Miserable Blue Eyes

In 1936 Dorothy Critchlow, a young journalist on the Manchester Evening News, was called in by its managing editor, William John Haley, to hear that he wanted to introduce what he thought would be an attractive new feature, a ‘personal problems’ page. Critchlow took on the column in 1936.

Among the letters the column received was a broad range of queries from young people, including many from young men. This talk explores what these letters tell us about young people in the 1930s, and how the teen years were already acquiring a new distinctiveness which is more popularly associated with the emergence of the ‘teenager’ in the 1950s.

The talk is presented by Melanie Tebbutt, Director of the Manchester Centre for Regional History at Manchester Metropolitan University.