A broken country?

Marydoll I would be a hypocrite if I claimed to have "working class roots" in the usual sense of the concept. I'm not proud nor am I ashamed of not feeling rooted in the working class. Personally, I think it's a silly idea anyway, because the vast majority of people work.

Post-war "relying on the state" meant using the NHS, state schools and the benefit system because they were new. And, yes, I agree that the state does far more than provide healthcare, education and welfare.

trisher Don't shoot the messenger! What I was doing was describing the prejudices my parents (particularly my mother) had - and there were plenty of other people like them. (Maybe it gives a clue as to why I never had a wonderful relationship with my parents.)

I guess I was a child of the sixties and was very much a rebel against the sexism and racism of the time (neither of which was exclusive to any political party). I sometimes read about the nostalgia for the fifties and sixties and I end up scratching my head (metaphorically) because the lives I read about had very little to do with mine.

BTW I was brought up in a town which was heavily bombed, but the post-war building boom of the fifties meant that there was an increasing number of houses for sale.

I actually thought the statement was a bit silly. Not everybody who lived in a council house voted Labour, were members of a union, relied on the state, etc, etc. Incidentally, what exactly does "rely on the state" mean - surely everyone - apart from the super rich -relies on the state to some degree? Even the super rich benefit from our road and transport system, our emergency services and so on (and sometimes pay very little towards it). Apart from coming across as snobbish, it is also far too general a statement.

My dad went to public school and worked in an office, and my parents bought their own house. But my dad was a committed socialist. My mum came from a less educated background but was more drawn to Conservative ideology, like her dad who, despite his fairly lowly job in a shop, admired and identified with the values of what he called "the gentry". Many of my friends lived in council houses, my best friend being one of them. Her dad was a bus inspector. Her parents both voted Conservative. I can think of many similar examples, including our next door neighbour who had a (well paid) job on the factory floor at Fords and was in a union, but who had very different political opinions from my dad.

Post war, if you lived in a city that had been badly damaged by the Luftwaffe homes of any sort were like hens teeth.

So a council property was essential to millions of families.

I am surprised at the ignorance shown on this thread.

Or maybe not.

snobbery? here?

I too am astonished at the snobbery of some posters and even more astonished that the seem to be proud of their opinion.
I'm another one of those people whose parents relied on the state, lived in a council house, were in a union, voted Labour, etc
DH and I are proud of our roots and always reinforced those working class values is our children.
My father was a chronic invalid and my mother had a full time job nursing him, so the state had to subsidise us, through no fault of our own. .
I got my self a job at 14, worked in a bar at 18 to get myself through university to make a better life for myself.
The day DH and I got married, I had 2p in my purse and a 15% mortgage.

I'm speechless at some of the comments on here.

Council housing is not subsidised ,if managed correctly it should pay its way and give the council collateral for borrowing

I grew up in a council house,as did many in the West of Scotland in the post war years .My dad went into the navy at 17 ,he'd worked in a grocers since he was 13 when his mum died and his stepdad sent him to live with a neighbour.Council housing has never been looked down on here the way it is in some parts of England ,I left my council house when I got married ...to live in another council house.We were very fortunate to get a brand new 3 bedroom house on a new estate or scheme as we call them .It had rates ,heating and a garage all included in the rent .
If we hadn't got that house we'd have had to save for ever to get a deposit on a flat .As it was having a decent home meant we could channel money towards opening our business which we did when I was 22. We only moved because we wanted our daughter to go to the school local to our office,to make life a bit simpler as I dont drive.We bought our first flat when mortgage rates were 16and a half %.I have never been ashamed of my roots .The clear snobbery on here is astonishing .No one should have to tie a mortgage round their neck if they dont want to,housing should be available for folk who prefer to rent
.

growstuff
people who relied on the state, lived in a council house, were in a union, voted Labour, etc
That's my family! The state paid our family allowance, gave me a clothes allowance when I went to secondary school and paid for education and health care. I lived in a council house until I was 13 and my dad was a signed up union member. BUT we were also fiercely ambitious. Both of my parents left school at 13, my dad did a book keeping course when he left the army and worked as an accounts clerk. My mum worked at several jobs stepping up to something better each time. They eventually opened their own business and made sure both myself and my brother were educated and had professions. But they never lost sight of their origins and remained union and Labour people all of their lives.
It's a question of caring about other people and not writing off people who are born into poorer circumstances or need state help something you seem happy to do.

a bunch of middle class wealthy layabouts with nothing else to do but cause trouble whilst the rest of us had real troubles by then

What does a middle class layabout look like? Do you have any facts to back up your assertion?

Hetty58 good post ??

I think that in the 1950’s there was an idea of ‘going forward’ and becoming a more modern country and recovering from the dreary after war days.Obviously though, coming from different backgrounds we all remember different things.

