Consumption in the 60s
There has been an incredible change in spending and consumption habits since the 1960s. In our teens in the 60's we hardly ever ate out. Almost all meals were taken in our own or other peoples' houses. There were few restaurants and they were only used for special occasions. Pubs only rarely served cooked food. A 'ploughman's (a bread roll, cheese and pickle) or a scotch egg was about the only thing available to eat. So if one didn't meet at someone's house, you ate first and then met up at the local pub and had a couple of beers (pubs didn't then serve wine). I didn't like beer or any other alcoholic drinks, so I drank coke.....but as there were no drink-driving laws in those days, drinking in any event wasn't a problem. In our late teens our main expense was petrol, but that was cheap and our cars were in any case small - almost always less then two litres (see The Cars of our Youth ). My Mini and later Cooper S used relatively little petrol ...