Depressed

This whole blame thing is very difficult. We took the rap for Brexit even though many of us voted remain but if a larger proportion of the younger generation had actually voted then the result would likely have been different. So they can't accuse us of anything if they didn't bother to use their own votes for their own future. Yes we benefited from being able to get on the housing ladder but we went without so much to do so - things that are deemed 'essential' by my own children 9who I love dearly) and grandchildren.

No one said it will be easy, all we can do is wait and keep calm, (like the Queen said!) and hopefully in a couple of years, if Russia hasn't turned Europe into another Syria for daring to send tanks to protect the border, the remainers will be thanking the Brexits - or not.

I voted Remain but tend to be optimistic for the future

Well here is something to cheer all the remainders up.
The IMF have reported today that they think the EU and the Euro zone are very unstable and could collapse.

They are very concerned about the EU not tackling its money issues, that its banking system is collapsing, that unemployment is running at very high levels,that they are doing nothing to deal with immigration across its borders and that there is civil unrest.

They have downgraded forecasts for economic growth in the EU and warn of civil unrest and possible economic failure within the zone .

Maybe we Brexisters were not so wrong after all?

Meanwhile in Britian:

The FTSE is up on all measures. Highest since 2010
Exports are booming.
Countries are lining up for trade deals outside of the EU zone

Tata are suggesting it might be possible to keep the Welsh Steel plant open.( saving jobs) now an exit from the EU is likely.

A new deal is being brokered for banking with countries outside the EU and they want the centre in London.
Our economy is stable ( important when compared to the EU).

German banks and business have told Merkel to watch it where talking of sanctions and tariffs against Britain are concerned as they do more exporting to us than we do to them and its likely to hit their economy hardest.

This accords fairly well with my own experience . I as I previously said, the company I work for has been doing well since Brexit and we now have safe jobs for the first time in eight years.

So, I suggest that since things are so good in the EU , those who want to remain part of it, should get their tickets now (one way please) and get aboard for whatever country over there takes their fancy and have your demonstration tea party in someone elses park.

Oh, and it seems, there will not be another referendum. Cameron has said so today.

I am happy here in a post Brexit UK. Certainly things are looking brighter here than "over there".

Bbevan - your grandmother certainly deserves respect, must have been a truly hard life with none of our modern appliances to ease the load. My g'parents, both sets, married quite late in life and were well into their 30s before having children, so no big families, though my maternal g'father was one of 13, only four of whom survived childhood in a poor mining community. It seems that going into service was considered a step up. Those generations lived through two horrific wars too, something we should always be glad we have, thus far, avoided.

Casawan my grandma was like that. Brought over from Ireland at 17 to look after her cousin's 4 children. His wife had died. She got pregnant by him, married and had 4 children of her own. Then he died in a pit accident. She brought all 8 children up on her own. She was a formidable woman and I loved her a lot

BBbevan: Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that all families, or all working class families were like mine. It was just a comment on my own circumstances. I am glad your family was a little more open minded and forward looking than mine. My parents' parents, born 1890s, all started life as servants, so were raised 'to know their place'. Even now my mother, late 80s, is very conscious of where she thinks she fits. It seems ridiculous to me now, but seems deeply ingrained in her. Thank goodness for progress.

A group DH belongs to (men, mainly over about 65) is due to have a talk given by a young man on Intergenerational Relations

I would like to be a fly on the wall.

It wasn't like that in my family*Casawan*. Both my parents came from Welsh mining families and education was God. All of my generation in the family went to grammar school and most of us to uni. This was around 1960 -65. I did have a grant , and worked every holiday but my parents did all they could to help.
Both my children went to university and I expect my grandchildren will go also. As a' working class family' expectations were high and mostly fulfilled

I agree with others that uni educatation, though helped by a grant, was not available to many. I hit 18 in the late 60s and though I was a high achiever at school with 4 A grades at A level, my parents made it quite clear that they expected me to go out and get a job - after all I'd soon be getting married and having children, wouldn't I? There was no question of them subsidising me while I got a degree and even my brother had to go out to work for 3 yrs before paying his own way through uni( he's now a respected academic, a professor (yes I'm proud of him)). The attitude was that we were a working class family and uni was only for the wealthy. I still regret my missed opportunity, but it seems like a university education is again becoming the preserve of the wealthy.

