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My daughters at Uni and lucky me got this message from her recently -
"I'm writing a history paper on environmental history, and its about my family's connection to the environment when growing up. If you could possibly answer these questions I would be very grateful.
"What roles did race, ethnicity, class, and gender play in the way your ancestors interacted with their environments? How specifically do/did your older relatives’ values about the natural world compare with your own?"
So instead of ancestors it would be you".
Well of course I have tried to help her by replying and I thought it may be of interest to some of the older Nutters amongst us (and maybe some of the younger Nutters who view us as dinosaurs) as to see how the world as changed from my perspective.
I was born in the mid 50's and the world was a lot different back then.
I lived in a working class suburb of a quite large industrial town and all you could see on the sky lines was chimney's. All the houses were heated by coal fires and all the factory's were powered by coal boilers making steam. We did have electricity but most people didn't have central heating, inside toilets, or even a bath, until their old houses - dating back to Victorian and Edwardian times - late 1800's/ early 1900's - were demolished under the big urban slum clearance schemes they had at the time, and they moved into new houses more like the ones we are used to today.
Because I was raised at the very end of the coal fire era, I remember great fogs, where the smoke hanging in the air mixed with the natural fogs to make them dangerous and I believe lethal (look up the word smog for reference) these fogs / smogs brought about the national Clean Air Act, which I guess was one of the first environmental laws enacted that I was ever aware about.
As for ethnicity, there was none.
The only people who were for any reason different from the rest of us were a few people who had a different accent from the rest of us, such as someone from Ireland or Scotland. Apart from their accent they were identical to us in every other way - language, culture, skin colour, etc.
When I was about ten the first coloured family's from India / Pakistan / Uganda started to appear at my school and in my neighbourhood. At first people were friendly and tried to help them settle in, I used to play with the boys and even to this day remember two of their names Iqbal and Asif. However over time their seemingly lack of interest into integrating within our society seemed to set many people against them. Although the kids at school learned to speak English many of their parents did not and so isolated themselves from normal society. They tended to live in the same areas, so much so that the white residents began to be the minority. This had the effect that most white people wanted to move away and non wanted to buy property there, so house prices fell in these areas and the only people who would buy would be more Asian's thus compounding the problem. In a very short space of time - I would guess about ten years, certain areas of the
town became renowned as almost totally Asian areas.
A national politician at the time Enoch Powell made a famous speech about the future of immigration into the UK and predicted civil unrest in his Rivers of Blood' speech.
The Asians in general kept their own culture, they built mosques, wore their baggy robes, the older women covered their body and face, eat spicy food that you could smell on their breath and clothes and usually did not integrate with the rest of us. Our social life back then was going out to the pubs or dances, shopping in town, or going to the football matches - non of which most Asians did. I guess this sowed the seeds as to why many second, third and even fourth generation Asian family's in this country still have problems identifying themselves as true British.
I remember the government bringing in the Race Relation Act to prevent discrimination on the grounds of skin colour, religion or race.
As for gender roles, when I grew up is was normal for the men to go out to work, and play, whilst the women raised the kids and looked after the home.
Women did work, usually if their mothers looked after their grand kids, but their type of work was more pigeonholed than it is today. Women tended to do office work, secretarial, infant and junior school teaching, nurses, that sort of thing whilst the men had 'mens jobs' builders, shipbuilders, miners, bankers, lecturers at senior schools, lorry drivers, train drivers, MP's, councillors, etc.
Again this was really at the end of the gender work roles as when I grew older I could see changes taking place to more or less what they are today.
I remember the government bringing in the Equal Pay Act, as women used to be paid less then men for the same work.
Finally as for class I guess that was coming to an end as well during my early years.
Everyone I knew where the same class - working class - and people my age now would probably still consider themselves to be working class although we probably fall into the middle class definition.
I can't remember any real social class divide as everyone was the same. We were poor but we were not in debt, we did have some small comforts, TV's, the cinema, going out for a drink or off to the match. We didn't see family's living their life's on benefits as we do today. If I remember right it was a bit of a social stigma back then to have to claim the dole (benefits).
