Social media sites like Facebook are often awash with what I call fake nostalgia.

You’ll see it everywhere. The rosy retrospection of people convinced the past was better than the present.

It’s fake nostalgia because everyone’s view on when things were ‘better’ is almost exclusively based on a time when they were young and had little or no responsibilities. And that almost always masks a harsher reality.

For instance, I often look back fondly at the early 1980s because I was in the sixth form at school and having what I remember as a whale of a time.

But the reality was it was the toughest of times for my parents, making sure the rent was paid on our council house and their three kids were clothed and fed while my dad, a factory worker,........

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