To think the past is being misrepresented on here?

[ChilliLips]

Not all the time obviously but didn’t want a waffly title.

I feel like lately I’m seeing a lot of posts describing a past I don’t recognise. Apparently schools used to be relaxed, have no rules, fewer demands. Whereas I’m sure I remember uniform inspections, SATS, end of year tests, mocks, weekly spelling tests at primary, Saturday detentions, and don’t forget the worst punishment of all - the CHAIR!

I have also seen a few posts saying conditions now are much worse resulting in poorer mental/physical health, hence a spike in disability. But again - can this be true? The world wars wounded, no antenatal tests, jobs like coal mining, loads of smoking/drinking, polio and measles… I’m sure there were a lot of people disabled with conditions they wouldn’t have now.

And finally that everyone was wealthy and lived in massive houses. Nobody I know who grew up in the 50s/60s have tales of luxury, I’ve heard all sorts of horrors including ice on the inside of windows, smog in the air, kids sleeping 4 to a room.

Particularly interested in answers from those alive then! I’m mid 30s.

It's funny as DH and I had a long conversation about his childhood last night. He was brought up in abject poverty, in slum tenements with only 2 rooms and an outside dunny. He was the youngest of a big family and slept in the living room with his older brothers because his sisters all slept in one bed in the bedroom and his parents in the other. He never got to sleep much before midnight because his older siblings were socialising in the living room/kitchen with his cousins so a room full of 7 or more teenagers, his dad would be working and mum at the bingo. He said his main food came from school dinners. He only had a couple of t-shirts, jumper and 1 pair of school trousers, and washing was done at the wash-house once a week where he got a bath. His upbringing was similar to my own mum who was 15 years before him, but such was life in a poor city. My mum was an only so had a better quality of life as her parents had more money and she had the bedroom as her parents were in the recess bed in the main room.

In comparison my upbringing was almost luxury. I am 10 years younger than DH and brought up in a small village. Both parents worked and my dad's family were all tradesmen. DF bought an old ramshackle home and did it up, built extension etc so I was one of few in my class that lived in a bought house. DM was very frugal so we had nice things but there was never wastage. We always had cars as DF was a mechanic and bought, did up sold cars. All my life we were trading up, through my parents hard work. DF worked 7 days, long days as he did homers evenings and weekends.

Quite some difference across the two families. DM growing up in the 50s, DH in the 60s and me in the 70s.

ADHD was ADD and it was thought to be only naughty troublemaker boys. We knew some people had dyslexia but not much else like that. People who were likely autistic were thought of as eccentric. Anyone with further difficulties would have gone to a special school I think. Or the milder children were just in the bottom streams.

Some things are better. Some things are worse.

Better things are more comfortable homes, cheaper consumer goods/tech/appliances/tvs/clothes, easy access to pretty much everything and anything, more awareness of mental health issues and better medical care as well as disabilities and neurodiversities, better treatment for children and minority groups, more awareness of toxins.

Worse things are the economy (cost of housing to income ratio is way way worse), tuition fees are astronomical, cost of living, food, fuel, gas, electricity, water etc is proportionally much higher in comparison to income, too much news and information is a double edged sword, people are overwhelmed mentally, oh and wealth equality is worse. More toxins in the environment! Ironic.

There are so many more examples but I can’t list them all. For every negative thing is another positive thing.

Only thing I’d say is that for young people today life seems a lot harder financially to do what their parents did at the same age starting out in life.

I does seem that things changed quite a bit by the seventies and the eighties were much more about materialism, buying council houses, people being encouraged to buy shares in the state owned companies that were privatized then.

I've said before on threads like this, if you look at the early episodes of Eastenders from 1985 the look of the square and houses was very different to how the characters live in 2025.

I think things “feel” different. And it’s certainly busier, in London, anyway.

I think there's been a squeeze around the middle level income deciles over the past forty years or so with the decline in stable employment for skilled blue collar workers and a massive boom in the numbers of unskilled white collar workers, whereas previously the wage distribution was more of a triangle. All wages have been stagnant since the financial crash in 2008 but the contraction in the middle started before that.

At the same time, there have been shifts in household costs - housing and fuel are now very expensive compared to wages, where previously they weren't, but consumer goods are relatively cheap, compared with fifty years ago.

