I find it alarming now that there is a whole generation behind me in age-pecking order who do not know or understand what a "socialist" government and society actually meant, and by that I mean the good parts (as someone will undoubtably bring up the topic of binmen strikes etc in the 1970s), for most of the local councils in the north were under socialist control for many, many decades.
I fear that there is a demonisation of the word "socialist" and a marrying of the philosophy with "communism" whereas in fact the two are completely different and should never be confused.
I didn't grow up on a council estate or in a strongly socialist area, but my wife did, in a pit village in the north east and I lived there for several years when in my 20s too - and I have to say that the experience was not unpleasant.
Its strange that in less than a generation we have lost the thought process that a person could "have a trade", and that that trade would provide a person with a job for his/her whole working life and often at the same employer.
Its strange that in less than a generation we have come to consider renting council housing as the last resort of the poor, the feckless and the workshy and that anyone in work should automatically buy their own house, this attitude may be changing again for the likes of my daughters generation, and for the better, but still the council tenant is looked down upon.
Its strange to think that in the village that my wife grew up in (and she doesn't have rose tinted specs by the way), her father rented their council house from it being a new build in the early sixties, built by a socialist local authority on a new estate under a socialist government intent on clearing away the older "slum" dwellings that stood there before to provide workers housing, sufficient bedrooms, inside toilets, that sort of thing, yes we're not talking the Victorian era here.
Her father had a trade, worked for the same employer for thirty years, her siblings all worked, there were recessions every ten years (there always are) but there were still jobs and careers with training opportunities in the manufacturing plants that had replaced the pits in the socialist controlled area - you even shopped in a supermarket with a socialist ethos, the Co-oP, and you socialised in an organisation owned and operated by its members - the CIU working mens clubs.
Manufacturing was not a dirty word, people were not ashamed to get their hands dirty or to earn a living wage for a 40 hour week with which to pay the rent, but food, clothe your family, put something aside for a holiday or xmas, and spend the rest on entertainment (sometimes not necessarily in that order), they never had any form of credit in her household, they even paid for their electricity up front with 50p in the meter and there was no shame at all in that - more importantly most people did not expect to be given anything, they expected to have to work for it even though there was a benefits system to catch them during hard times, I'm guessing that the phrase is "working class pride".
And this was the 1960s and 1970s, the years when socialism rebuilt this country's infrastructure and the people who now criticise the regime gained the most benefit from being raised in such an environment because now, as then, unless your parent bequeth you a very generous trust fund to protect you against every possible contingency and all of the crap that life will fling at you, then no-one can truly claim to be NOT socialist at all, we all belong to society, we should all contribute, and we will all benefit from a socially cohesive society - thats what socialism is.
