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The Good Old Days

richardg said:
I was off out on my bike all day.
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I remember similar times.
Fond memories of ambling down woodland lanes with the sun trickling through the trees. Discovering derelict railway lines that once took steam trains to Brighton on the old route.
And then there was the rubbish dump. Full of treasures. And the old isolation hospital, abandoned.

I could ramble on forever! ☺️
 
I'm sure I would be paranoid if I had any grandkids. But is it just paranoia ? Is it really significantly more dangerous ? Or do we just hear about more ?
Of course one case is one too many.
 
From a guide to Bristol published in the 1860s:

'Alas! How are the mighty fallen, superficial sensationalism thrives best nowadays'.
 
I read this thread with some interest, because I think I was born in what I consider to be The Good Old Days.
1. I was born in 1947, so immediately post-war. As a result I never experienced the world at war, as did my parents. My earliest memories include the end of rationing.
2. I went to school when decent marks meant the possibility of going to university, which in turn automatically meant a good, well-paying job. Back then, university was the preserve of the more academically inclined, there being plenty of apprenticeships and jobs that didn't require university qualifications, but that enabled the possibility to go further. My non-academic school pals who left school at O-level did OK. This appears to be no longer the case - lots of "universities" generating lots of graduates. The same was true for Mrs. Tones Downunder, and the Oz system seems to have gone the same way as did the UK system. (Our girls had it much tougher than we did, but then we did subject them to the Swiss school system, whose object appears to be to kill you. Nevertheless, they managed).
3. In the period 1919-1970ish, the lower orders made real material progress in all sorts of ways, e.g. in being able actually to buy houses (memories of the rent man coming every Friday to our wee terrace place in Ardoyne - I was in my last year in secondary school when we bought a place). In any earlier period, someone of my working-class background (father joiner, mother worked in a fruit shop) could not have dreamed of going to university. This appears to have gone at least partially into reverse.
 
To the above needs to be added for the immediate boomer generation it didn’t matter how well you studied if you weren’t at a grammar school you weren’t going to university.

Secondary moderns prepared students for the CSE examination, rather than the more prestigious O Level, and although training for the latter was established in later years, fewer than one in ten students took advantage of it. Secondary moderns did not offer schooling for the A Level, indeed for a long time they were forbidden from so doing, in 1963, for instance, only 318 former secondary-modern pupils sat A levels. None went on to university.

However many professions that now require at least a degree, and a good one at that, back in the 70s allowed you to work your way to the top starting at the bottom in a more menial position if you were talented enough.
 
I think that the 70s were good. I actually did much better in the 80s, but that was against a grim background of Thatcher and the IRA.
Looking back, the country was living well beyond its means in the 70s, which triggered the high inflation at the end.
 
'There has never been an epoch that did not [...] believe itself to be standing directly before an abyss. The desperately clear consciousness of being in the middle of a crisis is something chronic in humanity'. Walter Benjamin 'The Arcades Project'.
 
FWIW my point wasn't about financial or social mobility, more about current affairs. Perhaps it is result of the modern fetish for 24hr rolling news and the competition between news outlets to one-up each other by how fast they can get a story out and how grim they can make it.
 
Yep 70's probably were the best time (obvs the music was infinitely better than today) and with hindsight the internet is probably the worst thing to happen since WW2.
It has in fact had the opposite effect to that I predicted... I hadn't then realised just what low life scum around 40% of the population really are... The internet enlightened me on that one...
 
matt j said:
FWIW my point wasn't about financial or social mobility, more about current affairs. Perhaps it is result of the modern fetish for 24hr rolling news and the competition between news outlets to one-up each other by how fast they can get a story out and how grim they can make it.
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Well, it's largely that. My parents lived through terrible times, but there was only a daily newspaper, and the news on the radio, to absorb, and the very worst news was probably suppressed. And this was in a country which, for all its suffering, was spared the horrors of Nazi occupation. In most of mainland Europe, turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to what was happening was probably essential for one's survival (both mental and physical).
 
