The good old days - an American view.......

I just read Janet Daley's column and as usual was impressed. She does, however, gold plate sentences that would be more  powerful if plainly inked. She has a point. Namely, that the recent riots were the product of a society that has lost respect for almost everything decent such as authority, law, humanity, tradition and so on. She is adamant that, as some observers are want to conclude, the riots are not the result of class war and the logical conclusion of the liberal, socialist and welfare state.

The American right jumped on this conclusion with delight as it gave them an object example, however erroneous, of what the USA will come to under the likes of Obama and his liberal henchmen. Your riots were politicized here to the propagandistic advantage of the far right and a lot of Americans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. This perspective was followed with the caution that in all probability, the USA will be the next host of proletarian riots.

The greater truth is that something is seriously wrong. The political, social and cultural anarchy precipitated by changing values during the 60's has fostered a motherless society. Your were absolutely correct in your observation that the past was a different country.

Your first trek to Africa in 1959 marked my first trek to England and the British Isles. I landed wide-eyed and alone in Southampton after a stormy crossing. Initial impressions remain strong. One was the presence of bombed-out houses and buildings. Another was an almost total lack of color. A third was the apparent poverty; by contrast with the US. I vividly recall sheep in the meadows sporting black sooty coats, tiny cars, and yet a refreshing sense of tidiness. People queued, streets walkways were free of debris, greengrocers and butchers neatly displayed their goods. It was a Sunday and as I walked aimlessly around Southampton I saw young boys, identically clad in sweaters and short pants, playing soccer on lush greens. Above all, nobody was in a hurry. Tradition appeared to dominate and dictate pace, destination and comportment. Nobody seemed to notice I was there.

Your characterization of the village bobby could have been taken from the streets of New York or Boston. Big, friendly, strict, unarmed and Irish. They knew instinctively if a neighborhood denizen had done something wrong. And often a stern glare was enough to rectify the misdemeanor. That is all gone now. Modern sentinels are rigged up with technical hardware, deadly weapons and a host of crime-fighting gadgets that are at once intriguing and frightening.

  

As for censorship, you were not alone. I guess we would have needed to visit the Continent to be free of that and all that. My parents posted a list of all the current films on a cabinet door and each was rated by what was called The Legion of Decency. I too wondered how members of this legion remained untainted by the much flaunted evils of the films they rated. In any case, we scrupulously adhered to the ratings and avoided those tainted by the devil. Words like sex were banned from TV as were images of pregnant women. Housewives were normally portrayed as extremely happy and content women who cleaned house and cooked in a blouse and skirt, tasteful jewelry and a new coif with not a hair out of place.

There was also the terror of politics in the form of our hunt for Communists in the workplace, schools and universities, homes and in the arts, including the film industry. I was too young and immature to understand the dynamics of Sen. Joe McCarthy's witch hunt, but I intuited a few things; Joe was not a good person, Communists were bad people, I pitied Individuals interrogated by Joe and his minions, and the Soviet Union was evil incarnate. Those were the days, as you so quaintly noted, before Doris Day became a virgin.

Unquestionably, you and your lot in the UK had it much worse. I think Western Europe was even better off in the decade or so after WWII. Subsequently, milk and honey flowed like never before in Western history. Those born into this lifestyle never knew anything different and took our well-being for granted. Enter masters of the universe and those sufficiently void of social responsibility to amass fortunes, or do nothing, as long as it suited them.