Words of wisdom from Bill Bryson

Oh yes Bill is full of wisdom. My DH has read most, if not all of his books. I have read many.

Bill Bryson is very good. I've enjoyed all his books and he can be absolutely hilarious but also very accurate as in the paragraph you shared.

It's all a bit depressing when you look at it the way he has but he is right

I do like Bill Bryson and must re-read his books.

However, his views of the 1950s are those of an American child/teenager, for most people in what was still post-war Britain, consumerism was yet to arrive.

He's writing about his personal experience which was, of course, American. Fair enough.

Yes, growing up in 1960s Britain it always seemed that the USA was another world - enormous cars, amazing toys, all sorts of household gadgets that we could only dream of. As Callistemom says, we were still very much recovering from the war.

Yes it is an American experience; but I think this analysis of the financial developments of the 20th century are pertinent here.

….^by the end of the 1950s most middle class people had everything they ever dreamed of so there was nothing much more to do with their wealth than to buy more and bigger versions of things they did not truly require^....

That was most definitely not true of the end of the 1950s that I remember in Britain.

Whilst I have often had the same thought, Bryson’s vision of the 1950s doesn’t reflect the childhood I had in that decade. Both my parents worked but we didn’t have much materially. It would have driven my mum round the twist to not go out to work. There are many benefits of paid employment. Happily, now I’m retired, I can’t think of any!

My mother worked too, as far back as I can remember, partly to help family finances and also because she enjoyed it.

America was a different country and we didn't import their materialism until some years after that.

"You've never had it so good" said Macmillan
"Huh!!" said my father

Not true of 1950s Britain, but then he wasn’t talking about the U.K.
Though TBH I’m not sure that materialism is a relatively new thing here. More a case of most people not being able to afford much, and most of what we consider to be consumer/household goods being relatively a lot more expensive decades ago (made in the U.K. rather than China) and in any case considerably fewer being available to buy.

How many people would not have wanted e.g. a fridge or an automatic washing machine, once they were reasonably affordable and no longer just something for the very well off?
Or (perhaps a decade or two earlier) a vacuum cleaner, or a ‘wireless’?

I was getting along reasonably well with it (although It didn't reflect my childhood, but general points that consumerism in itself doesn't bring happiness)

until he associates women going out to work with it all,

"so there was nothing much more to do with their wealth than to buy more and bigger versions of things they did not truly require … having more things of course also meant having more complexity in one’s life … women increasingly went out to work to keep the whole enterprise float"

Women are "othered" yet again to a male world view. My mum went out to work because teaching was in her blood and it certainly never occurred it was "pin money" for consumer goods.

Callistemon21

I do like Bill Bryson and must re-read his books.

However, his views of the 1950s are those of an American child/teenager, for most people in what was still post-war Britain, consumerism was yet to arrive.

Just what I was thinking reading that.
Even in the States there was tons of poverty, it wasn’t all about what the middle classes had or wanted.
Bill Bryson isn’t a guru, just writes amusing looks at life usually.
Also as pointed out by Wyllow3 women wanted more than housework and baking and coffee mornings in their lives.

My poor Mum had to do hard, dangerous, low paid work in the pottery industry in the 50s-as did our Dad! I recall the “infamous” quote too that we’d never had it so good! Certainly, as usual then as now, it was true for the better off only. My childhood in the 50s was in poverty living in a 2 up 2 down slum til I was 16 when we were moved to a council house-all very well but the rent rocketed from 8/- (40p) to £12 AND we then needed bus fares too!
However we were well fed especially at school, no food banks, we felt safe and loved.

Although his views don’t reflect lives in Britain at the time of 50’s /60’s I think he is quite right to say people work hard to keep it all afloat. Think of todays young families and the pressures on them to have it all which means putting the little ones in daycare for babies, childminders etc. I think he does have a point actually.

women increasingly went out to work to keep the whole enterprise float. Soon millions of people were caught in a spiral in which they worked harder and harder to buy labour-saving devices that they wouldn’t have needed if they had not been working so hard in the first place.

Tosh.

Women went out/back to work because many of them actually enjoyed their jobs and responsibility during the war years, plus the independence and satisfaction, not to mention the money, they earned. Plus the chance to use their brains and education.
And as for buying labour saving devices, who wouldn't prefer to have a fridge rather than a meat safe and a cold slab in the pantry, a twin tub rather than a washing machine dragged across the yard and an antiquated mangle, a dishwasher rather than washing every pot and pan by hand. Time saved, and freedom from spending the day as a skivvy.
All the above applied to my mother; she said there were far too many people who seemed to think a woman was born with a dish mop in one hand and a dustpan in the other.

From what I can see his net worth is estimated as £10 million.

Galaxy

From what I can see his net worth is estimated as £10 million.

So presumably he has all the material goods he desires!

Oh dear, Bill, you've just annoyed half of your readers 😀

Women went out/back to work because many of them actually enjoyed their jobs and responsibility during the war years, plus the independence and satisfaction, not to mention the money, they earned. Plus the chance to use their brains and education

Hear hear, and to Wyllow

My MIL went to work because she had been widowed - twice.
Once during the war, she then remarried but was widowed again a few years later.
She never did have a washing machine.

Wyllow3

I was getting along reasonably well with it (although It didn't reflect my childhood, but general points that consumerism in itself doesn't bring happiness)

until he associates women going out to work with it all,

"so there was nothing much more to do with their wealth than to buy more and bigger versions of things they did not truly require … having more things of course also meant having more complexity in one’s life … women increasingly went out to work to keep the whole enterprise float"

Women are "othered" yet again to a male world view. My mum went out to work because teaching was in her blood and it certainly never occurred it was "pin money" for consumer goods.

Thank you! The othering of women was the first thing that hit me too, I just wasn't brave enough to say so: partly because I don't fit into the "married women Having to work" scenario - as a permanent (but hey, who knows about the future?) spinster, not working was not an option.

He hasn’t annoyed me* - good luck to him - I still have fond memories of my long-gone mother literally crying with laughter at the first few pages of Notes From A Small Island, and well before that I thoroughly enjoyed Mother Tongue - the first book of his I ever read.

Since then I’d say the same for A Short History Of Nearly Everything - even including the graphic section on dust mites, which had me frantically washing pillows and vacuuming mattresses as soon as we were home from the holiday where I’d been reading it. (Not recommended for anyone squeamish!).

*I dare say that was tongue in cheek, though, Callistemon!

Bill Bryson’ s At Home is probably my favourite book of his but I do love all of them. I’ve always found that whatever happens in America we follow a few years later: the latest example being obesity. I’ll always remember a young American staying with us and telling us how much debt he was in from having to pay for his education: I was horrified at the time but it’s now accepted here that young people that want to go to university will be saddled with a huge debt. Health is going the same way. In a few years time some of us won’t be able to afford to be ill but it will be too late to reverse it. When we used to travel round Europe I always had a copy of his Neither Here Nor There and when then I was doing a lot of walking it was his A Walk in the Woods.

Bill Bryson Down Under had me laughing out loud.

His meal in the Outback was a classic!
Must re-read it.

I dare say that was tongue in cheek, though, Callistemon!

I think you're right, Witzend
It is a Bill Bryonism!
A wry look at the consumer society.