Laudator Temporis Acti

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (New York: Pantheon, 1969), p. 129 (Jubal Merton speaking):

What I notice most about the village now is the way people no longer want to get together. All through my boyhood it was a regular thing for twenty or more folk to sit on that bank outside the shop and talk of an evening. They sat on the verge if it was fine and on the benches inside the shop if it was wet. The boys would be there too, rollicking and laughing but listening all the same. It was the good time of the day and we all looked forward to it. We told each other about the things that happened to us, only a long time ago. People didn't usually tell each other things that were happening to them at that moment! But if it had happened years ago—no matter how awful it was—you could tell it. We sang songs. We sang the army songs from the war. 'Nellie Dean' and 'Pack up your Troubles'. Also 'The Fakenham Ghost' and 'The Farmer's Boy'. And sometimes we step- danced, although mostly the step-dancing was done at Cretingham Bell. All that is finished now. People are locked in their houses with the television and haven't any more time for talk and the like.