As a fully qualified baby boomer born the same year LHR opened, some thoughts on the passing years.
We boomers have most definitely had the best of them. Après nous le déluge.
We began with coal fires, washing clothes with tubs, blue bags, washing boards and mangles. Rationing was still in force in a bankrupt country. No central heating, television, washing machines, dishwashers, mobile phones, internet, www, foreign holidays, affordable air travel, Amazon deliveries or most of the things taken for granted these days.
So, we invented them.
If nothing else it was character building. Coppers walked the streets, criminal punishments were condign, high streets flourished with shopping taken home in string bags, prefabs proliferated, walking to primary school the norm, where times tables, spelling, joined-up writing and manners were taught.
In 1952, Britain got a new queen and children everywhere celebrated her coronation with street parades and a little box with chocolate, that rare commodity in those days, inside. Joy untrammelled. Simple pleasures.
If you were fortunate enough to pass your 11+ you got a free grammar school place and a proper education with a free university place if you achieved decent A-level GCEs.
And after that came the 60s. What a time to be young and alive!
An explosion of music, fashion, television and fun coupled with the growing availability of domestic labour saving devices supplying the opportunity and time to enjoy the burgeoning scene. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eel Pie Island with the tricoteuse guarding the bridge demanding your licence to “cut a rug”, 45s, Hair on stage, Dansette record players, endless parties, the Moon,plus, of course, JFK, homework and Harold Wilson for balance.
Then the 70s: strikes and more strikes, rubbish piled in the street, new music, foreign holidays the norm, affordable cars and petrol, work, 3 day weeks, the Common Market, main frame computers, coppers in cars, the summer of ‘76, street parties for the Queen’s 25th Jubilee, Vietnam, punk and Margaret Thatcher.
The 80s dawned and we’d never had it so good. For some. Privatisations, the Miners’ Strike, Falklands War, more Maggie, deregulation of the financial sector, Reagan, mobile phones, Torvill & Dean, giant supermarkets heralding the decline of the High Street, Live Aid, the Storm, personal computers, the internet and fax machines bringing instant worldwide communication. Whatever next we wondered,
The 90s. Windows bringing new levels to the personal computer, Maggie gone, Blair arrives, 45 minutes, Iraq, growing National Debt, Labour spending sprees on borrowed money, PFI, NHS in crisis (annually), the Year 1999/2000 non technology crisis and a generally appalling decade.
The Noughties. Bye-bye Blair, hello Brown. Bye-bye Labour, sorry there’s no money left in the nation’s coffers. A Conservative Party lacking conservative values. Decline accelerated. Immigration, legal or otherwise, accelerated. National Debt exceeds £2 trillion. Rap grows. A decade to regret.
The 2010s. The pace of decline increases. Brexit from what has become the EUSSR. Mixed joy and sorrow for many. Scandals abound. PO, Epstein and many more.
The 2020s. Covid (aka ‘flu epidemic) arrives followed swiftly by lockdowns depressing an already shaky economy, the untested and miraculously appearing Jab; you know the rest. Misery squared. Politics in disarray. Illegal immigration off the scale. Gender identity in turmoil. Justice in crisis. Welfare State grows exponentially. War in Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere. Dodgy elections in USA. A time to appreciate being old and unenvious of the future expectations for children and grandchildren.
Where did all the early promise go? Disappeared, like the Empire, down the drains of Trafalgar Square. It didn’t have to be like this but politicians, Gates, WEF, MSM, and what passes these days for “education” all have their part to play in the downfall of the West. It was nice knowing you but like the Roman Empire, bread and circuses no longer cut the mustard and as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
So, that’s my 70+ years accounted for. Much of material value to appreciate but little of lasting worth perhaps.
We shall see. Good luck.
Foootsoldier Says… 