Standard of Living – Risen?

Mick

How unexpectedly bracing.

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:

If you want the goodies, bloody work for it.

Shouldn't that read:

"If you want the goodies, bloodywell get your employees to work harder" ?

Adam

Pleased to be of service

Deane

I am an employee at the moment.

I do not see the hardship today that I saw as a child.

It was common for children not to have decent shoes in my class at school (1953ish).

Stop whinging and get on with your life.

Regards

Mick

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life

Charles Darwin

Thanks for the advice Mick. I will stop whinging forthwith and get on with my life.

How much do I owe you?

Deane

I am pleased to have shown you the light.

So you have had something for nothing via your PC which is something your parents could only have dreamt about.

Regards

Mick

Naff orf bluenose

Mick

You're so right! Do you remember hand-me-down, grey-fawn washed-to-death holey and frayed underpants that hung to the knees below ragged and darned shorts? Shoes so worn they leaned sideways on the third or forth child wearer in succession? Darned socks and elbows in shirts and jumpers and tired jackets? Imagine never owning a handkerchief? New or used! Constantly running noses were common then. Walking for miles to school and back again in all weathers. Nits? Rickets? Weedy, undernourished kids who didn't grow like the rest of us? Hole in the heart and polio taking its toll. Red knuckles on women who washed the family's clothes in a galvanised pail in the garden with hard green soap and then wrung out by hand because the family couldn't afford a wringer. Tattered lino on lumpy concrete floors.

Fortunately we as a family were spared such things but there were plenty of kids at our village school who never knew a single article of new clothing. The barber/hairdresser was a disabled ex-serviceman in a smoke-filled back garden shed on the local council estate. Or your mother cut it. "Pudding bowls" were as common as "short back and sides". There were kids who stank because they didn't like washing in cold water from the outside tap at home in winter. I knew one lad who could only find a stale white crust and half a jar of pickled onions when he invited me in during the long summer holidays. I declined his kind offer of half the crust. He ate it with relish despite the fact it broke like a crumbly biscuit.

There is zero comparison between today and pre-fifties life. None! Only the middle classes had telephones, cars, TVs, holidays and music lessons. Banks were strictly for the middle classes too. The poor saved in their Post Office books if they could afford an occasional few pence. Credit was non-existent. No high street building societies.

Now we buy secondhand designer label clothing from charity shops and gloat when we get a bargain. Our homes are stuffed to the gills with hitech gear that no science fiction writer could possibly imagine back then. Now no home is too humble to have a couple of cars of some description parked outside.

quote:

We own more gadgets, have more consumable goods, take more holidays to further away places than ever before and you feel hard up.

Nime, i'm confused.

Looks like you are agreeing with Mick that life today is a doddle. no comparison with the past.

Or did I miss something?

Like you feel everybody should be equal?

or everybody should have an equal chance?

Neither of which will ever happen.

Keep whinging.

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Nime:
Constantly running noses were common then.

You had noses ... lucky sods.

This thread is in danger of turning into a Monty Python sketch.

Steve

And as Mick says, if you want things, then .....work

Middle daughter is typical of what I think Mick has in mind.

Left school at age 15 (really!.....her birthday is 23rd August, if that helps)

Didn't want to do "A" levels

Got a job as trainee receptionist at local hotel.

Worked hard and long hours to rise through shift supervisor etc

Hotel bought by Hilton

by age 22 was manager of both Hiltons in Newbury

Emigrated to Canada, took receptionist job to get re-started. Bought modest house (mortgage)but arranged so that half could be rented out.

Then added managing a bus shuttle-service in parallel with other jobs

Took short accountancy course and added part-time book-keeping for local business

Started renting and manageing other people's holiday homes for them (and gave up receptionist job)

She bought her second home six months ago, and again arranged to rent out downstairs while she lives upstairs.

So now she has one and a half homes rented out.

She will be 26 next month

I can't ever recall her whinging, even after a "bad" day when things have gone wrong, or guests didn't show up etc.

I think some people are just born whingers

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:


Nime, i'm confused.

Looks like you are agreeing with Mick that life today is a doddle. no comparison with the past.

Or did I miss something?

Like you feel everybody should be equal?

or everybody should have an equal chance?

Neither of which will ever happen.

Keep whinging.

Cheers

Don

Yes, you're right. You are confused.

quote:

Yes, you're right. You are confused.

oh dear, you have clearly become upset.

sincere apologies

cheers

Don

No apologies required at all Don. You have simply applied your own interpretations to my post. Though heaven knows how you came to those conclusions.

