What is poverty? | 1960s UK | 1960s Nottingham | St Ann's | Documentary Report | 1969 

Indeed, and compare her to the foul mouthed chavs we have today

No entitlement

Bet the bank it did not and only got worse as she aged.

@@libraiis we just don’t know that. My grandparents lived like this, but they were then put in social council housing. They made sure their children got a good education (poor families had county scholarship for grammar school) and they all got good jobs. They were then able to help their parents in their old age, paying their energy bills, rates, even holidays etc.

Many of the residents moved to the new Clifton estate and retired after working at John Players , Raleigh , Boots factories and many others.. All closed down now.

That's absolutely right.

Yes, her callused and bleeding fingertips prove classism is an awesome thing. Chains are to be admired.

@@churchofgod4016 Idiot

Wow that's ignorant

There was no welfare and this woman had no choice. Piecework was exploitation, the equivalent of sweatshop work. The employer paid no overheads and passed them onto those who took home the work. This generation came after WWII and some were children during the war. They grew up tough and self-reliant.

Agreed. She had a lovely smile too. In fact I'd go as far as saying she was indeed a very good looking lady.

What a beautiful recount. Thank you. True that the luxuries that bring some, like your wonderful Mother, to tears are just pearls before the herd. I lived in places like that. Whole areas become labelled, their troubles attributed to the swine. But sometimes you find genuine diamonds in the rough, the real people.

I never imagined that level of poverty existed in Britain in the 60s when Britain was still waging wars of colonialists illusion.

@@fahedal-ajmi4015 You need to appreciate that as many British people were as abused by their own governments as were colonials... My father - like a million others - returned from WW2 to find that the "land fit for heroes" was as illusory as that promised in the first conflict. His living gone, his 'reserved occupation' taken by another. I was born disabled, before the NHS. My Dad - a cabinet-maker - returned to find my my Mum had been forced to sell/pawn his tools to pay for my treatment. By the time he had recovered his trade, it was already history. The world was ill-divided then. It still is. But the PR spin is better.

@@MrMcCawber I appreciate the difficulties of your personal experience, but consequents British governments intervention caused untold pains and damage to score of nations at times they could have taken better care of their own people.

@@fahedal-ajmi4015 several countries were initially grateful of colonialiam , wealth was brought to those countries , industrialism , and military protection from hostile neighbouring countries

I'm sure this LADY gave her children good moral values also to be proud of. Salt of the earth worth her weight in gold

@@colin5064 She could still be alive as she is probably in her late seventies or eighties now.

@@letitiakearney2423 I hope she is and keeping well.

@@letitiakearney2423 Pretty much the youngest she could be is about 85. The program aired in 1969, she looks let's say about 35, which would put her birthdate at around 1935.

@@rheinhartsilvento2576 Without proper diet and vitamins I'm afraid the average lifespan was probably quite low.

100% correct.

The hippie lifestyle were the ones who did want to run from their reality isn't it !?

And yet, there are "anti-racist" organisations nowadays paid hefty sums to demonise such decent salt of the earth people.

@@stidesheaven1972 That doesn't make sense, what do you mean?

Not if you watch 50s 60s kitchen sink drama. It's pretty obvious that era wasn't one big party.

I can assure you that people said the exact same when watching this in 1969 comparing it to the years of the great depression. Poverty isn't just eternally defined by one era or generation; it changes. Not being able to afford the rent on your Pye 13 inch TV from Radio Rentals has been replaced by not being able to afford the interest payments on your second hand telly from cash converters. Same issues, different set of clothes.

@Richard Devonshire Bullshit. If you live in a society (pre or post mod cons) where you are towing to make a decent existence for you and your family (in work or not) while your neighbor pulls up in a brand new car, then the notion of materialistic elements being branded as disingenuous goes straight out the window. So to make the comparison I made in my previous comment is completely fair because I provided the context to back it up. You just basically said "Well if theyve got food and a roof over their heads they should think themselves lucky!" which is a dickensian argument and one grounded in greed.

Don't be so stupid....standards are higher now as they should be. It's like you're accusing anyone today who lives above the minimal poverty line of Victoria England of not really being poor! That's nonsense as poverty is relative.

Well of eh. Tell that to those who need the food banks

I don't think people back then spent half their net income on a mortgage or rent? They probably didn't spend a further 10% on council tax. They got to claim a state pension at 60 & 65 The country wasn't an overpopulated foreign owned mess, crippled by trillions of pounds of public & private debt. Never mind old sport, Lord Sugar thinks you can't be poor if you've a telly and a microwave.

