Harold Walker wrote:

"Scott L. Hadley" wrote in message
...

"Harold Walker" wrote in message
...

Just spent a couple of weeks in what once was "Great Britain".....would
not give tuppence for living there now....it aint what it used to be

Sad. I spent two glorious weeks in southern and western England in
1990---most of us looked up to that land as a garden heaven---a place
where some of us US garden types got our inspiration. And learning. I
certainly did, before our trip and during. And I noticed the patches of
flowers in the most unlikely places, as you mention. To think things have
slid so far in the intervening 15 years---We'll be back again eventually.
Some things must have lasted---

Most of it looks much the same as it ever did. Many city centres have
been improved in the last decade. Public parks once again have some funding.

The slide began with the introduction of the automobile to the
masses.....prior to around the late forties to early fifties the average
'working class person' had never even been in a private car...I remember
being based in Nuneaton as a lower deck rating and was the only lower deck
guy with a car and only a couple of the 'other types' had one......

Lower deck of what? Landlocked Nuneaton in Warwickshire seems a very odd
place for a lower deck rating to be based. Noted originally for its
castle, silk, mining and railway engineering.

..the
working class found out the pleasures of owning and driving a car and thus
was the beginning of the decline in gardening interest...at least in my
humble opinion.

You have some weird views unsupported by any evidence.

I reckon the slide started when these newfangled horseless carriages
were invented - no more free manure for your allotment left on the road.

Regards,
Martin Brown