Internment camps for those opposing the government being given consideration

Jo Maugham QC
@JolyonMaugham
·
4h
Looks like Government may well be considering "administrative detention" after No Deal. Distinctly worrying for those who have the temerity to oppose Government policy.
Quote Tweet

Tom Wills
@TomWills
·
Britain's Home Office neither confirms nor denies it has identified sites to use as internment camps in the event of a no-deal Brexit, saying it needs a "safe space to develop ideas".

It was during the Thatcher era that the Royal Statistical Society criticised the government for the first time in its hundred and fifty year history because of the government's numerous redefinitions of unemployment

Older people tend to view the days of their youth as happy and carefree times.

For most, although not all, children our younger years are free of adult responsibility so to that extent they are "carefree". Happy is something only each person can judge; some people are not inclined to be happy some inclined to be so in the most difficult circumstances.

Did you really live in blissful ignorance as you grew into your teens, Hetty58? I don't think I did. I certainly remember long political discussions with my father - about Kenedy and the Bay of Pigs and Kenedy's death. Then discussions about why people were shooting at my friends and dropping the odd bomb. I had long discussions about the war in Vietnam and our own politics with friends and amenable adults when I came back to England. I think parts of my generation was very aware of what the world could do just as parts of that same generation make themselves knowledgeable now. I don't think it's an age thing.

That was the early Thatcher Year’s.

Unemployment rose to 3 million.

You can always rely on the Tories to hit the working classes one way or the other

I remember Greenham Common - 1981. I also remember thinking that the women were mostly a bunch of middle class wealthy layabouts with nothing else to do but cause trouble whilst the rest of us had real troubles by then. Any young person coming into the workplace around that time found themselves unemployed or on a YTS ( or YOP is predecessor). No real jobs.

Your father would despise Johnson and his followers then grow stuff

I am 3 years younger than grandad.

I was never frightened of communists, or bombs, (tbh it sounds like your parents may have been guilty of hyperbole) but very aware of the Cuban crises.

As far as I am aware the biggest issue of 50&60s was Vietnam.

The thaw didn’t really happen with the USSR until the 1980s.

Remember Greenham Common?

We had rigid class distinction until the sixties. My mother was a cleaning lady and when she proudly told her employer that my sister had passed the scholarship for the High School she was told those schools weren't meant for working class children!! Said sister ended up Headmistress of a large school.

The 1960's swept all that nonsense away in a decade.

Older people tend to view the days of their youth as happy and carefree times. It's just an illusion, though. There were never 'common goals' and the divide was just as great. The only difference is that now we are more exposed to (and aware of) situations due to the media and internet availability. We lived in blissful ignorance before!

Grandad You are 12 years older than I am and I certainly remember being frightened of a nuclear war. When that had fizzled out a bit after the 1970s thawing in relations with Russia, I was scared of IRA bombs.

Maizie I grew up in a not unusual Conservative family. By the standards of any Labour supporter, I have no doubt it would have been considered right-wing, but to my parents and I guess most of the other people who lived in the same area, it was the norm. My parents weren't racist, sexist or homophobic, which many people in the country were. They just lived in a different world from people who relied on the state, lived in a council house, were in a union, voted Labour, etc. My father had been a WW2 bomber pilot and was fiercely patriotic, but despised populist nationalism. They were amongst the many who embraced Thatcherism because they thought left-wing ideas had gone too far. I started to rebel when I was in my late teens.

We didn't have social media, so people couldn't hurl insults at each other anonymously, but I really don't agree with the idea that the country had common goals.

Born in 1943 I can remember such things as food and clothing rationing following the Second World War and vaguely the worst days of the cold war during the Berlin airlift.

However, the only time I felt we were really going to be caught up in a nuclear war was during the thirteen days of the Cuba crisis in 1962. There was a very large reserve army depot on the Gloucester Road in Bristol and as I travelled up that road on my motorbike going to work on the second Monday of that crisis, all the armoured personnel carriers, trucks and even some tanks were parked out on the road with the army reservists everywhere.

I really did feel that "this is going to be it."

Can't say I was scared of 'commie' attack, more of the US & the USSR unleashing a futile nuclear Armageddon on the world

I cannot honestly say any of those things scared me. I do recall though in 1971 being taken by my school to a local
" conference" of school children to hear all about the forthcoming " Nuclear Armageddon" . I also remember thinking it was a load of rot and scaremongering, not dissimilar to that of Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion these days.

I think most of the people I went to school with thought the same. The only ones I recall crying in the isles were the "poor little posh kids" as we tended to call them .

I think had a false sense of class consciousness back then because I went to school with a large number of working class children from local council estates. Such places were where the respectable working class grew up in the 1960's. In fact I came from a "Private house" and my dad was a HEO in the Civil Service but I had little understanding of that at the time.

I never did figure out why we were taken to that conference.

It is interesting to reflect on how we experienced life when we grew up and compare with others. We may well live in the same country but we are worlds apart. I guess that was always the case.