I was merely pointing out how life was really like in the 50s if only to burst the bubble that life today is hard. Anyone who thinks that today's world is in any way similar to that of half a century ago would seem to be seriously confused.

It would be fascinating to bring a person from the 1950s forward in time. They would think our lives were unbelievably luxurious and completely empty of purpose. Our working lives would seem incredibly relaxed and the whole system seriously lacking in any discipline. And who the hell do these kids think they are today? They all need a damn good hiding and a decent haircut! (A typical adult reaction of about that time and the following decade)

I really think it would be incredibly difficult for a 1950s person to adjust to our times. They would simply not know how to function and would probably beg to return to a simpler life without traffic. Back to a rigid class sytem that was clearly understood from birth. Where women knew their place. Where kids were seen but not heard until they started work for a miserable sum. Where discipline was beaten into you from an early age by your parents, your teachers and possibly the local bobby. Your employer would expect immediate, unquestioning and servile responses to his curt orders no matter how unsafe the task demanded of you. And heaven help you if you had ideas above your station and had the nerve to make a useful suggestion. Or said a word out of turn. Or wore a loud tie. Or the wrong coloured shirt. Or your hair wasn't smartly clipped into a short back and sides. And only god himself could help you if you were a damned "foreigner"!

Regards
Nime

I am from the 1950s and try to deal with my prejudices/conditioning/all the other greedy idiots.

quote:

Originally posted by Chumpy:
I am from the 1950s and try to deal with my prejudices/conditioning/all the other greedy idiots.

I was only passing through.

Adam,

I think you are right that something has gone seriously wrong for our generation and I don't accept that life is better now than it was 20-30 years ago.

It's important to note that the people in this thread who are saying how great things are now eg Mick are the ones who have benefited most from the huge rise in house prices and have excellent pension provision (and I'm not having a go Mick)

I have seen two friends move overseas in the past 12 months in search of a better life and much of this is house price related.

I am the first member of my family to have ever excelled at school and gone to University yet I am also the first who has needed to have a wife working full time in order to pay a mortgage on an average family home. My Father worked as cabin crew for BA from 1964 to 1987 (he joined aged 34) and had 2 kids during that period. He was able to live in a nice 3 bed semi which backed onto Royal Birkdale golf course and keep my Mum at home looking after us full time until I was 11. My Mum went back to work then so they could send me to public school. Now fast forward 30 years and I live in a 4 bed detached within earshot of the M3 - it's about the same size. I am hoping to join an airline as a pilot aged 36 which is considered a more senior role than cabin crew. There is no way on earth I can pay the mortgage and have my wife at home to look after our 1 child. Could a junior airline pilot have done that in 1975? - absolutely. The reason of course is that whilst pilots salaries have risen at say 3-4% a year in the past decade house prices have risen 20% per annum and the compound effect is massive. Am I bitter about this - well yes actually I am.

Many of the kids I went to school with had parents in 'the professions'. Without exception they lived in bloody big houses and had Mums who didn't work and spent all day looking after their kids or keeping house. Is it better for kids to be looked after by a Mum or a childminder? Well, I think the answer is obvious don't you?

So we have a situation where people are working longer hours than ever, can't spend as much time with their kids, spend longer commuting and can't live in as nice a house as their parents. Life for the average 30 year old isn't as good as it used to be a generation ago. The only exceptions to this are the people I know who work in the financial world who earn huge salaries and can afford a lavish lifestyle.

One other story. A pal of mine who works at BA is a Manager there and lives in an average family home near Reading. He was saying to me the other day that he bought his house just after he joined BA on a clerical grade around 30 years ago. He's 55 now and after 30 years of promotions and seniority he told me he couldn't possible buy his house again on his current salary - the house is probably worth £350 000 so he's have to be earning £100 000 to be able to buy it - it's madness.

Jonathan

This has become a whinging thread, nothing positive anymore?

quote:

Originally posted by wellyspyder:
This has become a whinging thread, nothing positive anymore?

This is the Whinging Cell. The Padded Cell is over there >>>

I believe that a few fiscal tweaks from our Gordon could level off the housing market to make homes once more affordable to those ordinary folks who actually live in them, and at the same time give the old FTSE 100 a kick up the arse.

The reasons for not so doing may well be a case of social engineering/being rid of the lower-middle-newly-Tory-voting classes created by Thatcher.

Jonathan,

Fair point.

My parents of Mick's age were about the same.

Dad worked in manufacturing and acquired near-identical qualifications to Mick, before changing profession to Financial Services in the early Eighties - when the manufacturing industry in these parts went into rapid decline. He left Grammar School at 16 with 5 O'Level Passes. His school-mates who went onto University were seriously laughing once they'd got their degrees... Dad did a relatively-humble engineering apprenticeship...