Of course there were people better off then us who lived in posher areas but that was a minority and most people including my older brother had aspirations to better themselves and move into large private housing estates that were being built then such as Ladybridge (also known as the jam butty estate, as people paid so much for their house and mortgage they left themselves with no money to buy food with and thus lived off jam butties! - illustrative, not factual).
Even though all the above might seem it was really crap to live back then, there was also a great many good environmental things to remember.
First although we were polluting the planet by burning fossil fuels (coal) there were less of us about 50/60 years ago and the need to plunder the planet for resources, food and travel was not the same.
I remember my town being surrounded by green fields - all now built on, eating fresh meat, fish and vegetables, not mass farming for the supermarkets, where people interacted face to face more, not by facebook and snapchat (or whatever is the latest trend), where global warming was not an issue,
We weren't environmentally savvy like people are today but we probably ate better than we do today - no McDonalds or microwave / convenience meals - mostly good old fashion cooked family meals. We certainly didn't ruin the environment by travel anything like we do today, I can only remember two car owning family's in a street of forty houses (up to when I was ten years old), if we wanted to go anywhere we had to walk, catch the bus, or train.
Maybe by today's definitions we may be considered more racist (and less politically correct) but I think people resented being pushed down the queues for housing, medical care and maybe even employment by those relatively suddenly turning up and the doorstep and taking out of the pot before they had even put into it.
Maybe our 'chav' family's of today were born from their parents/grandparents not finding work and taking a life on benefits because someone from another country was willing to work for less? Why work when you get a house, healthcare and paid more in benefits than if you actually work for a living? Maybe the flood of Asians did have at least one unintended long term affect on our society?
As a father I do think one positive of today over 50 years ago is the enhanced opportunity women have to a career outside the home if they wish. I think it fair to say most girls wanted to live close to mum and home back then, now gender stereotyping no longer limits them to just this option.
"I'm writing a history paper on environmental history, and its about my family's connection to the environment when growing up. If you could possibly answer these questions I would be very grateful.
"What roles did race, ethnicity, class, and gender play in the way your ancestors interacted with their environments? How specifically do/did your older relatives’ values about the natural world compare with your own?"
So instead of ancestors it would be you".
Well of course I have tried to help her by replying and I thought it may be of interest to some of the older Nutters amongst us (and maybe some of the younger Nutters who view us as dinosaurs) as to see how the world as changed from my perspective.
I was born in the mid 50's and the world was a lot different back then.
I lived in a working class suburb of a quite large industrial town and all you could see on the sky lines was chimney's. All the houses were heated by coal fires and all the factory's were powered by coal boilers making steam. We did have electricity but most people didn't have central heating, inside toilets, or even a bath, until their old houses - dating back to Victorian and Edwardian times - late 1800's/ early 1900's - were demolished under the big urban slum clearance schemes they had at the time, and they moved into new houses more like the ones we are used to today.
Because I was raised at the very end of the coal fire era, I remember great fogs, where the smoke hanging in the air mixed with the natural fogs to make them dangerous and I believe lethal (look up the word smog for reference) these fogs / smogs brought about the national Clean Air Act, which I guess was one of the first environmental laws enacted that I was ever aware about.
As for ethnicity, there was none.
The only people who were for any reason different from the rest of us were a few people who had a different accent from the rest of us, such as someone from Ireland or Scotland. Apart from their accent they were identical to us in every other way - language, culture, skin colour, etc.
When I was about ten the first coloured family's from India / Pakistan / Uganda started to appear at my school and in my neighbourhood. At first people were friendly and tried to help them settle in, I used to play with the boys and even to this day remember two of their names Iqbal and Asif. However over time their seemingly lack of interest into integrating within our society seemed to set many people against them. Although the kids at school learned to speak English many of their parents did not and so isolated themselves from normal society. They tended to live in the same areas, so much so that the white residents began to be the minority. This had the effect that most white people wanted to move away and non wanted to buy property there, so house prices fell in these areas and the only people who would buy would be more Asian's thus compounding the problem. In a very short space of time - I would guess about ten years, certain areas of the
town became renowned as almost totally Asian areas.
