AS A child of the 1950s, I was always led to believe I had been somewhat cheated by my birthright. The 1950s was that ghastly grey era of austerity, rationing, repression, intolerance and divisive schooling which, while free from the terrors and effort to win the war, lacked the style, permissiveness and verve of the revolutionary 1960s.

A sort of in-between times as the country changed gear, rather like the even more disparaged 1970s.

It is widely agreed that the 1950s, in fact, lasted into the early 1960s, and was finally blown away in the aftermath of the Profumo scandal and the Lady Chatterley book trial. This was best summed up by Philip Larkin in his poem, Annus Mirabilis: “Sexual intercourse began in nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) – Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP.”

Beatles aside, as a boy growing up in Runcorn, free love and flower power meant little to me. In fact, the nearest I got to those 60s totems was a free school bus pass and helping my mother spray the roses for greenfly.

Now, thanks to Frank Field, the respected Birkenhead MP, this received wisdom is changing. The 1950s was a lost golden age of decorum and decency, the last moment, he believes, when Britain was a “peaceful and self-governing kingdom”.

This view is further backed by writer and social historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Never Had It So Good, a History of Britain from Suez to The Beatles. To my amusement, I learn that Mr Sandbrook is a great deal younger than I am, but no doubt all the more expert.

Like any decade, the 1950s rode the gamut of highs and lows from the Coronation to the Suez crisis. Yet it was a time of rising prosperity which we only gasp at with wonder and admiration in the current economic downturn. British industry got back into gear as it recovered from the war. Where is the manu-facturing now to provide such a motor? It was replaced by the financial services industry. Fat chance they will get us out of this mess in the way our export trade did after the war.

The 1950s were a time when the average salaries more than doubled, although inflation never rose above 3%. As you see youths today hanging around on every street corner and wonder if their lives will ever properly start, bear in mind unemployment was rarely above 2%, with the economy growing every year. There was growth, too, in home ownership and labour-saving devices for housework, which finally started to free women from domestic drudgery.

Given how much shattered Britain had to recover from the war, what was achieved can be seen as an heroic act, by a population which shared a collective ideal of the common good and a belief in the nation. Sandbrook says: “Rationing was still in force, cities were scarred by bomb damage, the coffers were empty and Britain faced the awesome responsibility of guiding the colonies towards independence, as well as holding the line against the ambitions of the Soviet Union. With all that in mind, it is astonishing how much Britain achieved.”

We still live on that legacy in the form of schools, hospitals (with free education and treatment) and hundreds of thousands of houses. In spite of the problems of secondary modern schools, studies show that those children born in 1951 had more social mobility than those born 20 years later. In spite of panics about teddy boys and flick-knife gangs, society was astonishingly sober, orderly and well-behaved.

In 1958, there were 261 murders in England and Wales, now the figure is around 500 killings. So, as Mr Sandbrook says, don’t look back in anger like John Osborne, look back in admiration.

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