Seems nothing has changed in the last 44 years!
I first flew in to Elstree in August 64, no radio, in an Auster J1N from Skegness on my 40-odd hour old PPL. Also my first non-grass landing (but I even managed that quite well). It was scruffy, crowded, unfriendly and from these thread comments, pretty much as it has ever been.
On taxiing in I almost got run down by some plook in a Spitfire. Two tail-draggers trying to peer over the nose and only one talking to the tower?
It was quite a while before I ventured out of Lincolnshire in an aircraft after that! Mind you, since then I've flown into hundreds of airports, airfields, and air strips that were similar or a lot worse!
My sympathies to those who still hang out there, of necessity