in a house that was lived in by a good friend of her mum.I went to a local school...Cottesmore on Derby Road and several of the local girls(I wasn't local but bussed in from St Anns) told me that they were in a few street scenes .We're all immensely proud of it.....though they didn't always get the accent right.In the early scene where the staff are going home we always shout "Hey up it's Red Robbo"(The union rep)Tara Me Duck

For Raleigh fans - this is a real "dyno hub" you guys .

@barblessable

2 жыл бұрын

oooh posh hub dynamo, I had old bottle shaped dynamo that rubbed on the tyre you had to pedal like the clappers to get a glimmer. LOL .

@doronron7323

Жыл бұрын

Funny, yesterday I bought a 1978 'Shopper' in near mint condition....and it's fitted with the Dyno-hub. Such decadence!

I still ride my 1958 Raleigh sport almost every day. I first worked at the Oxford Cycle Center in 1962 putting new bikes together after school. Still my favorite bicycle! Thank you Lee Cooper! Terry W.

Estas fabricas hacian las cosas con amor por eso aun hoy en dia se encuetran bicicletas entre nosotros de tan buena calidad lastima que las empresas de hoy en dia hacen las cosas solo para enriqueserse y nl hay ni un poco de amor en lo que hacen thanks for raleigh chooper are wonderful product I'm guatemalteco I fix bicycle in my little town and sell

Oh yes I remember raleigh choppers

Looking after their workers as a big family having days out etc. 'Great' Britain.

I’m 51 now but I grew up with Raleigh’s on my housing estate in East London. Raleigh’s was an icon when it was British. But I can’t help reminiscing if Raleigh was a German manufacturer would it of been sold off to a foreign firm or saved so it could retain its manufacturing base in its birthplace, Nottingham, England where it belongs with reinvestment so it could thrive independently. 🇬🇧

I just picked up a 1973 Raleigh Sports in Sky Blue from my neighbor. He bought it new. It is bone stock and rides just fine on the original tires. These people built an excellent bike that is going to be put back into daily use again.

Sillitoe left school at the age of 14, having failed the entrance examination to grammar school. He worked at the Raleigh factory for the next four years, spending his free time reading prodigiously and being a "serial lover of local girls". He joined the Air Training Corps in 1942, then the Royal Air Force, albeit too late to serve in the Second World War. He served as a wireless operator in Malaya during the Emergency. After returning to Britain he was planning to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force when it was discovered that he had tuberculosis. He spent 16 months in an RAF hospital. Pensioned off at the age of 21 on 45 shillings (£2.25) a week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover. In 1955, while living in Mallorca with the American poet Ruth Fainlight, whom he married in 1959, and in contact with the poet Robert Graves, Sillitoe started work on *Saturday Night and Sunday Morning* , which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of Ernest Hemingway, the book conveys the attitudes and situation of a young factory worker faced with the inevitable end of his youthful philandering. As with John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and John Braine's Room at the Top, the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain and the lack of opportunities for the working class. It was adapted as a film by Karel Reisz in 1960, with Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton; the screenplay was written by Sillitoe...

I worked in raleigh asansole factory good memories

The film was a must when it came to the Leno's or Capital cinema's for all us locals in Hyson Green/ Radford area ,enjoyable gritty slice of reality at that time ,but the actors couldn't master the Nottingham accent . Big employers in Notts were Raleigh ,Players, lace, rag trade, and coal mines ,lots of jabs back then 1950s/60s

Surprised to see Bickerton folding bike behind her in the display room. The Raleigh Panasonic racing team under Peter Post was something else. Won Tour de France in 1980 with Joop Zoetermelk. I was student in Nottingham 1974-78 but bought Falcon bike from Sid Standen in Beeston. Right crank snapped first time out on way back from Loughborough. Nearly had me swerve in front of car. Happy days!

@pintofkimberley

3 жыл бұрын

Sid, bless him, had quite a nasty accident and died a few years ago. But yeah, the SBDU racing bikes were something special.

@johnosullivan2017

2 жыл бұрын

Trent Poly or the University?

Thank you thank you thank you enjoyed that so so much

hip hip hooray hip hip hooray BRAVO

Love the scene in the film where Arthur and Doreen are coming out of the cinema. That was the Savoy on Derby Road...my school was opposite and we often went there on masse .Mr Silver who owned it ( his daughters were at Cottesmore School) would often send a message to our headmistress that we could could see a film matinee for a shilling a head.This was announced in morning assembly ,money would be begged from parents and we'd parade over the road...don't think many schools enjoyed anything like that.We were not allowed to take food to the cinema ...but we did ( have you ever tried to suck your way through a packet of crisps!!!)

