Was our country ever content?

ses6jwg

amcluesent wrote: »

Of course it was, before Labour let immigrants flood in, deliberately creating divisive rifts in society they could exploit for electoral gains.

You only have to see newsreels of the 1950's to see a happy, integrated society of families before the sky-rocketing tax burden to featherbed seekers, scroungers and public sector numpties meant that both partners have to work. Also, no one knew or cared about Muslims droning on and on about their 'rights' and the faux 'laws' of their prophet, or risked being blown apart by the residents of Luton.

I believe those were known as "propaganda"

I'm sure if you saw "newsreels" of families running around on beaches or parks in the summer you'd see little difference apart from a few people with different colour skin and different clothes.

Generali

I'm 38 and for as long as I can remember everone's been moaning about the country 'going to the dogs'.

'This country's been stuffed since we lost the empire'. 'Funny how we won the war but the Germans and Japs won the peace'. 'Moral breakdown due to [divorce/single mums/immigrants/catholics*]'. 'Should have gone in with the Russians after the war**'. Those were the politics I heard people talking about as a kid around the place, that was sort of the middle Britain, Radio 5 phone-in politics of the 1970s and early 80s.

It is worth remembering that (according to QI???) Aristotle wrote complaining about his students, especially that they didn't have the proper respect for their elders and they showed a lack of moral fibre. Pretty much what 'old people' (me included) castigate the young for today.





*delete according to prejudice(s)
** From a communist photographer down the road and a couple of members of my family. All nice people if utterly deluded.

lostinrates

ukcarper wrote: »

They were good in some ways but would you like to go back to no hot running water, no central heating, going outside to go to toilet on a cold winters night not to mention no TV, no Telephone, No washing machine should I go on.

Apart from a washing machine I wouln't mind any of the above too much most of the time.

ukcarper

lostinrates wrote: »

Apart from a washing machine I wouln't mind any of the above too much most of the time.

To be honest at the time the only one I really didnt like was the outside toilet mind you I was a teenager so didnt have to do the washing

Davesnave

ukcarper wrote: »

They were good in some ways but would you like to go back to no hot running water, no central heating, going outside to go to toilet on a cold winters night not to mention no TV, no Telephone, No washing machine should I go on.

Oh dear, you did have it rough! Yes, I'd suffer all that for nights at the Marquee Club and The Who playing 2 hours for 25p....:D

chucky

Davesnave wrote: »

Oh dear, you did have it rough! Yes, I'd suffer all that for nights at the Marquee Club and The Who playing 2 hours for 25p....:D

i went there a few months ago - it's a characterless pub now.
it's a weatherspoons or something that's very boring - it would be more fun in Foyles next door!!!

Davesnave

chucky wrote: »

i went there a few months ago - it's a characterless pub now.
it's a weatherspoons or something that's very boring - it would be more fun in Foyles next door!!!

Members of bands often drank in the bar there in those days. I distinctly remember a chap from a well known heavy band of the time asking for milk!:cool:

bitemebankers

lostinrates wrote: »

Apart from a washing machine I wouln't mind any of the above too much most of the time.

Well, quite. People go on about mod cons like life would grind to a halt without them, and failing to realise that what's FAR more important is not spending your entire life at work, and living in community where people know who their neighbours are and aren't constantly playing a childish game of oneupmanship.

If this country has gone to the dogs (and I'm far from convinced that it has), we only have ourselves to blame.

ukcarper

Davesnave wrote: »

Oh dear, you did have it rough! Yes, I'd suffer all that for nights at the Marquee Club and The Who playing 2 hours for 25p....:D

What about going to your local odeon and seeing four groups for not much more or catching one of the stax tours

Masomnia

amcluesent wrote: »

Of course it was, before Labour let immigrants flood in, deliberately creating divisive rifts in society they could exploit for electoral gains.

You only have to see newsreels of the 1950's to see a happy, integrated society of families before the sky-rocketing tax burden to featherbed seekers, scroungers and public sector numpties meant that both partners have to work. Also, no one knew or cared about Muslims droning on and on about their 'rights' and the faux 'laws' of their prophet, or risked being blown apart by the residents of Luton.

People in the fifties were only 'happy' because they were happy simply to be alive after 6 years of terrible suffering. Deaths of fathers, brothers, uncles, sons; the threat of being bombed as a civilian if you lived in a town, children off evacuated (often abused), rationing, starvation... After all that is it any wonder that people see the '50s as a golden age?

In any case, there was the threat of nuclear war, the threat of Marxism was a strong as since the Russian revolution, I believe the divorce rate actually rose through the period so your idea that everyone was in happy families is false. If you're into economics then you've got a national debt of 250% of GDP to worry about, and especially if you don't like socialism then you've got the newly created NHS to whinge on.

No, there has never been a time when we've been 'content' as a nation.