[Sundae]

But what has progress really achieved?
The poor still starve, still die, still suffer from diseases that can be cured with a few pennies.

It's just that they happen in different countries now, or at least out of sight.

Our world has progressed.
That's all.
And even that is shaky. Europe is on the verge of economic collapse.
Middle class/ professional Greeks are finding it hard to meet utility bills/ taxes/ food bills.
And when I say hard, I mean literally having NO money even for essentials, not "Christmas is a bit smaller this year"

Italy seems to be heading the same way.

The construction industry in Ireland has stagnated meaning that "children" are living at home (with their wives or husbands and children) into their thirties.

My Grandad would have understood this world.
Where you raised animals for slaughter in an urban environment.
Where you lived with family, even after your first child.
Where you left school early to work for your family and turned over the whole of your wages just to keep the rentman from the door. And hid when he came. And did a moonlight flit when it became impossible to hide any more.

There was no NHS when Grandad had whooping cough as a child.
His mother was advised by the kindly (but expensive) doctor to take him to the coast for sea air. Might as well have suggested he went to the moon.
Instead Nanny Doyle loaded up the old pram with assorted children and took them to Tower Bridge.
The Thames is a tidal river. They took deep breaths.
It was the best she could do.
She had five children that I know of - you didn't talk about miscarriages in those days. They all lived into their eighties and two are still going.