That was the same attitude my West of Ireland mother had.

@Jack W Indeed. The amount of unclaimed benefits is around 16 billion annually, which dwarves the estimated 3 billion in possible benefit fraud. But that doesn't rile up right wing newspapers readers, neither pushes them to vote for parties with punitive measures against the poor (whilst turning a blind eye to tax evasion from our betters), so it's never mentioned anywhere. The demonisation of the poor and their characterisation as "chavs" has been so successful in this country, from comedy to fly on the wall documentary series or sensationalised articles, that at this point I cannot see it can be reversed. Divide and conquer, same old.

What I think is tragic about that is the fact that, as now, pay was simply not enough. Whilst the bosses and shareholders made greater and greater profits. This lady and her husband didn't question that gross unfairness and that they were being exploited shamelessly. (I'm not anything like a socialist - I just want societies to be fair, decent and able to provide people with the means to reach their potential.)

@@iggle6448 You don't have to excuse yourself for being a decent human being with an ingrained sense of fairness and a natural rejection for social and economic injustice.

@@Basauri48970 What a kind comment, thank you! Long before social/economic justice was a thing, I once asked a self-made £multi-millionaire what he thought was the most important principle in sustainable social and community life. He was a trustee of the large non-profit org of which I was ceo. He simply said "fairness". Which is why he was giving his time and resources to what we were doing. His sincerity and simplicity has always been deeply inspirational to me.

They had poverty but the teachers of the day knew their jobs and taught well.

Today anyone would believe she'd had elocution lessons. Incredible.

@@phillipecook3227 It's incredible isn't it. I read as a child and my parents spoke to me and told me that if I was going to speak I should do so properly, and am, to reverse a phrase of Orwell's, upper lower middle class. Just for speaking relatively normally by the standards of a few years ago, and using a few polysyllables, I get no end of stick.

She was very serious throughout the interview but every now and then there was a hint of a gorgeous smile brewing, high cheek bones and a delicious overbite.

That was the first thing I noticed !

Rather a gross generalisation. Don't forget the producers of this documentary would not pick a person who could not articulate themselves clearly.

@@andiemorgan961 I think it's a generalisation with merit and nothing more. Along with spelling and handwriting I think it's very hard to deny.

@@andiemorgan961 so you’ve asked the producer? Or are you just presumptive

If you want to speak like this lady, then do it, rather than following the dumb masses.. LMMFAO

@@andiemorgan961 I look back on my grandmother's letters and her grammar and handwriting are of a high standard based on a general not exceptional education. Today on social media many people cannot even write a full sentence in the correct grammatical tense.

Thank you for sharing your story. I always fascinated by people experience. I wish I could be a time traveller and see the life of our ancestors. Being a fly on the wall, or just a ghost who can’t be seen but I would be there just to observe... I’m glad that you didn’t feel poor yourself. Wealth is not just money and I’m so glad that I had a big family and lots of friends that I never felt that anything missing from my childhood...

@@ababble1245 How old are you darling that can ask such a dumb question? 🤔 Anyway... Happy new year 🥳

@@ababble1245 it's from the days when birth control was almost unheard off. Though if you're skint, you'll have very few pleasures in life, so a little bit of intimacy works wonders.

@@ababble1245 No, but I didn’t want to be too offensive and gave benefit of the doubt that maybe your tender age the reason why you ask such an ignorant question. Also got good education and learned etiquette and much more. Not always use it, because someone straight up @sshole then I give them their own medicine. 😉 @pintofkimberley answered in a very nice and understandable manner, so hope we could contribute to your education. Your welcome 🤓

@@ababble1245 You gaslight yourself. I won’t try to convince you that I’m not a boomer. You can think whatever you want, it doesn’t make it true or mean anything. You only exposed your poor education. With the same logic as you say that if someone can’t afford kids, then don’t have it, I say if you can’t understand things then don’t form an opinion and STFU!

Agree. Notice how she says her husband would rather work than being on the dole, even if it meant being on less money. In the 70's and before it was shameful to be on the 'dole' if you could avoid it. Personal pride and self respect has been lost.

Unless she was an actor!

@@saxav88 Very true. The rise of 'reality' tv has a lot to do with how people think now. Playing the system is openly boasted about as if it was an achievement and it is then passed to the next generation. Britain has been broken for a long time now.

