Were they really happy in 1957?

IT'S hard to locate the crucial feelgood factors of an era which you have observed from a height of 24 inches or so. When Harold Macmillan was delivering his instantly-famous "most of our people have never had it so good" speech at Bedford in 1957, I suspect I was focused on deciphering the Rosetta Stone that proved to be a Farley's rusk.

If only my mother had realised that nearly half a century later, Macmillan's words would be echoed by a very different generation, I'm sure she would have woken me from my many compulsory naps, so that I could better appreciate the little Eden in whi...