ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors use the Beverley oral histories to draw different conclusions about the effects of post-war social, economic and cultural shifts on working-class neighbourly practices. The evidence discussed in the chapter provides grounds to doubt the declinist view. First, portrayals of a 'traditional' type of working-class neighbourliness, thought to pertain during the first half of the century, and against which later decline is measured, are overdrawn. Second, the factors that authors have claimed reduced working-class neighbourliness during the age of affluence were uneven in strength and effect. Finally, accounts that depict the decline of 'traditional' neighbourliness frequently fail to discuss new ways in which neighbours interacted as affluence raised living standards. The economic need for lending and borrowing did indeed become less pressing for many families as living standards rose, enabling the household independence that older norms had connected with respectability.
