Wow never realised these times were so good!

[Chuck]

Families used to stay together longer. Kids stayed at home, granny moved in when she was frail, etc.

Now it seems it's a human right to be able to buy a 12 bedroom house in Kensington when you're 25 years old and working in a hair salon.

[DimPrawn]

Photographer Shirley Baker pictures from the 1960s capture the last days of the slums | Daily Mail Online

[Martin Scroatman]

I was born in a prefab.

Does anyone remember prefabs?

I seem to remember it was pebble dashed. In fact, every square inch of everything on the premises was pebble dashed, including the coal bunker.

[Gumbo Robot]

Yes.

There were loads of them.

The last ones I remember were in Allt yr Yn in Newport.

High asbestos content though.

Not far from this lot:

https://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/find-...-taylor-wimpey

which are built on the site of what used to be Gwent College of Higher Education until they sold off the land & built houses on it.

Interesting.

I wonder which would outlast the other - the prefab or theTaylor Wimpey offering if we were to build a couple together and come back in a couple of hundred years?

[MicrosoftBob]

I was born in a prefab.

Does anyone remember prefabs?

I seem to remember it was pebble dashed. In fact, every square inch of everything on the premises was pebble dashed, including the coal bunker.

Yeah they used to sprout up all over the place

[PurpleGorilla]

Jobs for life
Guilded pensions
Inflation to erode debts
Interest free loans from employer
Leave work at work (no blackberries on the beach)
Secretaries
Cheap housing
Cheap land
Cheap petrol
Cheap fuel
Cheap cigs and alcohol

[DimPrawn]

Jobs for life
Guilded pensions
Inflation to erode debts
Interest free loans from employer
Leave work at work (no blackberries on the beach)
Secretaries
Cheap housing
Cheap land
Cheap petrol
Cheap fuel
Cheap cigs and alcohol

[DimPrawn]

The twonkbook generation.

Man rescued after being stuck in washing machine for three hours - Telegraph

[DimPrawn]

At least we knew how to spell "gilded".

And I'm sure that knowing the money I saved in the 70s is now worth 10% of that now is ever so satisfying.

You really are a mauve ape of a troll aren't you.

He's the usual @rsebook selfie stick twonk you see these days, not a clue the high inflation eroded earnings and destroyed savings, and the weekly shop used to leave feck all to save.

Now after filling his meaningless life with gadgets and subcriptions to every TV channel he can't afford a house that you or I couldn't afford when we were young either.

I just ignore their pathetic childish whining noises.

[unixman]

How UK incomes have risen (and fallen) since 1948 - Telegraph

What confuses me, is how folk with less disposable income could afford such big houses in the past when times were so tough?

1. Demand increase due to breakdown of the nuclear family. After divorce, a family needs 2 or 3 homes, not 1.

2. Demand increase due to breakdown of the nuclear family. A single mother, of which there now many, has the right to a house.

3. Demand increase due to people having fewer children. Before 1980, 3 houses (families) could have contained 18 or 20 people. Today people have 1.7 children on average, so 20 people would now require 5.4 houses, getting on for double.

4. Demand increase due to people living longer.

5. Demand increase due to soaring public sector executive pay 1997 - 2010. Put simply, there are many people earning 100k+ or 150k+, competing for houses. Council chiefs and senior council managers, senior policemen, doctors, senior NHS managers and so on.

In the late 60s, 70s and 80, many individuals on the left of British politics and in the media campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of the nuclear family, following views fashionable at the time that it was outmoded and oppressive. Not half as oppressive as the alternative, as it turns out. Most of these individuals came from stable families themselves, and now live in big houses west of London.