If this had happened 40-50 years ago...

[Swissrollypoly]

Do you think things would be different? Do you think we’d just have to get on with things as we wouldn’t have the means to work from home or communicate via Zoom or Microsoft teams etc.
Social media didn’t exist, so there wouldn’t be as much panic and scaremongering.
I just wonder how different it would all be, had it happened in another time period.

The NHS was in much better shape 40 years ago.

One of the reasons the UK is struggling so much now is because of a decade of the Tories running down and understaffing our hospitals, and failure to provide adequate PPE.

@mintkoala

Thing is we're not arguing about whether women have always worked (they have) but whether it would be easier to close schools in the 1970's as mothers were more available for childcare. So we really want more details about what sort of work women were doing and how that compares with now.

Most retail/clerical/secretarial/factory/cleaning etc

Then teaching/nursing/other medical/law

Some, middle management. Even fewer senior management.

Can't think that many would be board level.

I'm sure I've missed some.

@xxyzz

The NHS was in much better shape 40 years ago.

One of the reasons the UK is struggling so much now is because of a decade of the Tories running down and understaffing our hospitals, and failure to provide adequate PPE.

That's not really true. Healthcare costs a lot more now because there are so many more treatments.

@xxyzz I think you have forgotten 1997 to 2010 when Mr Tony Blair went hell for leather on PFI and established PCTs which cost billions and introduced a whole new layer of bureaucracy.

the NHS in better shape? Don’t talk such tripe. I don’t even know where to begin with dissecting your post.

There were far fewer users, fewer older users (and there were cottage hospitals) and far fewer expensive treatments. Some things were better in t’olden days, but I think I fancy my chances better today than in the 70s.

My mum was a widow and skint.

But we always went on holiday. She saved like mad. I’d been loads of places in Europe including school trips to France and skiing in Italy. All before 1980

There was Radox bath too!

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@xxyzz I think you have forgotten 1997 to 2010 when Mr Tony Blair went hell for leather on PFI and established PCTs which cost billions and introduced a whole new layer of bureaucracy.[/quote]
Blair and Brown were building on Tory policies there, though. One of the reasons I was very disappointed in New Labour was because they didn't abandon PFI. As I recall, it was the Tories who made the NHS a lot more complicated, introducing Trusts and GP surgeries commissioning services from Trusts.

The Tories had also closed down smaller hospitals because they felt there were too many inpatient beds and specialist services were better concentrated in one place, ie a large teaching hospital, even if it did mean many patients having to travel further to get treatment. Keyhole surgery and other advances had made it possible to do a lot more as day surgery and short stay cases. They were very good at talking the talk when it came to making the case for fewer hospital beds, but they didn't walk the walk when it came to investing in more community services, especially in mental health. They closed down most psychiatric inpatient units, sold the land off to housing developers, discharged long-stay patients back into the community and utterly failed to give them decent support.

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@xxyzz I think you have forgotten 1997 to 2010 when Mr Tony Blair went hell for leather on PFI and established PCTs which cost billions and introduced a whole new layer of bureaucracy.[/quote]
Working in the NHS over that period,it was noticeable that there was a welcome injection of funds, though I didn't agree with PFI

Xxyzz - y’ what now? The NHS of 40 years ago doesn’t compare to now! www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-44560590

[quote PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit]There is an interesting article about the Asian flu in the 60s here.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(2031201-0/fulltext[/quote]
The result was that as the UK's weekly death count mounted, peaking at about 600 in the week ending Oct 17

600 a week try over 1000 +
There was nearly 600 in one day!!

With covid!

Herecomesthesun, and a welcome injection of funds into schools too. I’m a teacher.

Very illuminating chart.

I always groan when people say, “more people have dementia today than 30 years ago!” Well, duh.

I do wonder though what happened to GP services. I remember in the early 70s the GP visiting when I had chicken pox and measles. They must have had more time back then. And I suppose fewer hypochondriacs. I read a book recently written post war and the local doctor was complaining that the NHS had caused a deluge of old ladies wanting a chat in his surgery. Previously a chat would have cost!

All this - people did as they were told in the past.
No they didn’t!
If they had done what the government said during the Blitz, Londoners would not have broken into the underground to take shelter. No, they’d have listened to the rules and believed they were not safe in the tube stations.