Not a professional victim like everyone is now

I am 70, and have lived through the sixties. Working people then had an acceptance of hardship and poverty, just as their foreparents did, and were a stronger breed, but today its all me, me, me, poor me and selfishness abounds. Take a look at this lady as she speaks and you will see a refined woman of strong character. The salt of the earth.

Sounds bad. My mum was born in 1942 and said they were poor growing up in the north of England. Winter's must have been tough then, heck I complain now when I come down stairs on the morning and my kitchen is freezing, but I can turn the central heating on. My biggest problem is a battle for decades with depression and issues, the winter makes that worse.

I remember ice on the inside of the bedroom window. Sleeping with hat and gloves on. And trekking down the yard to the outside toilet in the snow. I never got used to the cold.

One fire and you counted every bit of coal you put on it.. Just a few bits a day. It was that or be freezing by mid week because you had none left so no fire. We had a paraffin heater ( damned awful things,smell bad and so unsafe) but that was not affordable either. Working poor is what most did back then even though they would not admit it or even say it. Ask them back then and they would say that ;working poor was someone else and not them. They got by on low expectations out of life. That was the key to survival. Still is.

@@libraiis So true and well said

@@truthmerchant1 Me 2, was just about to make the same comment. And going to school in shorts in the winter. Newspaper in the shoes to dry them out. That was in the north east. Dad got a much better job in the south and we moved, then life was much improved.

Coming back to the UK after Brexit and Covid19.

volvos60bloke You have got to be a bot.

@Richard Devonshire well that woman's economic difficulties certainly wasn't the fault of immigrants.

@@GEricG Exactly, and this clearly demonstrates that the real enemies are the bosses and the political establishment at large (regardless of party). NOT polish fruit pickers!

@Richard Devonshire what about em? You implying Brits don't do this as well?

I remember sitting on the draining board with my feet in the kitchen sink being washed clean by my mum. We had no fridge, the phone was a shared 'party line', and you could hear the neighbours poking their fire in our semi-detached house.

I just realised I’m living in the 60s then minus the plug sockets and bathroom issues.

Amazing. Vivefying. These accounts I am reading... Thank you, all of you...

Yes, things like the Austin Powers movies are really a fantasy.

Can't say I agree, my auntie was a mod and had a whale of a time living in a terrace house , I shared her bed as a toddler at my grandma's and she used to walk home from town with her friend it was a happy time

what does LP stand for ?

@@lam5hunhu1 Long Playing record. Back then album art meant much more, because it covered the wider area of a record cover, not a postage-stamp-size thumbnail on iTunes.

@@lam5hunhu1 "Long player". 33 1/3 rpm. Thanks for the interest.

They're watching Netflix right now.

Yes she could be around 80ish now if still here

Amazing woman your mother, what a queen

What a great lady. Those with real drive can never be kept prisoner to adverse circumstances.

My dad had only a few years of school but was a born trader, borowed a bit of money of his sister for buying his first car. DIed on his 86st a millionair. I am so proud of him !

All too true. The media beatifies the most extreme specimens and can't give them enough air time (cf. the Markle Debacle)

About the damp behind the timber panelling, and the furniture turning green, and her boy's bronchitis and ear infections - Yes

@@comealongcomealong4480 And She was actually a very bright person. Talked very articulated about the situation. Sorry. English is not my native language...

this made me cry

@@robertmorley9149 Big softie x

@@robertmorley9149 Me too 🥺

Me too, I remember it well. Or I had second hand shoes that didn't fit particularly well. Everything was second hand. My mum used to go on the second hand stalls on the market to get me kitted out. I use to dread going to school in case someone who's parents were better off said that what I was wearing had probably been theirs. Happy Days :)

And the misery is returning for the families, disabled, sick and unemployed along with many self employed.

@@billy1680 and most of Britain thanks to thatcher and now the tories and liberals brought it back. And round it goes

@@elaine58100 As much as possible everything in my house is second hand, including the kids clothes - but that's due to wanting to reduce waste in society and nothing to do with poverty. I appreciate there is a great deal of difference between choosing to do it and having to...

In the 70's we put cardboard in the holes in our pumps!

She's poor, yet she won't seek a regular job.

LMB222 Its that easy is it?

@ Jemma James. Thank you for the insights. It sounds as if you spent time with your grandmother and got to know her well. Happy that their memories and lives are being honoured here by you.

