It’s a cliche, I know, but these are different times. It’s possible that every generation utters the same phrase as it grows older and things they used to say or do aren’t said or done anymore. And if they are then that might not be politically correct any longer.

My father heard the Beatles in 1963 and uttered exactly those words. My mother must have looked at him and had a quiet chuckle because she was all for ‘different times’ it seemed, ready to embrace not just the Beatles and what they were doing to the music of the day but The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Animals, The Beach Boys, The Byrds and Creedence Clearwater Revival, to name a few.

There are television shows from the 1970s that I remember we used to sit and laugh over which, viewed today, are cringe worthy, at best. The jokes fall totally flat and the level of racist innuendo directed at one another is of an era long past and hopefully never to return (at least to our television screens) although rumour has it (as Adele might well agree) that some of that innuendo is still alive and well in certain quiet corners.

And it is one such quiet corner that I wish to write about today. It is not only quiet but suitably dark so that inhabitants can often be heard with clarity but not seen and if they are seen at all it’s in shadowy form, silhouetted rather than clearly defined.

Now, one might think that this corner lies in some dark alleyway that few people would venture down after sunset. Not true. It is located very much in the public eye, just off the entrance to a big supermarket, adjacent to where the trolleys are stored. This corner has a bench, ostensibly for the weary shopper to lay his heavy bags down and contemplate the lightness of his wallet.

Adjacent in turn to the bench is the chicken shop, also slightly dimly lit (and I’ve never been sure why a shop selling fresh chicken should not want to do so in the full glare of electric lights).

Anyhow, there was I standing at the chicken shop counter awaiting my order of boneless, skinless thighs. At this point a thought struck me: When one is outdoors one is never totally in control of one’s thoughts. That is, a person might wish to dwell upon some topic or ponder the significance of something, but with so much going on around, that thought process is often serially and seriously derailed. Not that my ‘serious pondering’ requires much urging to go off track.

But while awaiting the packaging of the chicken my quiet was interrupted by a voice. An angry voice. A man’s voice. A seriously irate voice. A voice that was informing a shadowy companion just who was in charge and who should be careful about it. All this, laced with a volley of degrading abusive language.

Adjectives that have no place in this column, but words that we’ve heard or read a million times before. However, there appears to be difference between reading and first-hand experience.

The recipient of this abuse — a woman, a partner, a wife — was endeavouring to make a quiet assertion of her ‘will’ only to have it trampled into submission and silence. And the silence seemed to act like fuel for another volley of abuse.

What, I wondered, can make a man so angry? He seemed like he was barely stopping himself from striking out. And in today’s world, with all the focus on respect and gender equality, and the shaming of some who’ve transgressed those lines, it appears that this enraged man in this dark corner had somehow not received the memo. These are, indeed different times, but is everyone — especially the well-entrenched — willing to embrace the difference and move in step with the changes?

Or will there always be these tiny, dark corners to negotiate?

- Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.