I know a lot of elderly have a habit of saying. It is not as good old days. What do people mean when they say this. Is it that the old days were better than today or is it that there was less technology so it did not take over peoples lives
Why do some people say that it was not like that in the Good Old Days
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Its not just the old people...
wagon wheels were bigger in the good old days.
You could see your doctor when you wanted provided you paid him 6d a week (pre nhs)
Its basically the effort required to do something, 1940 fancy grabbing a duck for the pot and all you do is head to the lake with your shotgun and bag a bird or two but today you need to have multiple safes get your entire life examined and spend probably weeks waiting for the officers to come and test the thing and even then they could just not be happy with you as a person and refuse you.
wagon wheels were bigger in the good old days.
You could see your doctor when you wanted provided you paid him 6d a week (pre nhs)
Its basically the effort required to do something, 1940 fancy grabbing a duck for the pot and all you do is head to the lake with your shotgun and bag a bird or two but today you need to have multiple safes get your entire life examined and spend probably weeks waiting for the officers to come and test the thing and even then they could just not be happy with you as a person and refuse you.
People like to live in a bubble. Keep the 'goodness' in and the 'badness' out.
Unfortunately, we can do that. Its not possible. As time goes on and we redifine whats 'good' and 'bad' some people harp on to some mythical 'golden age' that never really existed....
Unfortunately, we can do that. Its not possible. As time goes on and we redifine whats 'good' and 'bad' some people harp on to some mythical 'golden age' that never really existed....
People tend to look back at things in the past with rose tinted specs.
So teenage pregnancy never happened in the 40's (reality it did, but the pregnant teens tended to be shipped off for the duration), child murders didn't happen/paedaphiles where less common - both complete nonsense as they happened but it didn't make the news outside of the local area, or wasn't believed.
Then there are things like "this [insert item name] used to last longer when I was young", which forgets that something like a washing machine was a luxury that might have cost a couple of weeks wages for a well paid person, whilst now you can get them for less than a weeks wage (at minimum wage).
Or that whilst your car may have cost £500 that might have been a couple of months wages and yes you could fix it yourself, but you'd be far more likely to have to do structural repairs to it (as things like anti rust treatments didn't become common), or regular maintenance on the engine, and warranties on them were far shorter.
And yes, car accidents used to be cheaper to repair, but the flip side of that coin was that you were far more likely to die in one, or kill/seriously hurt someone in one because a lot of the same things that push the cost of a modern accident repair up, also work to reduce the number of serious injuries (a metal bumper is lovely and easy to repair with a hammer, but is awful for injury potential at lowish speeds)
So teenage pregnancy never happened in the 40's (reality it did, but the pregnant teens tended to be shipped off for the duration), child murders didn't happen/paedaphiles where less common - both complete nonsense as they happened but it didn't make the news outside of the local area, or wasn't believed.
Then there are things like "this [insert item name] used to last longer when I was young", which forgets that something like a washing machine was a luxury that might have cost a couple of weeks wages for a well paid person, whilst now you can get them for less than a weeks wage (at minimum wage).
Or that whilst your car may have cost £500 that might have been a couple of months wages and yes you could fix it yourself, but you'd be far more likely to have to do structural repairs to it (as things like anti rust treatments didn't become common), or regular maintenance on the engine, and warranties on them were far shorter.
And yes, car accidents used to be cheaper to repair, but the flip side of that coin was that you were far more likely to die in one, or kill/seriously hurt someone in one because a lot of the same things that push the cost of a modern accident repair up, also work to reduce the number of serious injuries (a metal bumper is lovely and easy to repair with a hammer, but is awful for injury potential at lowish speeds)
Some things were better in the 'good old days'. Some things were worse. I'm talking about the 60's when I was a lad. I recall riding my bike down to Ringway Airport (now Manchester International) with a few friends and there were very few cars on the road. It was about a 10-mile journey but we got there in about an hour.
Tuberculosis was still a major health threat though, and two of my friends had the after-effects of Polio.
Few people had fridges to keep stuff from going off, but that meant they went shopping every day, so more exercise (no car) and plenty of fresh air and sunshine and of course actually stopping and talking to people in the street. Our first fridge was a Prestcold and ran on gas.
No social media to wind people up, no mobile phones. Only two TV channels, later three. A simple life.
Tuberculosis was still a major health threat though, and two of my friends had the after-effects of Polio.
Few people had fridges to keep stuff from going off, but that meant they went shopping every day, so more exercise (no car) and plenty of fresh air and sunshine and of course actually stopping and talking to people in the street. Our first fridge was a Prestcold and ran on gas.
No social media to wind people up, no mobile phones. Only two TV channels, later three. A simple life.
Originally Posted by planets:
“I remember when all this was fields...”