@@LMB222 You do not know of this woman's circumstances so stop pretending you do. The reality is that the lowest earners have ALWAYS been taken for a ride by self proclaimed 'captains of industry' and the sooner the majority of folk realize this, the sooner we can actually try and address these problems before the establishment crack down on us proles! The only time working class people in Britain ever had any major say in the running of their workplace and life prospects was via Trade union membership and activity. But, of course, striking miners and dockers would be considered "holding the country to ransom" all because they wanted a fairer crack of the whip. What subversive, destructive forces...not.

@@whatamalike agreed

the story of my youth.

Social progress and workers rights, brought about by unions.

We are just lucky that we got blue labour instead of labour

Exactly. All of these "anti-racist" organisations are doing the same thing now to ordinary working class people.

These people were profiting from their privilege, as they do today. They need to do more for others who had ancestors 400 years ago who were treated worse. The only way the middle and upper class can keep the cash, is if they deny its about money and try to make these people the privileged too. Nice trick, guys.

Except today we actually vote for the punishment.

Yep nothing has changed

Per ardua ad Astra! I left in 96. 🫡

All moms are humble, it's what they do, bringing up families selflessly, it's in their DNA, they are the undervalued underappreciated heroes of the universe actually!

@@paulcolville5972 thank you for the kind words. My mom is in hospice. My parents were together 63 years. Their bond was beyond words. And to think this is where I came from. It mind blowing!

Many British families also immigrated to Australia and Canada in those days. They also built far better lives and security for themselves by doing so. Following British entry into the EU and living standards improving that immigration dropped dramatically. Then when Britain went through one or two economic down turns leading to large unemployment many men were able to go work in Germany, Spain and France and send money home thereby avoiding immigration to Australia and Canada or even the USA. However, now we have left the EU we won’t have that opportunity in the next economic downturn and recession which due to the present covid-19 pandemic and the billions of pounds it’s costing us is not far away. Therefore, I guess immigration to Australia, Canada and the USA will be on the up again? However, it’s more difficult these days to immigrate to those countries then in the 1960s and 1970s. Those countries will also need take care of jobs for their own citizens because of what covid-19 has done to their economy. We will be reliant on Social Security. How tragic.

That was when you had any to feed it. Tin bath that hung on a nail in the yard.Brought it in Friday nights and heated the water in pans on the gas stove. Every one use the same water and just added some fresh to heat it up.

@@libraiis Yep, sounds familiar. One winter we even contemplated eating my pet rabbit. Can't say any of this makes me feel nostalgic.

And the phone - press button A,. Then when they answer press button B...

Yes, so would the gas meter, and it would always run out while cooking on the stove!

our electric meter also took washers and my mother used to make sure that i as a child was at home when the meter was emptied and all the washers fell out the money box. It just meant we did not get as much back as a rebate - these meters were always fixed against us. All of this a very long time ago.

They? Exactly who?

Nothing has changed exactly 👍

Dont talk to bish

Are you kidding me?! 🤣 Poverty today means not having the latest iPhone. Thanks for the laughter 😄

@@jeperstone I agree but in general nothing changes the poor kept poor the rich getting richer ,was the point .

Being materially poor hasn't robbed these people of their dignity and self respect. Bless them all. ❤

Heading back that way thanks to 40 years of neo-liberalism.

@@gofigure_1 Australia is a great place to live if you like the heat, and sitting in traffic for a couple of hours a day. I liked neither. Never liked Cricket or Rugby so no great loss.

I know. As my dad would say 'they don't know they're effing born'.

When they have closed the school and you need broadband to learn something while it’s closed it is poverty.

I suffered extreme poverty & am far older than you - but note: keep family numbers within your financial means or tie a knot in it!

Yeh but we get penalised for not having broadband or WiFi. Todays expectations from the government is that we have WiFi or we don't get to do banking, shopping, even education now.

@Cian MacGana her children got to go to school. Today’s kids have to do school remotely. For that you need those things is my point. Some kids are going without.

Indeed. The whole system is screwed.

The benefit scroungers still sitting on their fat backsides today getting cash when theve never worked a day in their lives. All off on crappy Spanish/Turkish holidays. Getting extra cash for fake disabilities. Disgusting. Extra cash for covid. Still getting free school lunches.

