Hoop Skirts & Pony Tails

People are shaking off the memory of the drab austerity years after the Second World War. Ration books are now history. The good times have finally arrived. Families like Jacky Hyam’s are starting to be tempted by the incredible new household goods in high-street shop windows: TVs, fridges, washing machines, electric heaters, now widely available on credit. And Wimpy bars and frozen fish fingers are changing the culinary landscape.

Now, for the first time ever, teenagers are being wooed as never before, consumers in their own right. It is a dramatic cultural shift that sparks a huge rift between the generations. For Jacky all these tempting changes can only lead her in one direction - an all embracing desire for freedom - and a growing determination to break free of the traditional East End way of life.