As a baby boomer I am ashamed of many of my generation (My generation fought to be free. What happened to us?, 4 April). We are the luckiest generation of the 20th century. Born after the war into the NHS/welfare state, too young for national service, and the first teenage generation to have disposable income. We were witness/participants of the revolution of the 1960s. If we went to university, we had a grant. When we left school, there was almost full employment. Money has followed us as we got older. Yet many of my generation must have voted for Thatcher, Cameron and Brexit. The Tories should not have survived the 19th century, let alone the 20th, and now once again seem the dominant party.
I have voted in all three referendums involving England and found myself on the losing side each time. I voted out in 1975 but subsequently changed my mind when I found out that the only protection for workers during the Thatcher years was Europe. I voted for a change to the electoral system, and finally remain last year. When I was young we were proud of the welfare state. When did welfare get replaced by benefits and become such a dirty word to many of my generation? When will my generation wake up and remember their radical past and recognise that, as Harold Macmillan said, they “have never had it so good”?
Richard Ascough
Thames Ditton, Surrey
• Polly Toynbee wonders what happened to us. Being of a similar age, I also remember a 1950s childhood followed by the optimistic 1960s. The greater equality and better living standards that many enjoyed then may have obscured far more significant changes abroad. After the independence and partition of India in 1947, most of Britain’s vast empire disappeared between 1957 and 1968, while from 1961 to 1973 the UK was actively attempting to join the European common market.
The subsequent arrival of people from former colonies, of refugees from post-imperial conflicts, and then Europeans entitled to join them, all profoundly changed the daily experience of many urban citizens. Because we have not had to face our chequered history the way others (such as Germany) were obliged to, there is little collective consciousness of the close connection between revolutionary political events half a century ago and current cynical despair. That is what did not happen to us.
Dr Sebastian Kraemer
London
• Polly Toynbee asks why a generation that fought hard for equality and the liberalisation of attitudes is responsible for denying the same opportunities to those coming behind. I am a member of that generation and one who, along with everyone else I know, voted remain. I feel now that as well as a T-shirt announcing I am one of the 48%, I should have another to say I am one of those who have no wish to bring back the rope, cane or pre-decimal currency. Could it be that those who want to turn the clock back to the 1950s are simply grieving for their lost youth and hoping that by “taking back control” they can have the benefits of being young combined with the knowledge and experience of old age? Wave your blue passport in the air and jingle the pennies and florins in your pocket as much as you like, you will never be 16 again. We’re old, it’s not our time any more. To coin a phrase, get over it.
Lynne Copley
Huddersfield
• Polly Toynbee reminds me that I was born in the era of the ration book. I grew up in the era of live now, pay later. As we liquidated the empire and repaid the American lend/lease debt in its entirety, the “never had it so good” generation was funded by accumulating debt. Deregulation of the banking system allowed us to pretend debt could expand indefinitely. Politicians never found the courage to tell their constituents to live within their incomes. Austerity is the pay later era of live now.
Older people who want to bring back hanging, flogging and the rest of the 1950s nostalgia want to go through the last 70 years all over again because they cannot see any workable alternative. How we might pay for it all, with the debt already accumulated, is another matter. May and the Brexiteers are getting spiteful because they have seen the figures and know they don’t add up for everyone.
Martin London
Henllan, Denbighshire
• As I walked along Park Lane, as part of the march for Europe, I remembered that 49 years ago I had been a few streets away in Grosvenor Square, protesting about the Vietnam war. I was amused to notice that half of the EU supporters were old enough to have been there as well. We were vocal then and now, but never a majority. Perhaps what Polly forgets is that our generation was not one entirely made up of hippies and beatniks; there were also the mods, rockers, skinheads and diligent conventionalists. I suspect that baby boomers’ attitudes have not become significantly more or less selfish.
Martin Cooper
Bromley, Kent
• Polly Toynbee is right to feel ashamed of our generation opting for self-interest in voting out of the EU. I try to cast the smallest pebble into the biggest pond by wearing an EU badge on my coat on all occasions.
Val Mainwood
Colchester, Essex
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Baby boomers and the ‘live now, pay later’ consequences | Letters
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