TRAITORS IN OUR MIDST?

 If you weren't able to read my Pensioners Platform column in the May-June 2014 edition of the Torbay Times, here it is:- 

 

Vince Cable MP ~ photo: courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

WELL, I guess I’ve heard it all now. On April 14, I watched a TV programme called The Agenda on which the ITV’s political editor Tom Bradby hosted a discussion on the topics of that week. One of the discussion points lined-up for the programme was, as Tom Bradby pointed-out in his introduction, “Are the older generation under-valued?”

Approximately two-thirds of the way through the show I came close to heaving the nearest heavy object through my TV screen. Why? Well, first I heard seventy year old author Michael Morpurgo (of War Horse fame) say, “We had it really very good post war. The Fifties were a good time … optimism … a new National Health Service”. Moments later, the politician Vince Cable (71) agreed when he chipped-in with, “Our generation did have it good … easier to buy a house, salaried jobs, and so on.”

Clearly, both of these talking heads lived on a different planet to most of the rest of us during the 1950s. After all, neither of them mentioned rationing, or grossly overcrowded classrooms, smog, the menacing events in Korea, Suez and Budapest, and the almost constant threat of a four minute warning, followed by total nuclear annihilation. However, those are things I and I dare say the majority of us, remember living with, while growing-up in England during the Fifties.

Indeed, my own experience was a cramped but cosy London County Council prefab until it was demolished with the rest of the estate in 1960. After that, my parents and I were moved to a GLC flat seven miles away, so I had to change secondary schools at the age of fourteen. My education never recovered because, due to an appalling GLC administrative error, I lost a whole academic year that was never recouped. Needless to say I failed all five of the GCE “O” Levels I took.

Before then, in the 1950s, my play grounds were often World War II bomb sites. As for easy mortgages: if it hadn’t been for the fact my father died at the ridiculously young age of 54, I would never have been able to afford the deposit on a house. Why did my Dad die so young? Answer: he served his King and country throughout World War II and, along the way, his health suffered. He left the Royal Artillery at Christmas 1945 with the princely sum of £99 cash, a demob suit and a peptic ulcer. The latter eventually turned to stomach cancer, and that spread to his liver. He died in June 1971.

As for Michael Morpurgo and Vince Cable: they were born in St Albans and York respectively: hardly war-torn areas compared to London, Coventry, Exeter and Plymouth methinks. Furthermore, they both came from reasonably affluent families, and they both attended grammar schools before going-on to university: Vince Cable to Cambridge and Michael Morpurgo to the University of London.

So, with all due respect to Messrs Morpurgo and Cable, they are in no position to wax lyrical about how good the 1950s were, because their experiences are far from the norm. The 1950s were not “a good time” as claimed by Mr Morpurgo, they were tough ... very tough, for most of us. They were austere too, and the majority of us, as children, just had to get-on with it and battle through the hard times as best we could. To suggest the 1950s were anything other than a struggle is just plain wrong. It’s misleading too, because it sends-out the wrong signals to younger generations who are already blaming the post-World War II Baby Boomers for the mess we’re all in today. But, in truth, we Baby Boomers, and our War Baby elders are NOT responsible for today’s problems. The blame, instead, must be laid at the feet of incompetent and sometimes corrupt politicians the world over, not to mention global big business in all its forms.

Anyone of pensionable age suggesting otherwise not only betrays his or her own generation, but also provides yet more hurtful and damaging ammunition to the OAP bashers in the media and elsewhere. The war babies and baby boomers should be used as object lessons, not soft targets. We made it through some perilously difficult times, and gave our children a much better start than we had. The fact that it has all gone belly-up is not our fault, but the fault of endemic greed and corruption among ALL generations.

 Michael Morpurgo ~ photo: courtesy of the Daily Telegraph