A child of the 1950's

Sagar, Harvey2021

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Summary

An ordinary child from North Manchester growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, with no mobile phones, internet or video games and even no television for the first few years until the nine-inch black and white screen arrived in house for the Coronation. But then the joys of Watch With Mother and later Tales of Robin Hood and William Tell. Fun was self-created and imaginative: cricket with the other kids in the narrow cul-de-sac, exploring wildlife in the local mill pond, cowboy and Indian games with toy guns and the simple pleasures of hopscotch, Grandma’s footsteps and hide and seek.Everything was new, all painted on a blank canvas - the schools, the holidays in Southport, the first Brownie 127 camera that took eight pictures on a roll of film. But some things, once experienced, were anticipated the next time with excitement: bonfire night with parkin and treacle toffee and Christmas with hand-made coloured paper streamers across the ceiling, home-made puddings with hidden silver threepenny bits, a stocking lovingly filled by Father Christmas on Christmas Eve (but only if I was asleep) and the presents piled on the settee in The Other Room, our only downstairs room apart from the kitchen.And then came the teenage years when everything suddenly became new again: the music from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers and the explosion in folk and protest music led by Bob Dylan; tight flared jeans, Chelsea boots and ever-shortening short skirts; long hair; and acquaintance with the opposite sex initiated in the spin-the-bottle game.And then the childhood was over. Would I willingly go through it again? Most certainly.