Those were the Days! I copied this from a recent Probus mag. ( author unknown) So very true.

I agree Kate1949 and I expect it was a shock for nanna8 to receive some of the responses to her light hearted message, which seemed harmless enough and much of it I remember well.

For me it is rear view mirror. If I had known then what I know now, I would have acted differently to the people who put me down for being too thin, not sporty, bad at Maths and all the other rubbish you are told. Looking back it was other people's opinion's that affected my life. In one way I am glad women now stand up to abuse and report it and also glad that so many strides have been made in modern healthcare with cancer, dementia etc and also a focus on mental health. In the old days that was your lot and you put up and shut up with so much going under the radar and your luck being that you came from a strong and supportive family or your misfortune that your family was splintered. My greatest fear though nowadays is that Great Britain has become too tolerant and in some ways slapdash to the extent that I can see many threads in the country unravelling unless some of the old ways are restored i.e. respect, responsibility, co-operation, In no way should we return to the old days but life is always a combination of the good of the old and the innovation of the new. Let's hope this country finds the right balance before it is too late.

Rose coloured specs seem to be the in-thing with so many posts similar to the one that started thsi thread on places like facebook, etc.

Maw summed it up as to what total nonsense they usually all are.

Parsley3

^Quote from OP^
My mum used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and^spread butter,
lard, dripping etc., or bread on the same cutting board with
the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get
food poisoning.

I bet you did, author, and running to the outside toilet with your square of newspaper must have taught you something about food hygiene.

We only had chicken occasionally, at Christmas or other celebrations, because it was an expensive meal unless you raised them yourself, so my mother never cut one up, it was always roasted whole with all the trimmings.

I don't remember ever having food poisoning. There was no fridge, so food hygeine was up to the cook. Food in the larder was always covered, and fresh meat cooked soon after it was bought. Cooked meat was covered, or wrapped in greaseproof or the waxed paper that had been round the bread, and leftovers were eaten cold or minced for rissoles or cottage pie next day.

Milk was delivered from a churn on a horse-drawn van, from a farm. It was scooped out with a dipper, into a jug left outside the front door, with a cloth draped over it. Once it was brought in. the jug stood in a bowl of cold water, and a damp cloth hung over it, dipping into the water. The butter joined the milk in a hot summer.

The larder was on the north side of the house for coolness, so was the kitchen.

The coming of refrigerators meant that people didn't need to take these precautions, so they have gradually been forgotten. They weren't the "good old days" when no-one got ill, they were the days when prudent housewives took care of their families by following the old rules. The families of the ones who didn't know or care about hygeine were the ones who got the food poisoning (often just known as "bilious attacks")

Maybe those who remember the chicken cutting followed by butter-spreading were the ones with cast-iron stomachs. More likely, the mass production of chickens in crowded factories to provide cheap meals has also increased the amount of stomach bugs in the ubiquitous chicken portions that fill supermarket shelves?

Well said, Maw.. At the age of six, I was carted off by ambulance with pneumonia. No penicillin, no parental visits, red hot poultices on my chest. Three weeks later, I emerged three weeks later, still alive, but not allowed out to play in the snow, dosed on Virol which I'm sure made me fat!
A year later, the NHS was founded.

Never heard of Prozac but maybe they take it wherever the writer came from . I assume it is a tranquilliser. It was in a mag from a bush group that is fairly remote .Doubt they would get much in the way of medical help there, I don’t know.

Prozac is antidepressant. It isn’t a tranquilliser.
Antidepressants don’t ‘get you out of it’.
Prozac is one type of a group of antidepressants that increase serotonin production

I know that many GNetters take antidepressants, including me and MrC.
Me for Generalised Anxiety Disorder, him for PTSD

Mawthemerrier your post just reminded me of having scarlet fever at the age of 3 or 4 and being upset when my favourite book (a story about 3 rabbits) had to be burned. I was so upset.