This thread is brilliant! I was a child in the 70s and teenager in the 80s so it makes me laugh, not to mention feel ancient, that some posters think it was basically like living in the 1930s! We had colour TV, videos, foreign holidays (80s more), cars, women/mothers working, lots of consumer choice - late 80s were full on Thatcher/yuppie times for goodness sake! The main differences were obviously no computers/mobiles/internet so of course no home working and less globalisation, for want of a better word. I don’t know exactly how we would have coped with Covid but we would have because people always do.

My husband was ill with tonsillitis in the early 90s. It was like flu and he had to take to his bed. The GP visited to check him over. Another world now!

As to what happened to GP services:

• population grew

• people who would have previously died from serious illnesses remained alive because of medical advances, and needed a lot of time from GPs to monitor their condition, check out problems etc

• people live longer, and older people need to see a GP more than younger people, even if they were very fit and healthy earlier in life

• patients with long-term mental health problems and people with learning disabilities were discharged from psychiatric hospitals when they were closed down and GP surgeries had to provide the much vaunted Care in the Community without adequate extra funding

• demographics of medical profession changed; more women qualifying, many needing time out for maternity leave, many choosing to work part-time while their children were young, many younger doctors of both sexes baulking at being on call over the weekend and at night on top of long days in surgery

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@xxyzz I think you have forgotten 1997 to 2010 when Mr Tony Blair went hell for leather on PFI and established PCTs which cost billions and introduced a whole new layer of bureaucracy.[/quote]
I see the Tory shills are out in force.

I see you've forgotten that Labour under Blair and Brown massively increased funding and waiting list targets.

I assume you don't live in England, as anyone who does would know that it's been basically impossible to get an appointment to see anyone in the NHS without a long delay for the last couple of years under the Tories. Waiting lists have lengthened to ridiculous lengths. And this was before Covid even hit.

Plus

xxyzz I do live in England. The few times I have needed to see a GP urgently I've had an appointment on the same day and twice a referral to the breast clinic within two weeks. What are awkward in recent times are things like blood tests which have to be booked weeks in advance and in particular child and adolescent mh although I would venture that isnlargely about cultural and organisation resources as it is about lack of funds.

My babies were born in 94 and 97 and 98. The midwives in 98 moaned even more than in 94. As indeed did every NHS clinician I met when the dc were younger. I think it's interesting they complained as heartily in the 90s and 00s as previously and compared to 2019. I could take the complaints more seriously if they were not as regular. When I do use the NHS I am always dumbfounded at the lack of organisation, the way it is not joined up and the way service is no longer at its heart.

50 years ago people had greater resilience (many more had lived through the war years than is the case now) and a lot less time to dwell on such things.

@Fortherosesjoni70 I don't think Asian Flu was as bad in the UK as Covid is, though it did kill a lot of people world wide.

That's what I said originally and a couple of people then said it killed 80,000 and lots were children. So then I thought that in terms of years of life lost maybe it was similar. But no one has been back, I don't think to substantiate that 80,000 figure so I think the Lancet article is correct and it wasn't as dangerous as Covid is.

[quote countrygirl99]@plainviola people keep going on about how people did what they were told in the olden days of 40 years ago Asia we all went round doffing our caps to our betters. And there is plenty of evidence that they were neither more or less likely to rebel, just the subjects change over time as you would expect.[/quote]
Yes, that's probably right in terms of people's feelings about conforming - they weren't unquestioningly obedient in 'the olden days'. But I think there's also evidence that there was a period of greater social cohesion during the postwar consensus years before Thatcherism. I think the breakdown of that, and the rise in individualism, together with the breakdown of many communities based around heavy industries, meant it became harder for those in authority to 'shame' people into doing whatever the country/government needs them to do (currently wearing a facemask and doing social distancing). And with less social cohesion, other people have less interest in enforcing rules and challenging non-compliance.

@plainviola I think there was possibly more social cohesion at a micro level and possibly within social stratifications but I'm not convinced it worked at a National level. Of course then there was far less passive tracking of activity via devices, card payments etc so it's hard to tell. The "I'm backing Britain" campaign certainly didn't have a significant impact on spending patterns and there was a broad range if sub-cultures.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

50 years ago people had greater resilience (many more had lived through the war years than is the case now) and a lot less time to dwell on such things.

I'm not sure they did. I think society was much less understanding about mental health issues. You only have to look at suicide being a crime and the fact that those with mental illnesses and disabilities were locked in institutions. It's the reason talking about mental health has been taboo until relatively recently.

Such an interesting thread, thanks OP! Love reading about recent social history