A load of rubbish

STOP LOOK LISTEN
The Magazine's Public Information Film festival

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Every day in February, the Magazine is featuring a classic public information film from the past 60 years, concluding with a vote to find the nation's favourite.

You might think that, in deciding whether subjects for public information films deserve a comic or horror treatment, that the film makers have simple choice: horror for death or injury, comedy for everything else.

But it's not as simple as that. There are plenty of examples of serious subjects being treated in a light-hearted way - just think of Joe and Petunia and the Coastguard film featured here last week.

STOP LOOK LISTEN Stop Look Listen is the Magazine's festival of Public Information Films, with the National Archives and the COI

And there are examples of nuisances which are rarely fatal - such as litter - getting tackled with pretty scary campaigns: witness the highly successful "We're getting closer" rats poster.

Today's film, also about litter, is at the other end of the scale. Made in 1968, it features a very svelte Roy Hudd as a shadowy spy-figure.

Roy Hudd, left, pre brain-washing

Made in the style of a spy drama, complete with action-packed Hammond organ soundtrack, Hudd's character races around what appears to be a concrete campus, complete with elevated walkways, maliciously dropping litter.

Following him are a group of young people dressed all in white, who are members of the "Litter Defence Volunteers". They have uniform T-shirts and armbands saying LDV, which does sound slightly like a splinter paramilitary grouping.

Though it might seem hard to believe now, the LDV really did exist. In 1967, 5,000 teenagers volunteered to go round the country, dressed in white, carrying bags and shovels, picking up litter - all in the cause of anti-litter week. The LDV was itself a reference to the "Local Defence Volunteers" - the organisation which became known as the Home Guard and was lovingly portrayed in Dad's Army.

An air of wartime

But though the actual Litter Defence Volunteers were undoubtedly a thoroughly excellent band of young people, their portrayal in this film does have the air of a brain-washing cult.

The voiceover, in a suitably dramatic tone, goes as follows:

VOICE-OVER: Public Enemy Number One...wanted all over the world...Message out: "Call on LDV - Litter Defence Volunteer."... Spotless, clean, tidy... With good humour they strike against Public Enemy Number One wherever he operates... Litter costs you money... Litter Defence Volunteers stop litter, save the cost of picking it up... With more public help, they'd do even better... Keep litter to yourself, put it here...
(close-up finishes on rubbish bin)

With complete conviction, they run around campus putting rubbish in bags, dustpan in hand. When one approaches Hudd's character, he is instantly is converted to the cause. His Homburg and Macintosh are changed into a cult T-shirt, with a pre-Relax slogan "KEEP IT TO YOURSELF" on the front.

This is presumably the inspiration for using a spy, though its passage from idea to execution now seems somewhat convoluted.

In the context of other public information films - the dangers of playing with matches, for instance - the hazards of litter might seem somewhat out of proportion.

Keep Tidy Britain posters down the ages Enlarge Image

But, says Peter Gibson of Keep Britain Tidy, it has remained one of people's top concerns ever since it was highlighted after the war by the Women's Institute. The arrival of fast food in the 1960s simply added fuel to the flames. Like Roy Hudd's spy, 1968 was the year the Wombles appeared.

"Litter drips into people's fear of crime," he says. "They tell us successively in surveys that if an area is squalid and covered in graffiti, they feel unsafe going out."

The campaign has tried various approaches in the past 30 years to get its message across. From celebrity endorsements in the 70s (including Abba, David Cassidy and Marc Bolan), it has highlighted litter as a green issue, as something that makes you a "tosser" (see Jennifer Ellison picture, right), and most recently as something that might make you end up in a gimp suit (see internet links).

That's a long way from the WI and Wombles.

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Stop Look Listen is compiled by Giles Wilson

Add your comments on this story, using the form below.

The setting certainly looks like a campus, today. But back then this was the epitome of a modern housing estate - flats, a bit of green and all cars and traffic banished out of sight. Nowadays, the same places can be seen on The Bill, with drugs and other crime replacing the relatively minor problem of litter!
Andrew Wiseman, Cambridge, UK

Australia has an annual "Clean Up Australia Day" (a Sunday in March) when everyone is encouraged to get out into the local parks etc and fill a bag with rubbish. Community groups such as Rotary and Scouts volunteer to organise a group in their area and get issued with sturdy rubbish bags. This excellent idea has been somewhat marred recently by the numbers of used needles which turn up in the undergrowth.
Susan Thomas, Brisbane, Australia

I remember the LDV advert! I was only about four or so and I recall watching it on our black and white telly and feeling emotional discomfort at the sight of that odd man scattering litter. I never knew it was Roy Hudd! At the same time, those white clad kids distressed me, too. Thinking of it makes me recoil slightly inside even after all this time. I must have been a very sensitive little girl! All the best.
Sarah, Manchester, England

I remember the "keep Britain tidy" ads well - especially the one with the man saying "everytime my son borrows the car it comes back stinking like a filthy ashtray" and him emptying it out on to the pavement. All of the public information ads were great entertainment, from "Charlie says" to "Learn to Swim" (Still remember most of the words to the tune!) and the one with the family learning to cross the road who nearly got run over by their Dad in his new car while Gran looked out of the window holding the baby. They were a great feature of a 70's childhood!
Louise Harries, Adelaide South Australia (orginally frm Bridgend South Wales)

The short seems to be filmed in the Roehampton estate, near Richmond Park. Where farenheight 451 was also filmed. It was very much a set de jour during the 60's.
james glanville, london

The ads must have worked - I grew up with a horror of littering, having been taught to 'Keep Britain Tidy' and not be a 'litterbug'. Littering shows a lack of respect for your environment, your neighbours, and, I think, for yourself. That goes for big companies as well as individuals.
Kaz, Briton in NJ, USA

This is a great story about keeping britain clean but, i am thinking about certain places such as schools, pubs, swimming baths, things like that. We need to keep them clean too.
Noo-noo Latane, Surrey-England

These campaigns are all very well but they yield very limited results. In my opinion the only remedy that is most likely to work is fines. Litter louts must be fined heavily and often. Littering is inherently a selfish act, and selfish people don't like to have to part with their cash.
Dean, Portadown, UK

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