I always hear that people say that people were happier & nicer in the 80s this could have truth to it people were more optimistic back then

I was never optimistic in the 80s. Thatcher sold us out to the US. So the only optimistic people around would have been the bankers and what happened in 1987 - the bankers were found out for having screwed us up. Until they dropped us in it again and again since as well. So no - the early 60s is the only time Ive known the country to be optimistic, before they realised th ereality that the US was taking us to the cleaners. Blairs government did start on a wave ot optimism and the transfer of interst rate control to the BOE but the Gulf War and ERM blew that away