I belong to the post- war generation who grew up with the unchanged Victorian values of our parents and grandparents, that within ten years of our birth were swept away by flower power, freedom and what was considered in that old world the eighth deadly sin, free choice, replacing the more familiar bedfellow, duty and obligation. Never has there been such a change within such a short period, especially for we who danced defiantly to the Beatles but went home for our bedtime cocoa. Our fathers were angry that the war in which so many lives had been sacrificed did not bring the much promised freedom or equality. Women who had manned the factories and farms while the men were away, were re-consigned to flowery pinafore domesticity, with children tidied away in bed by the time father returned for dinner waiting respectfully on the table. No one talked of problems in those days of pinned on smiles, for to wash your dirty linen in public was taboo. We children spoke when we were spoken to, never answered back or questioned, waited till everyone else was served before we ate and were taught that if there was not enough for the visitors, we pretended not to be hungry. We did not have toddler tantrums or stamping teenage angst because everyone from our parents to teachers and the local policeman would administer a clip round the ear and you cried in your pillow silently or got another smack for making a fuss. God and his appointed were the ultimate security force, for God knew your darkest thoughts and monitored you even in the toilet -and would send a thunderbolt, followed by everlasting hellfire if we lied or took a penny sweet from the corner shop. We saw our parents work hard in all weathers fifty weeks or more a year and through sickness and sorrow, because to be out of work was a huge disgrace and the landlord could turn you out of doors for even a week’s arrears. So from when we could toddle, we swept and tidied and hauled in the coal, for the Devil made work for idle hands - we never were bored and it never occurred to question if we were happy or had good parents for we were all in this together. If dinner was on the table and an only slightly leaking roof over our heads (there was invariably a bucket in the bedroom when it rained) and a week at the seaside, then life could not get better. Not necessarily a good thing to grow up between the old and new worlds, for I watch in awe the modern confident generations who speak their minds and rightly expect happiness and fulfilment. But I am not scarred by my past, for I embrace the many good values I was taught and I still have a strong work ethic I have passed on to my children. Yet though we can and should move beyond blaming our childhood and parents for present inadequacies and future limitations, we perhaps need to recognise we are a product of that childhood. Those who raised us clinging to the old world because the new seemed to offer nothing but uncertainty and sofas on Hire Purchase we might never be able to repay when there was a perfectly good second hand shop across the road, did their best with the resources and knowledge they had. So you of the new world, who know free choice is not a sin but a blessing, use it wisely -and if you see we Dinosaur babes, holding back afraid to offend or interfere and trying to give you what we never had even if you do not ask for it or want it, know we do this through love and so indulge our eccentricities.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:24:30 +0000
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