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Do we really need it?

Old Boy

Old Boy

master brummie
Hi All.

Myself and several other members of this forum grew up in an age when there was no television, radio (wireless) was in its infancy, telephones were only found in the houses of the well off as were vacuum cleaner, fridges, freezers etc. Horsedrawn carts were still in much evidence and most funerals were by horsedrawn coaches Streets were still lit by gas lamps and electricity had not yet reached most working class houses. Only the toffs went to university and holidays abroad were not even dreamt of by the working class. Yet, by and large, we were happy providing we had our health.

People were not afraid to go out at night and children played out in the sreets and fields without their parents being afraid that they would not come home. You could go to a football match without being surrounded by yobs singing obscene songs about what to do on the Villa.

Things are now much easier but, are we any happier? If you had to forgo any of the modern luxuries which would you choose? I would do away with the mobile telephone. Everywhere you go someone is walking along with the phone stuck to their ear. Is it so important that it cannot wait until you get home? Before you ask - Yes I do have a mobile phone but keep it for emergencies only.

Thanks for putting up with my rant.

Old Boy
 
I fear many have an over rosy view of how life used to be. My mother saw not one but two (maybe more) siblings die with one only a few weeks old. Cause of death cited as starvation (the baby died in my mothers arms and her no more than a kid herself) - their father had all but deserted them to take a job in London but popped back now and again to Erdington leaving my grandmother pregnant again.

I am quite happy with today thank you.
 
Hi Old Boy

I like you grow up in an age where, if you had a toy or games they where made for you, not from a shop, skipping rope was always the old washing line, fishing nets Mom old stockings or a hanky one holding each end, jack stones any stone of equal size most of the things we played with where make do, if you wanted money you either run errands for the better off, took bottles back for the penny, we used to chop wood and sell the bundles

A day out was a trip to Swanhurst or Trittiford, with piece of jam and a bottle of swash, you walk there and back, some of the kids would have a bike, but not any of us

I feel so sorry for the kids today they miss out on so much

We never had a lot but, what we did have we valued not like today, kids have that much nothing has any value

Jackie
 
Hi Jackie what were you doing coming up our end. The first house I lived in was right opposite Swanshurst then the family moved close to Trittiford Park.
 
Old Boy, I started a thread about this very subject a few months ago and no one agreed with me. When I had an old car I could quite easily drive to the seaside for the day. Now I have a new one I can sit in traffic jams all day. We used wait with excitement for Dick Barton to come on the radio. A day up The Lickeys was a great day out. There is no doubt that Medicare and comunication are better but as for being happier, I really do not think so. When was the last time you saw or heard a group of school kids laughing while having fun? Adults no longer seem happy or contented. All this is not natural progresion, it has not just happened It has been allowed to happen and with all the taxes paid in this country since WW2, along with all the corperate tax, council tax, VAT and any other tax they have hit us with, England should be able to afford the very best of everything.
I agree with you all the way.
 
Jackie,
i agree with you i think that not only kids but some grown ups have no values people seem to have to much money you see half bottles of pop and food just thrown away what a wast.
 
When I was young there was never any food wasted, you could not afford to waste, old bread was made into bread Pudding, any left over meat of chicken was made into a stew or minced for a meat and tatta pie

The first new dress I ever had was when I started work, all my dresses where either handed down or cut down to fit

I used to go to the shop for sprout top for the rabbit, we didn't have a rabbit they was for our dinner

I feel very proud because when my youngest Granddaughter come down to see us the first words out of her mouth are, Nan have you done any Chicken Stew, when she stops she would have it for breakfast dinner and tea if you let her

Jackie
 
Stitcher said:
Old Boy, I started a thread about this very subject a few months ago and no one agreed with me. When I had an old car I could quite easily drive to the seaside for the day.
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You clearly never tried to drive around the Nth Circular of an Easter weekend then as my Father did many times and we saw car after car stuck on the kerbside with steam coming out to he radiator. The village I now live in used to be choked by traffic ever Sunday with traffic on its way to or from Stratford upon Avon and I counted ever lamppost (well it seemed like it) as we crawled through Bromsgrove (and almost every other darned town) on the way to Weston.