Bob McC said:
To the above needs to be added for the immediate boomer generation it didn’t matter how well you studied if you weren’t at a grammar school you weren’t going to university.
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I never went to a grammar school, just a secondary school. This was admittedly in a rather unique context of 1960s Northern Ireland, whose education system is independent of the UK one. Back in those days, there were Junior, Senior and Advanced Senior certificates, the last-named being the university entrance qualification. Our non-grammar school was only permitted to go to Junior - anyone who wanted to go on had to transfer to a grammar school. The headmaster wanted to do the other qualifications but was rejected by the NI Education Authority. And was that. They thought. They simply hadn't reckoned with the persistence of wee Norman - he couldn't get past them, so he went around them. He went to London University, whose GCE exams were universally recognised, and asked whether he could set their exams. No problem, said London University. And so, the A-levels that took me to Queen's in Belfast are London University ones. In the end, the NIEA threw in the towel and secondary schools were permitted to do the NI exams, which were subsequently brought into line with the UK mainland exams.

And a bunch of kids who really shouldn't have gone to university did so. They included the chief pediatric surgeon of Birmingham's main hospital and the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the time of the Good Friday Agreement (subsequently knighted). We shall forever be grateful to wee Norman.
 
wacko said:
I'm sure I would be paranoid if I had any grandkids. But is it just paranoia ? Is it really significantly more dangerous ? Or do we just hear about more ?
Of course one case is one too many.
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I think it is paranoia, driven by the usual media suspects. But no evidence means who actually knows? I am victim to it. If my kids go out alone i shit myself. But we have to lengthen the leash.
 
tones said:
I never went to a grammar school, just a secondary school. This was admittedly in a rather unique context of 1960s Northern Ireland, whose education system is independent of the UK one. Back in those days, there were Junior, Senior and Advanced Senior certificates, the last-named being the university entrance qualification. Our non-grammar school was only permitted to go to Junior - anyone who wanted to go on had to transfer to a grammar school. The headmaster wanted to do the other qualifications but was rejected by the NI Education Authority. And was that. They thought. They simply hadn't reckoned with the persistence of wee Norman - he couldn't get past them, so he went around them. He went to London University, whose GCE exams were universally recognised, and asked whether he could set their exams. No problem, said London University. And so, the A-levels that took me to Queen's in Belfast are London University ones. In the end, the NIEA threw in the towel and secondary schools were permitted to do the NI exams, which were subsequently brought into line with the UK mainland exams.

And a bunch of kids who really shouldn't have gone to university did so. They included the chief pediatric surgeon of Birmingham's main hospital and the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the time of the Good Friday Agreement (subsequently knighted). We shall forever be grateful to wee Norman.
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Similarly a small number of secondary modern heads, who refused to write off their pupils, risked their careers and had pupils tutored and entered for A levels in England.
Eventually the rules were changed before the whole selective system was done away with.
 
davidsrsb said:
Looking back, the country was living well beyond its means in the 70s, which triggered the high inflation at the end.
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The inflation peak in the 70s was mid-way. 26.9% in Aug. 1975. I'd just bought my first house and my monthly teaching pay, which was inflation linked, increased considerably each month.

It was also, around that time, a period of 25% VAT (or purchase tax then, I think), which lasted a year. Tough, buying hifi, only to sell later when the quadraphonic resurgence imploded (along with hifi generally). My first house, a 30s semi near Canterbury Uni., was £8,250. Guess my rookie teacher's pay was about a fifth to a quarter of that, p.a. Mind you, mortgage was only accepted because I'd been saving for more than 6 months at the Leek and Moorland (?) Building Soc. (still have the pass-book!)

Those were the days (my friend).
 
I started teaching in 1974.
My pay was certainly not increased monthly due to inflation!
 
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