Although the world has changed has changed so much since I was born - no television, manual telephone exchanges, no freezers and so on - it is still recognisably the same world. The 'fifties may seem far removed now, they are nevertheless part of my experience in a way that, for example, the 'forties are not. I remember my stepfather reminiscing about Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and the Mills Brothers and thinking how little they meant to me; in the same way, my own children listen with polite, or not so polite incredulity, as I extol the virtues of Tony Hancock, Terry-Thomas and Peter Ustinov.
"Tradition " is a potent marketing ploy but people of my generation find it hard to refrain from laughing when we see a sign proudly proclaiming "Family Butchers since 1989". My parents must have felt the same way when confronted with "By Appointment to His Majesty George V since 1920".
"Tradition " is a potent marketing ploy but people of my generation find it hard to refrain from laughing when we see a sign proudly proclaiming "Family Butchers since 1989". My parents must have felt the same way when confronted with "By Appointment to His Majesty George V since 1920".
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