They bought their first house when they got married in 1965. He bought a succession of brand-new or nearly-new cars every 3-5 years thereafter. Dad was the sole bread-winner until my Mum got a part-time job in an off-licence in the late seventies. She later gave up that job in the early nineties. She finally passed her driving test in 1989, and Dad bought her her first of the three cars she's had since.

In 1985 when I was 15 they bought a 4-bed detached house where they still live, for 40k. They then spent about 20k on an extension and other home improvements and finally paid off the mortgage 3 years ago when Dad retired. He later sold his IFA business and business property, bought a brand-new Audi A4 18 months ago, and they go on holiday about three or four times per year including at least once to a foreign location. The house is now worth in excess of 260k.

Meanwhile I'm renting some old dear's bungalow for 475pcm that would fetch 170k, meaning the mortgage on it for us would be, er, lets say a lot more than we pay in rent. Both me and my partner have decent full-time jobs and yet if one of us were to become unemployed for whatever reason we'd have to move back in with my parents, or with hers.

We could maybe buy one of those brand-new starter homes, but they all get snapped up by those grubby buy-to let merchants before individual buyers even get a look-in.

We'll only be able to afford to buy if/when I get my inheritance (provided scum government doesn't take too-big a chunk.) Dad being rather shrewd will more-than-likely pass onto us whatever he intends well before they carp it.

I'm actually very happy that both my parents are in good health - the doc has estimated Dad's life expectancy to be around the 85 mark, and my Mum's mum (who had 8 kids and was one of 13) is about to crack the ton in a few weeks - and has a baby sister at 96.

The post-WW2 generation had it better than every generation before and after.

It would seem that there are those here who really can't differentiate between a good whinge and simple historical description of someone's past experiences.

Never expect a penny from your parents. It's not their job to work for you as well once you get past 18 unscathed. My father threw open the question of early retirement and whether we expected an inheritance. We all said no, we didn't. Enjoy your retirement and we'll get on with our own lives.

My youngest sister never went to university but has studied hard all her working life in parallel with her job. She now has a very large (avast) and very new power boat!

Another family member sat back and waited for years for a nice inheritance and a huge house and large grounds in one of the most desirable villages in England. Then both parents-in-law became ill and the private nursing costs left nothing to inherit. Oh, what a shame, never mind.

Several times now I have seen others expect their share of the promised accumulated wealth from parents or grandparents and it has finally come down to nothing because of ill health. In some cases they actually had to house the elderly person, at their own expense, until the old person finally died and left nothing!

In one case they had to sell their own home because half went to the other side of the family and they couldn't afford to buy the other half out! That's called "revenge" I think.

Live your own life. Then you have nobody else to blame for your failures. You deserve nothing that doesn't come from your own toil. Inheritance is really just a historical accident designed to prolong the family genes. In some cases it stopped them dead in their tracks by the time the family blood-letting was over!

Apart from the need to use old music-too much media-inflamed soulless greed, IMO everything is better, but I did pay off my mortgage last year/retire early to avoid cars.

Things are - apart from people's behaviour - measurably 'better', but the consumerism-con has confused humans.

Chumpy,

I think we're talking at cross purposes here. The reality depends upon which generation you're in. I take it because you have retired that you are probably in your 50's whereas Stephen, Richard and I are all in our 30's. Our perception is completely different.

Seems to me that people in their 50's and 60's who are sitting in very nice houses which they bought for a hundredth of their current value, who have retired on excellent company pension schemes (which don't actually exist for those joining the firm now) are far far better off than their parents were. Indeed that generation has 'never had it so good'.

The discussion though is about whether the 30 somethings of today who are just starting families and need a reasonable sized house and ideally some sort of childcare/wife at home feel better off than their parents did. I think this thread indicates that they don't. Of course you're right to point out that we take more foreign holidays, buy fancy hi-fi etc but that's usually a drop in the ocean compared to thecosts of housing. I have spent £10 000 on hi-fi equipment, however that isn't the kind of amount that will make any difference whatsoever to buying a house will it? In short a decent family home in the South of England will run you £350-£450 000. If you're a middle manager in BT/BA or whoever by your mid 30's you will probably be earning £40-£50 000. Even if you didn't buy hi-fi or take foreign holidays between the age of 25 and 35 lets say you've saved £50 000 - you still need a mortgage of £350 000 to buy the house. So your mortgage will be around £2000-£2500 a month which is 85% of your net salary. Not much chance of having a wife at home looking after the kids out of the rest is there?

Jonathan