I switch on my TV or radio, watch or listen to the news, and hardly a day goes by without yet more reports of mindless acts of violence in Britain, largely perpetrated by the young. I leave my house and whilst walking through the streets, I gaze around me and all I see is rubbish, graffiti, gangs of youths hanging around on street corners with dark, threatening gazes emanating from their otherwise blank expressions. I walk more hurriedly than I would prefer, wanting this simple journey to the local shops and home again, to be over as soon as possible. I live in a town which is little more than a large village, with a reasonable level of affluence, so the problems of youth in this area cannot be attributed to poverty and deprivation. The area where I live is not alone. This “yob culture” is a scourge across the whole of the UK in the last decade of the 20th century and now well into the 21st century. What went wrong? Take me back to the 1950s please.

Though I was only a small child in Britain in the 1950s, the atmosphere was so far away from Britain in the 21st century, that, held up in comparison with the Britain of today, the 1950s could have been something from another planet, far off in another galaxy. Today our lives largely appear to be ruled by rudeness, discourtesy, acquisitiveness, neurosis, vandalism, hatred, violence, ignorance, disrespect, flippancy and apathy.

For me, the 1950s in Britain was a materially austere, yet socially rich place to live. My viewpoint and memories of those days aren’t in the slightest a rosy view of a comfortable childhood home, as I was brought up in a highly dysfunctional family. It for me was more about the general mood present in society during those long-gone 1950s, the memory of which warms my heart, yet saddens my soul from the point of view that it is now all gone, never to return.

My biggest reminiscence from those days is one of a feeling of complete security, wherever I happened to be. People actually looked out for one another in those days. It wasn’t at all unusual for anybody to receive (and to give) a huge smile and a hearty “good morning” to a total stranger passing in the street…..so much nicer than an evil, murderous stare (which is largely what we are treated to nowadays). If children were making too much noise and disturbing somebody, a civilized word to their parents would be appreciatively received and the kids would be told to consider others and keep the noise down - in recent times, approaching the parents could at best be leaving oneself open to a barrage of abuse and at worst, serious physical assault.

I have clear 1950s memories of people of all ages (children accompanied by parents and not allowed to run riot……running riot being something entirely different to a simple case of natural high spiritedness) going out for peaceful walks on long balmy summer evenings, enjoying just being alive and everything that was around them. Passers by would call a cheerful “good evening” - nowadays it’s either complete indifference to your existence, or outright hostility and intimidation. In the year 2008, if you have any sense, you stay tucked up at home with windows and doors securely bolted. The “teenies” have taken over the streets and our lives, in the knowledge that in most cases, the law can’t touch them because of their age and the current day ridiculousness of the British judicial system.

What is our social “norm” has deteriorated considerably. It is now thought of as polite to bark “excuse me” at somebody who is blocking your path, but back in the 1950s to curtly demand “excuse me” without a “please” or a pleasant tone in one’s voice, plus a “thank you” afterwards, would have been considered the epitome of bad behavior and bad manners. That is just one example of basic deterioration, whereby those who set the “top of the tree” standards in current times are dictating that what was once thought of as unacceptable, is now thought of as being respectful.

If I had a time machine, I would want to go back (and stay back) in those days in the UK when little old ladies called you “duck”, when children played in the streets supervised by their stay-at-home mothers or in the park supervised by the park keeper who wielded (for appearances sake only) a large stick. I want to stay in the time when children’s parties were about jelly, cakes, balloons and interactive games which taught them a sense of cooperation and fairness - not how it is now, where large hordes of screeching monsters invade McDonalds clad in party hats and stuff their faces full of the worst kind of junk food. I want to live in a world where if somebody’s music was too loud, you had no reticence whatsoever at politely requesting them to turn it down just a couple of notches, as such a request would have been reciprocated with a smile and an apology - now in time, you would be lucky to get away as lightly as being sworn at and the music being turned up louder, merely out of spite or bloody-mindedness.

Take me back to a time when happy faced little children contentedly played on beaches with little tin buckets, building sandcastles - not this NOW time, where the sea-front and High Street of my old home town is a no-go area, infested with psychopathic gangs of teens and 20-somethings high on crack or booze, raging warfare against one another and anybody else who should have the utter nerve to simply be an innocent passer by.

I could ramble on forever about the differences between the THEN and the NOW and in this article have only touched the outermost tip of the iceberg. There is one question which constantly is in my mind…that is, “what went wrong”?

It is very easy to blame the changes in society that the 1960s brought, but I personally don’t hold the 1960s responsible. I first saw a noticeable deterioration in general social values in the 1970s, and it was rather easy to pinpoint the cause…..the next generation to emerge totally misunderstood what the “freedoms” of the 1960s were about. The 1970s brigade interpreted those “freedoms” as snatching the liberty to behave exactly as one pleased, with no consideration for anybody else. I also believe that the lowering of the age of consent must take a fair proportion of the blame for society’s gradual breakdown. For instance, back in the days when 21 was the age of consent, it would have been very difficult for say a 14 or 15-year old to gain entry to an X-rated film at the cinema by trying to pretend to be 21…….it’s far more feasible nowadays though that they could get away with pretending to be 18. Most 14 and 15-year olds simply don’t have the maturity of spirit to responsibly watch an X-rated film and place a proper interpretation upon what they have just seen on the screen. OK, an 18-year old could have gained entry into an X-rated film at a cinema during the days when the age of consent was still 21, but that 18-year old would have had more chance of responsible interpretation as they were older and maturer anyway. Of course, the 1970s and 1980s saw the advent of home video with some very nasty films being easily made available to minors, and the ease with which young people could view these films surely canceled out any efforts by the cinema censors to ensure that films were specified as being only suitable for certain age groups.

We could blame the government, as many seem to, but surely the government aren’t responsible for the way we bring up our children, the way we choose to behave, the manners we choose to use or ignore? Give the government a break please! This isn’t their fault.

One serious problem within the UK lately seems to be that the parents of these seriously wayward youths were themselves products of the 1970s “free for all, at all costs” psychology, which was then followed on by the 1980s “me first, me first, me first” mode of thinking. By the time the 1990s came upon us, the plot had become seriously clouded - now in the 2000s, people don’t even realize there was a plot in the first place and wouldn’t recognize it if it were to re-emerge somehow.

It could be said that I’m glad to be at this end of my life (middle-age) rather than just starting out, but on the other hand, if I were just starting out, then I’d know no differently because of complete oblivion to and total unawareness of that seriously lost plot. Where do we go from here? The only place I can see is nowhere.