Nostalgic, or what.

[Steve P5b]

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VhSXNr4_hUA

[Simon H]

Ouch, ouch, ouch... The E-Type: two big dents and a parking ticket

[enigmas]

Well it was the 60s and the driver of the E type was probably smoking something! Interestingly, Cumbernauld a town in Scotland is cited as an example of modern town planning in the 1960's, melding both car ownership and community living in a misguided utopian vision by planners whom I imagine would never ever have considered moving there. Their visions of this town 40 years on are also quite amusing if not drug induced!



Cumbernauld Shopping Centre (Cumbernauld Town Centre)

wikimapia.org/16385519/Cumbernauld-Shopping-Centre

Officially once voted the "Worst Building In Britain", or the more familiar (to Scots at least) - the "Plook on a Plinth" award - this vast megastructure came to symbolise everything that was wrong with the planning of New Towns, and indeed many of the grand regeneration schemes of the 1950s and 1960s.

Built in several stages between 1955 and 1985, but the architectural mistakes of the original 1960s and 1970s portions is what gave the complex its dire reputation. The design, which is basically two separate buildings up on stilts which straddle the A8011 road, all linked by an elaborate system of walkways. Sections of the centre suffered from structural deterioration and were subsequently demolished, whilst the walkways themselves acted as funnels which created appalling draughts which eventually forced traders to shut up shop.

In recent years, subsequent developments have attempted to stop the rot, by selectively demolishing sections of the building, whilst linking the surviving sections to the Antoine Centre.



www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/cumbernauld/cumbernauld/

[Steve P5b]

More here, www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-P-f1mssUeI

nice rover at about 3 minutes 30 seconds, not much in the way of Health and Safety back then though.

[Simon H]

Ah yes. The construction sites with not a hard hat or hi-viz in sight. They just turned up for work in an old overcoat and boots...

[guidedog]

I must be getting old I can recognise nearly every car there.But those empty roads ahh, If you had a car fast enough you could 100mph+ legally . Those were the days you could purchase 4 gallon [18L] of fuel for about a £1.00.
What puts it perspective as an apprentice I was earning Two shillings & sixpence [12.5p] an hour.

[enigmas]

I was earning 40 cents an hour for the princely wage of $16 a week as an apprentice motor-mechanic in 1968.

[Deleted]

I was earning 14 shillings a week gross as an articled clerk. Even then in 1959/1960 a pittance.
So on Friday lunchtime after we got paid we would go to the pub (market day)and have a couple of pints before returning to the office for an all afternoon poker session for money with the little we had left. For the the losers nothing had really changed because they didn't have enough money for a weekend anyway. But for the winner everything was possible. Even paying for a girlfriends drinks (ie two straws in a pint of draught cider). I was saving for my first bicycle.One of the partners would park his open topped brass fronted Bentley (with handbrake)on the running board on the pavement. outside.

[Deleted]

I was earning 14 shillings a week gross as an articled clerk. Even then in 1959/1960 a pittance.
So on Friday lunchtime after we got paid we would go to the pub (market day)and have a couple of pints before returning to the office for an all afternoon poker session for money with the little we had left. For the the losers nothing had really changed because they didn't have enough money for a weekend anyway. But for the winner everything was possible. Even paying for a girlfriends drinks (ie two straws in a pint of draught cider). I was saving for my first bicycle.One of the partners would park his open topped brass fronted Bentley (with handbrake on the running board) on the pavement outside the offices.

[guidedog]

Well gentlemen I had to be well off compared to the comments you have made. One pound a day plus Saturday £6..00 a week.You could run a car [Morris 8] insurance £11--50 third party I think road tax was £15--00 but you didn't bother it was cheaper [if you got caught it was a fine with no back tracking. The fine was cheaper than the tax. Also no M.O.T,s to worry about. The year is 1959.

[Deleted]

Good to see those old shots of Norwich. The big car park behind the castle is now a hideous underground 'Mall' with all the charisma of John Major. Elm Hill has altered little as has tombland.
Shame about nostalgia,its not like it used to be.