Out of Step – Nostalgia Central

1 9 5 7 (UK)
14 x 16 minute episodes

Debuting on 18 September 1957 and airing on Wednesday nights at 10.30 pm, this early ITV documentary series starred intrepid reporter Dan Farson, who met with people and groups with alternative views, including nudists, witches, anarchists, Scientologists, and vegans.

The first episode – Free the Children – presented Scottish writer A S Neill of the famous Summerhill “do as you like” School in Suffolk, who put into practice his ideas that children should be allowed to play truant, smoke and swear, and be free from adult authority.

The final show in the 14-part series – One Man Against The World – focused on 63-year-old pacifist Harold Steele (a poultry farmer from Worcestershire) who made it known in 1957 that he intended to sail a boat into the middle of the British Pacific nuclear test zone.

Farson later presented Keeping in Step (1958), where he looked at more conventional attitudes.

Episodes

Free the Children | Other Worlds Are Watching | Nudism | Mind Over Matter | Away With Governments! | Spiritualism | No Meat For Dinner | Down With Marriage | Tune in to Nature’s Radio | Build Your Own Body | Down With Work | Witchcraft | The Seventh Day | One Man Against The World

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