Feeney - A 1960s childhood: from Thunderbirds to Beatlemania

A young boy and girl enjoy a ride in their new red metal motorcar, in South London, c. 1962.

At last, you stop scraping around inside that long-suffering eggshell; you put down your spoon and allow your mum to finish clearing away the breakfast things. Resting your back against the hard wooden uprights of your chair, you turn your gaze to the skies beyond the tightly closed sash window next to the table. You have absolutely no idea that you are witnessing the start of what is to become the most exciting decade of the twentieth century, and that, in years to come, you and every other child of the 1960s will have reason to look back on these years with great fondness. Forevermore, the decade will be referred to as the swinging sixties, and although future generations will experience greater lifestyle improvements than you can ever imagine, they will also fantasise about what it was like to grow up in the 1960s.

You will surely have many unforgettable personal memories of your childhood, but there are also a myriad of things that touched and influenced everyone that grew up in the sixties and evoke common memories. In the early sixties, you will have experienced some of the austere 1950s mood that rolled over into the 1960s as part of the seamless transition between decades. After all, the older generation were not likely to forget the hard times that went before, and their long-time practice of living sparingly didnt just end at the stroke of midnight on 31 December 1959. The stories you were told of the post-war hardships and food rationing suffered by your parents and grandparents are like ancient history to you, even though food rationing only finally ended a few years earlier, in 1954. But even the most uncaring or self-absorbed child couldnt help but see the lasting reminders of war and deprivation that were still evident in the early sixties, with many bomb ruins and bomb-damaged buildings still to be seen in towns and cities. You would regularly encounter people suffering from old war injuries, not just ex-servicemen and women, but also many innocent civilians that had been caught up in enemy bombing raids on local streets and houses. It wasnt unusual to see people in their thirties and forties, particularly men, hobbling around with the aid of a crutch or a walking stick, with some having lost limbs or been made blind during the hostilities. Back in 1957, the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, caused an upset when he said, let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good. This remark remained etched in the minds of the fifties generation; in the 1960s it was regularly paraphrased as Youve never had it so good, and used by grown-ups to remind children of the hardships that people suffered in previous decades. However, the cold rooms, tin baths and outside toilets had not been entirely consigned to the history books. For some people, the dearth was ongoing and improvements were only gradual.

During the early sixties, more and more high-rise blocks of flats and new housing estates were being built to replace homes that had been demolished during the governments large-scale slum clearance programme, and the once familiar landscapes in some urban and rural areas were seen to be radically changing. The new homes provided more comfortable and sanitary facilities for people that had previously occupied old run-down and overcrowded terraced houses, but they were considered by many to be characterless and ugly, lacking the community spirit previously enjoyed in the rows of old terraced houses. Some people in tower blocks felt isolated and the kids had to adapt to a whole new way of life. But there were some benefits, such as the luxury of having modern bathrooms and hot running water, thus consigning many old kettle-filled fireside tin baths to the scrapheap.

Britain was in what was called a post-war boom period, when there seemed to be factories in every street in the country that were busy making all sorts of British goods. It was a time when British products and services were in great demand and unemployment was very low. The sixties generation had much more disposable income than their predecessors and they could afford to buy and enjoy many of the things that were previously considered to be extravagant. Up until about 1962, items like television sets and telephones were regarded as luxuries, but they soon became much more affordable to ordinary people, as did labour-saving devices like vacuum cleaners and washing machines, and by the mid-sixties these were all considered to be necessities in the home. There was little sign of absolute poverty, as there had been in previous decades when it was obvious that some people did not have enough money to clothe themselves or to eat an adequate diet. By the mid-sixties, a great many working-class families had seen their lifestyles improve significantly, and it could have reasonably been said that most people had never had it so good!