The statement is too absolute. Historical reporting says the British mineral-water market “really only took off in the late 1980s,” and that Perrier had only a “small following among the wealthy for decades,” which supports the idea that serving fizzy water was not a normal everyday English practice in the 1960s and 1970s. But it was not unheard of: Perrier had existed in Britain before, and a later DWI survey in England and Wales still found households drinking sparkling bottled water, with Perrier among the leading sparkling-water brands. So the core impression is broadly right about rarity, but false if read literally as “people in England did not do that at all.” Sources: The Guardian, “Give me an eau” (2003); The Guardian, “Eau, so sparkling” (2000); Drinking Water Inspectorate, “Tap Water Consumption in England and Wales: Findings from the 1995 National Survey.”