The good old days?

[livestock 1]

We rarely have time to have Sunday dinner now it’s a bit of a novelty and it’s never at dinner time always on a night or maybe late afternoon is best you could hope for not enough time

 

[Farmer Roy]

I would have the good old days back everyday of the week and twice on Sunday, nothing like the shite we have now
Paperwork was a tax return once a year

yes, but are you a wealthy farmer with a plum in his mouth sending his kids to private school , or a farm labourer on 12 pound a week, being kicked out of his tied cottage when he is too old to work ?

 

[czechmate]

yes, but are you a wealthy farmer with a plum in his mouth sending his kids to private school , or a farm labourer on 12 pound a week, being kicked out of his tied cottage when he is too old to work ?

700/year is 14

 

[czechmate]

Very similar here. Farmhouses and most of the farmyards wiped from the face of the earth. Land taken back in hand farmed on an industrial scale. Doesn’t do much for the fabric of rural communities. Sad.

Thinking about the “sites” I was working on in the 70’s, Corby works, Gec rugby, tungstone batteries market Harborough and on and on… they are all gone now

 

[DrWazzock]

Thinking about the “sites” I was working on in the 70’s, Corby works, Gec rugby, tungstone batteries market Harborough and on and on… they are all gone now

GEC Trafford Park, where I worked is gone. Industry replaced by retail and tourism, entertainment and stadiums. Same all over. Everything feels hollowed out to me : superficial, all mink and no drawers. Though it all probably looks “nicer”.

 

[czechmate]

GEC Trafford Park, where I worked is gone. Industry replaced by retail and tourism, entertainment and stadiums. Same all over. Everything feels hollowed out to me : superficial, all mink and no drawers. Though it all probably looks “nicer”.

replaced with where houses for Chinese gear to be delivered with millions of white vans …

 

[DrWazzock]

I will say though that many farm workers were very enterprising and often produced a lot from their own gardens with a load of muck from the farm and maybe a pig donated to be fattened and killed. The workers wives in our village had excellent veg gardens and chickens. In some ways it was the lifestyle that goodlifers now dream about but it was the real thing. It was fairly hard though, no denying it, but it was hardly a barrel of laughs in industrial towns either. Presently reading The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. Nearly finished it but a bit bogged down in the political muddle at the end if it. All fascinating stuff.

 

[DrWazzock]

And to be fair, worker or owner, tenant or landlord, a lot depended on personal motivation and morals.

 

[Guiggs]

Thinking about the “sites” I was working on in the 70’s, Corby works, Gec rugby, tungstone batteries market Harborough and on and on… they are all gone now

Got a lot of mates / family worked at tungtone and Harborough rubber...
Most of them did all right when made redundant or are living on their pensions..
Not many from my age group or below will be so lucky!

 

[organicguy]

My late father said exactly the same

As did my great uncle.

 

[livestock 1]

As did my great uncle.

I’m not sure wether we dress it all up to be something better than it was but we all seemed to have less in some ways but be happier with it

 

[Danllan]

I think the reality is that much of what has passed was bloody horrible, and much was considerably better than what we have now. Of course, perspectives differed according to 'station' and assets.

I've ancestors who were extremely poor, some dying in the workhouse, others who were part of the Squirearchy and who enjoyed the 'John Bull' lifestyle to the full.

On balance society, at a local level and nationally, seems to have been more cohesive. There seems to have been more 'neighbourliness' than nowadays. It is inarguable that farmers per se were, as a class, more respected and valued in earlier times.

But what would we bring back if given the chance? For myself I think the best thing, from a purely agricultural view, was that land prices and rents accurately reflected production potential. I wonder of they will again...

 

[Devil's advocate]

GEC Trafford Park, where I worked is gone. Industry replaced by retail and tourism, entertainment and stadiums. Same all over. Everything feels hollowed out to me : superficial, all mink and no drawers. Though it all probably looks “nicer”.

I'm visulising mink with no drawers.

Emma Peel

 

[JWL]

It's easily 20 years since I would have called myself a farm worker, I lived in a tied house but I already had a mortgage on another that my mother lived in so I wasn't completely "tied" to the job.
I moved out of farming due to wife pressure, working 100hr+ weeks were taking a huge toll on family life even in the "quiet" periods as there were always loads of potatoes to grade and load. Even with getting the new kit, demo tractors a constant thing, it was starting to feel so mundane. I didn't feel any job satisfaction after ploughing a field knowing that I had done a good job, when shutting the gate on that one all you could think about was there's still 10 more to do
I spent the next couple of years loading lorries with garden products, fencing and planters in a 1/2acre site thinking that I would go stir crazy but no, finishing at 3:30 five days a week and not working weekends for nearly the same money was a real eye opener
Nowadays as my autistic sons carer I dabble when I want helping out a friend as one of his little army of casuals and as I have all the relevant bits of paper, telescopic, PA1/2, and experience I am never short of bits I can do but nowadays on my terms.
Good old days? Well yes they were but work ethics have changed, people's ideas on how they live their lives has changed drastically plus, as has been mentioned before, it wasn't just you on the job. You did have someone else to talk to at bait time or to share the drudgery and the good jobs

 

[Netherfield]

'When' were the the good old days.

 

[ollie989898]

I think what the average 20 year old will stick these days is very very different to what would be expected back then. People in the 50's and 60's knew what hardship was- some of them had seen two world wars and rationing by this point. The country was skint.

 

[Gerbert]

Yes it's funny when you consider that putting meals on the table.... raising and birthing children ....keeping things up to scratch in the house and gardens.. and being an endless supply of support ...is still considered "not working"

Maybe it's not funny but simply amazes me that we so often diminsh that massive contribution

 

[Derrick Hughes]

'When' were the the good old days.

1960 intil the early 90ts when everything changed

 

[Farmer Roy]

1960 intil the early 90ts when everything changed

definitely better, for the workers . . .

 

[DrWazzock]

Yes it's funny when you consider that putting meals on the table.... raising and birthing children ....keeping things up to scratch in the house and gardens.. and being an endless supply of support ...is still considered "not working"

Maybe it's not funny but simply amazes me that we so often diminsh that massive contribution

My mother added more value at home than many folks did who went to work, male or female.
Between all the usual household stuff, turning basic commodities into decent meals, painting and decorating inside and out, gardening and helping out on the farm at busy times she contributed more than if she’d gone out to work and they’d had to pay for it all to be done.
I don’t understand the modern way really. The opening few interviews of the film showed the interviewer asking them if they ever went on holiday. Well for me holidays were things people in town went on who lived in concrete boxes and worked on conveyor belts every single day. I could understand they’d need a change of scenery. But here, out in the countryside there all the variety, beauty, recreation, exercise, activity you could possibly need right in front of you.
But the aspiration drilled into everybody by mass marketing is to fly to the sun and sit on sand by water. Really? I don’t get it. Yet you could see that kind of brainwashing creeping in even in that interview in 1969.