To think the 1960s were a great time to be alive?

[firstcape]

Having watched some documentaries on life in the 60s,

it seems to have been a brilliant time to be alive, (being middle class)
nice large modern houses, seem to have pretty much everything needed. People seemed far more polite. The fashion was brilliant, and so very smart. Men seem so much more handsome too!

Totally agree with that Trills. 😊

I was born in 1962 and grew up in one of Scotland new towns. It was a fantastic place to grow up and we had a lot of freedom as children. But i don't think this was just to do with the 60's.

My own DC were brought up in an old town in the 90's and it was an equally great place for children to grow up and they too had lots of freedom, albeit the clothes and music were much more dodgy!

I do think you need to have be at least a teenager to experience the zeitgeist of the age.
“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven.”
(Though I don't suppose everyone felt like that about the French revolution).
I could talk about my memories of the fifties, but I think it could only represent what it was like in my family and social group.

You've nailed it, missclimpson. That's what it felt like for me. But I was a young heedless teen and what did I know about politics and injustice? But we awakened as we grew up, and tried to do something about it....

I think probably the music, fashions and sense of change must have been thrilling, however there must have been people pushing against this too at the time.

The Back in Time programme showed the 60s to be a great time for teens, and pretty good for men. But that your average older woman (wife, kids, etc) life was the same as before - the whole sexual revolution and life being carefree and fanciful just didn't hit them at all. They just got to watch their teenagers having the fun whilst they were still stuck at home doing housework and getting the dinner ready. If they did go or to work they still came back to all the house work duties as well.

I'd imagine, like always is the case, life was easier the more money you had through.

Yes, plenty of people complaining about long hair and short skirts. 😀
I have tried watching "Back in time..." but always end up shouting "no we didn't" at the television.
My mother was working and we were always pretty hard-up for money, but I don't think she was envious, she was always telling us how serious we were and how we didn't know how to have fun like they did in the thirties.

Anyone read a brilliant book called ‘Perfect wives in ideal homes ‘?
It’s about women, housewives and woth in the 50s and 60s using a lot of in their own words’ text. My mother (b1939) found much of it rang true.

I don't think you can categorically say a decade was 'a great time', it's all subjective.

My Mother grew up in a very middle class background in the sixties, her father moved for work and the story of how they went to an ice cream shop in London with all kinds of 'exotic' flavours is still told - Granddad still ordered a vanilla. Very lovely.

My MIL's father was a Jamaican immigrant and her Mother an unmarried Catholic in the sixties. They married and she was shunned by her family and community, no contraception, no benefits, no protection from racist views. MIL frequently tells the story of how a brick was thrown through their front window when they were having tea one night.

It's all subjective, but I would far rather live now then I would then in the safety of more equal rights and far more state support.

Indeed Isittheweekendyet.
I do think though that it is important to recognise that those rights are there because previous generations fought for them and to guard them preciously. I fear they are seriously under attack at the moment.

my mum married aged 20 in 1959

when i asked her about the swinging sixties she said that they didn't swing for her!
It's so romantic to look back and think it was all screaming at the beatles and wearing mini sixties when for lots and lots and lots of people it was poverty and inadequate housing and inequality.

I have very dim memories of the 60s. I remember the moon landing and watching it on an ancient TV.

What are the documentaries that people are referring to? I'm hooked and would love to see them if I have not already.

Yup. I bet it was fun.

I started Infant school in Harrow in 1959. It was a very multiracial school (although to hear some people talk Britain was all white back then) set in a slum area. We lived in a reasonably nice 3 bed semi but, on the way to school, passed large Victorian houses in multiple occupation sometimes by whole families in a room. I remember walking home with a West Indian mum whose son was in my class who lived in one of these houses, she was talking about how a man in the house threw milk bottles at her whenever he saw her. She was laughing about it but as a 5 year old I had no idea about racism and was shocked.

Nearer the school was a block of flats that had been bombed in the war with the side ripped off showing all the rooms like a doll's house, the bomb site itself was used as a dump for old cars etc. There were some ropey looking flats still standing and a block of terraced houses with smashed windows but some of the children at my school still lived in them.

So it wasn't much fun for people living in those conditions. We moved away in 1962 to a New Town where many of these slum dwellers were rehoused. New Towns came in for a lot of criticism but it wasn't a bad place to live although it wasn't 'finished' and was a bit of a building site itself until the 70s.

Seeing as my Nanna had my dad illegitimately in the 1960s, forced to foster him out (got him back) and treated as a pariah for decades after (her and my dad) no I don't think it was a great time to be alive. Women paid less, abortion illegal. My other grandmother forced into a marriage she didn't want with 4 kids she also didn't want, not allowed to work. I imagine people from other races would also argue it wasn't. We should be careful looking back with rose tinted glasses.

