Keep It To yourself

Duration 49sec
Release Date 1968
Sponsor Central Office of Information for Keep Britain Tidy
Text version of this film

Made in 1968, this film features a young Roy Hudd as the shadowy spy-figure mischievously dropping litter.

As one of the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaigns, this 1968 film shows ‘Litter Defence Volunteers’ or ‘LDVs’, striking against “public enemy number one”; a litter bug. The formation of LDVs was a play on the ‘Local Defence Volunteers’, otherwise known as the Home Guard, who formed Britain’s last line of defence against invasion during the Second World War. In 1967 there were reportedly 5,000 ‘Litter Defence Volunteers’ criss-crossing the country pushing the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ slogan.

Initially highlighted as a problem by the National Federation of Women's Institutes, since 1955 the national anti-litter campaign ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ has been running. In fact, the International Tidy Man symbol that has become synonymous with ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ pre-dates this film by one year. The Tidy Man symbol that appears on many everyday foodstuffs and signs was first adopted in 1969 to help deliver the anti-litter message.

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