Travel writer Bill Bryson speaking at the Hay Festival yesterday said that we Brits are more self absorbed now than in the 1970’s when he first came to the UK and we’re in more of a hurry and less willing to think that rules apply to us.
According to BBC Wales ‘He told the audience that he felt the Britain he first discovered as a young backpacker in the 1970s was in some ways richer than today, although "poor and economically struggling".
"People's lives were actually still quite simple compared with today but it seemed like a really enriched country," he said.
By comparison, now "people in general have a lot more money in their pockets.
"But we act all the time now like we are really poor when people are really rich.
"America is about individual wealth and collective poverty and we have moved into that camp."
He added: "One thing that is different, and has changed here, is the self-absorption, not just greed. Everybody is in a hurry now and there is a 'the rules don't apply to me' sort of thing."
Bryson has spent most of his life in Yorkshire and Norfolk since the mid 1970s, apart from returning to the US for a few years from the mid 1990s.
"When I first came to Britain it really was all about fair play and queuing."
Bill certainly raises some interesting points especially as we enter a period of slow economic growth, falling wealth and more reliance on our local communities and family networks even if you don’t agree with all he says.Any source
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