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We have a must have consummer society who must have at any cost. The lack of respect and helping each other has not quite dissapeared, but we are getting there. Fear of speaking our minds without being harrased by certain action groups. The governments policies of the late 1970`s and 80`s which decimated of local communities, by closing down industries....
12:24 Sat 25th Jan 2014
Television and technology would probably be quite high on the list.
And there are areas which were for the poorest, most deprived, roughest, people, which are now occupied by the prosperous, with houses fetching £1 million and more. What conclusions are we to draw from that? Clerkenwell, for example, was so rough in the last century that my old landlady, born there, was forbidden by her parents to go down some streets. Not so now!
//who is responsible for the vast change that we now see today compared to the Britain of the 50s? //
Can I suggest that WE are? We live in a democracy; if we can't be bothered to read manifestos and can't be bothered to vote, do we deserve what comes to us?
On the other side of that coin, bhg481, there are the politicians who amend or abandon manifesto commitments as the wind changes.
What os responsible for the changes since the 1950s?

One thing might be the passing of 60 years. Just a thought ...
Which is why we don't bother to vote.
Might I suggest that , in those days, the newspapers aimed at the middle classes did not bother with articles about the poor and deprived, and the television, such as it was and unavailable to most people, certainly didn't. These people were always with us, as were 'the criminal classes' but their existence was ignored by the type of people who would read such newspapers today.

Kitchen sink drama was a great shock when it arrived, and Cathy Come Home was a sensation in its shocking portrayal. Now such programmes would hardly be thought so, another indicator of how times have changed.
Agree with fred and Zaks (great articles Zaks!).

Nothing has changed at all, in fact from the dawn of civilisation there's always been lower classes with even lower morals and scruples, yet it's only now in our 'wonderful' media age that everyone else get's to peer, point and sneer at them kinda like a constant freak show.
Fred.....good points about the poor and deprived, but in the 60's, that was exactly what you may have been....poor and deprived........no benefits so you just got on with it. If there was a story, believe me, the papers would report upon it, but being "poor and deprived" was just not a story......not worth reporting upon.
The development of the Welfare State and the increasing strength of the Unions soon changed that....better pay, benefits and better health.

There was however a price to pay.......peoples expectations were raised and who was to pay for these increased and expensive benefits.

Have we demanded too much of the State....can it come up with the goods?
Why not try to turn the clock back even further, to the time of Edwardian Britain, when the poverty was even more shocking and was equally either ignored or unknown until people like Joseph Rowntree shone a light on it, or further still. Why are the fifties held up as such a time of perfection by some? Because they were simply not quite as bad as the thirties and the war-torn forties?
God forbid that people's expectations should be raised :-)
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ichkeria

/// Why are the fifties held up as such a time of perfection by some? Because they were simply not quite as bad as the thirties and the war-torn forties? ///

They are not being held up as perfection, but the people had gone through 6 long years of shortages, and deprivation with families who's 'breadwinners' had been absent some never to return, and yet things then were much better organised and people stuck to a much better disciplined moral code, and children were much better disciplined and polite.

But the reason why the 50s are being mentioned here is because of the comparison shown in a certain area, yes people then were much worse off but one never saw men sitting on door steps drinking beer, and even in the most deprived areas people took care of their appearance, view the football crowds of those days to today's, and everyone dressed for church on a Sunday even if it meant getting one's suit out of the pawnshop only to be returned back on the Monday.
-- answer removed --
Best answer!
I've never heard so much tosh in my life.
"Since then people have known little else other than the dole etc.And the drugs and alcohol spare some of them the misery they have been inflicted with"
Drugs and alcohol spare people misery? What planet are you on?
Zac, I also find Steve's memories amzing , but they are his experiences and AOG doesn't give Best answers easily.

Perhaps Steve was not about in the 50's and 60's when the strikes of the Miners, Railwaymen,Seaman and "dustbin men" continually brought the country to a standstill. This got worse in the 70's and 80's to a period of which Steve was alluding.

Something had to be done to reduce the power of the Unions to hold the country to ransom.

Drugs and Alcohol spare them misery eh! and fags and betting....where do they get the money?

I am afraid that there is no more money on the UK credit card, in fact the limit has been exceeded and now it is payback time............but which Government?
Thanks Sqad. I didn't know where to start but that's as good a place as any.
I think the worst thing to affect this country since the 1950's is drugs.
Steve

\\\So I would argue that the changing face of Britain has changed from Hope and Glory, to despair and even more discord. \\\

I like that sentence.........but then again, I am an old "wrinkly" whose memories are distorted, so some would say.

We were poor, we had our standards, we knew that if we worked hard we could "better ourselves,we had Grammar Schools for ALL, we had incentives, but most of all we didn't feel underprivileged.

Discipline was maintained by corporal punishment....this has now gone...presumably hand in hand with discipline.

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