The Baby Boomer Generation (12 page)

The image we invoke of the 1960s being an exciting and colourful time is somewhat diminished by the fact that we had to view all of the televised pictures in black and white back then. The 1970s, however, brought colour television to the masses and with it came a number of hugely successful television shows. There were some wonderful 1970s comedy series and the best of them still entertain us today as they continue to be rerun night after night on television's ‘Gold' channels. They include
Bless This House
,
Citizen Smith
,
Fawlty Towers
,
George and Mildred
,
The Good Life
,
The Liver Birds
,
Man About The House
,
On The Buses
,
Open All Hours
,
Porridge
,
Sykes
,
The Two Ronnies
,
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads
and
Rising Damp
. We were also treated to another seven years of the much-loved
Dad's Army
series, and in 1973 we were introduced to the gentle humour of
Last of Summer Wine
. With all of that light-hearted comedy on offer, Morecambe and Wise still reigned supreme – and they were in colour!

There were a lot of innocent, fun programmes on television in the 1970s but there were also a number of controversial television comedy shows that were subjected to criticism by the renowned social activist Mary Whitehouse and the ‘Clean-Up TV' pressure groups. There were several 1970s comedy programmes that were scheduled into early evening broadcasting for family viewing, which would now be considered offensive and politically incorrect: shows like
Love Thy Neighbour, Mind Your Language
and
Till Death Us Do Part
; not forgetting the highly politically incorrect 1970s stand-up comedy show,
The Comedians
, which featured the best nightclub and workingmen's club comedians of the day: comics such as Stan Boardman (famous for his anti-German jokes) and Bernard Manning, who managed to offend everyone but remained one of the most popular comedians of the day. Each episode of
The Comedians
was thirty minutes long and featured ten stand-up comedians taken from a pool of about forty. The show was peppered with lots of mother-in-law, racial stereotype and sexist jokes. Nothing seemed to be off-limits, even religion. This type of comedy was extremely popular at the time and
The Comedians
show was in fact so popular that it warranted two Christmas specials, went on several sell-out national tours and ran for a season at the London Palladium. It is amazing that having boasted such a following in the 1970s, it is difficult nowadays to find anyone who will admit to having ever found that style of comedy funny. How strange! Back in the 1960s and 1970s we thought Mary Whitehouse was a busybody and a spoiler of anything that could be labelled as being ‘fun'. She seemed to want to ban anything that could in any way be linked to the ‘permissive society'. Looking back on it now, perhaps she was not the spoilsport busybody we liked to think she was. Much of her clean-up mission now seems quite sensible and it could be said that she was right about many of the things she fought against, especially the unnecessary sex, violence and bad language that was being shown on our television screens at the time, and have become more commonplace in recent years.

In the 1970s, there was an abundance of good stuff on television, including a lot of new detective and whodunnit programmes, such as
Canon
,
Charlie's Angels
,
Columbo
,
Kojak
,
McCloud
,
McMillan & Wife
,
Quincy
,
Starsky & Hutch
and
The Sweeney
. Quiz and game shows were also really popular and plentiful too, with shows like
3-2-1
,
A Question of Sport
,
The Generation Game
,
Give Us A Clue
,
The Golden Shot
,
The Price is Right
,
The Krypton Factor
,
Mastermind
,
Sale of the Century
and
Winner Takes All
. Our science fiction interests were satisfied with such things as
Blake's 7
and
Doomwatch
, and we saw the third and fourth doctors in the
Doctor Who
series, as portrayed by Jon Pertwee (1970–74) and Tom Baker (1974–81). We had classic serious dramas, such as
I Claudius
(1976) and
Jesus of Nazareth
(1977), and the very popular period drama series,
Upstairs, Downstairs
. Our weekly dose of popular music was provided by the likes of
Top of the Pops
and
The Old Grey Whistle Test
. Many baby boomers will also have fond memories of 1970s children's programmes, having sat down as young parents with their little ones to watch
The Adventures of Black Beauty, Tiswas, Multi-coloured Swap Shop
and
Bagpus
. We didn't go short of talent-spotting shows either, with
Opportunity Knocks
and
New Faces
providing plenty for us to consider. Indeed, it was the 1970s series of
Opportunity Knocks
that made household names of such stars as Little and Large, Peters and Lee and Pam Ayres.
New Faces
first came to our screens in 1973 and it introduced us to lots of would-be rising stars, including Michael Barrymore, Jim Davidson, Les Dennis, Lenny Henry, Showaddywaddy and the multi-talented and loveable Victoria Wood.

We watched a great deal more television than we did in the 1960s, partly because we were older and more settled stay-at-homes, and also because money was much tighter. We still had only three television channels to choose from (BBC1, BBC2 and ITV) but fortunately the restrictions on broadcasting hours were lifted in 1972 and we could now watch more television than ever before. We certainly had plenty to amuse and distract us from all of the doom and gloom that surrounded the industrial unrest of the 1970s. Those who were not seriously touched by all of the 1970s strife in the workplace might well look back fondly on the decade, and who can blame them for remembering the period as being the best time of their lives?

It was in the 1970s that many of us baby boomers first become truly independent, leaving the safety of our parents' nests and moving into the very first homes of our own. It was one of those great life-changing moments. Yes, at long last we had a place of our own and we were keen to decorate and furnish it in the latest 1970s style, with all the brown trimmings. Renting a colour television set was the first thing on the agenda with a trip down the high street to see what deals DER, Granada and Radio Rentals were offering. At that time, colour televisions were still fairly new to us in the UK and they were very expensive to buy and fairly unreliable too. As such, it was common practice for people to rent a television set rather than buy one outright. Hence, most of us did the rounds of all the high street television rental showrooms to see what was on offer. Once the television was sorted, we were then off to the nearest branch of Laskys to see the new Betamax video recorders in action and perhaps buy one of the latest Stereo 8, eight-track cartridge players with twin speakers, which would fit nicely into the new melamine wall unit in the lounge. There was no such thing as Internet browsing, online shopping and shopping malls back then and so we had to trudge the high street shops to see what was available and seek out the best deals for everything from a bar of soap to a three-piece suite.

