We didn't do the Green thing.

[Joonsy]

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

[FONT=&amp]the current generation seem to need a bigger dustbin than we used in the sixties. dustbins have ''grown'' in size, the picture below shows the ''metal dustbin'' we used back then on the left, the wheelie bin on the right is what is supplied to many today[/FONT].

 

[sandbender]

[FONT=&amp]the current generation seem to need a bigger dustbin than we used in the sixties. dustbins have ''grown'' in size, the picture below shows the ''metal dustbin'' we used back then on the left, the wheelie bin on the right is what is supplied to many today[/FONT].

True but your bin was emptied more frequently.

Blimey you were posh. We used yoghurt pots.

Yoghurt pots! You were lucky, we used to dream of empty yoghurt pots when I was a lad.

 

[Joonsy]

True but your bin was emptied more frequently.

once every week here (though i have so little rubbish i only put mine out about once a month) back in the day though smaller they were often heavier, being metal people sometimes put ash in them as coal fires were common.

 

[British Red]

I still do put ash in my bin if we use anthracite since it is toxic to plant life. Wood ash, which is most of it, goes into the beds of course.

 

[pysen78]

I've read similar texts like this a few times in the past. They're obviously untrue as a real anecdote but more of a smart-alecy answer to a fictional accusation.
To me they sound a bit like baby boomers trying to lay the blame for the wasteful ways of today on someone else but their own generation.
Hardly constructive but if we're playing the 'blame the generation game' it's hardly fair to blame the 20 somethings of today for the way things are.
One time use items and built in end-of-life along with zoning laws that favour car commuting etc is a product of what people born in the 1940s worked for.
The way more sustainable way of life during the war and up until the 50s was something the generations born around 1910 can take credit for if you ask me.

 

[andybysea]

Dont get me started on bin men!They used to come into your back garden take away the full bags sat next to the bin, empty the bin and leave fresh bags, now if your wheelie bin sit just one inch inside the front of your property its left! I have to take my wheelie down 6 steeps my wife cant do it. After my brain surgery i could'nt either for a short time called the council.. Outcome being we had to build a platform at our expense on our front garden from were my wife could put it on the street...nice. Rik think you will find headlice,poor diet, and bad teeth still alive and kicking

 

[KayakFisherFinland]

Plastic bags were in use in the UK in the sixties just how old is the woman in the story? TVs were quite a decent size too. The tiny green screens were early fifties.

Well, if I compare to my folks, dad was born in 1924 anf mum -39, my youngest brother was born in the 60's. But suppose you mean 50 is old OLD?

 

[petrochemicals]

Can't leave this one without pointing out that the immediate post-war generation were healthier and taller etc. This would not have been the case if food was in very short supply. Rations were adequate and healthy.

Well people where less fussy, everything used to e eaten. My dad was forced to live off the cheap food, momkfish, hallibut cod haddock, veal, crab and maybe beef on a sunday. There where no mechanically recovered chicken meat burgers for him (eels pigs feet, offal too).

 

[Tengu]

I am just old enough to remember detergent rivers and the South Wales pits.

I miss those days

 

[santaman2000]

My arithmetic may not be great but 25 inches is more than 14 inches.

Exactly. 14 inch was never considered a big screen, 19 inch was the standard and anything less was considered a portable. 25 inch or thereabouts came into popularity in the mid 60s and remained so until the "big" screens (usually projection screens) came out in the late 70s/early 80s. They never were especially popular though until the conventional rear projection could be flattened enough to make anything bigger than 48 inch convenient and affordable in the late 90s; and TBH, they were still too expensive for most people even then (until the technology caught up in the mid 2000s)

 

[santaman2000]

I've read similar texts like this a few times in the past. They're obviously untrue as a real anecdote but more of a smart-alecy answer to a fictional accusation.
To me they sound a bit like baby boomers trying to lay the blame for the wasteful ways of today on someone else but their own generation.
Hardly constructive but if we're playing the 'blame the generation game' it's hardly fair to blame the 20 somethings of today for the way things are.
One time use items and built in end-of-life along with zoning laws that favour car commuting etc is a product of what people born in the 1940s worked for.
The way more sustainable way of life during the war and up until the 50s was something the generations born around 1910 can take credit for if you ask me.

