True brats Sir: Martin Vander Weyer's piece ('We really haven't
had it so good', 13 August) is a welcome antidote to the gloom of John Mortimer (Diary, 19 March) and others. To our fellow human beings we British must seem among the most ungrateful people who ever lived. On a world scale we are behaving like spoiled brats in a rich neigh- bourhood.
Things have turned out far better than most people in the Fifties guessed they would. Few thought then that we would go even 20 years without a nuclear war, let alone 40.
Whichever political party has been in power, the trend has been towards a steady rise in the number of people able to afford a car and an overseas holiday. When I went to Canada in 1956 to work for the Ontario Cancer Foundation there was quite a big difference in the standards of living. They were well ahead of us and all the talk in Britain was of a better future for our chil- dren if we emigrated.
You seldom hear that now. I have just got back from a visit and my Canadian cousins who visit Britain agree with me that there is now nothing to choose between the standard of living in our two countries.
Thurstan B. Brewin
18 Braybank, Bray-on-Thames, Berkshire
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