It is a source of wonder to me how much the world has
changed, how our habits have changed and how our attitudes have changed in my
75-year life time. The 1940s and 1950s seem an aeon away, the more mature 1960s
to the 1990s are fondly remembered in an antiquarian spirit, while contemporary
society is to me a jungle full of unexpected pitfalls, sharp disappointments
and often total incomprehension, much enlivened by frequent hilarity. British
historians will probably ignore the decades but instead define the post-war
years by their landmarks; the Welfare State, the end of Empire, the Suez
humiliation, the Beatles and Swinging Britain, the Thatcher Renaissance, the
Financial Crisis and the Brexit referendum. But I will not sink into highfalutin’
analysis; how did we actually live?
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| 3 types of Aberdeen tram in the 1940s |
As a primary school-boy I paid a “ha’penny half” (viz. half an old penny at a child’s price) on an Aberdeen tram (I usually sat upstairs in the front of a No.4) to go to school. In the playground we would eat liquorice or chew on cinnamon sticks – sugar and sweets were tightly rationed. Entertainment emanated from the wireless – Dick Barton, special agent was unmissable, as was Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh and Have a Go with Wilfred Pickles. We would borrow our parents’ Bakelite 78rpm records and play them with scratchy needles on the gramophone, often Gracie Fields, Noel Coward or Edmundo Ros. Cinema-going was ingrained and we never tired of Abbott and Costello, Roy Rogers (with Trigger) or Johnny (Tarzan) Weissmuller. We were able to raid our own and our friends’ gardens and gorge ourselves on rhubarb, goose-berries or peas from the pod.
Sunday lunch was, and remained for years, a family ritual –
no sloppy dressing and intelligent conversation was expected, although
respectful silence was tolerated from me, the most junior member – requiring a
juicy roast joint of beef or lamb with all the trimmings. Often Sunday
afternoons involved a run in the car up Deeside or maybe just to the beach –
anywhere as long as ice cream cones or my father’s “sliders” featured. The car
was often a roomy but lumbering Humber though my mother would run a nippy
Hillman, latterly two-toned to keep in fashion. My early memories include
“trafficators”, rigid direction indicators pointing left or right before the
advent of flashing lights. Trams, Sunday lunches, radio shows, stands of
rhubarb and radiogram needles were all to be swept away.
My teenage years saw me at boarding school and university.
The music blared from a tinny record-player with 33 1/3 and 45 rpm vinyl discs
– an improvement but you still needed to change the stylus. We had discovered
Elvis and many others but we were still deferential to elders and betters;
indeed we dressed like schoolmasters with cavalry twill trousers and tweed
jackets with elbow pads, usually sporting a tie. The more popular TV programmes were
American, Sergeant Bilko, Burns and Allen
or I Love Lucy, though Swinging
Britain soon edged in. Fullers’ cakes
were a treat, but institutional diets were biased towards brown Windsor soup,
thin beef stews, steamed puddings and fried fish. Brought up on lemon sole and
haddock, I could never understand the English enthusiasm for watery hake or
far-from-fresh cod.
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| Spotted Dick and custard kept us going in the 1950s |
I became familiar with the world of work in 1965, not before
time. In those days workmen wore overalls, management wore suits. I came to the
City in 1968 where management’s bowler hats were making their last stand but
top hats were still ostentatiously sported by bill brokers as they trotted
round the banks. The Bank of England itself was protected (1783-1973) by the
nightly “picquet” of Guardsmen, a hoary relic of the Gordon Riots of 1780. The
first company I visited as a banker was a heat treatment facility in Park Royal
where men roasted in front of a furnace annealing heavy bars of metal. I later
came to know well shirt makers for the Prince of Wales, manufacturers of
typewriter carbon ribbon cassettes, letterpress printers, pub chains, warship
builders, chemical and dyestuff manufacturers, chicken processors and
auto-component engineers, among many others. Those businesses that still exist
will have changed out of all recognition, just as Big Bang radically changed
the atmosphere and practices of the City, mainly for the better.
The most radical change is probably the Digital Revolution
which took off in the 1990s. When you recall the hassle of even making a
long-distance call in the 1950s via the GPO system, the 2010s are a paradise.
Easier communications, quick execution of transactions, roomfuls of records retained
in a simple device and knowledge at one’s fingertips. Clerical and secretarial
work has shrunk enormously (and with it many jobs) but new industries have been
created and global opportunities opened up.
We have little option but to embrace change but we realise
that there is a price. The supportive family network has been weakened with all
members in their private worlds huddled over their laptop or smartphone, barely
communicating with their parents or siblings. Family outings or shared enjoyments
are much more difficult to organise – so many people now live alone and put a
premium on their privacy. Longevity is a mixed blessing as good health cannot
be maintained indefinitely. We need to take a conscious decision to socialise
and participate in local activities – our social circles should always be
expanding.
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| A whole digital world at our fingertips |
Yet we are living in a golden age. Our life has many comforts. Healthier, better fed and better paid than our ancestors, we have not experienced the horrors of world war nor the desolation of youthful bereavement. We can speak easily to friends in remote corners of the globe, we can travel to our imagined Shangri-La, we can meet and empathise with other races. Our nation is wealthy enough to care for all its citizens whatever their problems or handicaps and we can even aid faraway communities.
As the song goes Don’t
Worry, Be Happy!
SMD
22.11.17
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017
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