Ah, but in those days the local councils were all manned, on a voluntary basis, by worthy local personages who felt it their civic duty - no salaried Councillors or Aldermen and no pension funds for them either (which apparently eats up a third of all Council Tax paid today).

Children with learning difficulties or 'special needs' all went to the same 'special' school, so it only needed one set of teachers from the education budget for them - rather than 1-2 additional classroom assistants/personal assistants at every level (all with salaries and pensions to be paid for).

Families tended to look after their own elderly, rather than expecting the local authorities to provide care for them (of which there was little or none actually available in those days - if you didn't look after your own Granny she would die!

So, yes, there was much, much more in the pot for public lavatories, flower clocks in the park, libraries, playgrounds and all the other communal things that rates were invented to pay for.

You mean, you preferred it.

Public toilets - Yep those are sorely missed, but then they were always dodgy as f**k after hours - and I definitely remember most of them stinking of p*ss, and the floor often being wet. I don't remember seeing attendants, maybe I'm not old enough.

I remember that rubbish was everywhere on the streets, infact there was a massive campaign about disposing of litter in bins. Plus there was dogs**t everywhere. No one picked up their dog sh*t and people often just let their dogs out to s**t and piss where they wanted.

Violence in pubs was far more common place, racism, football hooligansism etc. These days you just don't see it kicking off like it used to. Parks weren't much different round our way than they are now, except there less of them. I definitely remember that basically people were bullies, none of this fancy gentlemanly conduct you talk of. It'd be some c**t starting on you for the most absurd reasons.

Plus there was problems with people getting stabbed. No one I've known has been stabbed in the last twenty years. But in the eight years between being 18 and 26, three people I knew were proper stabbed.

And the choice of drinks in pubs was s**t. F**king awful, you put up with it, because you had no choice, but the chance of getting something other than the brewery's choice of two or three variant bitters and some generic p*ss lager, along with some s**t house branded spirits was unlikely. Plus no food, how s**t was that. KP peanuts, and maybe some golden wonder crips.

Christmas would be two days off, none of this modern stuff of closing down for a week, and you had to bloody go to the stores to buy presents, none of this fancy amazon delivery. Family Christmas parties, Jesus wept, who misses having a party with their family. That's like going to an AA-New Years Eve party.

As for better dressed, boring. Men's clothes have always been a bit s**t, but f**k me, the past was a bland place except for the goths, punks, mods etc. At least now the kids aren't so generic. F**k me, what was all that nonsense with Pringle jumpers and Filo.

Granted people who go out in onsies should be shot, but go back a couple of decades, and going outside wearing anything more exotic than a plain shirt, jumper and slacks, was licence for some drunk c**t to try and start a fight with you.

Plus you had to actually go into work to work, none of that working from home business.

As for things like p***. Jesus, what a hassle that was. God that gives me the chills, to think that if you wanted to see some actual action, it'd set you back upwards of a days wages, involving a trip to a specialist shop - and you'd have to watch it on VHS.

Its all just swings and roundabouts. Something's are better, something's are worse.