NOVEMBER 5 2021 : getting back to the future
The 1950s invented the credit card, modems, barcodes, Barbie, The Pill – and teenagers and rock’n’ roll.
What a decade! Where would today’s music be without Bill Hayley, Little Richard, Elvis and Tommy Steele? They got us up and dancing
Without the energy and inventiveness of the 50s, our world would look very different and pretty dreary.
The people of the 1950s certainly wanted fun.
Most of them had been through long haul of the war and the grey post war years as the world adjusted to a new normality. But it wasn’t a quick flip. The country needed to be rebuilt – literally. People waited – and waited – for new homes, new clothes, shelves full of food. Rationing didn’t end until 1954.
Yet only a few years later the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was telling the country “You’ve never had it so good.” The world had changed and people were determined to make the most of it – enjoying better food, housing, travel and opportunities than they could have dreamt of years before.
They made up for lost time, rocked around the clock bought televisions and washing machines, ate Wimpy burgers, experimented with frozen good, foreign holidays and even dreamed of space travel,
But they still had their feet on the ground. They knew the value of things, knew what was really important and weren’t going to waste the new opportunities and prosperity on things that didn’t matter.
Clever people, those from the 1950s. We could learn thing or two from them…
The Canny Time Traveller 