"Let Him Have It".....

[Loosehead]

Watched it the other night, now I just wondered if any older ABer's who where about at the time, 1953, could tell me whether it was a fair representation of the way youngsters where at the time? I mean did they really habitually carry guns or was it sexed up for the film? In one scene a teacher confiscates a load of guns with the same sort of nonchalance that my teacher would have used if he was confiscating a pea shooter! I'm not attempting to start a debate on the rights and wrongs of capital punishent, I'm more curious as to how true to life the overall portrayal was. Thanks.

[netibiza]

Well I was around at the time, but I honestly don't remember there being guns - I was surprised when the Train Robbers produced them. Obviously the East End of London was something else.

[Postdog]

I wasn't around then either, but I don't think it might be that far out given that it was not long after the war and there were probably a lot of unnacounted for weapons. They were probably easy to get hold of if you knew the right people.

[smorodina]

Despite one copy of the film from 'Poundland' sitting on the shelf and the free copy from the Guardian on the coffee table, I haven't got round to watching it yet, so I can only make a general comment. I was a kid in the late fifties and through the sixties and I remember that we played with lots of left over detritus from the war. spent cartridge shells and warning signs, old uniforms, helmets, knives and bayonets. Stuff used to turn up all over the place, and bomb sites and disused army sites were common right up to the seventies in some parts of the country. And although I didn't have one, a few friends had guns that fathers had kept after demobilisation or had been found somewhere. A friend over the road had a german luger pistol that his dad had brought back. I suppose that in the early fifties there were even more of these weapons in the hands of kids, so I don't find it all that surprising that teenagers could get hold of working guns if they wanted.