Great informative video

my pulse has just quickened extraordinary

Some good jokes in the film....immediately after tucking a fat dead rat into his shirt, Arthur munches his sarnies and declaims against "works tea" giving you gutrot. And when he takes Brenda to Auntie's to arrange an abortion, the women say "men get away with murder don't they". Hard to believe it was living memory. I got a great photo of the heavily pointed brick wall at the back of the pub where Arthur got his "good bashin", which is still there (the British Flag in Battersea). Cracking film. Does any Nottingham authority know if Sillitoe made a mistake in calling the soldiers "swaddies", as we always knew them as "squaddies".

@paulmartin4285

3 жыл бұрын

I wondered about that when I read the book and I believe 'Swaddy" is the same as the more modern term 'Squaddy"

@direktorpresident

3 жыл бұрын

@@paulmartin4285 Thanks Paul. Apparently the film was set in Sillitoe's actual childhood home; and the bespectacled drummer in the pub is his brother. These snippets keep cropping up!

My brother had a Raleigh chopper.

We had neighbours who worked at Raleigh....I remember that they had a pleasant aroma about them....I think it was the mineral oil they used in the manufacture of the bikes.

i like

We traded this for "cheap" (in every sense of the word) bikes from countries that pay the lowest wages, have poor human rights records and destroy the environment. Listen to the former employees laud the company they worked for, you can't find employees with sort of pride or companies that deserve those accolades.

@ttm2609

2 ай бұрын

Good for profit tho

Bought a Raleigh mountain bike in the early 1990's, but sold it after a year because it wasn't up to the terrain I was riding. It looked pretty, but pretty wasn't going to last on muddy rock and root covered trails.

thanks for being the only fun in the 60's

it sounds better back then

my first mountain bike was a trade abike from this company and with nottingham badge

Did any of you know a lady called Glenn . She’s a character

pic of Albert Finney !

Asasunsole 1976 to 1980

I had the foul misfortune to dwell in the family pig-sty 103 Salisbury Street, with its entry around the corner on Faraday Road. As a boy I carved ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE in the brickwork & it was there for years. My great grandfather Walter Pleasance was probably born there circa 1870 & another grandfather, who dwelt at 136 Salisbury Street, fathered 7 illegitimate children by Walter's daughter, Lucie. Walter, whom Alan knew as The Ragman [a gangster of the Sodom razor-boys, when it was called Old Radford], based a short story on my great-aunt, Flo. Walter controlled rag & paper collecting and was always armed. His daughter Flo lived two doors away & married Fred Walker [1 daughter 3 sons, all a stone's throw from the Sillitoe's]. The Pleasance offspring also ran tulip sales in Nottingham & sold bulbs and flowers for years to Raleigh workers. I drank my first whiskey at The White Horse in 1954 age 11. I ran away on each & every opportunity to London, living rough in doss-houses and in graveyards, studying mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics until, as a boy soldier at Arborfield barracks Berks, I was outed as a super-genius by Mil Intel. I attended 3 universities, won a scholarship in the Foundations of Mathematics and, like Alan, returned occasionally. I've written 3 books: The Theory of Intermediate Transfinite Cardinal Number [my mid 20's], Cogitatio shortly after, on the relationship between the mathematics of infinity and the Trinity & my huge project The Autobiography of God Almighty, still being written after 50+ years. My life in Radford was very violent and then I was a dangerous animal and gutter-thug. Christ Almighty intervened in my life and I now live in a luxurious villa in Italy + own an art gallery Arte del Fulmine [= Art of the Thunderbolt] in Dolcedo, Liguria. I will never forget the slaves trooping along Faraday Road, year in and year out.

@BrownianMotionPicture

2 жыл бұрын

Great story.

@kenstevens5065

2 жыл бұрын

Great to hear the Nottingham accent again from the former employees. Like most UK towns and cities the Nottingham unique accent has almost gone in just a couple of generations.

best of britain - what happened since?

Let me guess, it was bought out by a conglomerate and moved over seas , then all went to shit?

Dawes is better

@doronron7323

Жыл бұрын

I bought 7 bikes yesterday, 2 are Dawes. The rest are Raleigh's. The Dawes are the only ones with broken frames.

@Timemachine74

2 ай бұрын

Old Dawes are good new ones are Taiwan junk with a Dawes sticker like every other bike these days

@jasperedwards3341

2 ай бұрын

@@Timemachine74 eggacty dawes were orbit cycles