To think that this country (UK) is going downhill?

[gem1981]

first please let me explain I think I am quite a normal (!) person and try to have a positve attitude towards life but recently well I am getting tired of constantly trying to find the positive in our country.

I don't know if my perspective has changed since I have become a parent or if things have actually got worse... but over the past couple of years I have noticed a significant shift in people's attitudes towards the country ...

Everyone complains about all sorts, petrol prices, food prices, taxes, council tax etc.

I go to my local high street and shops are closing left right and centre, there is litter everywhere, things look generally grey and most people look miserable.

It seems that no matter where you are in society you have some sort of struggle - paying for childcare, getting your kids into a decent school, even getting an appt with your GP.

I know I am moaning too ... but I just wanted to check with you lot ... do you feel the same or am I falling into a pessimistic hole?

I am not looking for a fight I just want your honest opinions - are you happy living in the UK or do you dream of emmigrating?

Thanks

bringmesunshine, please be my friend I want to visit you!!!

You would be most welcome abouteve....I would suggest most people would only last a couple of days as my DC are a little wild sometimes....adoreable but wild nonetheless

Expat you must go if you get the chance.

I'm going back one day. Flit through Joburg to see where I used to live in Hillbrow, now sadly a no go area for whites, and thats fine. Shopping in Santon City, then onto Cape Town for a wonderful holiday. Travel up the coast to Simonstown, dropping off at Kalk bay.

There are some massive benefits to living in this country - the welfare state for one. I think a lot of people don't realise this until they go to live somehwere else. Also, I know of several families who've emigrated because Britain has "too many immigrants". They fail to see the irony in what they're saying as they become immigrants in Australia/Spain wherever. Can't see the attraction in emigrating myself. I think people are just trying to run away from their problems which never works. Don't get me wrong, I hate the weather in this country, but would never go to Australia - dangerously hot and constant droughts. Add to that the prehistoric attitudes that exist in parts of the country and you're no better off than living here!

I love Simons Town - although I always spend too much in the galleries there

Adore Stellenbosch, Franshoek and Vervelegen - we had our wedding reception there....only got back for month out there a few weeks ago and already children have colds and chest infection

Lead me to the aeroplane

That's OK bringmesunshine I'm used to wild children I used to be a parent of one. Now a lovely placid teenager.

Seriously, where are you going to settle in SA and when are you making the move? Would love to hear how you get on. Keep posting. I wonder how many other mumsnetter are in SA.

Hi Surprise. I also lived in Australia for a while but it never got under my skin in the way that South Africa did. I agree its has the weather but I'm not bothered about going back there.

Weather aside, I agree about our welfare state and, along with other great british politics, is what makes this country worth living in.

I've travelled to the US a couple of times and well, the space, the weather (in certain areas) is great and I want to return especially to NY, but the politics, no thank you for me.

We will settle in Cape Town area. Exact area will depend a lot on schools as would love DS to go to Bishops in a few years time. DD is a little younger so no immediate rush.

We will be out there for new school year of 2010 - but I want to be out there to get the children settled in the house etc from October 2009.

Huge amount to do before we get on the plane though

It is lovely and I hope it all works out for you. I lived in an area called Plumstead (I think) which was around 20 mins by train from Cape Town, a delightful little commuter town, not sure what its like now. Hope to find out one day.

When DD (now 14) leaves home and gets her own life I can invisage myself as a middle aged lady making a drastic move, who knows.

A recent holiday to Spain, where I was followed by three Eastern Europeans and almost mugged made me so glad I live where I do (Wales) where I can walk around with a handbag and not worry about it being snatched.

The tap water was salty because the area is over-developed; local people quite poor and the area full of sun and wine-soaked retired British ex-pats moaning about including the strength of the Euro devaluing their British pensions.

I hate the litter here too - but if the authorities clamp down (which I think they should do, to sort it out), we're accused of being in a nanny state - you can't have it all ways.

Yes, the weather can get you down too...but we have almost full employment, great scenery, great people, good stuff on tv and radio, and generally, imho, a good health and education service.

I was in Swansea yesterday (Dylan Thomas' 'ugly lovely town'). The sun was shining on the sea, yachts out, the market selling locally-caught fish and fresh Gower vegetables. It was as good if not better than anywhere I've been abroad. Last night it was warm enough to sit in the garden, drinking wine, eating the fresh fish I'd bought and listen to the birds sing.

We might work the longest hours in Western Europe, but I'm content to pay that price for the standard of living it's possible to achieve in return.

I have just skimmed through this thread and have no comment to make on living abroad as I've only lived in Wales or England.