Posted too soon - it remains a fact also that in my day
(1970's) those who now take degrees would have been unlikely to have taken or passed any qualifications and their destination would have been Asda ( or some shop) check out , and indeed many of my peers did do that. Asda may require a modicum of practical .life and common sense, but A levels were not, back then a matter of common sense, life skills or practical in any way. That is another fact that has to be faced. Being speechless does not change that.

I did not say they were not fit for the check outs as Asda Gill. That would be disrespectful to those who work for Asda anyway, I know many quite able people working there.

I said that in todays world, getting a degree is available to anyone who wants a place and who can pay the fees and this has significantly impacted on the quality of those degrees. Whether you are speechless or not, that remains a fact.

I thought the Leave side won, vampirequeen...

well what a load of grumpy moaning ' ooh we had it hard in our day'. I really thought that GN was better than this! As for Abbey with your description of todays undergraduates not being fit for the checkout at ASDA.....well, I am speechless. If this had been my first visit to GN I would not have come back. This is a nasty, moaning and divisive thread.

I voted to leave. I haven't whinged, whined or called for a further referendum. A democratic decision was made and, although I was disappointed to be on the losing side, it's time to move on.

Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

Good post MargaretX - Thankfully the same in our family.
These social websites are poisonous.

Sorry Juggs

I was amazed to hear that some Gnetters were being accused by their children of voting wrongly or having it all better or too easy.
They are your children they lived with you they must know that you had money problems when they were growing up.
We never have such discussions in my family because my children - andthe rest of the family and friends are not on Face Book, nor Twitter so we still come to our own conclusions like in the past. I'M sure that being confronted with bitterness and doubtful opinions etc must have a depressing effect.

Anya
I've now been singing 'The Living Years' for over three and a half hours, and DH is beginning to get a little stressed

I'm a babyboomer and because of it was'nt allowed to stay on for furthur education because I was a girl and would get married and have children (had to pay for my keep). I so envied my brother as he was encouraged all the way career wise. I was desperate to leave home and fulfilled my parent's proficy and surprised them by not being pregnant. Lol
We were a lucky generation job wise but it was low pay and we worked 6 days a week grabbing any overtime offered, husband did a pools football round for his pocket money and me night cleaning. Because I was married I couldn't get day release to college like my single collegues but paid for my own night school classes. Unfortunately I landed up being a one parent family through no choice of my own. Lost everything landing up in council flat with child and I never went on benefits - it never occurred to me to claim for benefits. I worked and lied about my situation or else I wouldn't of got employment. My child went to childminder school friend - no grandparents taking up the slack. My god we've had it easy. Take off your rose tinted glasses youngsters.
yes we bought a house and struggled to pay our morgage. We lived on eggs, beans on toast and got 4 meals out of a chicken. Even bought fish trimmings saying for the cat we never had so I could make fish cakes etc., Of course these skills were learnt at domestic science classes in school and from parents. Life skills our children and grandchildren haven't had.

well said Abbey

Whilst I am on the soap box. Another of the attitudes and comments that has sent me ballistic is the idea that old people and working class people were the only ones who voted out and they had no right to vote. They should have been prevented from voting because they were uneducated and too thick to understand (because of course they were not voting to remain).

What kind of education did those " young(er) " and other remain voters actually obtain that they think that is acceptable? Certainly they clearly lack any understanding of democracy but more than that they do not have any apparent comprehension of what sacrifices were made by the "thick and ignorant" old ( er) people to actually get them a vote at all -and how many generations of those "thick and ingnorant" people fought for that right to vote and create a better place for them to be.

How long before we get a situation like that of Stalin or Nazi Germany ( which of course was socialist, not fascist at all)where people are disenfranchised and disappeared because they are not " educated" the correct way.

Such remainers are treading a dangerous path with such thoughts.

I am somewhat sick of hearing it from you ( remainers) now. You lost. Instead of complaining about how you were robbed, get used to the fact you actually lost. if your arguments were so good, then why was the campaign run on fear? Why not just say " These are the three (or more) good reasons to stay in the EU and be positive about them . Since that was not done, it is my conclusion that there were no good reasons.

Further, what made your side (the remainers) think that rolling out a bunch of has beens, dead ducks, and celebrities with pink berets and cabbage patch kids should be a better influence that a decent argument?

