Attitudes don't always change for the better - can we at least agree on that?

I thought I'd dreamt this one in the depth of a terrible nightmare, but now I see that it's all too terribly real...

Anyway, back in the 1950s such prejudices were positively encouraged by the powers that be by way of pacifying the potential unruliness of proletariat. The best that working-class women could hope for was to live in constant drudgery & servitude, destroying their knees by daily-polishing their oven ranges & doorsteps for fear of being ostracised by their so-called communities. Black & white times; well & truly the Dark Ages, but they're mostly all dead & buried now along with all the repressive insanity that enslaved them.

You want a golden age of England, WAV, you're going to have go a long way further back than the 1950s, which was probably one of the bleakest times in our history, with few compensatory factors for those unfortunate enough to have lived through them. I see them yet, those dark-eyed refugees of the mid-years of the 20th century; the sort of people who express sympathy for the BNP because of the repressions they were forced to take such pride in. Washed-up, washed-out, alienated & cast aside, they can't even smoke in their pubs & clubs any more; having become addicted to cigarettes at a time when their GP would have encouraged them to take it up.

These people would no doubt agree with you, WAV - and... but hey, wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying? That was before immigration right? So it must have been better...