Recent technological advancements had brought down the manufacturing costs of decorative-faced particleboard and the product was being used more and more as an alternative to real wood in the construction of furniture. Easy-to-clean and stain-resistant melamine-faced chipboard was becoming increasingly popular with the young baby boomer homemakers of the early 1970s and we delighted in filling our homes with all sorts of wall units and occasional furniture made from it. White melamine was by far and away the most popular colour but it was also available in several wood-grain finishes, much to the delight of those who wanted everything in shades of brown. We filled every alcove with books and records neatly stacked on row upon row of pre-finished melamine shelving (thank goodness for Contiboard). To complete the 1970s atmosphere, we needed to buy a stylish purple-and-orange lava lamp and at least one beanbag chair to go in the corner of the room. It was also fashionable to use spotlights to show everything off and to cast delicate shadows across the luxurious shagpile carpets. Essential accessories for the kitchen included a coffee percolator, wall can opener, electric carving knife and a Soda Stream carbonated drink-making machine. A new twin-tub washing machine would be nice if the budget would stretch that far, otherwise it would mean a weekly visit to the launderette. You might then need to save up for a new Goblin Teasmade machine for the bedroom; it was in the mid-1970s that they first began making them with built-in radio alarm clocks so you no longer had to wake up to the sound of an irritating buzzer noise.

Amazingly, having experienced the wonders of the Mini car and E-type Jaguar of the swinging sixties, we now longed to get our hands on weird-shaped new cars like the Ford Capri (with bright orange paintwork) and the Mark 3 Cortina (with yellow or mustard paintwork). We were captivated by the new car designs of the 1970s and we eagerly traded in our old Minis, 1100s and MGBs for the new Ford Fiestas, Morris Marinas and Triumph Dolomites. We even admired the new Austin Allegro car with its square-shaped steering wheel. In fact, we were more taken with the square-shaped steering wheel than the car itself. What happened to us free spirits of the 1960s, suddenly conforming to the eccentricities of the 1970s?

We baby boomers were no longer the carefree teenagers we once were. We were now in our 20s, all grown up and having to manage the responsibilities that came with adulthood, including raising children of our own. The fads and fashions that once consumed our lives were now just frivolous distractions from the main events of the 1970s. There were more important and serious things going on in the world, especially in Britain, and these events were impacting greatly upon our lives. The trivial goings-on of the 1970s only served to keep us sane throughout the madness of the endless industrial disputes and strikes that marred our whole way of life, and it was all happening at a time when most of us baby boomers were still fairly new to the experience of having to part with our hard-earned cash to pay the household bills and raise young families. To crown it all, we were being financially squeezed to death with the high rents and high-interest mortgages of the 1970s. It could be said that we were up to our necks in soiled nappies in more ways than one.

In the 1960s, we had seen inflation rise from just 1% in 1960 to a high of 5.40% at the end of 1969, but inflation really took off when we entered the 1970s and there seemed to be no way of stopping it. Driven by growth in government spending, increased oil prices, industrial disputes and higher pay deals, inflation in the UK got completely out of control in the 1970s, averaging 13% a year. By the end of 1975 it had reached 24.20%: the highest we had seen it go in Britain since the First World War. Young baby boomers who had taken out mortgages in 1972 had seen their mortgage interest rates rise from 8% to 11% in just twelve months. By the time we got to 1976, we were paying anything from 12.25% to 14% depending on the mortgage lender. Many of us who had taken on affordable mortgages, bank loans and hire purchase agreements in the early 1970s were now financially embarrassed and struggling to pay the bills. Some had also been tempted to spend heavily on their newly acquired Barclaycard and Access credit cards, which made matters even worse. Fortunately, credit cards were still fairly new to us and not yet widely used in the UK (Barclaycard was the UK's first credit card, launched in 1967, and Access was the second, launched in 1972). Those of us who were raising young families at the time soon discovered that children of the 1970s were not as understanding or as easily satisfied as we had been in our 1950s childhood. Unlike back then, there was now tremendous peer pressure on children to have all the latest clothes and playthings. They were influenced by television images like never before. Gone were the days of kids settling for a new skipping rope or a cricket bat; we were now in the realms of Raleigh Chopper bikes and Stereobelts (the first portable, personal stereo audio cassette players, pre-dating the Sony Walkman of 1979–80). It was a sharp lesson in the reality of how much things had changed since the war. Despite having to make cutbacks in our spending during these uncertain times, we were still happily overindulging our children, lavishing expensive gifts on them that we could never have even dreamed of when we were kids. We were spoiling them, and year on year we were increasing their expectations as to the number and value of the items that they could demand for their birthday and Christmas presents, not to mention all the pocket money and other treats we heaped upon them. We were only practicing the generosity we had known during the hard times of the 1950s and the happy-go-lucky 1960s, but many of us baby boomers overdid it. Although our children enjoyed the benefits of our love and generosity at the time, they and future generations of young parents will have to suffer the effects of an ever-increasing leaning towards materialism and a lack of respect for the value of money. We were cultivating a something-for-nothing attitude in the young and we would suffer for our actions in future years. We set these wheels in motion in the 1970s and children's expectations continued to grow throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and on into the third millennium. By the year 2012, our children's children might well be casually asking granny to buy them a £400–£500 Apple iPad for Christmas, and it is hard to see how this spiralling trend will ever be curbed. It's a long way from the spinning tops we played with in the 1950s.