Story: Women and men

An important part of changing behaviour in the 1960s and 1970s was greater sexual openness. Sex before marriage was normal enough – first babies had often been born less than nine months after marriage – but in this period sex with no thought of marriage became commonplace. In this 1972 film clip, a couple flirt and kiss. The title of the film – Gone up north for a while – was a phrase used when unmarried women vanished to have a baby in secret. The film follows the young woman through the subsequent pregnancy and birth.