Thanks Fanny. I looked it up and it is called fluoxetine here. I wondered about saluting the flag,too because as far as I know they didn’t do that here, more America. They must have ‘pinched ‘ it . Still think it is funny,though.

Siope

Also loathe this kind of sentimental ‘oh, the good old days’ revisionism.

Me too.

As for this -

We got the cane or the strap for doing something wrong at
school, they used to call it discipline... yet we all grew up to
accept the rules and to honour and respect those older than
us.

Sure - there's nothing like a good beating with a strap to instil a bit of discipline by those "older" people - who had to be respected simply because they were.

Most people, if they've been lucky, remember their childhood with fondness, whatever era they were born in. It's just nostalgia for lost youth, misinterpreted as being a better era of life.

My childhood was horrific but I can still feel nostalgia for certain things and I survived it all.

I think we are dealing with two curate’s eggs here - both times were/ are good in parts. I wonder what it will be like for future generations, I would not be surprised if they were equally critical of the past.

FannyCornforth

I know that many GNetters take antidepressants, including me and MrC.
Me for Generalised Anxiety Disorder, him for PTSD

And me! I think we can smile at some of those kind of posts, but also see them for what they are too. As for all children being educated together and learning the same - well, in those days, children with what we now call additional support needs wouldn't have been educated in an 'ordinary' school, as they'd more than likely have been shipped off to an institution to spend their lives instead. Yes, we can all look back fondly at the past with nostalgia, but let's not pretend those days were 100% 'the good old days'.

Oh I agree Blondiescot. I still suffer trauma and flashbacks from my childhood. However, things like Saturday morning pictures for sixpence and favourite sweets etc are good memories.

You can still do most of those things if you want to, however, most people choose not to.

Siope

Also loathe this kind of sentimental ‘oh, the good old days’ revisionism.

Me too

I remember being in bed in a dark room for what seemed like weeks when I had measles . I wasn’t allowed to read in case my eyesight was damaged . I was allowed the radio and listening to MrsDale’s diary . No vaccines then and I caught the lot -certainly wouldn’t want to be in those days again.

Nostalgia is about the good things you remember.
There certainly were bad aspects of the past, though as children, we mostly only knew about them if they affected us or our friends.
We weren’t constantly bombarded with words and images of the horrors happening in the world as we are now.
Unlike today, the games we played, kept us fit and were mostly free. I never worried that I couldn’t afford to play hopscotch, or marbles, or tag, or skipping or juggle 2 balls against the wall, though we couldn’t afford the diabolo I coveted.
Now the world is not a safe to play games out in the road or go off for long days in the park or the fields. Many pastimes are sedentary and cost a lot of money.
I wouldn’t want to go back, but if I was as poor now as I was back then, I’d be more aware of how deprived I was

Did your mums suffer in silence and unacknowledged when they went through 'the change' as the menopause was then mentioned, in hushed tones if at all? Our generation and the next one have much to be grateful for.

I'd never heard of the menopause until I was heading towards it. My mum would never have complained about it as it was the least of her worries.

annodomini

Did your mums suffer in silence and unacknowledged when they went through 'the change' as the menopause was then mentioned, in hushed tones if at all? Our generation and the next one have much to be grateful for.

And my generation of women (born in the 70’s) and generations to come, have plenty to be grateful and thankful for, regarding what older generations of women achieved.

It's all a bit:

"I walked across 3 lanes of traffick with a blindfold on and I was fine!"

Not everyone was fine.

Why do people equate "the good old days" with a good beating and being locked out of the house all day?

I thought it was crap personally

My children are way happier than I ever was and aren't up to all the awful shenanigans children were up to shut out and bored when I was growing up.

Redhead56

Very apt indeed the bath time memories are so vivid four of us at once and yes only once a week!

You were lucky you had a bath 😄 we had to go to the public ones. We didn’t have a bathroom until I was 15.

Indeed VioletSky. I was terrified every day of my childhood. At school and at home. As I said though, I remember good friends, games, favourite sweets etc.