Time of coronavirus
had been cancelled, thinking it was on 15 March.
“It’s next week a***hole – so you’ve got plenty of time to get me flowers from the garage,” she lovingly replied.
This charming vignette serves to highlight two things – number one, I’m a bad son, the Kray Twins put me to shame in the ‘be nice to your mother’ stakes and, number two, the attitude the so-called Baby Boomer generation has to social distancing and how difficult it’s going to be for them. They’re just not having it, but hopefully that will change as the crisis hits home next week.
Some of them will no doubt miss the pub where self-appointed chief medical officers who moonlight as posties during the day can keep them abreast of the latest developments in medical science. “What’s the latest on the vaccine Davey?”
Those born shortly after the Second World War have until recently “never had it so good” and they know it.
Full employment, final-salary pensions, too young to fight in Korea and kept out of Vietnam by Harold Wilson who didn’t think a Labour Prime Minister should be committing the country to a foreign war and wasn’t buying the American domino theory to stop the spread of communism.
The original teenage rebels, who went on to give us Maggie Thatcher and the right to buy your cooncil hoose, were liberated by birth control and the likes of The Beatles, The Stones and Hancock’s Half Hour.
The Boomers, a term coined due to the increased birth rate immediately after the end of the war, are used to doing what they please, with an energy that puts the rest of us to shame.
Many, and I’m talking about the early ones born between 1946-1950, still exhibit this lust for life that sees them undertake a limitless list of hobbies and activities while still finding time to keep their homes spotless every day.
My own mother thinks nothing of taking her cockapoo for a brisk walk, practicing several forms of martial arts including Tai Chi, doing Zumba, then wild swimming across the Firth of Forth from Dalgety Bay to meet her pals for a coffee and a blether in George Street.
Like thousands of others she’s going to struggle but has already texted me to say she’ll be doing classes online while letting me know how her friend’s son – who I last saw in 1976 and is now a grandad – is getting on at his work.
I noticed Professor Leitch, the national clinical director for the Scottish Government, and Dr Philippa Whitford had both made reference to older people keeping away from the pub, the bingo and Whitford referenced “tea parties” like it was the 1950s. “More tea vicar?”
It seems a bit patronising to be throwing the bingo at people in their 70s like that’s all they’ve got. You certainly wouldn’t tell someone like Lulu to stop going to the bingo and she’s ‘Bang on the Drum’ at 71. Debbie Harry, who’s ‘On the Floor’ at 74, has probably never set foot in a bingo hall in her puff – so let’s give that patter a rest.
While Boris Johnson’s vow to “send coronavirus packing” within the next 12 weeks is the sort of drivel we’ve come to expect from this giant manchild, a change in behaviour to incorporate social distancing could go a long way to helping us out of this mess.
So, with that in mind, it’s important for people like me to think a wee bit less of ourselves and pay a bit more attention to the rellies starting tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day – wash yer hands.