I do remember as a teen we were supposed to have 50p for ingredients in home economics

My son still has to take 50p for Food Tech lessons every week! Semms inflation hasn't happened everywhere

I grew up in the 60s

There were 8 adults and 2 children living in a 2 bed 1 box room council house.

There was huge racism.

Remember police breaking the door down and hauling uncle away because someone had been on the rob and of course it had to be the immigrant family.

Do remember being taken for a day out by a charity and kids jeering round the coach because we were poor.

If you were white British and had money it probably was great but the sexism and racism was not something that could be considered great.

Don’t forget even if you had money as a woman you couldn’t even get a mortgage on your own and even into the 70s you had to have a “guarantor” just to get a credit card.

50p. Wasn’t it 10/-

I do remember as a teen we were supposed to have 50p for ingredients in home economics

That couldn't have been the 60s as decimalisation didn't happen until 1971.

Also, someone said homosexuality was legalised in 1963, it was 1967 and then only under very specific circumstances i.e. in a house with no one else in it.

Also 10/- would have been a huge amount each week

I was born in 1955, and started school in 1960. I was bought up on a huge council estate in Nottingham. Everyone is correct about no central heating and baths once a week on a Sunday, and I do realise memories fade over time, but I can not really remember being cold at night- but we did have hot water bottles, and from the mid to late 60’s we also had electric blankets- it was my job to run upstairs at 9 O’clock and switch them all on!

We were quite lucky in Nottingham, as there was then full employment, and especially work for women in the various factories in and around the city. There was also various home work available because of the lace/hosiery industry that was still huge in the 60’s, and my mum and the lady next door ( who we all called “Aunty”) did home work in which the kids ( including me aged about 6 or 7 and my sister aged about 11/12) regularly helped. This was quite the norm, and although the pay was poor, it was a good way of earning and still being home for the kids. Part time work for women was also plentiful, and such things as “Twilight” shifts were commonplace so women could work say 6 until 9 when the husband was at home to look after the kids.

From when I was about 7 my mum worked part time at Players cigarette factory, in the afternoon from 2 until 6. Myself and my older sister would fend for ourselves until she or my father got home from work about 6:30. That was normal and widespread, but there were plenty of “aunties” and “uncles” to call on in the immediate area if an adult was needed.

Was it a better time? I honestly look back upon my childhood in the 60’s with much happiness, but it was a totally different universe compared to today, and I think the only thing I really miss is the sense of community, which although it is a totally abstract concept, and hard for me to put into words, but I knew for certain if I as a child ever needed help in any way I could totally rely on my neighbours to help me, whether it was just with help to mend my bike, or if I had hurt myself quite badly there would be a network of adults there to assist me. I think this is one area that has declined over the years.

Also what people forget about the 60s was the lack of bathrooms and the outside toilet.

Hated wanting to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and having to go out in the cold and snow.

The ice on the inside of the window. Coats on the bed.

We only bathed once per week at the most because we had a tin bath and having to get in it next to last was disgusting.

It also meant we couldn’t use the living room on a Sunday night because that was where the bath was.

We moved to a council tower block our house was part of the slum clearance towards the end of the 60s

Amazing to have a proper bathroom.

I think part of the disagreement on this thread is because the 60’s were such a time of massive social change, the first half of the decade was utterly different to the latter half.
I’d agree, pre 65 was pretty much a continuation of the drab 50’s, but from about 67 onwards - wow! That was a cultural explosion in civil rights, prosperity, technology, attitudes, everything. And so wonderful to live through, even with the constraints of sexism etc. We feminists were energised fighting against all that dated shit and building a new future- it was such a great time to be alive, to actually FEEL society changing around you.

@Babdoc while those who didn't live in such progressive communities continued to endure the oppressive environment for years afterwards. I am so sad my grandparents lived when they did, their lives were wasted purely due to the time they were born.

I had a very sad conversation with a friend who was 18 in 1967. She and I were talking as I was pregnant with my third child. I was unmarried at the time and discussing plans to raise my baby. She confided in me that she became pregnant as a single woman in 1967.
She loved her boyfriend and was happy to be pregnant. He left her when she was five months along. Her parents forbade her to live at home as an unmarried mother.

My friend went to a home for unwed mother’s and her baby was placed for adoption. She told me she mourned that child all her life and never had any other children. Her comment to me was how envious she was of my freedom and ability to raise a child on my own. She wished she was pregnant with her baby in a time when there was no stigma attached to unwed mother’s. She made my heart hurt that day.