Then and now
I was put on the spot recently when I was asked, ‘How different was life when you were young compared with today?’ 
(That’s me with the blond curls at the back.) At the time my mind froze and couldn’t rise above mundane trivia like five year old children walking miles to school along main roads without pavements; no TV or computers; the price of a bag of winter mixtures …
Since then news items have positively leaped out and bopped me on the head as happenings that would have been utterly inconceivable in the 50s – much more dramatic and startling things:
* The provision of ‘gender-neutral’ lavatories for university students who don’t identify themselves within the male-female gender binary.
* World-wide knowledge of the fact that a) two Australian radio DJs made a hoax call to the London hospital where b) the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for hyperemesis gravidarum, and c) their ‘prank’ had an unforeseen tragic outcome.
* Open support of gay marriage in churches by the British prime minister.
* One in five parents spending £200 on each of their children for Christmas, with the average overall estimated at £104.
* A work of erotic fiction selling over 40 million copies and occupying prominent places in broad daylight in supermarkets as well as bookshops.
* The mother of a seven-year old boy openly defying medical advice and running away with her son rather than subjecting him to radiotherapy.
* A slim 1937 children’s book, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, being made into three major films, more than seven decades later.
* The head of the Royal College of General Practitioners going on record as saying that no organisation – not even one as erudite and prestigious as her own – should trump the views of the general public on the emotive and ethical subject of assisted dying.
Hey, I’d like to wind time back and answer that initial question all over again. With a bit more panache this time.
What would stand out for you, I wonder?
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