Folk seem to have selective memories of what it used to be like.

I for one wish for no turning back of the clock.
 
The only thing i think i couldn't cope without is my Landline, i have a mobile but never use it, i keep it for if i'm out and there's an emergency and someone needs to contact me, I have a radio alarm to listen to music, no stereo, no Video, No DVD player and I hardly watch my little portable TV. The only reason i have a PC is because the kids needed it to do work for school. I've never been materialistic, so i can cope without modern day gadgets, I see them as status symbols, not for me really. You see a TV on the Adverts and people rush out to buy it, then the bloke next door gets the newer bigger model of it and you have to too! Ridiculous, I don't care about keeping up the Jones's :)
 
I remember trying to get home from work on the 66 bus to Erdington in the 60's. It was one long traffic jam and took hours to get home.
 
claire-brum71 said:
The only thing i think i couldn't cope without is my Landline, i have a mobile but never use it, i keep it for if i'm out and there's an emergency and someone needs to contact me, I have a radio alarm to listen to music, no stereo, no Video, No DVD player and I hardly watch my little portable TV. The only reason i have a PC is because the kids needed it to do work for school. I've never been materialistic, so i can cope without modern day gadgets, I see them as status symbols, not for me really. You see a TV on the Adverts and people rush out to buy it, then the bloke next door gets the newer bigger model of it and you have to too! Ridiculous, I don't care about keeping up the Jones's :)
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I'm with you Claire, too much of everything these day's, and are people any happier NOOO. I think mobiles phones other than for emergencies are pointless. Whatever do people find to talk about on them in the streets? As far as people driving with one stuck to their ear...well words fail me.
 
Hi Maggs, it it all appearances these days, I see my sons friends with a new mobile, few weeks later there's a new one out and they are moaning there's is no good after the parents have spent £200!!! My mobile was about 8 years old when it broke down, I was given one by my cousin and all my friends joked welcome to the millenium because it had a camera on it! lol I don't care, to me if it works and does what you need it to, that's all that matters.

It is amazing how many still drive on the phone, i think most people with mobiles just like you to hear there business, they aren't exactly dicreet are they, and you are right, most people today are miserable, why because they are working to get the newest latest Model of whatever they brought last month, and Mrs Jones next door has just had a newer and better car lol
 
I think we are going back further than the sixties here Froth. For all the modern things in the world today we should be thankful. The truth is this country owes the World Bank more money now than we owed at the end of WW2. The prisons are overcrowded. Schools are underperforming and cant cope with unruly children. Hospitals are dangerous places and G.P. Surgeries are no go areas. Britain has lost thousands of skilled people like policemen and nurses to other countries and we are accepting gypsies from E.Europe and gangsters form African states. We have unknown numbers of Islamic fundamentalists. We have virtually no community spirit and large areas of this city where it is safer to keep away from. A complete list of all the serious problems would be too large but please tell me why I should be happy, a colour telly or a mobile phone?? Designer clothes or cars made in other countries??
 
Nobody can tell anyone else why they should be happy - All I can say is why I am! As for GP surgeries we have no complaints and have not had in the 30 years in this area. The same went for when I lived in Warwick or before that at The Maypole or as a Kid in Billesley - sorry Stitcher I do not recognise much of what you complain of.

Don't recognise much of what is said about Kids either from what I see of my own grandchildren and their friends they get into similar troubles as I recall reading about in the '60's. As I said we tend (all of us) to have selective memory).

I am ducking out now as you are venturing into territory that looks as if it veers towards areas that I find offensive.
 
I agree with everything you said Stitch, but I enjoy my PC, CD's DVD's, flat screen TV, Sky, my car, etc etc.
 
