In the good old days.....  a phrase that always makes me smile. This phrase last came to mind on a warm late summers afternoon whilst i was shopping in a superstore. As i strolled around the wide aisles of goods, with many thousands of lines of stock to choose from, i could not help but think of how well things have progressed, even in the last 20 years.
  Occasionally, if i listen to a radio talk show, the caller will sometimes start their rant ' you know mate, in the good old days we never had this......'.  Such people seem to me, to still be prevalent in this nation. Perhaps the British are inherently negative, always clambering back to the past, looking back on a 'golden age' when children 'did as they were told' and people could leave their 'front doors unlocked'. I can think of a few psychological theories to explain why people tend to look back on the past as superior, yet i will get into such theory at this time.
   Back to the supermarket aisles, the issue of food availability is something which anyone younger than 30 years of age take all too much for granted. I wonder just how many of todays school children are aware of how relatively recently, that the UK population had a somewhat narrow and restricted choice of food and drink.
   Today, walking around any one of the main supermarkets, the choice is quite amazing - and continues to expand to this day. The average large supermarket in the UK carries around 25,000 lines of stock, surely a phenomenal number.
Just a short time ago, a blink of an eye in British society, the 1950's rationing was still in order. Clearly, the UK individual has limitless availability of goods, from across the globe. Progress indeed.
   Things are not just better today in terms of food and drink availability. Let us look briefly at a few other areas, areas which many people think were better in years past.

-Energy supplies: Today, the UK consumer can be assured of a regular supply of electric and gas. Although, note that Gas supplies will run out around 2020.

-Water supplies: Tap water today is cleaner and healthier than ever before. UK rivers are now in a better than state than they have been for decades. Take the river Thames in London for instance, where the water is now clean enough for various species of aquatic life, life that is  known to be very sensitive to any degree of water pollution.

-UK social policy : Countless official new laws have come into place that have increased the rights of the individual. Capital punishment by the UK state is now outlawed, as has the hitting of children by government employees. Discrimination on the basis of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, all are outlawed by official statute. I admit there are still many social problems in the aforementioned social issues, however things have progressed greatly during the last century.

-Communication : Today, most UK citizens are able to afford the means to communicate to anyone in the world, via the phone, or increasingly via the internet. The recent advances in mass communication are surely one of the most progressive things to speak of. A few decades ago, only a few people will have ever made contact with a person from outside of their home country, today, most people have friends from many nations.

-Travel : Today, people of the UK can hop on a plane and fly to America for the price of a weeks earnings.

-Income/disposable earnings: Average earnings in the UK for mr average are around £21,000 pre-tax.

-Inflation/prices : The price for goods, as a proportion of income has fallen dramatically. Food prices are roughly 50% lower relative to 1980's prices - how many people know that surprising fact ?

 -Human Longevity : As perhaps the ultimate indicator that things are getting better, average lifespan has lengthened significantly to 77years of age.  

   I agree that the above are just a few 'select' examples that are very particular to my positive mind. Yes, there are some areas that could be said to be lousy. I do for instance propose that the UK transport infrastructure is in a mess, although I'd still argue it is way better than it was at any time in the past.
   The expectations of people are such now that if their train is delayed, if their doctor is unavailable within the same day, many people start to look back over the past as a 'better time'. Well, i just wish such people could travel back in time, to catch a glimpse of how hard UK life was, just a few decades ago.

   Whenever i hear people start referring to the good old days, i smile, and just wish they could think a little more about just how far the UK has progressed in what is relatively a very short time. I wonder (and suspect) if the young children of today in a hundred years time will look on today as the best years of their nation.

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© 2003 Philip Calrissian
Last Updated : 25/03/04

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Date sourced from the CIA database 2002.