Time to remove the rose-tinted specs (From Hereford Times)

Time to remove the rose-tinted specs

10:47am Wednesday 31st December 2008

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PESSIMISTIC articles are never hard to find in national newspapers. The Daily Express tells readers on a daily basis that crime is on the rise, terrorists are only miles away and that the next big freeze or flash flood is just around the corner.

The Daily Mail, its bigger and more successful rival, is also guilty of projecting misery on many a topic by comparing the present with a past seen through rose-tinted specs.

The NHS is often the bête noire for both papers who criticise the health service on many a topic from waiting lists to MRSA outbreaks.

Last month I went to Hereford County Hospital for the first time since I was born there almost 30 years ago.

I had twisted my knee and could not walk so I was driven down to the A&E department, given some crutches and told to come back the following day to see a consultant.

By that time, my knee was even more stiff. An X-ray proved nothing was broken and I was told I had probably torn a cartilage.

The doctor then told me they would make two little cuts on the outside of the knee and “have a look inside”.

I took a sharp breath before he informed me a bed was available in a few hours for an arthroscopy.

Having been lucky enough to have avoided hospital for my entire life, I was more than a little nervous - blood, injections and white jackets have never really been favourites of mine. But, with my knee swelling more and more, I agreed.

Seven hours later and I was back on my crutches leaving the hospital and jumping into my dad’s car.

The general anaesthetic made me feel a bit queezy, but apart from that I was fine.

I was walking without support within three weeks and now - more than a month on - I feel pretty much back to normal.

I could not complain about any of the treatment at the NHS Hereford County Hospital.

But had I been an avid reader of the Mail or Express, I would have gone into the County with a mixture of fear and a willingness to return to the matron-run days of the 1960s.

The media needs to monitor the levels of the country’s public services and report stories such as when wards are closed at the county hospital because of a virus - as they now are.

But it should do so fairly and disregard its tendency to view Britain’s past through misguided ageing eyes.

This month I read two different articles in The Guardian which showed post-war Britain was not the postcard paradise.

A former Woolworths employee said shoplifting was rife in the 1960s while another correspondent said the recent knife attacks in London were no worse than the football hooliganism of the 1980s or the seaside battles between Mods and Rockers some 20 years before on Brighton’s beaches.

Happy New Year!