I read some interesting research recently on Mail online from the University of Warwick researchers that claim that 1957 was the happiest year of the 20th century!

This was the year that the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan famously declared that “we have never had it so good.” In this year, the Queen did her first televised Christmas message. Interestingly there were just two television channels to choose from!

Life was very different in the UK compared with now as highlighted by these facts:

  • There were very few traffic jams as there were just 4million cars on the road compared to 37 million today
  • Women made up a third of the workforce. That figure is now 46%
  • If you wanted to buy a house, a first home cost five times the average annual wage in the 1950’s with earnings typically at £7.50 per week and house prices at £2000.Getting on the property ladder now costs about eight times your salary
  • There was just 22,000 divorces a number which had leapt to 111,000 in 2014
  • Women got married at 25 on average but now wait until they’re 34
  • The most popular gifts for children were yo-yos and I-Spy books
  • People worked six days a week and didn’t take foreign holidays
  • Men could expect to live to 66 and women 71

Furthermore, what’s really interesting about 1957 being the happiest year was that the conditions people faced at home were very different to those that we enjoy now. For instance only one in twenty had a refrigerator, only one in five had a washing machine, there wasn’t any central heating and it was the era of the outside toilet!

The University researchers put their findings down to more realistic expectations about what constitutes a happy life and after living through two world wars people had learned to count their blessings. The analysis has been published by the University and the Social Market Foundation. It’s taken from 8 million books used to track contentment between 1776 to 2009, based on positive words such as peaceful, enjoyment and happiness compared to negative words such as stress and unhappy.

It shows a rise in joy after 1945, peaking in 1957, a fall through the nationwide strikes and inflation of 1978’s Winter of Discontent and then a recovery, but never to the levels of the 1950s.The study suggests that people are more likely to be happy when their expectations are lower, as are those within large social networks of other contented people.

Dr Daniel Sgroi, co-author of the report and associate professor at the University of Warwick said “that we have similar research which suggests group identity is important for happiness. While there is much more individualism now, in the 1950s people were more likely to feel as if they had a common goal, so could for example leave their door open when they went out because they trusted their neighbours. Now we are more aware of what is happening in the world than people were then, but this could be making us unhappier. And people now have to face pressures put upon them, such as work stress, which might have increased.”

I found these findings fascinating, they suggest that despite greater wealth, owning more material things, the advent of technology and having access to more information we aren’t as happy as people in the 1950s. It goes some way to confirm that the things that make people really happy don’t always cost lots of money. As the phrase says “the best things in life are free.”

For me, the research is a great reminder for us to count our blessings and be grateful for all that we have and for the wonderful opportunities we have to learn, travel and experience in life. We are truly blessed. Perhaps if we embraced the values of simplicity, stability and community we could experience the quiet contentment that characterised so many people’s lives in 1957.

This week, why not pause and reflect and consider what you are grateful for most in life. What do you value most and creates the most contentment within you?

This week’s quotation:

“Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.” Lao Tzu.

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