Another era

I've just been listening to Radio 4 as I did the ironing. A couple of items caught my ear.

The first was an item in "Woman's Hour". Young mothers of today apparently reckon they do not have, & never have had, the opportunities of women of the Baby Boon generation.

Well, I suppose that's us. Today most people of my generation may seem to be doing well, owning comfortable houses, having holidays abroad etc, but that was not so when we were in our twenties/early thirties as these young mothers are. I remember well when we got married in 1975, we had second-hand furniture & family cast offs to set up home with. My first cooker was new. It had only two elements you could use at a time. So you had 1 ring & a ring/grill/oven. That was it. We had no television for years. At first we had no car despite living a couple of miles from the nearest shop. It was a mile walk to the nearest station across the valley. The bus only passed twice a day. We didn't go on holidays for years. If we had a break it was only for a couple of days. We had no heating in our bedroom. No double glazing. Jack Frost rarely visits houses drawing patterns on the inside of the windows these days.

As for opportunities, I wonder how many of my generation even dreamt of having a gap year to travel the world. Europe was exotic in those days. Australia, the Far East, USA etc were beyond our wildest dreams. Young mums had to give up work to provide the childcare themselves as there were very little pre-school provision unless you were lucky enough to have family nearby to look after youngsters. And any work from home was paid a pittance. These days well paid work can be done often at home through computers. Flexi-hours & job share were unheard of ideas.

No. As far as I can see the affluent baby boomers have worked hard for what they've got & the younger generation has to do the same. The younger generation seem to think because their parents now seem reasonably comfortable, they've always had it so. That's not true. As a child you do not fully appreciate the work, efforts & stress your parents put into your upbringing. Instead they try to protect you from such concerns. It's only as you look back you realise it must have been so.

The only thing I do feel my generation, particularly those a few years older than us, is lucky in, is that we can, & I'm not sure if this isn't already becoming could, be confident of having enough pension in their old age for a basic life-style, & for many, better than basic. The days of retirement on full pension, related to inflation or even contemporary wages seem to be coming to an end.

The other programme that caught my ear was "The Battle of the Tweed" about Harris tweed. I couldn't help remembering that fabulous comedy film "Battle of the Sexes", starring Peter Sellers. As the programme journalist took us around the Hebrides to meet the weavers, I couldn't help seeing in my mind's eye Peter Sellers, who was playing a man who stood for tradition, showing how tweed is made to Constance Cummings, playing an American businesswoman determined to bring the tweed industry into the 20th century with mechanisation. Her face fell as she trudged from one out-of-the-way cottage to the next & saw what a cottage industry weaving was, & still is, it seems. Still all handwoven.