You can buy a lot of stuff but you can't buy a house to put it in.

But, stuff doesn't make you happy. Stability, community, meaningful work, strong interpersonal connections, that's what makes people happy. Are those better or worse than 40/50 years ago? I guess people are more itinerant - housing is less secure, work is a lot less secure. There is novelty, but there's also massive FOMO and insecurity about social status because you're not just comparing yourself to your neighbours; you're comparing yourself to everyone in the bloody world.

The world is always changing though, sometimes some people have it easy, sometimes they have it hard.

Why wouldn't your family go to church with you

I agree with it being busier. There was a time when if you went somewhere on a weekday, in term time, things would be fairly quiet. Now it feels like everywhere is busy all the time.

Was that in a town beginning with S by any chance?

My dad worked underground in the 60s as an area safety engineer and would be called out to accidents. He never talked about it but it must have been very distressing at times. I think the years of cadmium exposure probably contributed to his death. The cost of coal is dreadful.

Born in 1964, I guess I had quite a middle class upbringing though my parents were from w/c families. Both mum and dad went to university which was probably unusual back then.

Went to a single sex school and it was expected we could do whatever we wanted then went on to university in London. Didn't really understand how much sexism there was in the 70s/80s till much later because I didn't see it.

I was in primary in the 70s. No tests or homework. I walked too school on my own from about age 7, but it was close and there was basically no traffic. I wasn’t the only one, but lots of kids got collected by parents too.

In middle school (first year was age 9 - 10, final year age 12 - 13) we started homework and had annual exams from the second year. Also did times tables and had spelling tests. The cane for punishment (though uncommon, detention and lines were more common).

There were free clubs after school - sport, drama, music, cycling proficiency, etc. - so always something supervised to do even if you were poor. But the freedom that people talk about kids having felt very real as well. We all walked too and from without parents and often had a blast. We went out after school (after watching the children’s programming on TV!) and stayed out until dark. Still pretty much no traffic so playing in the road was typical. If you were bored calling round for a friend was acceptable. In school holidays we would take an apple and sandwich and go off on our bikes all day. I went youth hosteling with friends at 15, no adults.

It was Sunday School, for children. I didn't say my family wouldn't go to church with me.

My primary school had no uniform, but my state Scottish secondary school required us to wear a uniform and girls were not allowed to wear trousers. (The school has much the same uniform these days, but girls can now wear trousers.)

No, it was a Fife mining town.

I'm sorry about your dad.

The disaster that killed Great-grandad happened just outside the town: according to the reports of the time, he and his workmates were "overwhelmed by an inrush of moss". The accident report makes it clear that the mineowners were to blame, but the action taken was to try to prevent further instances.

They eventually recovered Great-grandad's body. My grandfather told me that he remembered someone coming to the house and asking Great-granny to identify a sock.

You've brought back another memory for me. I joined the St Andrew's Ambulance Corps in the '70s and was often on duty at football matches and stock car races - sometimes at galas or at a local beach in the summer: the council actually provided a taxi for us during the Fife Fair Fortnight so that they were fulfilling their obligation to have first aiders on duty.

Often if we were treating mineworkers they'd have blue-black scars from where they'd been tattooed by coaldust entering their wounds in pit accidents.

This is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. When you only had one car because two were too pricey, you couldn't have two jobs requiring a car.

It seems to me that part of the issue is we spend our money, as a society, on the wrong things.

I really do not believe all these luxuries, fancy nails, eating out, cars, consumer gods, makes people really happier than they were in the 60s, 70s, or 80s.

I do believe long wait lists for doctors impacts our lives in a real way. Not just our health, but things like stress.

Why do we spend on the wrong things? In part because we need to keep the engines of global production whirring. Which is insanely wasteful, environmentally speaking, in reality. But we are all complicit in numbing ourselves with cheap luxuries.

It was a mix.

1. you could get away with a lot at my school, uniform wise. It wasn't a good thing. I just got bullied for not having the "right" gear, we all looked scruffy and it definitely had a bearing on behaviour. Some schools seem stricter on uniform now but this does not bother me.

2. the toilet thing... this seems to have gone mad. Yes if you took the piss asking to go in every lesson they'd say no but you could always go between lessons and at any break and lunch and there were plenty of loos and time enough to go.

