6 ways in which the 60s really were better than today, as you'll know if you lived through them

• Would you trade life in the 60s for life today?
• Lots of people look back fondly upon the decade as the best time to be alive
• Not everything was better back then, but here are a few things which undoubtedly were

It’s easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses upon the 60s as a halcyon era, where everything was simpler and better.

But there are many aspects of 1960s life that people of the day would happily have traded for modern conveniences.

When the decade began, only 5% of homes had central heating, fridges were still a luxury, and around three million families lived in slum housing.

Workers did not have the same rights as today, either, with shorter holidays and more dangerous conditions.

Children of the 60s will inevitably say the music was much better then and fashions were more vibrant.

But the decade that gave us the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was also responsible for The Monkees, and it’s easy to remember the glamour of the miniskirt while forgetting the horror of garish patterned tights.

People recall the 60s as a much safer era, when families would leave their doors unlocked.

But while official crime rates were lower, this is likely because many offences went unreported, and it was the only decade of the 20th century in which recorded crime doubled.

Comparisons between modern life and yesteryear will always be subjective, and coloured by nostalgia, but there were some ways in which the 60s were quantifiably better.

More affordable housing

This is perhaps the most obvious way in which people did genuinely have it better in the 60s.

When the decade began, the average house cost £2,189, equivalent to £44,247 now, allowing for inflation, while the average weekly wage was around £14 2s 1d.

Today, the average house price in the UK is £270,000, and the average weekly earnings are £727.

That means that, not allowing for taxes and living costs, it would have taken a typical worker less than 16 weeks to save for a 10% deposit in 1960, compared with more than 37 weeks today.

More public loos

It was much easier to find somewhere to spend a penny when you were out and about in the 1960s.

There were many public conveniences then in town and city centres, at railway stations and in parks.

According to the British Toilet Association, there are just 3,300 public loos in England today, with numbers having declined by 40% since 2000.

There is no reliable figure for the 60s, but numbers back then were certainly higher than today.

More space to play

There may not have been more playgrounds or playing fields in the 60s, but most people would agree that children back then had more space in which to play.

This was partly because they tended to have greater freedom to roam, with fewer cars on the streets and fewer concerns about ‘stranger danger’.

For many children in the 60s, the streets were their playground, where they rode their bikes and enjoyed a kickabout, while there were still many old bomb sites for them to explore.

More jobs

People remember the 60s as a decade when you still had a ‘job for life’, which might have been as much a curse as a blessing for some workers.

But while working conditions were worse for many, the unemployment rate was considerably lower in the 60s than it is today.

The average unemployment rate in the 60s was 2.7%, compared with 4.7% today,

However, unemployment did rise during the 60s, ending the decade at a post-war high of 3.5%, while inflation in 1969 had reached 5.4%, compared with 1.0% in 1960.

Cheaper trains and simpler fares

At the start of the 60s, a third-class train ticket cost just 85p per 100 miles, according to the Railway Museum, and by 1966 this had risen to £1.35.

It’s hard to compare fares today with those in the 60s, as the pricing structure is so much more complicated since denationalisation.

But a third-class train ticket from London to Manchester would have cost around £1.37 in 1960, equivalent to £27.69, allowing for inflation, while today the cheapest on-the-day fare on Trainline.com was showing as £42.90, with the most expensive standard fare being £172.70.

The UK’s rail network was also considerably more extensive at the start of the 1960s than it is today, but that was the decade in which the Beeching cuts famously saw many stations and railway lines closed.

Less plastic pollution

The use of plastic soared during the 60s, but it was still much less prevalent than it is today.

At the start of the decade, at least, most drinks still came in glass bottles, which were reused, while cardboard packaging and paper bags were the norm.

While plastic became more common in the 60s, it’s only decades later that we are really feeling the effects, with microplastics polluting our water and our food.

Those were the days before fast fashion too, when clothes were made to last longer and most people still had the skills to mend a holey shirt or patch up a pair of trousers.

What do you think was better in the 60s than it is today, and what was worse?

For more 1960s nostalgia, check out our list of things you probably miss if you remember the 60s.