'The Good old Days...'

[Kromovaracun]

I've been tossing this around in my head for a while, and I just can't work it out.

The question is, what exact time are people referring to when they harp on about everything being better in 'the good old days'? Seeing as fair few of such folk frequent AB, I thought I'd extend the question.

Be warned, though, I am shamelessly spoilng for an argument and will pounce upon any and all responses like a frenzied rabbit...

[brionon]

Any time before you were born,mate.

[Loosehead]

I can do no better than to quote Henry Davenport from Globelink news.

"There has never been any 'good old days', every generation looks at the world of their past through rose coloured spectacles, I bet the dinosaurs went around saying: ' there was never any egg stealing in the good old Jurassic period"!

Not sure I go along with that completely but a lot of it is an illusion.

You know Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!

[China Doll]

I think they mean the days when it was considered better to sweep things under the carpet, not talk about it and just carry on as normal with regard to consequences and human casualties.

Pounce away Krom.

[MrsT]

The good old days are a very clearly specifically defined time period. 1979 - 1990. When we crushed the socilists and I gave old shredded wheat head a good hand bagging, ahh happy days.

[naomi24]

Weeellllll ...... I do seem to recall a time not so long ago when children left school with adequate standards of literacy .... when gun crime wasn't an issue .... when criminals were removed from society and given appropriate sentences, and when people were treated in clean hospitals without fear of catching appalling infections. (Runs off and hides in the cat's basket)

[Quoi]

Yesterday and a week last monday

[luna-tic]

Hello Kromo,
Years from now you could be saying, "Ah! Those were the good old days, when I could actually read what's on the screen in front of me"
:0)

[China Doll]

You know.... the music was a bit better when I was younger, there was none of this pop idol rubbish.

And Thunderbird beats WKD any day of the week... Ah, to be 15 and a grunge girl again... Sigh.

[stewey]

"The Good Old Days": I imagine every generation latches onto this part mythical and part real concept. It's something like an old photograph we come across which has become faded, blurred, and partly erased by the passage of time. A lot of the details and specifics are missing: however, our minds are able to reconstruct it to its former glory...........and we don't really care about the parts we leave out or the parts that we add on.

[Kromovaracun]

Crap. I was hoping for some flag-waving right-wing responses about how great the 40s were.

naomi: You still haven't said when. By 'not so long ago' do you mean the 90s? the 80s?

So, it seems that (except for MrsT) we're thus far pretty clear that the much-vaunted 'Good Old Days' aren't definable and are therefore pretty much an invention. Huzzah.

[JockSporran]

Well do I remember the good old Victorian times when there was no lip back from children when we sent them sweeping chimneys, when screaming babies were doped with laudanum or chloroform and everybody knew their place.

Good old music hall songs - none of this 'rap & roll' that they play on the CDgram or whatever it's called. No sex or violence in the kinematograph. Just good old fashioned soot and TB.

[Kingsway]

Funnily enough there does seem to be a recognised period for "The Good Old Days", and this was before England was industrialised when everything was based on agriculture. There are many small denomination coins dated around 1790 with a wistful legend to "The Good Old Days", some of which are in a collection here.

[Mrs. Raven]

I'm fairly young but was raised the old fashioned way. And I do remember the good old days and wished for them at times. The people had character and class and best of all good manners. The next generation to come after the one I belong in, they will all kill each other from greed, ignorance and prejudices.

[naomi24]

Krom, I can't say what the 40s were like, but I'd say the country was a better place to live before the advent of New Labour - and I was one of those who danced for joy when they won their first election!!

Simply for the few reasons I gave in my first post, The Good Old Days aren't, as you suggest, an invention.

[naomi24]

Mrs Raven I agree. Just take a look at some of the threads in Chatterbank and the way people there speak to each other.

[figure]

I echo you Mrs Raven. It's scary sometimes to think about the future generation.

[tiggerblue10]

I agree with Naomi and all of the other posts I suppose. I remember when kids were scared of their teachers and not the other way round!

Btw, wasn't there a TV programme years ago called the "The Good Old Days" which was set in a Victorian Music Hall?

[jno]

When I was at school we learnt to spell and do arithmetic in our heads. Afterwards we would walk home unchaperoned, or stop off to play with friends - our parents didn't mind as long as we were home by 5. We could play on the streets as there weren't many cars (I lived in a city).

On the other hand there was no email (we had a phone, though when we moved house we had to share a party line for a few months), no computers, and children would be hit by adults at home and school.

Diet was plain postwar stuff (plus soft drinks on occasion). Medical treatment was quick and free. Nobody was very rich or very poor. No real supermarkets, and not a very wide range of goods (as I recall there were two brands of chocolate and one of batteries). Nothing like the choice there is now.

Golden age then or now? Hard to say. Life is more convenient now. I was happier then, but I suppose most kids are happier than most adults.

[Beads]

Hello :)
My take on when people refer to the 'good old days' is that they mean you could walk down the road and smile at someone - perhaps even say hello and have a chat without fearing the person whose eyes you met were going to stab you/shoot you....kids could play out in the street together without fear of them being hurt or kidnapped or hurting one another... and so on. I think generally people perhaps feel there was more community spirit about the place. On the news you constantly have violence and fear - I'm sure there was it back in the good old days but perhaps not to the same extent or it wasn't as reported on maybe?

I'm 28, but even when I was at school you didn't have all this happy slapping!

[Pippa68]

As jno implies, the good ole days were usually when you were kids.

I know that is how I associate them..from 1972-1984..my childhood and up until I was 16. Of course my mum would probably say it was a nightmare. Strikes, power cuts, having to travel on a stinking bus, no central heating and queues (for the bathroom as well as the shops).

My kids always say I must have had a horrible childhood, yet I was never bored, despite having very little in the way of material entertainment. I had the time of my life..I feel sorry for my kids, actually.