Interesting site

[Deleted User]

Memories and swimming in nostalgia are for people who cannot move with the times. Some of us have very active, independent minds, constantly thinking of new challenges. We have no time to dwell on the past because life today is far too exciting.

If something is wrong with society then help do something about it. Moaning is self-destructive

margaretclare

I couldn't agree more, Kittie. FWIW, no one except TrevorEd has even mentioned the idea of political correctness. There may be a lot wrong with today's world but then I don't think the 1950s were such a 'golden age' either. It depends, now as then, where you lived and what your personal circumstances were.

Like Kittie, I am too busy living in the present to worry overmuch about looking back.

We've been busy this week having our roof replaced. Not that we've actually had to do it, but we've had to be here when the tiles were delivered...And I'm still saving for the future, just got my stakeholder transferred into a SIPP and have been switching some of the funds from where they were placed initially. We certainly don't lock ourselves in at night for fear of going out - perish the thought! And finally, we're still only newlyweds really - were married in 2002.

Margaret Clare

Dora_the_Explorer_5

What an interesting thread. Generally humans of all ages are interested in what life was life 20 or 50 or 200 years ago, and not because they're 'living in the past'. The past is part of everyone's present and has made them what they are. It can be interesting to others too - I often make those a lot younger than me laugh when I curse Hitler for bombing me.

I lived in a very small village in Cumbria a while ago which had a village fete every year. In the evening each year the children from 0 to teenage demanded to be shown the cine and video films taken in previous years. They were interested and entertained by them and loved to see the way that things, they themselves and other people changed over the years. and their commentary on the films was perceptive, profound and ribald.

I checked out the sites in the OPs and had a good laugh, which was the posters intention. We perhaps need to remember whether we look back at the past or not we are all the product of our genes and experiences.

Trevor - you're a very bad lad :rotfl:

margaretclare

Dora_the_Explorer wrote:

What an interesting thread. Generally humans of all ages are interested in what life was life 20 or 50 or 200 years ago, and not because they're 'living in the past'. The past is part of everyone's present and has made them what they are. It can be interesting to others too - I often make those a lot younger than me laugh when I curse Hitler for bombing me.

Yes, I agree that the past should be remembered - there's a quotation to the effect that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it, or words to that effect. However, that's different from that rosy glow of 'down memory lane', and I pointed out that some of those illustrations were advertising images and shouldn't be taken as historical fact. It's like those old western films - I really can't believe that the real women portrayed had laundry facilities, hairdressers and make-up artists, not to speak of a full orchestra! as they were crossing the Great Plains in wagon-trains, which is what Hollywood of the time would have had us believe.

I mentioned this thread to my DH as we sat over a leisurely breakfast this morning. We chat about all sorts, as I said! He reminded me that we know a man for whom the past is NOT something to be recalled with any degree of pleasure. In fact, this man would love to forget the past rather than to remember it, but he is haunted by it, and this continues to affect him to this day. I thought I grew up in dire poverty, and I did, but nothing at all to compare with what that man grew up in.

Of course there are people who're no longer with us, who I wish were still around. I wish that my DH could have the pleasure of meeting the family I grew up in - they liked people who were straight and to the point, and they'd have taken him to their hearts immediately. There was no anti-semitism with them and they'd have loved him. Again, anti-semitism is something he says was 'all around' in the years he was growing up, just as I remember being discriminated against for being illegitimate. And he tells me he would never have allowed my aunt - a polio survivor - to go on living out her life just sitting on the floor because she couldn't walk. And my mother scrubbing floors for a living because there were no benefits of any kind. What I would like is to be able to go back and thank them - thank them from the bottom of my heart, for all that they did for me and the opportunities I had that they never had, that their hard work and self-sacrifice made possible.

No, not such a rosy glow!

Margaret Clare

Dora_the_Explorer_5

The way we live - now and then - is relative, not subjective. My great-gran didn't have to cope with anything more techical than a mangle. Do I live a better, happier, fuller, more contented life surrounded by vast amounts of technical gimcrackery than she did? Not necessarily.
Of course people put a positive spin on many memories - I wouldn't be supporting Queens Park Rangers if I didn't.

home_alone

My comments on "the past" is what I see and feel is happening to me and perhaps others as we get older, although there have been moments that I would rather forget generally to reminisce over the past is a favourite pastime of mine. The dementia diseases suffered by many of our age group is even more devastating by not only taking away your ability to communicate with those around you it robs you of those memories, very sad.
The guy or lady that said "live every moment as though it was your last" was right on the ball.
I have just been told that those dishes will not do themselves, somethings never change do they.

gary

Edinburghlass_2

Everything that happened yesterday is but a mere memory today

Thank you for the websites, I enjoyed looking through them and my daughter thought them hysterical

Dora_the_Explorer_5

home_alone wrote:

The dementia diseases suffered by many of our age group is even more devastating by not only taking away your ability to communicate with those around you it robs you of those memories, very sad.
gary

Happily, usually that's not the case. Even those with quite advanced dementia can retain old memories, it's short term memory that's affected - no memory of what they had for lunch 2 minutes earlier.
People unable to remember quite who they are and where they are and unable to initiate conversation, are oftn able to remember and talk about what things were like when they first started work, for instance, if someone is prepared to ask them. It also gives them an opportunity to use their sense of humour which can be quite lively and ribald at times.

Bogof_Babe

Well I've just whiled away the best part of an hour being fascinated with that site, and I've only seen a fraction of it. Check out the recipes, for one thing - amazing. And the family budgets. Really reminded me of growing up in the 50's (I was born in 1952).

I even took a magnifying glass to the picture of mother and two little girls "fire watching", as those two children looked just like me and my sister in photos we have of that time.

I enjoy reminiscing, it's harmless fun. It makes me appreciate the progress we have made. Wouldn't like to be struggling with those washing machines with a built-in mangle now, although they were all the new thing at the time.

It's little wonder that many women felt they didn't have time to go to work once children had arrived. My mum gave up with her firstborn (me) and they only lived in a two-roomed flat - she reckoned she didn't have enough time to keep it clean! :rotfl:

MrT_5

What the hell did I start? It was a light hearted look at life in the fifties as far as I was concerned. I'm close to 56 years of age now and remember a lot of stuff from those websites. (Probably a relative youngster compared to some on here but I won't lie!). I don't remember saying it was all hunky dorey in the fifties by any means. In fact my life was bloody awful as were many other peoples. Family of nine, shared beds, fleas, cold, damp, outside toilets, no bath. You know the story. Please don't give me sob stories about how hard life was, I lived it. On the bright side, the Labour government had not long before founded the health service which saved my life twice in the early fifties blah blah blah.

We all have problems throughout life and our kids will as well but lets put this into perspective, it wasn't meant to be a definitive history of the fifties but a bit of nostalgia which a lot of people such as myself like. Why do people think modern museums are so popular? I'm sorry that some people have really bad problems at the moment but becoming the Victor/Victoria Meldrew of the forum will not make it better. Life is S**t and then you die.

I have no wish to offend anyone but if it is taken that way then I am sorry. I stand by anything I say though!