The sixties

Living in the South Wales valleys in early sixties - and stll at a private convent school- the permissive sixties sort of passed me by but then joined Civil Service, moved to Oxford, met dashing RAF pilot, married in '68 and spent the last two years of the decade in Cyprus! Ah memories!

I suppose you can find negative and positive elements for every decade, really.
We've had Depressions, mass unemployment, wars, holocausts, terrorist attacks to name some dreadful negative things, but on the positive side, we have seen votes for women here in the U.K. (and other places, of course), there have been and continue to be some fantastic strides in medicine, opportunities to travel is much more widespread and available to many more.
These are just a few of very many examples, that have happened through many different decades.

I left school in 1969 aged 16. I'd had a Saturdy job since I'was 14 but felt very grown up,with my first proper wage packet. I remember Martin Luther King being assassinated and feeling as if something momentous had happened. I was only 10 when Kennedy was shot so don't remember it well. What I do remember vividly is Aberfan now that was a horrendous tragedy. I'm a child of the 70's really got engaged in 71' married in 72, and had my first child in 75.

Pop music was at it`s best ever in the 60s, plus hubby and I met and married in the 60s. Looking back, an awful lot of newsworthy things happened during the 60s, they tend to stick in my mind more than more recent events.

I loved the 60 s mainly for the music and fashion I was only 15 when the 60 s arrived and I used to feel such a rebel listening to radio Caroline and radio luxemberg under my blankets at night on my little transistor radio that’s when a tranny meant something quite different, by 63 /64 I was seeing all the 60 s groups in my little home town in my mini skirts and high boots, loving the bad boys ( Rolling Stones) I was discovering boys and by ‘ 65 I was married and living overseas and stating a family, exciting decade for me

I think when you are young you accept things as they are. Politics are for grown ups and nothing to do with you. Someone once said it must have been so exciting growing up in the 60s! No, not really, only in hindsight! The best and most memorable thing to me was the music.

The swinging sixties for me was great for music and fashion but the permissive society did not exist for most people. It was the peak time for babies being taken away from single mums for adoption and homosexuality was still illegal until the end of the sixties.

Loved the clothes, the music, the atmosphere. My whole infant class spontaneously burst into Yellow Submarine while painting one afternoon. We went to the local church for an end of year service and each child wore a tiny Dorothy Perkins rose in button hole or in hair.
DD was born in '63 and almost named Dominique after the Singing Nun's song. She's glad she wasn't! A few years later she was wearing a little bell around her neck, she liked it and it made her easy to track down in supermarkets!
To take up Moira's last points, far more 'unmarried mothers' began to keep their babies by the mid '60s and by then there were people working hard towards homosexual reform.
I look back to it as a time when there was a relaxed attitude to how we dressed or wore our hair and far more tolerance than is sometimes found today.
As teachers we were trusted and allowed to use professional judgement, very different from the box-ticking paperwork and rigid routines of today. Primary schools were often joyful places to learn where teachers were more co-operative than competitive.

First half of the sixties ,DH and I were at art school. 4 years of irresponsibility., hard work and great people. Second half we were married and had DD very quickly. I was a full time mum. Great contrast to previous life but loved it all. Happy, happy days

BBbevan snap! I was an art student too. Wonderful 4 years - my parents had both been to Art School so I knew it was going to be one of the best times of my life. So much optimism, you felt that anyone could do anything!

For me the sixties began in 1962 with Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind and the dream ended in 1969 with the Charles Manson murders.

For me it wasn't carefree ( home life not great) but I absolutely loved the music- still do- and I did have lots of fun with boyfriends. I think generally speaking we had a more carefree time than teenagers do now.

Liz46' I lived in Liverpool in the 60,s , the Merseybeat era was just beginning , my friend and I worked in Lewis,s , we would dash down to the Cavern in our lunch hour for a glass of Coca Cola and a quick jive, then dash back to Lewis,s often late back on the sales floor and a telling of from management , but we didn't care , we were having fun ,The atmosphere then was just magical , I loved the fashion , hairstyles , meeting new boyfriends , Happy times ,

I doubt that many teenagers in the 60's were seriously affected by the things that happened in the USA and which were just seen on the news . To be honest I hardly watched the news in those days. I was a child of the 60's, born in '49 and I loved the music, the fashions, growing up in a more permissive society than even my older sisters had.

Teens today are more affected by the news, since we are living in a smaller world , with more news available than ever before. I preferred "our time" when we were carefree and untroubled by the actions of politicians far away.

