For most people, there best time in their lives will be their late teens / early twenties. At this time, we fall in love for the first time. We get jobs and have money for the first time. We may marry and have children. Make our own nests, and still have youth and health to enjoy it all.
So this will be nearly everyone's best time. As we get older, this is what we compare to. I can quite easily look back to that period, which for me were the late 70s, early 80s and remember what a great time I had. Obviously there were ructions at home and abroad during that period, but they didn't really burst my bubble of happiness.
I suspect that for AOG, the 1950s was his particular bubble of happiness. Yes, there were problems for the country at home and abroad then, but AOG would largely be oblivious. This was the period of our loss of Empire, and the country virtually bankrupted by the recent war. Things were not idylic, but in AOG personal bubble, they were.
I can remember my youth and have wonderful memories. But I still do things that make me happy now, and I see things around me that are great.
Perhaps AOG is not having a nice time now. Or perhaps, for some, they are saddened that their best time is long behind them, and that spoils their present and future.