Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Peter Stanfield, Professor of Film Studies, at the University of Kent. Peter talks about why coming to work at Kent amounted to a form of renewal after his previous job and we find out about singing cowboys and the relationship between teaching and research. Peter works in American popular cinema from the 1930s through to the 1970s, and we learn why it was that the 50s resonated in the way it did in later films, including the rise of teddy boys in the early 70s. Peter reveals about how he understands memories in the light of dealing with an aged mother and we talk about how easy it is to conflate our remembering of a photo with the moment that the photo was taken. We learn that Peter grew up in Hemel Hempstead, and his father came over to England from Poland during the Second World War. We talk about pop musical influences and the secret language of New Musical Express, and we discover why, for Peter, 1972 was such a seminal year. He saw many artists, including Eric Clapton, in con