I don't think the problem in that case was that welfare was too high - it says something good about the state that it would give people in need the bare minimum to get by. What is disgusting is that the employers don't pay their hard-working employees enough. If welfare is higher than salaries, then employers are exploiting their workers. A fair system is : if you can't find a job (disability, old age, a large family in case of single mothers etc.) you shouldn't starve. If you have a job and work hard at it, you should be allowed some level of luxury (a vacation once in a while, a run at the pub or at the cinema on the week-end). Trickle-down economics work, but only if you look at it as an inverted pyramid : when the majority has money to spend, the economy is healthy because there is demand. When you give the wealthy and the corporations tax cuts, they don't invest it back in production (less than 2% goes into that) but rather invest it in the stock market (easy money). I think the generations of "benefit scroungers" were born out of the 80s. When you took hard-working people's jobs away - who'd been in production all their lives - and left them at 40 with no skills for the new service economy developed under Thatcher. That meant that there was nothing else for them but to stay on the dole, and when your children grow up on the dole, too - well they just get used to it. A man's pride is his job. When you take it away from him, he becomes depressed, alcoholic, frustrated, violent - he lets himself go. And his kids won't have known any other way, they'll follow suit.

Long story short : basically the "working" class became the benefit class under Thatcher, and this was done by design, to destroy them. What has changed between then and today ? Between that working housewife and her husband - proud and articulate - and their would-be peers from today ? Well, pride. A lifetime of pride (being born to a proud father) vs a lifetime of vicious cycles (born to a father who could no longer provide and had lost his self worth).

@@Isnt-it-Lovely You sound like one of those extremists who would go outside and push someone over in a wheelchair to prove they are indeed disabled if you could get away with it. Talk is cheap online.

Many also left England for a better life elsewhere...

Put wages up then

Was thinking the same! Nothing learned

@@darrenalway4687 exactly-if benefits pays more than wages then the wages are shit not the benefits being good

@Sarah JLA Saran Jesus Christ we are in the middle of a Pandemic and the acconomy is wreck where are all these jobs then

I know. And the number of toys a kid of a new working class family who have just made dozens of working class family friends receives on a birthday.

@K90_ 2019 No here come the realists, go outside and look around.

paperchain 123 That is so true! People today are so spoiled!

Yes, modern people generally don't know true poverty. Our standard of living is higher than ever, but our landfill sites are fuller than ever. Supermarkets should be flogged for what they throw away.

@@jennytaylor3324 Absolutely. I once worked in a supermarket and I had to just look the other way. Terrible. waste

Well, if you were young, and had some get up and go - there was a choice. My dad left England at 17 for Australia, and never for a moment regretted it. Instantly had a better quality of life, and access to many more work options. And no mould in the walls!

Wow....we are so blessed nowdays, even in this time of Covid and lockdowns.

Agreed, NO entitlement that we see today!

I would disagree. Many poor people today work just as hard for just as little compensation and with very little hope of improving their situation. All while the very rich continue to suck the government teat through tax cuts and business subsidies.

Society has gone down the toilet, not got better

@@voice.of.reason ABSOLUTELY

@@michaelt3308 poor people aren’t entitled. You might feel that way because now they have a voice and they are using it🤔

My dad used to find things that were made of tin and cut out tin circles to put them in meter. The electricity board went ape all the time and had to pay the bill eventually.

Wow... Were you reunited with your parents?

@@churchofgod4016 yes after a couple of months the strike was finished and we went back home. Then in time we got new carpets and eventually a colour Tv.

@Richard Devonshire There were race riots in Nottingham in the 50s. You're writing bollocks.

Probably senior citizens.

There are very poor people all over the world suffering.

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

Very true! For me, in the winter months I sometimes have to choose between heating or eating!... We're told we now live in a classless society, but it's a bloody lie! Xx

Wow, what an amazing story, John Adams. Thanks for sharing!

Quite humbling.

My mother would have been her age around that time and in similar circumstances.... it was known as the respectable poor.

@@churchviewwishart8873 very respectable it seems...! I’m on a vintage Nottingham Yourube journey now... Next stop, the Players factory... Worth a watch!

This lady had values and pride, we live in a different world today.

It was her generation that started to stand up when things became worse, if you don't stand up and speak up, nothing improves. Looking down your snout on social media improves nothing.

And governments keep closing down services and get more stingy with public health.

And why is that? Where is all the money going?

to churchofgod and iggle6448, if you notice the lady shown wasn't bitching about not having money and the government not giving her money she and her husband quietly got on with LIVING with what they had and trying to improve their own lot, not expecting anyone else to GIVE them anything,. This is exactly what my parents did, they both worked hard to provide the best they could and brought up 3 boys who became well educated and success full in their own lives. We all have children who are for the most part better off than we were at their ages. Too many people today moan about the government when it is often simply their own life choices that are the problem.