Lst child born 1965

2nd child born 1967

3child born 1969

All lovely boys

The 60s were a great time to be young, the only problem was that I did not have the money to enjoy life and afford the clothes that I wanted.
I was 14 in 1960 and by 1969 I was married with a baby.

I was 14 in 1966 and it felt as though the world was just waiting for me to have fun. I was still at school of course, so sewed my own clothes (tent dresses, bright orange...a psychedelic turquoise patterned trouser suit etc). Everything was exciting...we lived in a small village and went around in a group of 14-19 year olds - two had cars, so we piled in and drove to Bristol to see Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Steeleye Span...and further afield to go to last minute parties (often they were nothing but a rumour when we got to wherever it was!!) I'm afraid the deeper issues of the decade mostly passed me by - I was too busy copying eye makeup styles from Biba and other teen mags - all stuck on my bedroom walls alongside cut out photos of Twiggy! We lied shamelessly to our parents about where we were and what we were doing if we thought they'd have forbidden us...and our parents believed us. We drank and smoked, listened to vinyl late into the long nights when we weren't dreaming over Scott Walker being played on pirate radio... and we generally had good times. I personally was that bit too young for the sex and drugs scene, although I had friends who clearly weren't! I turned up for my first day at work (in a bank) aged just 16, wearing an almost waist length blonde wig, a white fake fur and black PVC coat which just about covered my bright pink hot pants...and they actually let me in! 1 look back on those times with a fond smile, as nothing terrible happened to me, or anyone I loved...it was in many ways the most carefree time in my life.

I absolutely adored The Sixties. I marvel now at our sweet optimism - and how we believed anything was possible as long as we approached it with Love and Peace.

Still love the music... we're off to see PJ Proby soon... he's retiring at 80 !

Like auntieflo, the sixties were just a pleasant background to my life - married in 1962, and then pregnant for several years with my three children, stay at home mum, hardly any labour saving devices, no disposable nappies, all boiled up in the Baby Burco, just busy, busy, busy- and loving it, I was in a total domestic bubble!

It felt the world was our oyster . Never unemployed even though I left school at 15. Saw the big groups in the local town hall, worked some time in London - while eating lunchtime sandwiches at the BBC watched live J Hendricks. Married and got a 100 percent mortgage while still a teenager ... then the 70s and the crash ... something comes in the front door and something else flies out of the window.

I loved the 60s. I was a teenager in London. It was safe to travel around, even late at night. I loved the music and the clubs. Most of all we were free to wear fashion (mini skirts) and not dress like our mothers. I met my DH and we wore kaftans, bells and beads. Despite the assassinations in America it was a time of hope and change in society.

My husband came from Burton on Trent and when we went there on visits I looked like an alien who had landed in the wrong time zone (so my daughter says).There is a photo of a family christening and I am in a black mini kaftan with long hair and everyone else is in tweed skirts and twin sets.

I was only born 1955. But started listening to music (pop) in the late 60s. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but the music was great. It had such a feel good element to it. And I still listen to it. I was too young to remember much else about the 60s. My era as a young woman was the 70s. I think most of remember the years of our youth fondly, whatever the decade.

I was in my early 20's when the 60s started but I had 3 children under 5 so didn't get much time to enjoy it, Loved the music tho

The sixties - a decade of contrasts. There was some fun in the fifties and some jolly music such as Bill Haley and the Comets, but there was still rationing and we were recovering from the war years.

I do remember taking notice of the news as my father talked politics a lot, and I do remember coming home and we both stood in front of the television, him in shock and me in tears at the news of President Kennedy's assassination.

However, before that we had had inspiring speeches such as Ich Bin Ein Berliner - despite his flaws JFK was a charismatic and inspiring President.

Later on, of course, we were inspired by Martin Luther King before his shock assassination, so there was uplifting news as well as the tragedies.

If anyone was a teenager in the sixties then it was also a time of fun; even if the extremes of fashion, the hippy scene etc passed us by in the provinces we did enjoy ourselves in perhaps a more restrained way - although I don't remember an audience full of teenage girls being that restrained when we were at a Beatles concert (before they were famous!).

Yes, there were tragedies, but there are in every decade - but there was also hope and inspiration.

A quote from JFK which is even more true today:
The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this planet.

How could I forget my yellow PVC mac, sou'wester and matching welllies! Not to mention the psychedelic cotton shifts I made - and the navy-blue eyeliner!