Ideal Home Exhibition 1959

What could be better than a trip to the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1959? This silent British Movietone footage shows some amazing stuff. There's full-sized modern houses and flats, including the Ministry of Housing and Local Government's New Flats For Old People, demostrated by a game old lady who had to keep getting up to demonstrate the kitchen, and then sit back down again.

Bright new technology includes carpet sweepers, an electric fire, a vaccuum cleaner, a Kenwood waste disposal system and a dishwasher. Alongside that we have an array of daring new foods, from pizza to Australian tinned fruit. But it's the people watching that proves most fun, especially after having watched the new film of Carol so recently. Those demonstrators are rather beguiling, especially these two servants in the kitchen...