Do you still use the high street?

Moggy wrote:

RichardUK wrote:I always lose my dab signal aswell,

Stoke still uses smoke signals, they haven't even got MW radio yet.

Some parts really feel like the 70s, you can have 3 generations in a house that refuse to work until Thatcher reopens the pits.

Northern Soul is also massive around here which I never really got my head around.

NickSCFC wrote:Some parts really feel like the 70s, you can have 3 generations in a house that refuse to work until Thatcher reopens the pits.

that really did make me laugh out loud because it’s the exact same in my home town, when I’m canvassing that’s all I hear, obviously forget the fact it was a terrible and dangerous job and that most of if not all mines had a major disaster that there will be a memorial for in the village or town centre, working all day, ruining your health and getting home to a tiny terrace house that’s rented, young men with no dreams or ambitions just forced to do that, oh the good old days

I say all that not looking down on miners but quite the opposite, my own Grandfather on my mothers side was a miner but died about 10 years before I was born because of it

RichardUK wrote:

NickSCFC wrote:Some parts really feel like the 70s, you can have 3 generations in a house that refuse to work until Thatcher reopens the pits.

that really did make me laugh out loud because it’s the exact same in my home town, when I’m canvassing that’s all I hear, obviously forget the fact it was a terrible and dangerous job and that most of if not all mines had a major disaster that there will be a memorial for in the village or town centre, working all day, ruining your health and getting home to a tiny terrace house that’s rented, young men with no dreams or ambitions just forced to do that, oh the good old days

I say all that not looking down on miners but quite the opposite, my own Grandfather on my mothers side was a miner but died about 10 years before I was born because of it

RichardUK wrote:when I’m canvassing that’s all I hear

The picture is becoming clearer.

I forgot about that sketch, eh by gum it’s true L is for Lice

Are you doing your Tory Boy impression again Richard?

RichardUK wrote:

NickSCFC wrote:Some parts really feel like the 70s, you can have 3 generations in a house that refuse to work until Thatcher reopens the pits.

that really did make me laugh out loud because it’s the exact same in my home town, when I’m canvassing that’s all I hear, obviously forget the fact it was a terrible and dangerous job and that most of if not all mines had a major disaster that there will be a memorial for in the village or town centre, working all day, ruining your health and getting home to a tiny terrace house that’s rented, young men with no dreams or ambitions just forced to do that, oh the good old days

I say all that not looking down on miners but quite the opposite, my own Grandfather on my mothers side was a miner but died about 10 years before I was born because of it

Nobody has forgotten that it was an exceedingly dangerous job. But it was a dangerous job that brought vast economic and social benefits to an awful lot of towns which were left utterly destitute by the manner and means that were used to close the mines down in the 1980s. That’s an extremely narrow, and probably factually incorrect, view of the industry as a whole, and certainly of the industry and lives of its workers in the 1980s as it ground to a halt in this country.

The mines closing was an inevitability, but much more should have been done to transition the workforce into different jobs. Instead entire communities were practically abandoned, with the justification that it's not the government's place to interfere with the free market.

OrangeRakoon wrote:The mines closing was an inevitability, but much more should have been done to transition the workforce into different jobs. Instead entire communities were practically abandoned, with the justification that it's not the government's place to interfere with the free market.

But they were never going to vote Tory so who gives a gooseberry fool about them.

lex-man wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:The mines closing was an inevitability, but much more should have been done to transition the workforce into different jobs. Instead entire communities were practically abandoned, with the justification that it's not the government's place to interfere with the free market.

But they were never going to vote Tory so who gives a gooseberry fool about them.

They might have if the Tories had helped them retrain, and their local economies transition.

Would've completely undermined Labour's support in those areas.

I still like occasionally mooching around real shops, and often make impulse purchases that would be cheaper online because I like the process of chatting about something with someone in a shop, trying things on/out, and then sealing the whole thing with a purchase.

Also you open yourself up to the serendipity of discovering new shops and things, even in places you thought you knew well - like a Mario Odyssey level!

It's a type of human/community transaction that I'd miss if I went purely online.

But also I suppose it helps that my local high streets went gooseberry fool and dilapidated, but are now kind of reinventing themselves with interesting boutique shops and cafes amidst the JD sports and Clarks etc.