If I had to weigh it up, I certainly feel the remain side did more of this " I am ( a very rich) celebrity) do as I say" than the leavers.

I had many reasons for feeling that the EU was not good. Much of it my own experience. Much of it based on having a brain and being able to think for myself ( being educated actually)and not I was not "duped" by lies (there was plenty on both sides). I didnt even listen to most of the arguments.

I did my own research. I reviewed my own experiences and I waited for good arguments from the opposite side. None were forthcoming. I voted to leave.

Now, get over it and start asking why your campaigners were so bl**dy limp and lacking in good reasons, instead of asking for a re run. MAYBE, just maybe, the leave voters were right and you are wrong. Either way, leave was a majority and in this country ( not the EU) we tend to believe in free votes and doing as the majority decide, like it or not. Its called democracy.

Or is that something else that has to go in an EU and a UK dominated by remainers?

I think you are over estimating the number of remainers who didnt vote amongst the young and old alike. I know a number of youngsters who voted out. I know others who simply were not bothered and so didn't vote (and still are not bothered).

Further you may find a lot more of the "didnt vote" who would have voted out will come out too.

You may well find that a re run might increase the number of exist voters. Remember,it might have been a split of 52/48 nationally but that was skewed by certain areas. In my own area, several neighbouring counties ranged from 60% - 79% for an out . This picture was repeated across many areas outside London, the SE and Scotland.

However, there should not be a re run. The decision was made ( just as one was made in 1975 - I remember that one too). When a decision is made you should stand by it, not messaround trying to get your way. When the election didnt go the way I wanted I didnt ask for a re run because less than 40% came out to vote (remember Brexit was over 72% turnout, this is high in the UK for any vote).

Relying on polls to tell you who voted which way is rather silly. After all they predicted the vote wrongly. The predicted the last election wrongly.... I could go on. They also sit on their backsides phoning and taking online measurements. I have never been asked what I was going to vote, or what I voted ( except in one poll a week or so before the referendum , run by a newspaper - not the Daily Mail - and it was the only time I actually answered , and that poll got it right......) Neither can you be sure anyone is telling the truth either.

Coming here, and seeing the comments I was in two minds as to whether I might just shut up or worse, pretend I voted remain too. You cannot trust anyone these days. We are far more savvy (dishonest maybe?) than we once were.

Yet, most of the 48% still cannot shut up can they? You lost. Now lets get on with it. Many like me have experienced what it means to be poor and jobless and see our work go elsewhere and to others in the EU ( and directly as a result of the EU) first hand and we want a chance to change things.

We do not want you scuppering us just because you get on the streets and complain in a few hundreds. ( NO, I have a sister in Law in London and she tells me categorically there were not thousands protesting but a few hundred and a lot of sight seers apparently ). SiL didnt vote. She doesnt qualify for a a postal vote but was having difficulty getting out of the house that day and couldnt get to the polling station
(following a stoke a few weeks ago). She might well have voted out had she done so.

I am fed up with blame being put on the boomers and the elderly for the brexit vote. If you had been able to vote online or via mobile phone, I expect remain would have won. However, because you had to vote by post (this seems alien to some of the young) or physically go to a polling station which seems to have been too much trouble, I have little sympathy with all the bleating going on. If you don't vote, then don't whinge.

Well I have to say that not ALL of the younger generation take the view that we older folk had it better in times past. My children span the ages from 43 to 24 and are well aware of the sacrifices we had to make; partly because they all experienced them first hand. When my eldest child was born I had never been on a foreign holiday (I was 32 the first time I holidayed abroad - it was my honeymoon in 1986 - and apart from a four day trip accompanying my daughter to Paris in her GCSE year I didn't go abroad again for a holiday until the year 2000), I had no fridge, freezer, washing machine, car, television or vacuum cleaner (who remembers sweeping the carpets and floors?). By the time my youngest child was born I still had no car, all my furniture was still second hand (it's only in very recent years that I have replaced most of my second hand items with new things) and I was working two jobs as my husband was at university and only able to take a part-time job. I finally went to university after my youngest child was born.

My children all know and appreciate that my life was a struggle in many ways and are very appreciative that we are now in a position to help them out. They don't blame the 'older generation' for anything as they are well aware that even the term is meaningless.