3. homework... i find this stuff hard to judge as I and my kids find the academic side easy, so i never feel like the demands on kids seem stress inducing.

4. general life:
   When i was a kid if you played an instrument you actually were expected to practise regularly and reach a decent level of proficiency. Kids don't seem to practise for hobbies outside of lessons/group training now

5. part time jobs
   We all had these from 14 or 15. Shops/cafes etc. It didnt interfere with school work and we learned to turn up on time, look smart, be responsible, be polite to customers etc. Plus it was great having the money! Where do all these workshy teens these days get the money to buy buffalos with flames on the side or mini disc players or socialise with friends

It seems to me that part of the issue is we spend our money, as a society, on the wrong things.
I really do not believe all these luxuries, fancy nails, eating out, cars, consumer gods, makes people really happier than they were in the 60s, 70s, or 80s..

I think this is really true

We need to accept a simpler way of living

Our school wasn't strict! We did what we liked. I never did any homework and skived off all the time. We wandered off grounds all the time and smoked in the common room. We did have a uniform but I don't remember ever being told off about my creative interpretations. We roamed around town freely in little spotty gangs.

I mean, I'm not nostalgic for it - our school was shit! I never learned nuffin to be honest. But it wasn't strict. And it was really easy to get a manual job and get a room in a house with friends in the 90s. I did that after school and it was honestly easy. I just asked in a nearby shop and got a job that day, paid my rent in cash to the landlord who came round once a week, got my shopping on my way home on payday, put the bills money in the kitty (a brown envelope in the hall), and went about my life.

I think that's what sometimes people are remembering as easier. It's not that everything was amazing. I earned about £20 a day and ate a lot of 9p noodles. But there was a lower bar to entry, I think. For just getting a bit of a life, nothing major. Rent was just so much more affordable. My rent was ~£31/w in the 90s! That's about £58/w or £250 a month in today's money.

YANBU

but a lot of MNs won’t have experienced schools or life in the 50s, 60s, 70s etc

Agree
Portsmouth Uni research extract below.
See last para

14% of income in 1985 on non essentials ( not including cars or eating out )
25% of income in 2019 on non essentials ( ditto )
trend in spending inc along with increase in disposable income

I was in secondary school from 2005-2010. (State comprehensive, in a deprived area).

We didn’t have “uniform inspections” but would get shouted at if our ties weren’t done up properly or if they were too short/looking like a cravat. We could wear trainers and boots too. I remember getting a pair of black Rockport boots for my first day of year 7 and was buzzing 🤣

I remember dying my hair crazy colours, blue, pink etc and the teachers never bat an eyelid. Same with the lads who would have shaved heads, mohicans etc. I don’t think any of that would slide in todays schools/academies.

No Saturday detentions. No spelling tests. We had an “isolation” room where the naughty kids would go if they got sent out of class.

I remember people would smoke in the toilets and the teachers would just confíscate the cigs. No detentions, no exclusions for that. The only time I remember people getting excluded would be for fighting and one time a classmate head-butted a teacher. He was permanently excluded.

It seems a world away from the crazy school rules and punishments you see today.

Agree.
My mum cycled to work. She had four jobs and cycled between them 3/4 miles between each so not really far
My dad got a lift to and from work ( he was a builder)
We didn’t have a car. They couldn’t afford lessons anyway but mum learnt when she got to about 60.

There was one family with a car in our street in the 60s / 70s

My school was relaxed students and teaxhers had relationships together.
My parents both factory workers purchased a home in cash during the late 80s. Not something us professional folk can do.
Their jobs paid well, amazing pension schemes and bonuses for staff, 4 trips away each ya at at the cost of £2 per person. This included reaorts and theme parks. A factory!
Could get a job so easily when I was a teen hand in a CV and get accepted snd start work within a week.
I miss the 90s!

No uniform inspections. Relaxed with cigs and alcohol, bullying was mild compared to today.
Life was easier. I wouldn't want to grow up in this day and age.

Schools were definitely tougher back in 'the day'. I'm a child of the late 70s/80s and they were harsh. Kids could also get the belt, cane, strap or plain old smack from a teacher. Oh, ruler too. Writing lines. I never got any of that but I know some who did.