THERE seems much depression and bad tidings about at the moment what with food banks and struggling families.

Yet in all my 80 years of experience, living standards for the virtually all people in the United Kingdom are the highest they have ever been in history. In my earliest years before World War Two I lived with my parents in a two up and two down terraced house which is still there in Morris Green.

No central heating in winter, just one coal fire in the front room and on frosty nights all the bedroom windows frosted up. An outside tippler toilet at the bottom of our yard was our only lavatory. Fortunately we had a chamber under the bed for use at night and a tin bath in the kitchen for Friday night’s weekly bath.

Hardly any sweets during the war as rationing was on and our weekly treat was a visit to the cinema on Saturday afternoon with a glass of Dandelion and Burdock at the local Temperance Bar. Most working class could not afford a house phone and mobile phone was unknown then and a radio was only the entertainment in a house.

Having a car was a financial impossibility so buses and trams were the only mode of transport for most people. We did not consider ourselves badly off as all our neighbours lived to a similar standard of life. Old age pensions were much less than they are now and if someone lived to 70 years of age they were thought to have done very well. No such thing as the National Health Service we had to pay then or suffer.

Yet today even the so called very poor can afford central heating, smart phones, televisions, and quite often cars and they also have a free National Health Service — things the average working class family could have not dreamt of prior to 1950. The benefit system and pensions are a luxury today compared to what was in being before the war. Perhaps it is time some of Readers Letter writers who constantly complain how much they are suffering due to the so call cuts should start counting their blessings. All of us have never had it so good so be grateful for living in such a bounteous country that we all live in that has had rising living standards in every decade for the last 60 years. Happy Christmas to you all.

G. Hamer

Bolton.