Life was better........was it ?

[mcmanus]

Late nineties early 2000's

Music wasn't shite.
I could pull a girl under 15 stone.
I wasn't ill.
All my mates were single.
We clocked off at 3.30 in the pub by 4 and were pissed by 8.

 

[cbeck]

I think simpler is the right word as others have put it. I was born in 1941 (showing my age here!) and grew up in Withington so most of my childhood memories lie with post-war Britain. Significant things I remember: the death of King George VI, the end of rationing, and the outdoor bog. I think we pine for things to be the way they were when we were younger because we were carefree and had less responsibility. I suppose as we get older our worldly experience increases. I moved abroad when I was 20 for pastures anew, living most of my life since in New Zealand.

I find it quite interesting when I hear young people saying they'd want to live in a previous era. Forgive my condescension, but if you can live without things like your cellphone, long-distance air travel, internet, telly? (can only speak for myself here, we never had one growing up), and your modern medicine, then I wish you luck! Not trying to make the 50's and 60's sound like the middle ages, but they certainly were simpler times. I'm 73 and I absolutely love the internet, and I'd like to think I've become acquainted with using a cellphone after 7 years (was just about forced by my daughter to start using one mind, after I had a fall). My grandson started university this year. If needs any information for his essays and whatnot, all he needs to do is put in a few key-words on a website and he instantly has thousands of relevant articles at his disposal. I don't think he's had to set foot in his university library yet, it's absolutely flabbergasting.

Excuse my digressions. Would I go back to the 'old days'? Definitely not. The past I feel, is exactly that. Also, how would I have rekindled my love for City here on the other side of the world without satellite television and the internet! Certainly beats a telegram from dad in 68 saying we'd won the first division a week or so after we'd actually won it!

 

[urban genie]

No life's better now

I don't miss
freezing to death sitting of the outside lav
having a tin bath in front of the fire (though this was only in my very young years)
Airing cupboards with boilers bigger than Jan Molby
no central heating

I do miss
GM Buses Clippercards
you could play football/british bulldog in the street without it being a shortcut for every car
that there was only a couple of cars on the street, and on one side, half the street now nothing can get down because of the parked cars(not the owners fault old terraced street weren't designed for them)
Prams/buggies that folded away on buses and trains
chocolate bars were bigger
a quid would get you far
that your street would have a bornfire in the street/entry
waiting for a letter to come,it's great that you can communicate instantly nowadays but I remember writing to city players /managers as a kid for autographs/giving my tactical knowledge at 7yrs old and the excitement/anticipation waiting for a reply was magic


these are all little things though on a whole life's better as said it was just simpler then

 

[Len Rum]

Best recent periods to live in the recent past were the Twenties when people felt an enormous sense of relief and well being after WW1 and the sixties when people were full of optimism and actually believed (naively)that the world could be changed for the better.
It's nothing to do with technology and gadgets, it's all relative. In the sixties we thought we were the dogs bollox with color television and cassettes and phones at home etc.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

What we want is to have the advantages of the early decades. We used to 'play out' for the whole day when it wasn't school in the fifties, go to the park, wander around the district for hours on end, crossing the road at or nowhere near a zebra crossing! The advantages of modern technology has stolen a fair amount of time - I could be reading a book now or going out on me bike, but I'm typing this post! We never seem able to hang on to the advantages of what we had and improve them with modern scientific advances. The fifties were great, by the way!!

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Could it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line

 

[foxy]

I can't say much given I wasn't alive in the 60s or 70s but things appeared to be a lot simpler and think I'd have enjoyed myself more during these decades.

If you had a job then it would be a job for life and there was still industry. There weren't mobile phones so you could actually speak to people face to face. There was no internet therefore no faceshite so people couldn't track your every move, instead you could ask friends what they'd been up to when you met them. You could go in to a local shop and buy local goods helping local business.

Music was a lot better, it's a hell of a lot more satisfying buying a record, playing it when you get home than simply downloading it.

People had less back then but attitudes were great, people accepted it and made the most and best of what they had. Our culture now is materialistic and greedy, if you can't afford it then just get a credit card and look where that got the country in 2008.