Green Shield stamps still existed in the late 80s when my mate worked in a petrol station (and took all the ones that were turned down by the customers. He never had to pay for Christmas presents.)
I believe Luncheon Vouchers still exist in some form or other.
Without wanting to come over like more of a loony than usua, I now know the answer as I asked my colleagues (it’s a quiet time of year, and they’re always up for a “what happened to spangles/white dog poo/Frances De La Tour”? discussion).
The answer is the tax-man killed them. It used to be that you could get a certain amount of LVs tax-free, so employers took advantage of that - but the taxman started treating them as “benefits in kind” so there was no advantage over cold hard cash - so people took the cash.
Quartz
I don’t really like to get into posts about who said what, quoting portions to try prove some esoteric point as it gets very tedious and uninteresting for those not involved, however, I’m making my only exception that I can recall
(note the qualifier here,since someone will probably mention that is is not the case and then go on to prove it 
)
I was not trying to bait you, in fact it was Usram who made this following post
Which is why I asked you what your opinion was, do you agree with what this person has said, or do you even partially accept what I have posted about North Sea oil revenues, and my contention that manufacturing is vital to the UK national interest, due to the decline in UK oil production.
It seems to Usram that manufacturing is not important, which I personally find is not a view that coincides with mine, and looing at what else I have posted, its actually directed at this poster and not at you, please do not take offence where it is not aimed.
Your views and opinions are sought, and without contention there would not be any debate here.
I would like to see some rebuttal or some case made by Usram for the position that poster holds, but if no reply is not forthcoming I can only accept they do not wish to reply for their own reasons.
I am pretty sure wartime rationing had a lot of effect up into the 70’s. People who had been taught as children to eat everything they were given no matter how unpleasent, and who remembered the ‘pleasure’ of spam, were now the major food purchasers. Restaurants and super markets didn’t need to try to raise quality, and poor echonamy of the time ensured an easy sale from cheap low quality rubbish food. It wasn’t till the 80’s that people started looking for quality within the food they were eating, and making enough money to afford it.
I dunno if I would stake my life on it, but it’s what the Agency for International Development says. I assume they know more than me.
I’m not sure if your idea of the “old days” and mine are the same. Assuming you’re talking about the 60/70s and later then I would suggest that around then people started taking advantage of package trips abroad and found that other countries’ food cultures started rubbing off on them.
Citizens of countries of the common market also came here to work bringing their revolutionary ideas that serving someone a meal was a job like any other, not something to be looked down on.
Finally we had immigrants from Asia starting up restaurants with probably Chinese and Indian in the forefront.
When I was growing up in my home town if you couldn’t find a fish and chip shop open you’d go hungry.
It is true that there was much division into working / middle / upper class.
But I worked for British Telecomms in a building housing about 800 employees. And we all ate in the same canteen, from school leavers to senior management.
Again you are partly correct.
But you **completely miss the point ** of ‘Love thy neighbour’.
Johnny Speight wrote a biting sarcasm on racial prejudice, with Warren Mitchell playing a bigoted, stupid, chauvinist, prejudiced foul-mouthed lead role.
Archie Bunker (the character) didn’t like blacks, Jews, women, foreigners, republicans and anyone who supported a team other than West Ham. :eek:
The show transferred briefly to the US, though the language undoubtedly didn’t. I think an actor called Carrel O’Connor (?) took the role on.
The canteen thing is obviously a matter of personal recollection - I’ve never worked in manufacturing but I have visited abourt a gazillion factories for work - and the concept of separate facilities was quite common, and is a lot less common now. (and there are still LOADS of factories in Britain - they just aren’t the big metal-bashers of yore).
And you’ve got your TV shows mixed up - you’re talking about Alf Garnett. (In real life Warren Mitchell is a spurs supporting jew). That programme was called 'Till death do us part" and your description is accurate. (One thing that Alf Garnett WAS spot on about is Tony Blair’s father-in-law is a “scouse git”).
The programme that I was talking about is called “love thy neighbour” and here is a synopsis:
http://www.memorabletv.com/dvdreviews04/lovethyneighbourseries2.htm
It would be utterly unbroadcastable now - and I’m suprised it has been re-released on DVD.
Yes, my apologies - I did give the wrong name (I have never watched ‘Love thy neighbour’).
Interestingly the rightwing Mary Whitehouse, head of some viewers organisation, tried to have ‘Till death do us part’ banned.
That’s 'cos of all the Lord Mayoring. The silly moo.
It’s rare for me to agree with owl but I am a blue collar worker and in all my jobs the management and sometimes even just the supervisors have either had their own restaurant or a separate eating area.
In my first job they called the people in the office “staff” and they had extra perks. When I moved into the drawing office of the company I was told to stop mixing with the workers on the shop floor.
It was a non union company and the different treatment meted out the those on the shop floor and those in the offices, plus the foreman who would physically bully workers as well as swear at them, probably went a long way to explain why I embraced the union in my next job. This was in the 50s though and obviously legislation is now in place to prevent this.
The factory I served my apprenticeship in during the 60’s had four canteens. Hourly-paid , weekly staff , monthly staff and management. There were even separate toilets. The ones for the hourly-paid were marked " male" and “female” , those for the staff were marked “ladies” and gentlemen" . Both the hourly paid and the weekly staff had to clock in, but the former had horrible looking brown clock-cards and the staff nice looking white cards.
Reminds me of my RAF days.
Officers and their ladies
NCO’s and their wives
Airmen and their women.
In my first job (see my post above) I had to clock in, until I became a member of “staff” then I could be trusted to arrive on time.
I had to clock in and out until 2000. Everyone did, from the lowest to the MD.