Yes, I remember the 1960s, even though I was there. I had of course spent the late 1950s as a teenage soldier fighting with Fidel in the Sierra Madre. But now I was back in London smoking dope with Mick and Keith, going to mass protests in Grosvenor Square, and raving at the Isle of Wight Festival. I rode the hippie trail to Katmandu, and went to the summer of love in San Francisco, but most of the time I lived in a squat in Chelsea. I naturally had long hair and a beard and wore a flowery shirt and kaftan (bought in Carnaby Street). I had free love with so many girls, who wore (successively) miniskirts, hotpants, and maxi-skirts. I remember that they all had long straight blond hair and lots of black eye shadow (although it was hard to tell because of all the Pink Floyd strobe lights in the discos we went to).
What happy days they were - for someone else. Actually, I was only 13 at the start of the sixties. After a miserable time at King Edward’s School in Birmingham, I spent a year in Handsworth Technical College doing a new set of social science A-levels (which were not taught in King Edward’s School), and went to the London School of Economics. I left in 1968 and started a master’s degree at the University of Strathclyde. I lived in Streatham, Finsbury Park and Glasgow, and never in a squat. Nor did I ever take drugs, though I drank a fair quantity of beer. I did go out with one blonde, but she had shortish hair and was careful with the eye makeup. I am ashamed to admit that I had a flowery shirt and for a time did have a beard.
My experiences of living in the 1960s were probably quite similar to those of many other people of my age. But when I think back, my personal history has become infested with another set of memories: the tired collection of recycled clips and clichés that appear on television programmes about that decade. This raises an important question: at what point do people reject their own memories and start inserting fictional ones in their place? The only corrective to this tendency may be some kind of home-made reminiscence therapy: watch contemporary films made in Britain, which show what the streets looked like, how people dressed, and how they spoke to each other. I recommend you start with A Kind of Loving, This Sporting Life, The Ipcress File, and Alfie.
What happy days they were - for someone else. Actually, I was only 13 at the start of the sixties. After a miserable time at King Edward’s School in Birmingham, I spent a year in Handsworth Technical College doing a new set of social science A-levels (which were not taught in King Edward’s School), and went to the London School of Economics. I left in 1968 and started a master’s degree at the University of Strathclyde. I lived in Streatham, Finsbury Park and Glasgow, and never in a squat. Nor did I ever take drugs, though I drank a fair quantity of beer. I did go out with one blonde, but she had shortish hair and was careful with the eye makeup. I am ashamed to admit that I had a flowery shirt and for a time did have a beard.
My experiences of living in the 1960s were probably quite similar to those of many other people of my age. But when I think back, my personal history has become infested with another set of memories: the tired collection of recycled clips and clichés that appear on television programmes about that decade. This raises an important question: at what point do people reject their own memories and start inserting fictional ones in their place? The only corrective to this tendency may be some kind of home-made reminiscence therapy: watch contemporary films made in Britain, which show what the streets looked like, how people dressed, and how they spoke to each other. I recommend you start with A Kind of Loving, This Sporting Life, The Ipcress File, and Alfie.
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