My worry about living here is the change in attitudes in society. I'm a left leaning graduate, with many years of experience with working with the public, particularly dasadvantaged young people, and I'm saddened by the way they treat one another and other people.

They have no respect for anyone, especially themselves, are concerned with acquiring possessions that give them status, but only content them for a moment as nothing can give them the sense of self worth we all need. I'm not blaming them, they have to live with people who continually undermine, devalue, use and abuse them.

They are becoming more obvious in towns and cities as they see no need to obey any of the social mores that need to be in place to make communal living enjoyable.

I live in a ex mining village in the South Wales valleys; the Council are just putting up a tribute to the Miners Institute that they knocked down, taking away the only building that could offer a 'centre' to the community. In the past working people used this place to educate themselves, to make a better life. Did they thin their grand-daughters would be using their free education to aspire to being glamour models, while sporting the logos of pornography?

I could go on and on, (and frequently do in RL )

I told you I was left leaning so I'm going to place the blame squarely at the feet of the long running Tory government, and Thatcher.....no such thing as society and we reap the benefits.

I love the UK too. I like the changeable weather. Would hate boiling hot all year (and also must be annoying with slapping sun cream on the kids all the time and worry of skin cancer). I LOVE the UK countryside, proximity to other countries and the history. I think society is worrisome though as it seems people are so materialist and 'each to their own' rather than for the community. Many people seem to crave status and are obsessed with celebrity (why on earth do people read 'celeb' mags about people they do not even know?) Why do people feel the need to cut themselves up to 'look young'. I think alot of it is to do with capitalism, it is very selfish, and many countries are this way.

Message withdrawn

I didn't say I love this country, and England too!! I'm lucky to live in a place where trees and plants have reclaimed the land scarred by years of industry.

On my allottment I stood and looked around at 4 mountains, next to a river, watched mallards and herons fly overhead, as blackbirds and robins sang. All of my fellow allotmenteers came over to offer advice {!!} and we were given seeds and plants. A gin and tonic while burning the rubbish at the end of the day made the experience idyllic.

I know how lucky I am, but I know this is not the reality for many people.

DP has just said that a major factor is the availability of drugs, for example, heroin. which numbs reality and detaches people from any empathy or sense of community. It is so freely available in disadvantaged communities that it is crating a section of society that lives by none of the accepted norms.

What do we do? I really don't know. I'm ashamed to say I'm burying my head, and looking at the bigger picture of transition towns and Peak Oil, but I know these social ills will have to be addressed.

Earthymama,

I don't know if you're from the valleys originally, but I am..I grew up in a mining village and my dad was a miner.

That was in the 60s and 70s...and I agree people generally showed more respect then.

But although people were fully employed in heavy industry, give me the present age anytime, despite its problems.

The valleys were filthy then - you couldn't put washing out without it coming in black with coal dust, and sexism and racism was appalling..I know both exist there still now (I still have relatives in the area), but it is somewhat toned down.

Sundays were a nightmare...absolutely nothing to do except go to church..no shops open, no leisure centres.

Drugs problems were different...lots of put-upon housewives on Valium (my mum was one).

But I do worry that in a lot of those areas today there are now third generations of families who have never worked and never will...I don't know the answer to that though.

HM my goodness I remember those days too. I don't think that for low income families there is any more choice now than then. To go to the leisure centre is lame and how do you get there with no car and a ludicrous public transport system? The last bus from our nearest {new} city on Sunday evening is 8.30 pm!! It goes up hill and down dale too so travelling is a chore.

I see so many young people who have chosen to opt out, as you say, three generations now. Children who are loved but whose parents have no concept of imparting strong values and ethics etc.

By the way I am not condemning them at all, just despairing at how we've got in this state and the implications for the future.

Has anyone got any practical ideas of how we can make positive changes?

I think it was an American diplomat who said that in the UK, you watch TV and there's war, famine, death, desctruction, misery and plague.

Look out the window, and there's a man throwing a stick for a dog.

He said you don't really appreciate this country unless you've lived somewhere that the reverse is true...

I visited SA for the first time in December and January just gone for a holiday with my dh and dd. Loved it, thought it was a very beautiful country and talked to lots of beautiful people.

But it is the most political country I have ever been to and no way could I live there with such gross, blatant and enormous inequalities.

You say standard of life, sunshine, but really only for the Whites.

Apartheid, while officially over a decade or so ago, is alive and well, not officially by the colour of your skin but openly by the colour of your money (and its the Whites who still have all the money).

It makes me want to weep thinking about it. Agree entirely with Ripeberry and Squiffy.