Good old days better with rose- tint glasses

I refer to Don Morris’ letter “High price of progress” ( Townsville Bulletin 19/ 12/ 17) eulogising the “good old days” of the postwar era.

Unfortunately, while the 1950s may have been a utopian era for some, many of us recall the more glaring deficiencies of the time. Life may well have been “slower”, but there is also a glossing over of aspects such as illness, shameless and openly condoned school bullying, snobbery, sexual ignorance, bigotry and teachers who may have been any or all of sadistic, lecherous or idle.

Don, you may well long for the days when “the mother’s job was to rear children” but for many women, this meant unending domestic drudgery. Lack of readily available contraception ( no pill back then) meant that backyard abortions were widespread. If the wife did not agree to sex ( often out of fear of yet another unwanted pregnancy) it was perfectly legal for the husband to rape her. In addition, most would have grown up knowing a family in the community where the husband regularly flogged seven bells out of his wife, as domestic violence was regarded as a “private family matter”.

Girls who actually finished school ( a rarity back then) either went into the service of their family or were restricted to nursing, teaching or secretarial work – of course, on the understanding that you would be sacked as soon as you married, and all your wages were the legal property of your father or husband.

Several of us also recall the health aspect of the ’ 50s with a shudder.

Most of the vaccinations that we take for granted today did not exist back then, and while we may reminisce about the fun of “pox parties”, most of us also knew someone who had been left deaf or blind from exposure to rubella, or the grim sight of former playmates in calipers from polio; or worse, in “iron lungs”. Let’s not forget minority groups either. If you were Aboriginal, you could not vote and thus had no say in the running of your own country.

Gay? You could expect to have your head kicked in by the local yahoos as they staggered home from the pub on a Saturday night.

Divorced? You were a social pariah, according to hallowed suburban tradition.

I am sure that in 50 years, we will look back on the present day with fond nostalgia, and similarly eulogise 2017 with the same selective memory.

Yes, Don, things have changed but mostly for the better. JACK MUNRO, Aitkenvale.