Why we count our Boomer blessings
WHAT a wonderfully evocative article by Peter Hitchens (Mail) on the sights and experiences accumulated by the ‘Boomer’ generation.
I, too, saw and smelt Paris before it was modernised and experienced St Petersburg when it was still Leningrad. I can remember the night watchman walking the streets of Magaluf ringing his bell; and visited Cornwall when locals could still go to the beach in summer without getting up at the crack of dawn.
I, too, had inspirational teachers and lecturers; and as a child the freedom to go out and play all day and know anything was possible.
We had so many opportunities that today’s young people, eyes locked continually on their mobile phones, will never have.
SALLY BUTLER, rustington, W. Sussex.
PETER HITCHENS tells it like it is.
I was born in 1939 and am equally glad I’m old. I shall always, until I can’t, read Peter’s columns.
TESS CADDY, Witney, Oxon.
UNLIKE Peter Hitchens, I have not been fortunate enough to witness history at first hand. But as a fellow Boomer (born in 1953) I concur with his refutation of the assumption that ‘because I am old, I am stupid’.
I believe I have disproved this in my successful battles with medical professionals, skirmishes with the legal system and the usual dealings with banks and businesses that are the bane of everyone’s life.
Like Peter, I had a sound education and my command of the English language often floors my opponents. As Peter tells his critics, if they are fortunate enough to live to be ‘old’, they must be as prepared to defy the ‘stupid’ tag as we are.
JEANNETTE MEYERS, ashford, Kent.
MY RETORT to those youngsters being pushed to despise us is, ‘As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon will be.’
DIANE LODGE, Bridlington, e. yorks.
HOW beautifully Peter Hitchens contrasted the rich, visceral, colourful life we have enjoyed as Boomers with the sterile, anodyne wilderness the modern world has become.
Like him, I could tell many fantastic tales about my life and look back with a sense of privilege that I was around to have so many adventures against a background of exciting history.
I hope the freedoms we enjoyed will be restored but I’m not holding what’s left of my geriatric breath.
STEVE FORSHAW, Kettering, northants.
I RARELY agree with Peter Hitchens but this time we are singing from the same song sheet. And being the age we are, when the internet goes down, we still have a life.