BABY BOOMERS - GENERATION WAR - SNOWFLAKES

BABY BOOMERS HAD IT HARD

I was born in 1942. There was a war raging. Our homes were bombed. My dad sailed in the incredibly dangerous North Atlantic ammunition convoys; life expectancy one year. Blackout, no fuel, ice inside the windows, icy cold beds, killer smogs, polio, sixty-hour weeks, one black & white TV channel from 6 pm to 10 pm, meagre rations of meat, eggs, sugar, flour, fruit. We were beaten daily at school. The Eleven-Plus exam passed 5% into Grammar Schools, and then just 2% to university. The rest of us had to sink or swim. No fashions for kids, short trousers till thirteen, no jeans, no children's music. Average life span in Trafford Park Industrial Estate, where I had my first job at sixteen, was thirty-four - the residents were killed by pollution, overwork, nasty politics, and ignorance.

Married at twenty-two. Our first owned house when we were 28 had one-bedroom, a living-room cum kitchen, with one cold water tap, an outside lavatory, no bathroom and a ladder type staircase. Our 120% mortgage, obtained by lying about earnings, was charged at 12% interest and consumed 65% of our monthly income; which was commonplace. We bought grass-seed in two-ounce packets. We never ate out. I worked sixty-hours a week. We rebuilt the house. We paid the very expensive mortgage - constantly harried by debt and overdrafts. We took business risks and twice lost all we had. We lived under heavy debt until we were sixty-five. 

Whatever equity we now have in our home - that journalists and communists and some socialists salivate over - has been hard won and paid for by us investing daily, weekly, monthly for many decades in our homes. We have avoided direct wars. Life was bloody tough - and we built today's soft-bellied society for the current generation. The modern world - though beset with new problems on every side - is the wealthiest, healthiest and easiest society ever in human history. Fewer die in violence than in any previous era. Lifespan is about eighty years. We invented the Electronic Revolution, automation and robotics of which it is said "We worked hard to abolish work - and succeeded". This is what we "Baby Boomers" have bequeathed to the next generations. 

Now its your turn, the Snowflake Generation, to improve the world and create and share such wealth as has never been dreamed of. So, take your avaricious greedy little eyes off our hard won homes and hard won pensions - and get out there and work to make things even better. The new frontiers are the oceans, space, knowledge, and intelligent co-operation.