Why I'm proud to be a baby boomer

'We broke down barriers'

Last week the Magazine published an article on the baby boomers - and asked if this generation should be proud of its legacy. Yes, says John Levett in our Readers' Column.

Mum gave birth in the early hours of a Saturday morning somewhere in Tunbridge Wells. Being an unmarried mother, she'd been sent there to avoid the neighbours' blushes of having such an embarrassment in the street.

The street was in Deptford, south London. "Foreigners" were told it was Greenwich, which was next door, middle class and had the observatory. Dad was a lecturer in a London college and married with kids, so no chance of taking over the spare room there.

With help from the family we moved to Luton in 1949 where Mum ran a small grocery shop. I played in the bomb site opposite, looking for alleged lost limbs. And I grew up with fictions about my family. Mum had married a cousin and he'd been killed in an air raid, she never budged from the story and I never challenged her when I knew otherwise.

Failures

Meanwhile I sent postcards to my father sealed in an envelope and sent to his college address with Private & Confidential clearly marked. He replied with £5 every birthday and Christmas right up to my 39th year.

My life looked set. From the start I was defined by my mother's single status and then I failed the 11-plus and was trooped off to secondary-modern.

It was summed up by an accomplice while on a raid to steal books from the local library. "If we get caught you'll get blamed 'cos I go to the grammar'," he said.

John fought against the 'failure' tag

What were the early years of the New Elizabethan era like? There was an inheritance of prejudice, hypocrisy, double standards, career options of woodwork, metalwork or gardening and things that "we don't talk about".

We were seen as failures so our teachers tried harder - Shakespeare at the Old Vic, conferences at the Commonwealth Institute, talks on Third World agriculture at the School of Tropical Medicine and tours of Europe from Rome to Paris.

Aged 13 things changed. I won prizes for geography and history. Aspirations arrived and I moved through the system. Under a liberal regime at technical college I started to realise my background didn't have to dominate me, I could define who I was. I went to university and became a teacher myself.

Meanwhile, the "no blacks, no Irish" boards disappeared from rooming houses, gays weren't imprisoned, women regained control over their bodies and their legal rights, hanging our citizens ceased, as did beating children in school, sexual abuse of children was exposed, so too was abuse of civil rights at all levels of the legal system, our servants were allowed to read Lady Chatterley's Lover.

We grew to accept difference, live with it, then love it - our societies became more vibrant, more creative in response. We changed the world. We're more globally aware and more globally involved, we didn't start the environmental movement but we're driving it faster, we still have unearned privilege but we have never been more in control of our own life and its destiny.

Independence

We're living longer, we're better educated, better housed, enjoy better health care and are better supported as we age. We supported independence movements, we started development programmes. We travelled more and foreigners became less foreign.

It's not all peaches in sunshine, but we broke barriers. It was so different for the generation before - my mother's generation. Then a young man would be taken down the pub by his father at 15 for a pint and that's what he was expected to do for the next 40 years. You became your father. The end.

Music is made by anyone using anything, so is art. You can write and publish without having mates in the business. Out of work? Start a business. Factory closing? Start a co-operative. Got a disability? You're included. Homeless? We've got refuge and aid. Being marginalised? Be irritating. Losing a planet? We have ways of saving it.

I left teaching in primary education in 2003. I'm not retiring. Ever.

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Great story, really aspiring!
Amir Salahi, Wallasey, UK

That was a really beautifully-written essay that made me think that maybe, in the midst of all the terror and everything else that seems to make our world so frightening and threatening these days, we have progressed as a society and are still progressing.
Nick, Manchester UK

Was going down the pub for a pint such a bad thing?
Phil, Liverpool

It is amazing what the baby boomer generation achieved as far as breaking social confines - however, many of this generation including myself were unable to go all the way and slipped back into old patterns that our parents may have instilled in us. No matter how liberated we were, we have never had the freedom that the present generations have in terms of economic success, education and opportunity. I feel glad that we enabled new generations to achieve so much more and yet they take it for granted and do not see how lucky they are! We did know as we saw how our parents had so little compared to us!
Laura Macleod, Oxford England

'We changed the world.' Oh no you didn't! This is an altogether exaggerated view of the importance of the 'baby boomers'. Because they had everything as children they expect to get everything now that they are older - I forbear from using the words 'grown up'. I don't think that they have, or will ever have grown up. Their loss - there are benefits to being in older.
Margaret Walton, Sheffield

I enjoyed reading your comments and think you have a great reason to be proud - I am sure your mother (and father) were proud of you, it is a great shame your mother paid the price for two peoples actions - amazing how different things are now, your mother must have been a strong lady
Linda Wise, Luton

We were a visionary generation. Many of us remain true to our goals of replacing cynicism and disrespect for freedom and precious life with truth, authenticity and real community based on principles of love and compassion. This man's penultimate paragraph makes me want to scream YES YES YES!!! Thank You, John Levett!
maryann, London

Absolutely John Levett, the baby boomers is the generation of my parents and frankly I think they changed the world.There is now a new world order,a new way of living where people are rwalising there's more to life than the institutions and controls.Absilutely enjoyed your contribution.Cheers
Abdul Yakubu, Liverpool,UK

"Then a young man would be taken down the pub by his father at 15 for a pint and that's what he was expected to do for the next 40 years. You became your father"... There are many Mr. Levett who would yearn for a return to that kind of social structure, i.e. Father Figures. "Out of work? Start a business. Factory closing? Start a co-operative"...I would be amused to hear you read that bit out at the Job Centre where my colleagues work but I fear the security staff might view it as incitement to riot. "Homeless"...Yes I've seen 'them' even in my small town. WE seem to have a shortage of these mythical refuges. "Meanwhile, the "no blacks, no Irish" boards disappeared from rooming houses, gays weren't imprisoned"... Now there are more subtle, or converseley more violent ways that 'Us Brits' enforce our prejudices. Ask the minorities if you care to. Grim indeed Mr Levett. WE all thought Peace, Love and Understanding would break out all by their sweet lil' ol' selves, WE forgot Human Nature has dark facets that if not controlled ride wild. ME ? I feel very ashamed of my Baby Boomer Generation; (which incidentaly seems to compose of White, Affulent Middle-Class folk) high on the worse drug of all... Complacency.
Roger, Wrexham UK

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