1974: Help Yourself to a House | Tuesday Documentary | BBC Archive

"We would never have got ourselves a house if we hadn't built our own, I just wish I had been 20 years younger that's all!" Tuesday Documentary looks at some of the ways that people have helped themselves to cut the cost of a roof over their heads. You can save £2,000 to £3,000 on the cost of a house if you join a Self-Build Housing Association; mark you, it's a sweat - for two years every weekend, and slackers are fined a pound an hour and have to make up the hours lost. Old houses - 100 to 150 years old - can be saved from demolition by determination and skill. In Macclesfield a group of 32 families got together and not only saved their old terrace houses but also helped to rebuild them, saving hundreds and - in some cases - thousands of pounds. The programme also looks at the first experimental housing co-op for young people, due to open this month in South London; and we see what a co-operatively run group has achieved after three years' hard work starting from an initial down-payment of £50 a head. £50 for a house? "Not quite," says Peter Humphries, the organiser of the group, "you put down £50, work bloody hard - then you can have a house." Note: This archive film contains outdated advice and working practices relating to asbestos. This does not reflect current guidance. Asbestos can pose serious health risks if disturbed and should only be handled by suitably qualified professionals. Clip taken from Tuesday Documentary: Help Yourself to a House, originally broadcast on BBC One, 24 September, 1974. You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults. Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?... You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive