The UK was better in the old days because...

[Gareth]

Although lot's of things were worse in the old days, in the spirit of the thread, things that were better...

- Fewer TV channels but seemingly more on
- No Twitter
- Less identity politics
- Could pretty much say what you like, outwith incitement or libel
- Stripey traffic lights with 'STOP' written on the red lense
- No Premier League (nor Sky Sports or BT Sport)
- No 2020 COVID Revolution
- Pop music that doesn't all sound like the same Bronx-accented electronic Hip Hop mess
- Alternative music that isn't all just that same-sounding dreary indie we've had since the early noughties.

 

[Master Cutler]

Girls dancing around handbags in discos while the lads drank cheap beer at the bar and looked on.

 

[Gareth]

Can you still get Panda Pops?

 

[Typhoon]

Women certainly had a much more difficult time too - often expected to stay at home, had to put up with a lot of ‘wandering hands’ and the like and expected to stay quiet about it.

I have looked back at my final year of Grammar School ('68) and the performance of those who left at the same time as I did. Of those going to University, 22 were boys, 9 were girls. Although there were more boys than girls (34 against 22), this does not account for the difference in the uni numbers. It was not necessarily because girls were weaker students (7 got 'A' grades against 9 for boys; 6 got merit or distinction in the Special paper against 8 for boys). The most common destinations for girls were teacher training college or secretarial courses (the latter included those with A levels). No point in sending them to uni, they would be getting married and raising kids in a couple of years. It was a criminal waste of talent.

My experience of the treatment of those from the new commonwealth is rather different from others, perhaps because the teacher for whatever the Reception class was called in our local Primary was Black British, and there were mature residents in nearby roads who had probably arrived from the West Indies at one time (we thought one in the next road was from Ethiopia because she looked like a picture in a Bible). Whether that was always the case I don't know. There was also a steady flow of pupils from abroad, a mixed race South African, who had a broad accent that we struggled with, then numbers of South Asians, firstly those of a Hindu background, then those from a Muslim background. The latter groups tended to move, in extended families, into four storey houses (basement and attic), that would be too big for white families who didn't tend to live in such units (for instance, although my grandmother lived next door, there was no chance that we would ever live in the same place). The school encourage mixing; in our class anyone finishing their work early was asked to talk to one of these pupils who were in the class to try to improve their vocabulary (and they taught us some Indian words). The school was quite mixed for the time, already having pupils with Polish fathers (who had arrived during the war) and traveller children. Even in the community, we bought from the shop at the end of the next road in preference to the one at the end of our road because it had a bigger range and was a lot cleaner, the origin of the shopkeeper (South Asian) rather than white and long established in our road was irrelevant; he was elected a councillor within a few years - the ward was largely white. As a family we went to the West Indian wedding of a work colleague of my father.
It almost certainly wasn't all sweetness and light but there wasn't the outright hostility that others seem to have experienced.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Can you still get Panda Pops?

Discontinued in the UK in 2011, apparently.

 

[Gareth]

Shame. Add that to the list then.

You can still get Space Raiders but they have an alien on the packet now, rather than David Bowie.

 

[SuspectUsual]

It was better because I was younger and still knew everything

 

[Dr Day]

Not necessarily better, but perceptions:

Greater sense of community. Fewer people, fewer cars, smaller towns, emptier streets, and less need to drive as most of your friends and family lived and (and could afford to stay living) nearby rather than scattered around having gone off to university, got jobs, met people/had families, or even retired to live elsewhere. With less movement, you had a better chance to know your neighbours and grow up with them in a more mixed age community It was generally easier to say where you were 'from' and have extended family around to child-mind and support in older age. Not that internal migration is necessarily all bad - we have certainty far greater opportunities these days and have widened horizons.

Must have been easier for teachers etc as most kids lived with their two presumed biological parents who were married to each other and all shared the same surname. Recognise lots of marriages weren't necessarily happy ones but families seemed in general less dysfunctional and fewer larger houses needed with bedrooms for kids who only stay a few nights a week.

Boys had boys names and girls had girls names

It was easier to fill in forms asking for 'occupation' - fewer convoluted job titles and it was ok to be a clerk

You could ask for a 'return to X' at the booking office without needing any further questions

Higher density family housing and local employment resulting in more cost effective urban transport

Cola-flavoured spangles

 

[D6968]

Can you still get Panda Pops?

Not according to a video I saw last week

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Can you still get Panda Pops?

Discontinued in the UK in 2011, apparently.

Not according to a video I saw last week

Thanks for confirming. What was the video, by the way?

 

[contrex]

Dan-Air (who remembers them?)

I remember my dad, in he 1970s, telling me proudly that he went to Romania (which he called "Rumania") in a Comet. I know they fixed the fatigue thing with the 4 model but I still thought 'rather you than me'. That was Dan-Air.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

... Dan-Air (who remembers them?)

Effectively acquired by British Airways for a token £1 consideration in 1992 and then absorbed into BA's Gatwick operations.

 

[johnnychips]

In the 70s, hitch-hiking round Derbyshire alone or with my mate to go rock-climbing when I was 13, or walking across Bleaklow and Kinder.

Looking back, I wonder how anxious they were. But they have my total respect for letting me do it.

 

[bspahh]

What was the year when everything was better?

 

[Gareth]

I'd take anything before 2020, personally.

 

[The Ham]

I'd take anything before 2020, personally.

I don't think that you'd get much argument against that!

 

[Altrincham]

Shows it's a generational thing; of these, the only one I remember is the 1-11. Remember them being noisier than the average jet, and also remember travelling on one as late as 1992 with Dan-Air (who remembers them?)

I remember the Dan Air 1-11’s still flying in 1992 as that was the year that I flew on one when Dan Air operated a shuttle-type service from Manchester to Gatwick. It was the only time I flew with Dan Air and the only time I flew on a 1-11 too. (Boarded via the rear ‘under tail‘ steps).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jan 2022 ==

I know this is probably not the 'right' thing to say - but signs of gritty industry. Much of this has gone recently and makes the modern day UK much more anodyne than previously.

Agreed. One of my favourite parts of the rail journey between the original Old Trafford station and Deansgate involved a glimpse of the disused outline of the Manchester Ship Canal docks at Pomona. For many years this area lay untouched, turning into a wild habitat on the edge of Salford and Manchester. The whole area is now being redeveloped with anonymous-looking apartment blocks springing up. This was one area that I was always fond of because it kept it’s grittiness but sadly it’s an outlook that is being covered in modern apartments.

(Not so much in my current road but) knowing everyone by name. And, as a result, more people willing to do favours for neighbours.

Absolutely. When I was growing up we knew who-was-who in each house on the road (both young and old), as well as people who lived in surrounding roads. A lot of neighbours these days just seem to dash between their house and their car, heads down and with very little interest in getting to know their neighbours.

 

[Master Cutler]

I remember the Dan Air 1-11’s still flying in 1992 as that was the year that I flew on one when Dan Air operated a shuttle-type service from Manchester to Gatwick. It was the only time I flew with Dan Air and the only time I flew on a 1-11 too. (Boarded via the rear ‘under tail‘ steps).

Hi Altrincham, I recall flying to Lanzarote for Christmas 1979 with my then girlfriend, (now my wife of 41 years) on a Freddie Laker BAC 1-11 out of Gatwick.
The flight out was great, but the return flight was stormy from the coast of Portugal all the way back to Gatwick.
The 1-11 caught every lump of air and shook wildly up and down and side to side making it the worst flying experience I ever had.
Apparently this was not uncommon for the 1-11 as it was such a small aircraft with very basic specification flight controls.

 

[nw1]

What was the year when everything was better?

IMO, 2009 but opinions will differ. Don't want this to be political but the decline did, perhaps just coincidentally though, approximately co-incide with the arrival of Cameron. While some of these things went away before 2009, the early years of Cameron seems to me a pivot-point when a lot of the things of my childhood and youth finally disappeared. In particular, country pubs and sodium lights were still plentiful in the 00s.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jan 2022 ==

I remember the Dan Air 1-11’s still flying in 1992 as that was the year that I flew on one when Dan Air operated a shuttle-type service from Manchester to Gatwick. It was the only time I flew with Dan Air and the only time I flew on a 1-11 too. (Boarded via the rear ‘under tail‘ steps).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jan 2022 ==


Agreed. One of my favourite parts of the rail journey between the original Old Trafford station and Deansgate involved a glimpse of the disused outline of the Manchester Ship Canal docks at Pomona. For many years this area lay untouched, turning into a wild habitat on the edge of Salford and Manchester. The whole area is now being redeveloped with anonymous-looking apartment blocks springing up. This was one area that I was always fond of because it kept it’s grittiness but sadly it’s an outlook that is being covered in modern apartments.

Strangely I used to live not far from Altrincham and as a child (this would have been late-seventies) I remember the large concentration of industry on the road from Sale to Lymm (A6144).

Much of this was still there in the early nineties (I remember walking a short way out of Sale in early 1993 and still noticing the industry); rather less, but still quite a bit in the late nineties, but in recent years, barely any. Just the pylons seem to be still standing.

In the same area I have a vague memory (much more vague than the above) of there being a lot of industry somewhere north of Stretford. Just past the M63 the A56 has an off-shoot road to the left, and I have a memory of going down this once and seeing a Kellogg's factory but also a lot of other heavy industry. Perhaps around 1977?

 

[D6968]

Thanks for confirming. What was the video, by the way?

Can’t remember the exact name but it was something like ‘food we want bought back’ or ‘snacks we want bought back’ It was a nostalgia thing on YouTube anyhow.

 

[alex397]

Greater sense of community. Fewer people, fewer cars, smaller towns, emptier streets, and less need to drive as most of your friends and family lived and (and could afford to stay living) nearby rather than scattered around having gone off to university, got jobs, met people/had families, or even retired to live elsewhere. With less movement, you had a better chance to know your neighbours and grow up with them in a more mixed age community It was generally easier to say where you were 'from' and have extended family around to child-mind and support in older age. Not that internal migration is necessarily all bad - we have certainty far greater opportunities these days and have widened horizons.

Im a ‘millennial’ so I don’t know much about the ‘old days’. But I do think there was more of a community in the past, which I think is really lacking in our society. Of course, there still is community but not so much.
I live in a busy town, but I don’t really know anyone, apart from the friends I made here from university years ago. Maybe a few acquaintances but that’s it. I know one of my immediate neighbours, but don’t really know any of the others. I feel I would know my neighbours more, and find it easier to make friends, if I grew up in say the 60s/70s/80s. Of course, I’m quite introverted so I could make more effort myself.
I speak more to people online than in real life. It’s good people can reach wider friendships online, but nothing beats talking to people face-to-face. I’d quite like that aspect of the past back. But, of course, those more close nit communities of the past also meant that often people were shunned if they didn’t ‘fit in’.

When I also look back at old photographs, or old films, it’s lovely to see streets with just a few cars in them and less street furniture clutter.

I’d love to go back in time and experience what things were like 40+ years ago for a few weeks. I certainly wouldn’t live there though, as overall things are better now.

 

[MattRat]

Im a ‘millennial’ so I don’t know much about the ‘old days’. But I do think there was more of a community in the past, which I think is really lacking in our society. Of course, there still is community but not so much.
I live in a busy town, but I don’t really know anyone, apart from the friends I made here from university years ago. Maybe a few acquaintances but that’s it. I know one of my immediate neighbours, but don’t really know any of the others. I feel I would know my neighbours more, and find it easier to make friends, if I grew up in say the 60s/70s/80s. Of course, I’m quite introverted so I could make more effort myself.
I speak more to people online than in real life. It’s good people can reach wider friendships online, but nothing beats talking to people face-to-face. I’d quite like that aspect of the past back. But, of course, those more close nit communities of the past also meant that often people were shunned if they didn’t ‘fit in’.

When I also look back at old photographs, or old films, it’s lovely to see streets with just a few cars in them and less street furniture clutter.

I’d love to go back in time and experience what things were like 40+ years ago for a few weeks. I certainly wouldn’t live there though, as overall things are better now.

I think that's more of a city problem that a modern problem. Go to most small villages, and it's like stepping back in time to those days you describe.

 

[nw1]

I’d love to go back in time and experience what things were like 40+ years ago for a few weeks. I certainly wouldn’t live there though, as overall things are better now.

One thing that also comes into play is childhood versus adulthood. For example, for me, I found the early 80s (i.e. around 40 years ago) better than say 2019 (I think we can safely ignore 2020 and 2021 in this discussion as terrible years for any generation) but this is partly because the former was in my childhood while the latter was in my middle adulthood, so in the early 80s I didn't have to worry about 'adult' concerns.

Even still, the 90s was in my adulthood and I consider the 90s much better than recent times, on more objective measures.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

The old days were better because there was Deltics at King's Cross.

 

[alex397]

I think that's more of a city problem that a modern problem. Go to most small villages, and it's like stepping back in time to those days you describe.

I’m not sure I agree. Yes it definitely is a city problem (I’ve read many times about how some feel that London can be a very lonely city), but I do think it affects society as a whole too.
I live somewhere that’s the size of a medium/large town, and have lived in a village before.
Some villages have lost all their shops, their post office and their pubs, and feel soul-less. Instead of people living and working in the village, they are now more likely to commute by car and spend the rest of their day somewhere else.

Of course, some villages certainly are an exception, especially if they have been lucky enough to retain their pub or some other kind of meeting place. I can think of quite a few examples, but there are many other examples which I feel have lost their community.

 

[Altrincham]

IMO, 2009 but opinions will differ. Don't want this to be political but the decline did, perhaps just coincidentally though, approximately co-incide with the arrival of Cameron. While some of these things went away before 2009, the early years of Cameron seems to me a pivot-point when a lot of the things of my childhood and youth finally disappeared. In particular, country pubs and sodium lights were still plentiful in the 00s.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jan 2022 ==


Strangely I used to live not far from Altrincham and as a child (this would have been late-seventies) I remember the large concentration of industry on the road from Sale to Lymm (A6144).

Much of this was still there in the early nineties (I remember walking a short way out of Sale in early 1993 and still noticing the industry); rather less, but still quite a bit in the late nineties, but in recent years, barely any. Just the pylons seem to be still standing.

In the same area I have a vague memory (much more vague than the above) of there being a lot of industry somewhere north of Stretford. Just past the M63 the A56 has an off-shoot road to the left, and I have a memory of going down this once and seeing a Kellogg's factory but also a lot of other heavy industry. Perhaps around 1977?

The road from Sale to Lymm via the A6144 runs through Carrington, which was home to a large Shell petrochemicals site, as well as a power station.

The road that diverges to the left of Stretford flats leads to Trafford Park, home to Kellogs and still some heavy industry, although the heavy industry that exists today is not as extensive as it once was.

One thing that also comes into play is childhood versus adulthood. For example, for me, I found the early 80s (i.e. around 40 years ago) better than say 2019 (I think we can safely ignore 2020 and 2021 in this discussion as terrible years for any generation) but this is partly because the former was in my childhood while the latter was in my middle adulthood, so in the early 80s I didn't have to worry about 'adult' concerns.

Even still, the 90s was in my adulthood and I consider the 90s much better than recent times, on more objective measures.

I agree. The 1990s formed a considerable part of my formative years of adulthood. Although most of that decade I spent with struggles on low pay, life in general was much better with less of the worries that exist today.

 

[Typhoon]

Im a ‘millennial’ so I don’t know much about the ‘old days’. But I do think there was more of a community in the past, which I think is really lacking in our society.

One of the reasons why there are lots of contributors to the thread is that my 'old days' (50s and 60s) are going to be different from other peoples 'old days' (80s and 90s say which I regard as being a few years ago - when I started to lose interest in music).

Some villages have lost all their shops, their post office and their pubs, and feel soul-less. Instead of people living and working in the village, they are now more likely to commute by car and spend the rest of their day somewhere else.

Of course, some villages certainly are an exception, especially if they have been lucky enough to retain their pub or some other kind of meeting place. I can think of quite a few examples, but there are many other examples which I feel have lost their community.

Worse still, some now have their fair share of second (or third) homes so you don't even see the residents at the weekend.

 

[PeterC]

There are two factors that meant that there was a greater "sense of community" in the past

1. Large local employers so many colleagues lived close to each other

2. Far more stay at home mothers who would would socialise during the day.

 

[birchesgreen]

There are two factors that meant that there was a greater "sense of community" in the past

1. Large local employers so many colleagues lived close to each other

2. Far more stay at home mothers who would would socialise during the day.

Families would live closer to each other too, siblings (with their families) in the same street or within walking distance. Now people tend to live much further apart.

 

[MattRat]

2. Far more stay at home mothers who would would socialise during the day.

Well, it's not really their fault that they have to work, as you now need two wages just to scrape by, and even then it might not be enough. What happened to a decent living wage?