Things were better then?

I lived for the first ten years of my life on a small housing estate on the outskirts of a very old Yorkshire village (records date it as a settlement in the 11th century). Mainly bungalows and small houses were built there in the mid 1950’s. They were designed by the Yorkshire equivalent of a “hood”, and scandal surrounded the building company for decades afterwards.
The local primary school was no more than five minutes walk away, and in the early 60’s you could let your child walk to school in a village without fear of them being abducted. I used to walk with my “best friend” Linda. She was a year above me at school, so I was lucky to be tolerated as the squib who tagged along with her satchel.
My dad painted a coat of arms for the primary school. It hung over the stage in the school hall where the Head Mistress orchestrated the assemblies. That particular Head Mistress reputedly had a love affair with the music teacher who was considerably younger than her. She lived in a big house next to “The Annexe” a three room Victorian school, which was the overflow for the modern primary school. It had segregated playgrounds and outside toilets. In the winter, the cisterns of the Victorian plumbing were kept ice-free by burning storm lamps in each loo. It was really spooky and somehow the shadows they cast made the spiders look bigger. The lamps didn’t exude enough warmth to stop your bum freezing to the seat though. Happy School Days!
So, I lived in a house designed by a controversial architect, went to a school where there was a sex scandal and was cruelly treated as my derriere sported permafrost from the loo seat.
Hmm, the Good Old Days.