On Being A Baby Boomer

A baby boomer is somebody who was born between 1946 and 1964, the post WWII years when there was a notable increase in the birthrate. However, from a personal perspective, I think there is so much more that defines who and what we BB's are.

For a start in my childhood life was all about having a good time rather than making good time. The journey itself was the objective every bit as much as was the destination.We savoured every single second of life and tried as hard as we could to wring every last ounce of joy out of each moment before rushing on to the next. Above all we wanted to be free, and to enjoy being free, as we shook off the shackles of the old days like a tattered and worn out old overcoat.

These days everybody is in such a hurry to get to some arbitrary destination in life, be it geographical or personal. And in the process people are missing so much wonderful joie de vie. I well remember discovering sixties music and the social and cultural revolution that was taking place. I was in no hurry to move on from that to something else.

Our parents were born into and brought up in a dark monochromatic or sepia world of global violence and hardship. I was born into post war rations, a rickety asbestos prefab bungalow and hand me down clothes with the arse hanging out of my third hand trousers. But the times were about to begin to change.

Pre first world war the British population were promised a land fit for heroes if only they would go abroad and lay their squalid lives on the line to fight the hun. And go they did, only to return to a country with nothing more to offer them than broken promises. The excuse was that the economic cost of the of the war had left the country financially strained with insufficient money to create that land fit for heroes. The people never forgot that reneging on a promise from the Tory party.

Come the end of the second world war and the British population voted for the Labour Party in the belief that if they were to ever get that land fit for heroes they had been promised, Labour was the party to deliver. And deliver they did, in spades.

From the mid 1940's on, in came all sorts of new acts of parliament under the banner of 'From the cradle to the grave.' (America called it 'From the womb to the tomb.') A new housing act, education, healthcare.....the list went on to create a model that was the envy of the civilised world.

The early forties in Great Britain saw the beginnings of youth culture, followed by the 'Angry Young Men' counter culture of the fifties. By the Swinging Sixties youth was in full flow. It was a time of celebrating the wonderfulness of being alive, all about celebrating love and peace and having a great time doing it.

For me personally, the 60's was a hard time for all sorts of reasons. However, it was a decade coloured in Full Technicolour Deluxe and punctuated by happy events like the coming of The Beatles and their ilk, Liverpool FC becoming a winning team and England winning the World Cup in 1966.

The decade went out on a high as man landed on the moon in 1969, and from that point on it seems like we embarked upon a downward slope into a mis mash of times which no matter how hard they tried, they could never ever emulate those golden years when youth in particular and society in general had its coming of age.

I'm so glad I was a child then rather than now. The days seemed to last so long, as did the summer sun. Or am I just looking back at the past through rose tinted specs? Whichever way you look at it, there will never be times like that again, at least not in my lifetime. Happy days, happy days.