Page 187 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Chapter Three
1961 AND ALL THAT (1961-2010)
The aim of this chapter is to consider the years from 1961 to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, as with the two earlier chapters after considering the general context of the period, it will start by taking stock – this time in 1961. However, unlike the earlier chapters, there is not a published census for that year. If the usual conventions are followed, it will not be published until around the year 2061. What I will be developing is a putative census for England and Wales – that is, trying to get close to what might be revealed when the archive is opened in or around 2061. Nevertheless, there will be a difference. I will focus on families, rather than households. Families and households are, of course, closely correlated, but without systematic information about residences, I will not know whether the eldest son, say, has actually left the family home and set up his own household with or without others.
Following the development of a putative census for 1961, the rest of this chapter will then focus on the fortunes of the various Soothill groupings over the next fifty years. This period of fifty years (1961-2010) has seen massive changes in various spheres and part of the interest will be to see whether the members of the Soothill tribe reflect this changing world.
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The general context of the fifty years, 1961 to 2010
Although the changes are different from what has gone on before, the shifts in this half-century are massive. The welfare state is now firmly entrenched, but over the
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