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The Good Old Days

tuga said:
The internet did it!
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In a sense that actually is true. It used to be we just assumed most people were fundamentally decent and good-hearted. Now with the advent of social media we get a stark look into the anger, resentment and even hatred that seems to burn within so many people. And we are surrounded by politicians and businesspeople who are happy to stoke those fires.
 
Subito said:
In a sense that actually is true. It used to be that we just assumed that most people were fundamentally decent and good-hearted. Now with the advent of social media we get a stark look into the anger, resentment and even hatred that seems to burn within so many people. And we are surrounded by politicians and businesspeople who are happy to stoke those fires.
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Yes. Also the entitled equivalence of complete stupidity with educated opinion. "My opinion is just as valid as any fact".
 
Bob McC said:
I was 11 in 1963.
The Cuban missile crisis was all over the news and papers.
Us 11 year olds didn’t give a toss about it, or the arms race.
We were more excited and inspired by the space race and how the Beatles next single compared to the Stones.
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I was 6 in 1963, and living in the Washington, DC suburbs. Every day at school we practiced an alarm drill for nuclear war. Ok, all we did was practice ducking under our little wooden desks, but our teacher, the elderly Mrs. Immler, would confidently reassure us that this act alone could save us from da’ bomb. So yes, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a big deal for us, and top of mind. I’ll also never forget Johnson’s “Daisy” political ad.

 
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matt j said:
Have they gone for good?

I don't mean the days that Brexit folk are pining after with their 1950s rose tinted glasses, I just mean the days when every day wasn't taken up with the news of ten new catastrophes.

If it's not Covid it's Brexit, climate, jobs, economy, politics, media/BBC, BLM, Trump, guns, Putin, housing and the list goes on..?
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I remember my late mother frequently telling me the end of the world must be approaching, because the news was full of 'wars, and rumours of wars', and ' nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places' like the Good Book says (Matthew 24:6-7). This was said at any time from about 50 years ago until her death, almost 20 years ago. This was despite the fact that she had lived through far worse times (the Hungry Thirties, and WW2), than anything we've experienced since, in the UK at least.
 
Joe Hutch said:
I remember my late mother frequently telling me the end of the world must be approaching, because the news was full of 'wars, and rumours of wars', and ' nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places' like the Good Book says (Matthew 24:6-7). This was said at any time from about 50 years ago until her death, almost 20 years ago. This was despite the fact that she had lived through far worse times (the Hungry Thirties, and WW2), than anything we've experienced since, in the UK at least.
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Although what Jesus was foretelling was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, just 40 years down the track. The language sounds very apocalyptic, but Jewish historian Josephus, who witnessed the actual event in 70CE, uses very similar language.
 
stevec67 said:
The 1970s were bloody awful.
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I wouldn't want to live through them again.

My old dad would talk of the good old days. I think that was because he was young then.
At the age of twenty one he was called up for WW2. Just when you want to start your life he was sent somewhere he was not told where, but it was nowhere safe.
His father before him was injured badly in WW1.
They don't seem like good old days to me.
 
Minio said:
I wouldn't want to live through them again.

My old dad would talk of the good old days. I think that was because he was young then.
At the age of twenty one he was called up for WW2. Just when you want to start your life he was sent somewhere he was not told where, but it was nowhere safe.
His father before him was injured badly in WW1.
They weren't good old days at the time.
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Absolutely. Everyone remembers their youth as a good time, simply because they were young. I saw a docu about people who had worked in textiles in bloody awful conditions, they all said how marvellous it had been. Similarly I once drove some oldies through a rough bit of Leeds, they were all telling me it had been nice in the past. Bugger off, darkest Hunslet, Beeston etc were utterly horrible for the whole of the 20th century. Tripe shops, anyone?
 
Minio said:
stevec67 said:
The 1970s were bloody awful.
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I wouldn't want to live through them again.

My old dad would talk of the good old days. I think that was because he was young then.
At the age of twenty one he was called up for WW2. Just when you want to start your life he was sent somewhere he was not told where, but it was nowhere safe.
His father before him was injured badly in WW1.
They don't seem like good old days to me.
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I started work in the 1970s and the opportunities I had far exceeded anything available to the poor b*ggers of today. I had a wide choice of jobs within a relatively healthy engineering industry. Higher education was well funded and with plenty of apprenticeships around I was actually paid to attend university both for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Housing was cheap with mortgages readily available. Social cohesion was significantly higher. Etc...
 
Early / mid 90’s was tremendous. Multiple job offers before I’d left Uni. Housing was ‘affordable’, both to buy and rent. Straight out of Uni I was living opposite Hyde Park in a 3 bed top floor stucco terrace. Rented it with a couple of school mates, £300 a month each! It was party central, pre widespread internet and mobile phone. Everyone’s old school and Uni mates were living and working in central London. We were living it large, couldn’t get much better really!
 
Ponty said:
Early / mid 90’s was tremendous. Multiple job offers before I’d left Uni. Housing was ‘affordable’, both to buy and rent. Straight out of Uni I was living opposite Hyde Park in a 3 bed top floor stucco terrace. Rented it with a couple of school mates, £300 a month each! It was party central, pre widespread internet and mobile phone. Everyone’s old school and Uni mates were living and working in central London. We were living it large, couldn’t get much better really!
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Once again, the good times were when you were 20-25. No surprise. My guess is that the ones eulogising about the 70s were born in the 50s.
 
stevec67 said:
Once again, the good times were when you were 20-25. No surprise. My guess is that the ones eulogising about the 70s were born in the 50s.
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Yep, young free and single. It doesn’t really matter when it was, it would have been great times (except war time I guess).
 
h.g. said:
Housing was cheap with mortgages readily available. Social cohesion was significantly higher. Etc...
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But how did you get through glam Rock, platform shoes and worst of all Jimmy Saville on Top of the Pops.
Not to mention decimation of manufacturing, 3 day weeks and power cuts.
All nicely finished up with the horror that was Thatcherism.

Lovely!.
 
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slavedata said:
I was thinking back the other day and concluded that in terms of opportunity and potential the 1970s were the best time for the ordinary man.
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stevec67 said:
The 1970s were bloody awful.
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It was a transformational decade for me. Started college, built up a nice little earner with hifi etc., became rent collector in my (student) house and got free accommodation, got first teaching job, promoted within two terms, bought my first house, grew my first veggies, dabbled in the most expensive quadraphonic system, met a girl, married, had first child and first cats.

Did that all happen in one decade? Must've been productive and maybe even a curate's egg (good in parts). Economically and GDP wise it prob. wasn't the best decade but I didn't notice.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
I recall reading a bit of a rant from an old bloke saying "things aren't what they used to be, it's all gone to the dogs, the kids today are useless and have no respect for their elders" etc etc.... this rant had been translated from the hieroglyphics it had been written in about 3000 years ago!
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What did he think about the state of the pop charts?
 
stevec67 said:
Absolutely. Everyone remembers their youth as a good time, simply because they were young. I saw a docu about people who had worked in textiles in bloody awful conditions, they all said how marvellous it had been. Similarly I once drove some oldies through a rough bit of Leeds, they were all telling me it had been nice in the past. Bugger off, darkest Hunslet, Beeston etc were utterly horrible for the whole of the 20th century. Tripe shops, anyone?
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Yes....but....my kids lives are not as good as mine when I was a kid. No parents let their kids run wild in public any more. It is all organized fun. Fun organised by grown ups, which is not as much fun as fun not organised by grown ups. Or it's tv / tablet time.

I think my kids lives are shit in comparison. I was off out on my bike all day.
 
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