Quote: easyWire "One thing that sticks in my mind was a 1960s picture of Bank Park (if I've got that right) which is next to Bridge Foot. It was pristine, fulll of flowers and people were using it. Bridge Street in the background looked well-kept and prosperous, with tidy buildings and smartly dressed people going about their daily business. You could be forgiven for thinking it was somewhere like Windsor. If you look the town from the 80s onwards, everything has declined immeasurably. I guess that's partly due to the reality of post-war investment honeymoon and rebuilding period slowly dying down, but it's clear that not all parts of the country have suffered this way. There aren't many towns in the South-East with which you could draw a comparison and say the same. I think Luton is probably the closest example, and you could argue that's almost in the Midlands.
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I like social history like this and there are quite a lot of videos on youtube which show different cities/towns in the 50s/60s/70s/80s etc. One thing which always strikes me is how well dressed people were in the 50s and 60s. Everyone looked smart, or those who were part of some subculture like mods or whatever clearly made a lot of effort with their appearance.