This is how it used to be....

Here in the West Midlands we have a little National treasure called the Black Country Living Museum, where old buildings and workplaces have been lovingly recreated for people to visit and experience. Unfortunately this doesn't sit too well with modern regulation. The result, for example, is that visitors can watch bread being baked in a traditional bakehouse, but the bread cannot then be sold - or even given away - because the premises don't comply with current health and safety rules, so it has to be fed to the pigs or ducks, or simply thrown away! There are traditional "two up and two down" houses there where you're not allowed to go upstairs because there's no fire escape. You do sometimes really wonder how people of my generation ever managed to survive, don't you?