They left England if they could! My dad did, and never regretted it

Very true. Our children particularly don't know poverty, and I'm a single mother of two teens. We have a small three bedroom house, a fairly reliable car and never go without food or electricity. We are very blessed.

smoking, 20 cigs now cost 14 quid for 20, I have been told.and you can pay more.

Absolute drivel.

That's not necessarily true. That's a very black and white way of looking at it. The days of your sugar sandwich was a time when you could live without Internet access. You can't now!

I used to lay awake at night in the 50s dreaming about being able to afford a sugar sandwich.. My family had to drink gravy out of an old boot for a Saturday afternoon treat in the pouring rain.

@@shane25094586 .......and you think you had it hard !! Me and my 5 sisters used to dream of drinking gravy out of an old boot in the rain. You were spoilt !!!

Actually, you don't see them on telly but there are plenty of poor people in rich countries like the UK and the USA.

We are all well off until you factor in the greed of landlordism. If renting these days you pretty much hand over half your wages in the south

So much of my family died of TB at the turn of the century (1900). It was rampant in the slums, even if they were farm slums. One family in particular, they lost 5 of the six kids, between 6 and 15 years. The only child who lived was sent away to Edinburgh and lived to a ripe old age. We take so much for granted now.

@@lolakauffmann Hi yes it comes in a big sheet like a double bed sheet with a hundred rows of lace which need to be separated line by line. My fathers invention managed to separate the lace easily. He was ahead of his time but caught in poverty but we were happy.

There were no benefits,my father had a bad injury at work he was off for 3 months the men at the factory had a collection , apart from that there was nothing

There were benefits then, this video is from after the creation of the welfare system.

@@cleoldbagtraallsorts3380 Claiming benefits was often seen as shaming, so a lot of people wouldn't claim what they were entitled to. That attitude disappeared in the 1980s when unemployment went up to 4 million.

@@gilgameshofuruk4060 That's true, but the option was there for those who were desperate.

Now there is a lack of jobs because they have been shipped abroad.

Too bloody right!

My Niece went to the same School as him, she said he was a prick back then too.

Who's we?

Its a great video, but its not like everybody in the UK was living on the breadline in the 1960's is it? My parents don't stop going on about how good things were in those days!

And what was that out white privileged?

The money was different then. It didn't equal a few quid today.

We went to Australia in 1968 we were living forest fields suburb of Nottingham

i was born here in 62 we had little but we were happy kids

@@Tolpuddle581 I'm Australian. My oldest sister moved to the UK in the 80's. She's in her late '60s now and lives in Derbyshire!

Make sure you vote to reflect that attitude bro

@@jimbojohnson7360 im getting very cynical labour tories 2 different cheeks if the same backside why dont labour come out and back the strikers bunch of cop outs big up mick lynch a proper working class hero

@@anthonymitchell8893 Ultimately, they're all snakes but voter apathy benefits nobody especially with the current farce of a government we have. If you're not going to vote for a Labour rep in your area, at least vote for one in a party based on their voting history, policy, ideals and what have you, that you feel would benefit the generation after you the most. I don't vote for myself these days, I vote for my two kids.

@@jimbojohnson7360 Whoever you vote for makes no difference. Its just the illusion of choice.

Spot on.

@@jeremystone6641 I know someone who works and has a council house. There was a problem and the council kept changing the day that someone was going to visit the property. When my friend complained that the constant rearrangements were causing trouble at work, the council's attitude was "How dare you live in a council house if you're working?"

@@gilgameshofuruk4060 Sick world. I was brought up in a council house and can honestly say 95% of the people on our estate were decent, hard working people. My parents always worked; we were, I suppose, the decent working class. This was back in 70s. How times have changed and not for the better. What happened?

@@jeremystone6641 I remember when moving into a council house was "Going all posh". There were terrible problems in the seventies, but it was the eighties when we were told "There is no such thing as society" and the greed is good philosophy took hold. It was also the virtual end of manufacturing in this country. There's more job satisfaction and self respect in helping to make a useful product than in answering 100 calls per day from people who can't be bothered getting off their backsides.

@@gilgameshofuruk4060 Agreed. They have robbed working people of any pride and it's sad to see folk let it happen without as much as a whimper.

Wish we could know what happened to her