Postwar social changes ranging from slum clearances to full employment sparked public interest in working-class lives during the first half of the twentieth century. From the late 1950s, technical developments including lithography and offset printing lowered the cost of printing and increased its speed. Community presses published newly diverse autobiographies. Older authors described youthful scenes that were set in the distant past and parsed social changes that had occurred over half a century or more. Many among them knew that memories were unreliable but found that the past constantly intruded on the present. Later life delivered new perspectives on childhoods that featured deprivation and violence as well as joy, and elderly autobiographers were quick to celebrate the achievements of the present.