Life was not always so sweet
Sir — According to Karl Deeter (‘Intergenerational inequality gap cuts both ways’, Sunday Independent, November 4), the generation aged 65 and above have it really good and always had.
We are talking here of a generation that came from the funny round pin socket era and 12.5pc interest rate on mortgages. This is the generation that completed its Leaving Certificate (if lucky enough to reach that scale of education) at an average age of 17. Jobs were scarce and the idea of being in the same job for the next 40 years did not appeal.
There were no school trips to Switzerland, no gap years to fulfil travel ambitions nor funds from parents to buy expensive debs’ dresses etc.
This is the generation that was so lucky (according to Karl Deeter) not to have the privilege of heading off to university for three to four years of liberation. Unless you were the offspring of wealthy parents that is. How they would have loved the opportunity. My own daughter would have not given up the chance of her university training in exchange for any permanent pensionable job at the tender age of 17. To miss out on all that fun and be lumbered with babies and a mortgage in her early 20s would be hell to her.
This is the generation that might have obtained mortgages but were prepared to make sacrifices to pay them. A lot of their houses lacked heating, took years to furnish, and if there was one car in the family it was usually a rust bucket. People who built their own houses would find themselves using ladders for stairs, old blankets for doors, and bare floorboards. Eating out was a rarity, if at all, and foreign holidays were a distant dream. The same clothes would be seen year after year on them and supermarkets did not have the competition they have today, so everything cost a lot more. A chicken was solely for Sunday dinner. Oh yes, Mr Deeter, it was a bundle of laughs.
And it’s hilarious that this generation is now caught at the other end of the timescale minding grandchildren (granted some might like this and this does not reflect on their love for them or their own children).
They might have it good now but like all things in life it did not come easy to them. Name and address
with the Editor