Coronavirus : A trip back to better days?

[RapidRainbow]

It's been a shock how overnight we lost access to 24/7 shops, fast fashion & cheap goods (online shopping excluded!!)

The beach in my hometown was packed today and we're not a big tourist destination compared to other seaside areas. Walking routes are much busier and I can't wait until next week to take a ride on a rowing boat in our local park.

Aside from how easy online shopping is, we've now been catapulted back to the fifties, where families went for walks and rowed boats to pass the time. They took picnics because there wasn't a Greggs!

Our seaside town was a holiday destination in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

When you take away cinemas, bowling, family restaurants, foreign holidays etc. we are actually having the opportunity to relive those simpler times, but with the upgrades of phones, zoom, online shopping and netflix.

Just musing how we feel like we've lost something about our culture, but actually those dreamy 50s and 60s idyllic ideas of life such as Heartbeat, Darling Buds of May and even GrantChester that we watched nostalgically have been given back to us again.

Not to undermine the difficulties of this lockdown of course

[Ted27]

When and where did you grow up?
I grew up in the late 60s 70s in a city, it didn't bear much resemblance to the Darling Buds of May.
Those programmes present a very romanticized and inaccurate view of post war Britain.

[picklemewalnuts]

Sadly (i want to agree with you), there's also horrendous littering, huge queues for Macdonald's, and people still shopping like there's no tomorrow.

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

Yeah, it's really great, especially the way it's brought back the higher domestic violence rates of those times. It's lovely to be back to a time where women are really disadvantaged in the workplace. What I like the most, though, is the way that although life expectancy hasn't actually reduced to 1950s levels, we have recaptured that warm, rosy feeling of people in their 50s and 60s having a greatly heightened concern about their imminent possible death.

[RapidRainbow]

I didn't grow up back in those days, but enjoy the idyllic ideals we see in TV shows! I do think people have learned to enjoy the simple things again and that can't be a bad thing!

Litter is a huge problem here when the crowds leave, so yes not quite as idyllic as one would like!

It does feel nostalgic though to discuss how for my birthday we will go for a champagne afternoon tea picnic somewhere remote instead of a restaurant and plan our days around walking and outdoor activities such as the rowing boat we would normally just tag onto other days out! We will walk to our park to go on the boats and make a day of it. We used to drive there and spend an hour before rushing off to the next thing.

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

You could have gone for a champagne picnic for your birthday at any time, you didn't need to wait for the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

[RapidRainbow]

@LisaSimpsonsbff you're one of those 'White Lives Matter too' kind of people aren't you?! Just because I'm discussing a positive does not mean I'm happy about the negative. What are you trying to achieve?

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

What a bizarre comparison; critical thinking isn't your strong point, is it? I just think it's incredibly tasteless - and, ironically given that you've just accused me of being a racist, very privileged and tone-deaf - to start a thread about how a global pandemic has let you live some 1950s fantasy, especially when you're just listing things that have always been within your control.

[Summers33]

I agree OP. With the negatives come positives and there are plenty of things to feel positive about.

[RapidRainbow]

Celebrating positives isn't mutually exclusive from being aware and upset about the negatives.

[GoldenOmber]

Just musing how we feel like we've lost something about our culture, but actually those dreamy 50s and 60s idyllic ideas of life such as Heartbeat, Darling Buds of May and even GrantChester that we watched nostalgically have been given back to us again.

If the ‘we’ and ‘us’ here is you and your family, fair enough, glad you’re enjoying yourselves.

If the ‘we’ and ‘us’ means the whole country, then... it really doesn’t feel very idyllic and dreamy and Darling Buds of May for many of us.

[Newjez]

[quote RapidRainbow]@LisaSimpsonsbff you're one of those 'White Lives Matter too' kind of people aren't you?! Just because I'm discussing a positive does not mean I'm happy about the negative. What are you trying to achieve?[/quote]
We're loving playing board games with the kids.

But I guess we could have done that before the pandemic. But that is not the point is it. It has changed the way we think about our lives and what is important.

Some just want to get back to where they were before. But I'm hoping for a better life after the pandemic.

