On 30 Jan 2015 at 8:01pm Sussex Jim wrote:
I spent this morning watching the repeat showing, fifty years later, of the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. The orderly behaviour of the people, the absence of litter in the streets and the calm voice of Richard Dimbleby was a reminder of the stable society that used to be.
On 30 Jan 2015 at 8:10pm Boo Khaki wrote:
And still quite moving too
Great interviews and interesting revelation about the Port cranes - that MAYBE shouldn't have been revealed
On 30 Jan 2015 at 10:20pm Southover Queen wrote:
Jim, honestly, what utter tosh. You can eulogise Churchill all you like, but "stable society", where corrupt police took money from the Krays and the Richardsons and where The Establishment was untouchable? Even Churchill would probably have been forced from office under a cloud for accepting huge handouts from sympathisers. It's as completely unrealistic as your view of society now, for that matter, where gay men fornicate on every corner just to offend you.
He was an extraordinary wartime leader. I'm not entirely sure why we're commemorating his funeral; it seems quite odd to me.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 7:56am Sussex Jim wrote:
SQ, you disappoint me. Your posts are usually quite sensible.
We may have differing views, but that's what makes the forum interesting. Lets' move on.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 8:14am Bricky wrote:
The Dockers had to be paid Double Bubble to operate the cranes - and the only Union rep @ the do was the Bricklayers Union
On 31 Jan 2015 at 9:15am bertie wrote:
Incompetent warmonger.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 10:25am Southover Queen wrote:
Jim, you're remembering a society which simply didn't exist, and that's a problem because it distorts how we live now. If you're constantly harking back to a mythical, non-existent golden age as if that was a template for how to live now it's no wonder we mess things up in the present day.
There's been a lot of Churchill about in the media these last couple of weeks; why aren't we celebrating the achievements of society now? Or planning a way to make it happier and more stable? All we seem to do in this country is gaze backwards through rose-coloured (and distorting) spectacles at something which never was in the first place and say "ah those were the days". It's hardly the way to plan a future.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 10:38am Burlington bertie wrote:
I`m really quite dirty, I'm not very clean I'll admit, My knickers are rotten they stick to my bottom all covered with clinkers and ..... admit I agree with you, Southover Queen.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 11:56am The Most Happy Fella wrote:
Standin' on the corner, watching all the chaps go by 
On 31 Jan 2015 at 2:25pm Metatron wrote:
How many if you remember this?
I was only five. I presume you remember it well SQ by your comments, as I recall society was a lot more coconsiderate; nt mother baked bread for the whole street and she would not acept payment from the poorer families.
On 31 Jan 2015 at 4:40pm Old un wrote:
We was all poor in our street . The years before ( I went to sec. school '65 ) I used to buy stale buns from the local baker for primary school elevenses because they were cheap, and were fine with the milk we were given, then back home to our council house with just one coal fire for heating and hot water. Someone stopped the milk and gave away the houses later, they liked Churchill too
On 31 Jan 2015 at 5:51pm Southover Queen wrote:
It's a matter of public record, Metatron. I was a child in those days - a little older than you, but not that much. Actually my own memories are quite different and rather chaotic, but I wouldn't use my own direct experience to make much wider claims.
At the time of Churchill's funeral the mods and rockers were running wild, and I'm sure were scandalising polite society. Before that it was teddy boys beating people up in alley ways.
It doesn't matter really what the frictions were 50 years ago, except if we spin ourselves a story that it was all so much better then by pretending they didn't exist. I remain concerned that so much of this nation's identity is about its magnificent past, of winning wars and subjugating nations. Perhaps Germany is doing so well because they have to live in the now, rather than mourning a past which never really was.
On 1 Feb 2015 at 11:57am Old Bloke wrote:
"the mods and rockers were running wild."
Do leave off. The way some talk you'd think it was riots every night of the week. Life was far quieter then
There were a handful of incidents involving a few hundred perhaps - almost exclusively on a Bank Holiday. Aside from that there was no more than your usual round of Saturday night punch ups that had been happening for donkeys years from Lands End to John O'Groats.
As Jim so rightly says it was a far more stable society then as well as being much nicer.
Churchill was a great man, the right leader at the right time of a great country with wonderful allies.
He was followed by Clement Attlee and the finest government this country (probably the world) has ever known.
All been down hill since the, first gradually and then accelerated
by recent governments.
Shame we've also spawned people who love to talk down our great history
On 1 Feb 2015 at 3:11pm Southover Queen wrote:
Mods and Rockers clashing was plastered over every newspaper in the land for months: a proper Daily Mail moral panic.
What do you say about the fact - FACT - that Krays, Richardsons and other East End gangs had the police safely in their pockets? Is that more nonsense? (It isn't: do look it up)
What about the fact that for most of his life Churchill's finances - driven by a taste for the high life and an unfortunate gambling habit - were under so much pressure that he accepted handouts from press barons? In fact, a group of them got together to buy Chartwell when he was forced to sell because he'd run out of money again so that he could live there rent-free. Imagine that nowadays.
So the objective evidence is that it wasn't all lovely in those days, and there was probably as much fear and corruption swirling about as ever there was. This isn't personal experience, this is just basic history.
The most curious thing about your post is not that you disagree (*what* a surprise) but that you berate me for failing to big up our nation's history. I don't think you've ever had a good word to say about the present day: perhaps just as egregious a failing?
On 1 Feb 2015 at 4:14pm Clifford wrote:
There's also the fact that as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1925 Churchill accepted bankers' advice to put the pound on the Gold Standard at too high a value. The result was that exporters found it harder to sell goods abroad because the price was too high, which meant they tried to cut their workers' pay, which led - when they tried it with the miners - to the General Strike. Funny how it's always the bankers and their greed that kicks the trouble off.