swimming, hiking, cycling and motoring[1] to hunting, shooting and fishing has an enthusiastic following, though many sports, such as sailing and rock-climbing, can be practised only by relatively few keen amateurs. Although climatic and physical conditions in Britain afford few opportunities for skiing and mountaineering, numbers of people go abroad regularly for these pursuits, and the whole nation was stirred by the news of the first ascent of Mount Everest on 29th May 1953 by members of the British Expedition.
The spread of television has added a vast new audience of indoor spectators to the crowds who go to watch sports and other outdoor events. In June 1953 more than one household in six had a television set; viewers are fairly evenly distributed among all sections of the population, irrespective of income. The number of television licences is increasing by 60,000 to 70,000 a month (see p. 282). Some districts, however, are still outside the regular range of the transmitters.
Television is one of the factors that have caused a considerable fall in cinema attendances since the end of the war, but it has not checked the growing popularity of plays, concerts, the ballet and the opera. The cinema remains, however, the most popular form of indoor entertainment outside the home; two out of five adults and one out of two schoolchildren go to the cinema, on average, at least once a week.
Dancing, card games and other social gatherings—often organized by local social clubs —are also popular; one traditional social rendezvous, the public house, has maintained and even increased its popularity, although there has been a marked decrease in drunkenness since the nineteenth century. The public house now attracts a very wide circle of casual customers (both men and women) as well as many 'regulars', who meet for a drink and a chat, and perhaps to play some traditional public-house game such as darts. On the other hand many people, especially the married and the elderly, spend much of their leisure at home—reading, listening to the radio, viewing television, or pursuing hobbies. Gardening is perhaps the most widespread hobby, and the standard of rural and suburban gardens is high.
A number of people, young and old, find their main free-time interest in some form of group activity connected, for example, with the churches, trade unionism, politics, social welfare and reform, or with cultural pursuits such as amateur dramatics or music. People with these associational interests are, of course, in a minority, but they constitute an important and characteristic feature of British life and, indeed, an essential ingredient in the working of British democracy.
- ↑ There are about 5 million motor vehicles licensed at the height of summer, of which some 2½ million are private cars and nearly a million are motor cycles. Most of the private cars, however, are used partly, if not primarily, for business purposes.
