To cringe at the phrase "England isn't England anymore"

[Sounddofsilence]

Said by a friend.

Another one sounded off about Easter Eggs now being called Chocolate Eggs so not to offend people because it was on the news!

Argh!

Don't tell me that people have morals like they did in the past.

What, the sort of morals that allowed the likes of Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris etc to get away with what they did? I should bloody well hope people don't have morals like that anymore!

If dinner money went missing no one left until it was found, all possessions were searched. It was always returned or found

I remember that. It only happened once because my mother steamed up the school and made it very clear that I was not to be involved in class punishments, or my belongings searched, unless it was clear that I was the culprit, and then she expected to be called in to be there before any interview or personal searches went on.

That was the 70s and a small but welcome sign of change. I miss my mum. She liked living in England but she also liked some of the changes.

Some things have changed for the better, some for the worst.

Well, I think England is certainly different, even from the 80s and 90s. But that doesn't make it 'not England' , it makes it 'modern England'. Countries change through history all the time, surely; we can't just expect things to stay the same.

In my opinion, it's neither a good nor a bad thing because some things are better, some are worse and some are subjective or dependent on who you are.

Better example -
Better equality for women in the workplace and, for the majority, at home.

Worse example -
Health and Safety insanity and lack of freedom for our children.

Subjective example -
I live in a home counties village and work in a fairly 'posh' prep school. In the 10ish years I've been there the school has gone from 3-5% BME to 15-20%BME (though a smattering of those are actually international students, not BME individuals). It's also gone from around 5% SEND to, again, around 15-20% SEND. Personally, I think this is a positive thing. But there have a (very) small number of people who say that this is not the school culture they chose and have voted with their feet.

I'm only 36 and I think I've noticed an "Americanisation" of England in those short years.

Big fuss at Halloween "Trick or Treating", Big fuss at Easter, "happy holidays"
Starbucks on every corner, Walmart taking over ASDA, Amazon becomming a massive entity. Now we have "High Schools" instead of the secondaries that i remember. Kids now even go to "Proms" and not the school discos of old.
Then there's the over saturation of US TV shows on the TV.

Does that make sense? It may be all in my mind.

Thing is, England has always been a melting pot of cultures, even the language is full of other languages. Vikings, Romans, French etc have all been here and have all left their mark. So really the very fact that England is changing with the times is a clear sign that England is still as "England" as it ever has been.

OP: there's positives to people coming out with that kind of daft comment - you can assume you'll have little in common, and are probably not worth spending your time conversing with.

People need to move with the times.A bit of "oh, things ain't how they used to be" is to be expected amonst the elderly, but is pretty sad amongst younger people.

"What, the sort of morals that allowed the likes of Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris etc to get away with what they did? I should bloody well hope people don't have morals like that anymore!"

Rochdale?

How fucking dare you show a scene from the holocaust as an example of how a school class would have to show their belongings. How fucking dare you.

Report it then

You don't see anything wrong in it? ?

Engelond ys nat Engelond. When did you last come across a woman who could make decent mortreux or serve you up a poudre-marchant like it used to taste?

suddenly remembers that poudre-marchant and mortreux are French words and collapses

And we lost Normandy...

(actually, you lot did. I'm an immigrant )

Sorry that should of course be poudre-marchant tart.

I feel it is an extreme, though apt portrayal of what may happen when you force people to unfairly accept collective responsibility, which CantAffordtoLive suggested was a good idea.

You don't have to agree and neither does MNHQ

Seriously, unless you are over 70 nothing really has changed.

Saturation of the high street with chainstores
Extreme capitalism
Growth of divide between rich and poor
Globalisation
Religious terrorism
Collapse of the Soviet Union
End of the Cold War
Birth of the European common currency
Scottish and Welsh devolution

Just a few, in no particular order.

All in my lifetime, and I'm nowhere near 70.

I suppose it was a bit of an extreme example but it's equally extreme to suggest that a lack of corporal punishment has led to a decline in society's morals.

it's equally extreme to suggest that a lack of corporal punishment has led to a decline in society's morals.

Yes SamanthaBrique.

I'm reminded of another film clip from that I like to trot out whenever people talk about hanging and flogging. Apt for Easter too.

It's been a while since I saw Schindler's List but the scene stuck in my brain. I admired the boy's presence of mind and was horrified by the circumstance in which he had to exercise it.

Life Of Brian, obviously

Scarlet fever never reallywent away. anyway somebody shared that rubbish but they said what is Britain coming to i said oh friend thats a load of rubbish you share any old shit she deleted me oh well

how can you have had corporal punishment but no one misbehaved like they do know if that was they case why did people get caned or slippered

I was born in 1970 - our schools where not that different - just no social media

I don't think things have changed that much - oh and my chocolate egg has a link to an EASTER page set up by Cadbury!

Not that chocolate eggs have much to do with the death and resurrection of Christ

TheDuchessOfArbroathsHat

I think YABU to assume your view is the only correct one to be honest. There are an awful lot of people for whom everything HAS changed in what must seem like a very short space of time.
If I were you I'd probably do a little less cringing and a little more trying to understand WHY they feel that way.

Excellent post.

I suspect what you, OP, were aiming for was a unanimous supportive response to your virtue signalling. You were looking to slag off the old as resistant to change and all those racists, ( only white, English racists of course). Happily not everyone took the bait.

It is an interesting question. There has been unbelievable change - some of it good, some of it not so good. If you want to discuss immigration you have to look at the winners and losers. Same with Capitalism. Same with the huge change in Housing Policy and Welfare policy. The internet and mobile phone technology, air travel.....

No England is not England any more - not the England of my youth - and it won't be of yours either when you are a bit older. It happens to everyone - the world changes around us.

Saturation of the high street with chainstores - Woolworths and The Co-op
Extreme capitalism - Thatcher
Growth of divide between rich and poor - yes because in 1970 we where loaded! except we wheren't
Globalisation - colonialism - Queen Victoria
Religious terrorism - IRA
Collapse of the Soviet Union - fair enough - but we had the collopase of The Empire
End of the Cold War - ahem ...Putin
Birth of the European common currency - Decimalisation
Scottish and Welsh devolution - yup that is true

Kids now even go to "Proms" and not the school discos of old.

I'm 5 years younger than you and I went to a 'prom'. Big standard state secondary.

People love to suggest everything has changed- and lots of things have. But then society has always changed. The childhood of the complainers was different to the childhood of their parents, as was their grandparents etc etc

"The childhood of the complainers was different to the childhood of their parents, as was their grandparents etc etc"

This. If you were a child in the 80s then your childhood would have been very different from dh's in the 60s. And his was certainly very different from his mum's in the 1920's/30's. Which, in its turn, had seen some changes from his dad's in the 1910's. And when we get to their grandparents' in the 1880's...

So which of all these is the right childhood? When should they have stopped making changes? Which England are we hankering for?

The thing that always struck me talking to my FIL (born 1909) is what a resilient person he must have been to have lived through all the changes and still retain the same bright-eyed and (mainly) non-judgmental interest in life. This was a man who could remember the time before WW1. And still did not seem out of place in the 1990's. I hope I grow up like him.

At the same time, ghosty makes a good point about plus ca change...