Back to the Swinging Sixties
THE most remarkable thing about Paul McCartney’s recent appearance at Glastonbury was quite probably his age.
We are entering unchartered territory where the bright and sometimes wild young things who shaped and influenced pop culture back in the 1960s are now in their late 70s and early 80s.
In the event, the former Beatle looked and sounded in good nick during his live performance, but the wellpublicised fact that he is now an octogenarian can’t help but remind us the vibrant decade in which he was a prime mover is fast receding into history.
Somebody once famously quipped “if you remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there,” meaning that the infamous excesses of some people during the era will have impaired their memories of the times.
The reality increasingly is that a vast number of people alive today won’t remember them because they weren’t even born then.
The history books will recall the ‘60s as truly defining decade for the UK - an age when retail therapy, the rapid advance of technology, the obsession with celebrity, the so-called permissive society, the physical re-shaping of our towns and cities, and the Americanisation of popular culture were all taking root.
An old Etonian, Harold Macmillan, was resident in 10 Downing Street at the outset of the decade with the Establishment still holding sway, but that would soon change and when the 1960s ended, the country had a Labour government led by a former grammar school boy from Huddersfield, Harold Wilson.
Here in the North East, the economy – and the daily lives of the region’s workers – was still driven by the traditional industries of coal, shipbuilding and heavy engineering.
Most lads would still leave school at 15 and get an apprenticeship at the local pit, shipyard, or factory.
Girls might get clerical work, or enter the burgeoning world of retail. Unemployment was generally low and there were jobs for anyone who wanted one.
If post-war austerity had taken a while to shake off during the 1950s - by way of contrast, the so-called Swinging ‘60s are remembered by many as a fun-packed, carefree, optimistic decade characterised by The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street, the mini skirt and the Mini car, Twiggy, England’s World Cup win and much more.
The general consensus (for those who remember the era) was that it was a very good time to be alive.
Our photographs from the Chronicle archive recall some of what was going on around Tyneside during the pivotal decade that was the 1960s