“I remember when all this was fields...”
It used to be fields and idiots as far as one can see, as I recall, then they built on the fields.
Originally Posted by planets:
“I remember when all this was fields...”
“I remember when all this was fields...”
I once saw an old postcard on ebay which contained a photo of my neighbourhood that was taken approx 80 - 100 years ago, when it really was all fields. The shops of today were in it (though they were different shops back then, but the actual buildings were the same ones that are still standing today!), but instead of the houses that are behind the shops now, it was all fields. I was completely fascinated by it!
I admit I'm one who looks back to the 'good old days' with a rose-tinted fondness but that's because I spent most of them very very drunk.
Originally Posted by owen10:
“I know a lot of elderly have a habit of saying. It is not as good old days. What do people mean when they say this.”
“I know a lot of elderly have a habit of saying. It is not as good old days. What do people mean when they say this.”
I believe it means that they think something isn't as good as it was in the old days.
Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.
Originally Posted by Wee Tinkers:
“I admit I'm one who looks back to the 'good old days' with a rose-tinted fondness but that's because I spent most of them very very drunk.”
“I admit I'm one who looks back to the 'good old days' with a rose-tinted fondness but that's because I spent most of them very very drunk.”
That's what nostalgia is really, looking back and only remembering the good stuff and not the bad stuff.
Originally Posted by Happ Hazzard:
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
Was it?
I'm not sure shop keepers who had 'P**i' routinely graffitied onto their shutters would have similar views of 'cohesion'. Nor people who had to endure other form of racial hatred and race-related riots.
Originally Posted by Miss XYZ:
“I once saw an old postcard on ebay which contained a photo of my neighbourhood that was taken approx 80 - 100 years ago, when it really was all fields. The shops of today were in it (though they were different shops back then, but the actual buildings were the same ones that are still standing today!), but instead of the houses that are behind the shops now, it was all fields. I was completely fascinated by it!”
“I once saw an old postcard on ebay which contained a photo of my neighbourhood that was taken approx 80 - 100 years ago, when it really was all fields. The shops of today were in it (though they were different shops back then, but the actual buildings were the same ones that are still standing today!), but instead of the houses that are behind the shops now, it was all fields. I was completely fascinated by it!
”
I love stuff like that. I search the Internet for old photos and prints of our area to see how things have changed. And when I'm out and about I love looking up at the floors above the shop fronts as often the original windows and architecture of the original building remain.
YouTube is worth trying too in case someone has uploaded old footage of your town or somewhere you're interested in.
Back in the good olde days most of us oldies could make love for hours.
Now day's sex is like the national lottery, same old balls, no chance of a 69 and after ten seconds it all ends in a f@cking rollover.
Now day's sex is like the national lottery, same old balls, no chance of a 69 and after ten seconds it all ends in a f@cking rollover.
Originally Posted by feckit:
“Back in the good olde days most of us oldies could make love for hours.
Now day's sex is like the national lottery, same old balls, no chance of a 69 and after ten seconds it all ends in a f@cking rollover.”
“Back in the good olde days most of us oldies could make love for hours.
Now day's sex is like the national lottery, same old balls, no chance of a 69 and after ten seconds it all ends in a f@cking rollover.”
Have you tried TA-DA! afil
No, but I once walked into a pharmacy and asked
"Do you sell Viagra here?"
"Yes, sir."
I then asked, "Do you think I could get it over the counter?"
" If you took five or six pills at once you might sir."
I literally just turned over the TV to 'It was Alright in the 70's' ... the first thing I heard them say was everybody was unemployed and all we had to rely on was a sense of humour.
As I said previously, nostalgia is all about forgetting the bad and remembering the good.
As I said previously, nostalgia is all about forgetting the bad and remembering the good.
Originally Posted by Happ Hazzard:
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
yes, after world war 2, some places were a little bit like that, for about 10 years ........
Originally Posted by Happ Hazzard:
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
“Some things were better in the old days though. Life was much simpler and easier and people knew where they stood. You left school at 15 or 16, got a job locally, stayed in that job until you were 60 or 65, the council rented you a nice house at a cheap price, you got married, had kids, they went to the local school. People knew and got on with their neighbours, crime was much lower, social cohesion much higher.”
Which decade was that? I lived thorugh the unemployment of the 70's, the recession of the 80's, the drama of no jobs in the 90's, the hysteria in the naughties and the chaos of the last 16 years.
Sure housing was different in the old days, that's true - various governments has denied that we need to house people.
You say houses were at a cheap price - things are only relative to the economic climate of the current time.
ETA: Watching that 70's show right now, women not being allowed to order food or drink in a Wimpy or restaurant if alone under some prostitution act. Things were so much better back then
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