Rationing ended in 1954 and the Consumer Society arrived a couple of years later. It arrived when a vending machine was installed in the village. This vending machine did not dispense mouldy old bars of chocolate or packets of Woodbine cigarettes. It dispensed ultra-fresh cartons of strawberry flavoured milk! Dai 'Tolstoy' Lectic of prefab number could not wait to put a coin in it. (He had mistaken it for the vending machines that were to be installed in the streets of Moscow which delivered bottles of vodka wrapped in brown paper bags!)
There was more to the Consumer Society than cartons of strawberry flavoured milk. Hard on the heels of vending machines came bars of white chocolate! (The Swiss had been tucking into this delicacy since the 1930s!) After shoving his way to the front of white chocolate queue 'Bully Boy' Brown of Shores Way was seen puking up in the gutter. ('Bully Boy' Brown's life was to show that sometimes there is a relationship between character and fate.) The pace of change taking place from 1956 on was given another accelerated boost when Bath City football club signed a player from the Continent who had a sun tan, a stylish haircut, and did overhead kicks!
A slick, press-buttoned, Meteor Jet-filled sky of a future was juggernauting and sonic booming its way towards us. It was filled bumper to bumper with a hunger for things, for Formica table tops, three-piece suites, Hoovers, hula-hoops, jukeboxes, electric irons, washing machines, Italian-style suits and winkelpicker shoes. The quiet repose that was prefab estate life would soon be over.