Frothy, thats how I look at it, but thats when we are inside the house. Outside there is no comunity spirit and if you die in the street, the chances are that someone will go through your pockets befor an ambulance arrives.
Bernie, G.P. are in the at present because of lack of out of hours cover. My doctors surgery is a training oone with newly qualified doctors. There are also four partners who are senior doctors but you can never see them. I have been treated for shingles and never had them. I was sent to Selly Oak on blue lights because of a mis-diagnosis. A few years ago a doctor told me my leg was alright and that night I was taken into hospital for almost three weeks and almost lost my leg. My wife was seen by seven doctors, and three visits to Selly Oak A&E. over two years. I took her to a medical centre one night, they examined her and told me take her to the QE. She was in for three weeks and they removed her gall bladder after they had put the damage right that the bile had caused. The group meetings I attend show that this sort of thing is widespread. I stand by what I said previously. We should have better after all the money that has been paid in in sixty years.
 
I have read through this thread with great interest and there is good and bad to be said about when we were growing up and today. Like Bernie said there were many sibling deaths and mom said many's a time they went to bed hungry but I think as a child it is easy to remember the good times and the bad ones fade to the back of your mind.. I also have never felt the nead to keep up with the Jones's and neither did my parents. I do feel advertising is wherever you go on the back of buses, tele, newspapers to make you think you have to have the gadget or whatever then there are those directly pointing to children who are put under peer pressure and parents feel their children must have the in clothes etc. We never had a car a tele or a phone but I wouldn't want to be without any now we have had them. The old saying is what you never had you never miss. I was lucky and never went without as a child but my parents found it harder especially mom as her dad died from consumption or TB. There wasn't a cure in those days and nan had to bring her children up on her own. We do have the NHS today which is one of the good things I would not wish to be without. Bye. Jean.
 
my mom also lost her beautiful baby boy at just 4 mths to whooping cough. all they used to do for him at the hospital was open the window for air, that was it.

i had a wonderful childhood with my mom and dad and siblings but i was also bullied mercilessly at school because i wore hand-me-downs. some of the teachers were very harsh and nothing could be done about it then.

when people write "children could play out and nothing ever happened" i do squirm a lot. i was abused as a small child by a stranger, and once when i asked other mothers at the school where i took my children, nearly ALL of them admitted that they had had similar abuse but never told anyone, as i hadnt.

lots of wonderful things from the past, but some awful ones too!!
 
Old Boy,

Of course you are right in so many ways but I think that people of all (past) ages have at one time asked the same question. I'll bet the people of say Egypt asked if all those stone carvings and hieroglyphics were really necessary; or when the first telephones came into use; or the first cars ETC. When new things come about there will always be people that say "what is that good for, we've always managed before without them". I for one wouldn't like to relive my life I'm happy with the one I've had.

Graham.
 
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True Graham and lets not forget that London once had a major problem with horse dung building up in the streets as I believe did Ancient Rome.
 
Oh well Bernie you know the old saying When in Rome do as the Romans do and long live the horse [dung an all]. Jean.
 
one of my businesses was and still is a restaurant when we were running it the phone would be ringing all the time to make a booking when we steped back from that and rented it out we didn't want our phone to ring again and that still stands except for friends and relatives and the same with mail the least the better, with the mobile phone unless you are in business it is mosty toilet talk a lode of crap.
 
Hello Graham, I too am happy with the life I have enjoyed but will a child born today be able to say the same thing in sixty years time. Thousands of children are excluded from school each year because of sex and violence offences against staff and other pupils. Some of these pupils are aged five. Many many children are unhappy and they will become unhappy adults. My dads generation cared about what sort of world they were leaving for us. I think we should care more about what we are leaving for our great grandchildren. Most people no longer know their neighbours. What was wrong in my childhood was shortage of money and food. What is wrong nowadays is lack of morals, principals, respect, integrity and a total lack of values. Even this government is attempting to repair the broken society.
 