A national politician at the time Enoch Powell made a famous speech about the future of immigration into the UK and predicted civil unrest in his Rivers of Blood' speech.
The Asians in general kept their own culture, they built mosques, wore their baggy robes, the older women covered their body and face, eat spicy food that you could smell on their breath and clothes and usually did not integrate with the rest of us. Our social life back then was going out to the pubs or dances, shopping in town, or going to the football matches - non of which most Asians did. I guess this sowed the seeds as to why many second, third and even fourth generation Asian family's in this country still have problems identifying themselves as true British.
I remember the government bringing in the Race Relation Act to prevent discrimination on the grounds of skin colour, religion or race.
As for gender roles, when I grew up is was normal for the men to go out to work, and play, whilst the women raised the kids and looked after the home.
Women did work, usually if their mothers looked after their grand kids, but their type of work was more pigeonholed than it is today. Women tended to do office work, secretarial, infant and junior school teaching, nurses, that sort of thing whilst the men had 'mens jobs' builders, shipbuilders, miners, bankers, lecturers at senior schools, lorry drivers, train drivers, MP's, councillors, etc.
Again this was really at the end of the gender work roles as when I grew older I could see changes taking place to more or less what they are today.
I remember the government bringing in the Equal Pay Act, as women used to be paid less then men for the same work.
Finally as for class I guess that was coming to an end as well during my early years.
Everyone I knew where the same class - working class - and people my age now would probably still consider themselves to be working class although we probably fall into the middle class definition.
I can't remember any real social class divide as everyone was the same. We were poor but we were not in debt, we did have some small comforts, TV's, the cinema, going out for a drink or off to the match. We didn't see family's living their life's on benefits as we do today. If I remember right it was a bit of a social stigma back then to have to claim the dole (benefits).
Of course there were people better off then us who lived in posher areas but that was a minority and most people including my older brother had aspirations to better themselves and move into large private housing estates that were being built then such as Ladybridge (also known as the jam butty estate, as people paid so much for their house and mortgage they left themselves with no money to buy food with and thus lived off jam butties! - illustrative, not factual).
Even though all the above might seem it was really crap to live back then, there was also a great many good environmental things to remember.
First although we were polluting the planet by burning fossil fuels (coal) there were less of us about 50/60 years ago and the need to plunder the planet for resources, food and travel was not the same.
I remember my town being surrounded by green fields - all now built on, eating fresh meat, fish and vegetables, not mass farming for the supermarkets, where people interacted face to face more, not by facebook and snapchat (or whatever is the latest trend), where global warming was not an issue,
We weren't environmentally savvy like people are today but we probably ate better than we do today - no McDonalds or microwave / convenience meals - mostly good old fashion cooked family meals. We certainly didn't ruin the environment by travel anything like we do today, I can only remember two car owning family's in a street of forty houses (up to when I was ten years old), if we wanted to go anywhere we had to walk, catch the bus, or train.
Maybe by today's definitions we may be considered more racist (and less politically correct) but I think people resented being pushed down the queues for housing, medical care and maybe even employment by those relatively suddenly turning up and the doorstep and taking out of the pot before they had even put into it.
Maybe our 'chav' family's of today were born from their parents/grandparents not finding work and taking a life on benefits because someone from another country was willing to work for less? Why work when you get a house, healthcare and paid more in benefits than if you actually work for a living? Maybe the flood of Asians did have at least one unintended long term affect on our society?
As a father I do think one positive of today over 50 years ago is the enhanced opportunity women have to a career outside the home if they wish. I think it fair to say most girls wanted to live close to mum and home back then, now gender stereotyping no longer limits them to just this option.
