I’ve had my fun – but will today’s youth miss theirs?

I’m not a self-denying person, but all through lockdown the same refrain has been buzzing in my head: I’ve had my fun. When I recall all the brilliant holidays, carousing, career opportunities and love affairs, I feel intensely that the last two decades of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st were the very best time to be alive, especially if you were a female of working-class origin. Even if I never have any of those things again, I’ll genuinely feel that I’ve had more than enough fun, love and money for nine lifetimes.

Standing in a socially-distanced mini-mart the other day, West End

Girls by the Pet Shop Boys started playing and suddenly I was right back there in the sexy-greedy Eighties, running with my gang in Wild West Wonderland. I felt so lucky that I’d been young in such carefree days – before social mobility started going backwards and when journalism was still rolling in money.

But pity the poor youngsters. A recent survey by the Royal Society For Public Health claimed that a whopping three quarters of 18 to 24 year-olds are anxious about the future compared with only 47 per cent of the over-75s, who are actually far more at risk. Almost two thirds of the same age group said they feel more lonely more frequently during lockdown, compared with only a fifth of those aged 65 to 74.

I’ve always insisted that modern youth should have it tough, so there is an element of feeling like one of those long-suffering mothers in supermarkets who finally cracks at the checkout and slaps the complainer’s legs with a yelp of: “Now you’ve got something to cry about!” But mostly I just feel sorry for them because the greatest pandemic divide isn’t between rich and poor or fit and fat – but between those who’ve had their fun and those who haven’t.

I blame the internet which, though a portal to untold wonder for us old folks, has definitely stunted the hedonistic growth of our youth. Even before the hands-offside rule they were already letting down the reputation of our notoriously slutty nation by losing their collective virginity later than previous generations and catching fewer STDs than senior citizens simply because sex is easier to do through a screen.

We are well on the way to becoming like the notoriously sexually warped populace of Japan, where half a million young men have entirely forsaken adult life for the lonely pleasures of online gaming and pornography. The Japanese government, usually reluctant to draw attention to national weakness, has called this an imminent national catastrophe as nearly half of their young women, plus more than a quarter of their young men, are “not interested in, or despising, sexual contact”, thus landing Japan with a singularly moribund population.

What we need now is a national effort to get young people out there; to make them realise that though online relationships may often be enough for those of us who’ve had our fun, theirs is still there for the taking – but that it comes with a limited window of opportunity, because every summer night spent alone in our room brings us closer to a place where the company of others seems pointless.

I’ve always admired the Amish (now there’s a line you never thought you’d read) because, unlike other strict religions, they have the confidence to insist that their young people leave the security of their closed communities for a few years between the ages of 16 and 20 (they call it Rumspringa which translates as “running around”) in order to test their wings and adopt their adult religion through choice, as around 90 per cent eventually do. But our spring is gone now and summer is here; we need to organise a mass breakout of our youth. Double their pocket money, create nightclubs in parks and on beaches – just don’t let them get like Chekhov’s Nina in The

Seagull who declares when still a girl: “I am in mourning for my life.”

I used to laugh at my mother when she told me I should be outdoors

– but for the first time in history, forcing youngsters outside isn’t just a way to spoil their indoor fun, but a battle for their collective mental health. Like the old song says, be young, be foolish – but be happy.