What is wrong nowadays is lack of morals, principals, respect, integrity and a total lack of values. Even this government is attempting to repair the broken society.
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That about sums it up for me. The first thing that should be done to get our society back on an even keel is to remove, once and for all, the utterly-pointless evil that is Political Correctness.

Big Gee
 
Stitcher said:
Hello Graham, I too am happy with the life I have enjoyed but will a child born today be able to say the same thing in sixty years time. Thousands of children are excluded from school each year because of sex and violence offences against staff and other pupils. Some of these pupils are aged five. Many many children are unhappy and they will become unhappy adults. My dads generation cared about what sort of world they were leaving for us. I think we should care more about what we are leaving for our great grandchildren. Most people no longer know their neighbours. What was wrong in my childhood was shortage of money and food. What is wrong nowadays is lack of morals, principals, respect, integrity and a total lack of values. Even this government is attempting to repair the broken society.
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Trev, I understand everything you are saying but in the 50's I was abused both mentally and sexually and survived one serious murder attempt by young street slobs. Bullies bound and gagged me, stuffed me into the back of a dumped van and set it alight. But they didn't know that I had a very powerful guardian angel and I came out of it without a scratch. Our house was robbed most weeks and all my hard earned cycling gear was nicked out of the garden. There were no morals or values in my youth either.
 
I have had a mobile 'phone for the last eleven years or so. During that time I have only truly needed to use it on four occasions; two were successful and, two unsuccessful - no signal and, low battery charge! They are a great back-up, but not to be relied upon. It wouldn't seriously worry me if they all disappeared tomorrow! However, my 17 year old daughter would have to go into seriously heavy therapy!

I grew-up in the 1950's and regard that time as being near idyllic. Like most folk, we had no money to speak off; we had no electricity until the second half of the decade; although we did have a car. However, life was lived at a pedestrian pace and that suited me just fine, it still does! Yes, I really couldn't do without an electric oven or central heating; I've gone soft, I admit it.

Having spent my childhood and schooldays in the Black Country, I've lived in a remote corner of Northumberland, more or less, since 1974.....and throughout I have tried to live at the same pace as my early days; and, even up here in the wilderness, it is impossible! We are no longer equipped for the simple life, its support structures have gone....these days you would have to work really hard to live simply, which rather goes against the whole idea anyway!

I look at it this way, if some bloke had been transported through time from 1066 to our house in the mid-1950's, he would have still recognised much as being familiar (admittedly, ours WAS a rather primitive existence!); whereas, the difference from the mid-50's to the present day are gob-smackingly spectacular! But, would I be a child of to day? No bloody fear!
 
A few weeks ago I asked my grandson "son, can you imagine how in my youth we managed to survive without a mobile?" he said "no granddad I can't believe that".
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Big Gee said:
That about sums it up for me. The first thing that should be done to get our society back on an even keel is to remove, once and for all, the utterly-pointless evil that is Political Correctness.

Big Gee
Click to expand...

Yes I agree, this hit's the nail completely on the head. Well done!
 
All these modern trappings can take over our lives, but only if we let them.
I don't have a mobile phone because we don't have a signal.
I enjoy a bit of tele, but only in the evening when I've made the most of my days.
I could never let a gorgeous day like today go to waste, and I've packed so much in.
I'm also fortunate enough to live in a beautiful tiny Cornish village, and there's so many lovely places nearby to walk the dog.

My Grand-children also live in the same village, and enjoy a childhood very similar to my own. Playing in vast open spaces, pottering about on the river, crabbing off the quay, and my Daughter refuses to give in and buy the games consoles, Wii's e.t.c.

I've also got neighbours like Claire , but they're Londoners, and I've found out they enjoy their big cars, gadgets, and work saving devices, and won't walk anywhere if they can help it, but I just let them get on with it. It's their loss, and their health as far as I'm concerned.
 
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