Yep, the depression era generation was indeed the greatest generation.

 

[boatman]

To me they sound a bit like baby boomers trying to lay the blame for the wasteful ways of today on someone else but their own generation.
.

I wondered when the baby boomer card would be played. Puzzles me that the whingeing children and grandchildren of baby Boomers don't accept that they also had the benefits of growing consumerism, also went on the holidays, travelled by cars etc. And, jolly nice too.

 

[mountainm]

I wondered when the baby boomer card would be played. Puzzles me that the whingeing children and grandchildren of baby Boomers don't accept that they also had the benefits of growing consumerism, also went on the holidays, travelled by cars etc. And, jolly nice too.

My parents generation had free education, free healthcare, final salary pensions, low housing costs and now a government that is soooo afraid of upsetting the grey vote that pensioners are about the only people who have been safeguarded throughout the financial crisis.

Not whinging it's just fact. As a general trend we're the first generation who won't be better off or as well off as our parents.

 

[bushwacker bob]

My parents generation had free education, free healthcare, final salary pensions, low housing costs and now a government that is soooo afraid of upsetting the grey vote that pensioners are about the only people who have been safeguarded throughout the financial crisis.

Not whinging it's just fact. As a general trend we're the first generation who won't be better off or as well off as our parents.

But your parents only knew people they spoke to. Now its possible for anyone to have more than 150 friends and you don't even have to meet them.

 

[boatman]

Low housing costs! When we wanted to buy a house in the early seventies the M4's completion meant a rapid rise in house prices through Berkshire and Wiltshire. Of course when we moved in about the only one we could just about manage to afford it was with loaned furniture. Our only domestic appliances were , cooker, spin dryer and a hand operated carpet sweeper.

 

[demographic]

[FONT=&amp]the current generation seem to need a bigger dustbin than we used in the sixties. dustbins have ''grown'' in size, the picture below shows the ''metal dustbin'' we used back then on the left, the wheelie bin on the right is what is supplied to many today[/FONT].

Yeah but most people had an open fire...Plus the bins were emptied (only ever full of ash and things you couldn't burn) every week.

Nostalgia's not as good as it used to be...

 

[demographic]

My parents generation had free education, free healthcare, final salary pensions, low housing costs and now a government that is soooo afraid of upsetting the grey vote that pensioners are about the only people who have been safeguarded throughout the financial crisis.

Not whinging it's just fact. As a general trend we're the first generation who won't be better off or as well off as our parents.

Partly the reason we are suffering now.

 

[sandbender]

Politics! I know its tempting but lets all take a breath and try not to stray too far in that direction.

 

[boatman]

Probably straying into politics but the ending of final pension salary schemes was a policy decision not one dictated by economics. Made worse by government allowed pension holidays by employers. Presumably you noticed the propaganda campaign against public servant's pensions as part of it, "gold-plated", "why should public servants retire at 60 rather than the old age pension age of 65?" and all the rest of it.

 

[cranmere]

The era was certainly good for a specific set of people. On the other hand we female boomers suffered severe gender discrimination. When I started work it was still legal to exclude women from jobs purely on the grounds of gender, and to pay us dramatically less than men for doing the same jobs. We couldn't take out loans or mortgages without a male guarantor. Universities regularly required higher grades from girls than from boys for admittance and we couldn't access most apprenticeships.

I certainly sympathise with young people now because house prices in particular are making it hugely difficult and that is made worse by the huge debts that many have to take out for their education, but the boomer generation didn't all have it as easy as is sometimes made out.