An "It was better back then" thread....

[MrBen]

With a nod to Quids on his early 1980's New York experience (see Great Gigs thread)....I so wish I could have visited NYC in the Taxi Driver era, where an edge of menace, depravity and wild excess would all have brought a certain frisson to proceedings. But for any place, was the reality depicted in films, stories etc really like that and how much is bullshit?

Two East Dulwich examples to start you off:

1) An elderly neighbour across from my flat on Landells told me that our building used to be a refuge for battered women and that back around 1980 a pimp drove up, got frustrated at not getting in and so shot two holes into the side of our building.

2) Another ED born and raised local told me that EDT used to be effectively segregated with White Irish on one side and black folk on the other

I can't imagine either* arriving as I did in 2002 but then no idea if both are nonsense.

*Recent gang related drive-bys and gunpoint post office robberies excluded.

[????]

For me it's a close call with "going to football". back in the day it was dirtier, more dangerous, darker, you were treated like scum by the police, it was scarier by miles, etc, etc....but....but...I preferred it to going now, I think. I am genuienely glad its changed really, and now I can take my kids in the next couple of years, (I'd had never have done that if it was still like the 80s), but, but......

[Gidget]

We are heading back to the garbage strewn streets of the Seventies, with the irregular non weekly collections and stuff being dumped because people are too lazy to get rid of it properly. Maybe no power cuts but can imagine sitting in the dark and cold due to not being able to afford the power bills. Retro food is back - Spam anyone?

[giggirl]

Mr Ben - you used to live near me so you know only too well that by the corner of our road was a big fly-tipping spot and there was constant grafitti. Awful.

[Otta]

Another urban myth was that a lovely Bajan lady that drank in the CPT, who passed away not too long ago, used to be a Madam. No idea whether there was any truth in it, and it's not really the sort of thing you could ask her directly.

She was a great local character though.

[Otta]

And whilst I'm on about the CPT, I have memories of "fun days" they held up there in the 80s when I was a little kid. There seemed to be a real community built around the place. There was even a photo on the wall before it became the GE of all the locals standing outside the pub in the 80s.

But then I look at my own experience between say 2001 - 2008, when the CPT was the central hub and headquarters for all of my social circle, and I guess it wasn't that different in many ways to my dad's era, except the place was staffed by young Australians instead of a family living upstairs for many years.

I guess the period in which you lived your 20s will always be the rose tinted period of your life when you look back at a time when you were free and your money was all yours to blow on yourself.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

With you Quids. Standing behind the goal on the terraces was non pareil.

[????]

I even enjoyed it at the Old Den PGC - it felt a bit safer in there than the journey in and out :)

[Ted Max]

"your 20s will always be the rose tinted period of your life when you look back at a time when you were free and your money was all yours to blow on yourself."

Bit bleak, dude.

[*Bob*]

Like, totally. Well bleak!

Such a mindset doesn't bode well for the other 3/4 of your life.

Anyway, 30's trump 20's every time though, surely? Will get back to you on 40's - in a decade or so.

[RosieH]

For me, it was all over by age 9 or so. A man's gotta chew what a man's gotta chew, so off he walked into the desert sunset and my life has never been as golden or glorious since.

That said, my hair, clothes and sex life all go some way to compensating for the paucity of modern day confectionery; so chin up Otta. I heard jet packs are a'comin'.

[Otta]

Don't get me wrong, 30s are great, and generally better than 20s, but the fact is that life has changed (not really due to age, but due to kids), and there are times that I long for some of the crazy times we used to have.

Of course the truth is that I am conveniently forgotting the crappy side of things, and remembering it as if life was a never ending party of happy people.

Last weekend I had a gig on the friday followed by loads of beer, then a trip to Liverpool on Saturday and an over night stay. The fact is, on Monday I was feeling too old for that shit.

[Annette Curtain]

40's are most enjoyable.

Jeeeeesus, being alive is great !

Mind you, never been dead for long enough to explore its niceties.

*puts Leonard Cohen on*

[RosieH]

For Otta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bao5GS2VREM

[Gidget]

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Another urban myth was that a lovely Bajan lady

> that drank in the CPT, who passed away not too

> long ago, used to be a Madam. No idea whether

> there was any truth in it, and it's not really the

> sort of thing you could ask her directly.

>

> She was a great local character though.

Did she live on Nutfield Rd as there was supposedly a brothel there?

[????]

Ok, for me

Better

- Music, EASY

- Youth Culture

- Football

Worse

- food

- general intolerance racism/sexism

- TV (don't really believe in the Golden Age thing)

[Otta]

Gidget when I knew her she lived on Whateley, but not sure if she was always there.

[Huguenot]

Better go-carts, cowhorns, DIY electronics components, music, homemade spears... The list goes on.

[Help-Ma-Boab]

Screen Test. Much better than The Culture Show.

[????]

better sweets, worse coffee

[steveo]

Acid drops. I think they used the stuff out of car batteries.

[Jah Lush]

Nostalgia isn't like it used to be.

[Otta]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Ok, for me

>

>

> Better

> - Music, EASY

> - Youth Culture

> - Football

>

> Worse

> - food

> - general intolerance racism/sexism

> - TV (don't really believe in the Golden Age

> thing)

Football? Okay so the players were more "real", and not paid stupid stupid stupid money, and it wasn't so big business. But the weekly violence surrounding the game can't be looked back on fondly however much of a guilty pleasure "Football Factory" may be (which it is for me I must admit)!

[Gidget]

Camp coffee.

[aquarius moon]

The TV programmes were all so much better back then.