[Bellebelle]

Sure, for those of us who have be lucky enough to come through this unaffected by the virus there have been lots of positives but there have also been thousands of tragedies happening unseen around us.

Being overly nostalgic about the past can be a dangerous thing and a perception of ‘better times’ in the past false. Ideas of us getting back to some airbrushed idea of how things once were is what lead us down the road to Brexit and look at the US where they seem to permanently have a desire to get back to their golden age of the 50s and ‘making America great again.’

[shinynewapple2020]

I kind of get what you mean OP , I don't know about 50's / 60's but I have been saying that any holiday we have this year will be more like those of my 1970's childhood where self catering means just that. We normally eat out a lot but will be taking picnics and a takeout fish and chips will be a treat

[ohthegoats]

I'm bored titless.

[frozendaisy]

We want to go on a plane to Latin America, as and when,.learning online Spanish (well trying), and long haul is no the playground of the rich. So no to 1950s as there is a whole wide world to visit that may or may not have rowing boats, bet they are rowing boats with parrots and dolphins if they do.

[Waxonwaxoff0]

Nah. I don't want a "simpler time" thanks very much. I don't think it's a good thing.

[Catastrofuck]

Those “better days” you describe never existed. I’m pleased you’re having such a lovely time but my mental health has completely gone down the pan with a baby born in lockdown. Maybe I’ll try and focus on the positive that my struggles are allowing others to have champagne picnics they previously didn’t have the imagination to enjoy

[picklemewalnuts]

Those people who are finding positives in this situation are not making other people's lives worse.

It's pretty unkind to peck at OP because you are finding it hard.

A lot of families have found their children more accepting of a slower pace of life- they no nowhere is open so aren't nagging for legoland, kfc etc.

I'm sure a lot of people will have found a bit of unexpected joy in a board game, a picnic, reading a book or looking at mini beasts in the garden.

That doesn't mean someone else somewhere has to pay for it in blood sweat and tears. OP being miserable will not save a single job or life or marriage.

Joy sponges.

[Waxonwaxoff0]

pickle there's nothing wrong with finding the positives in the situation. I'm just sick of hearing how much better it is to live a simple life and how we should be appreciating a slower pace of life and stop the consumerism. I find it patronising.

I found joy in the small things before, I don't need a pandemic to do that. Plus I was able to do all the other things I enjoyed too and not have to worry that I might lose my job soon.

[Hedgehog44]

@RapidRainbow I hear you, we've been fortunate and had a lovely lockdown and enjoyed much simpler pleasures

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

I don't have any problem with people counting their blessings or trying to find positives. I haven't and wouldn't comment on the many threads where people are explicitly saying that this is a terrible situation but they have found some positives. I just think the tone of this OP, with its references to some mystical made-up 1950s and the incredibly dismissive throwaway line of 'Not to undermine the difficulties of this lockdown of course' was really off, and quite distasteful. There are appropriate and intelligent ways to discuss what aspects of life under lockdown people would want to continue going forward; this isn't it.

[Catastrofuck]

It’s the “we” I object to. I am sure the OP will clarify that she is referring only to her immediate family, but the idea that we collectively lost something wonderful, and have regained it through lockdown, is false.

[Catastrofuck]

It’s also pretty unkind to call those who find this sort of OP, which comes across exactly as lisasimpsonsbff describes, as “joy sponges”. But those of us who have experienced difficulties have been called far worse on here during lockdown.

[picklemewalnuts]

Catastro, I wouldn't go on a thread of people sharing their distress about all the things we've lost and proclaim joy sponges.

A lot of my friends are heavily involved in performing arts- musicians, theatres and concert halls are in a terrible position. I'm not going to pop up saying 'ah yes, but the board games!'.

OP wants to celebrate certain elements of the current situation, despite the overall crappy ness of it all. Poster after poster is telling her she's wrong.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

I don’t see how anyone can look at Heartbeat and Darling Buds Of May, which are all about community, and see any resemblance to our current hell of lonely isolated children and working days spent on Zoom.

I have enjoyed the board games and the lack of traffic on the roads but this is so not the 1950s.