Throughout this blog there will be comparisons, you know, given that I am 70. I will however, never compare good and bad in a way that puts down someone els’s life, who am I to do that, who indeed?
It’s currently 10:51pm and just as I was about to hit the sheets next to my very sexy wife, I was struck with this thought.
“The time between the late 1950s and the early 2000s might well have been one of the best, nay, possibly the best periods in history to be alive”
It was one of the longest runs for the creative arts that possibly the modern world has every seen, at least in the sense of how the arts transformed. Up until the 1960s the British Government still controlled much of what was seen on the West End, but in 1968, a key milestone was achieved when the abolition of the ‘Lord Chamberlains Theatre Censorship’ act was passed. Until this point every new play had to go through that office. From that point of (at least in my opinion) we saw huge growth in theatre productions and a revival of the West End, which pushed the envelope of free and creative speech.
The BBC only gained some of its freedom in 1927 when it transitioned from a government run organisation to an independent organisation, that said, it was still tightly controlled by the British Government until the growth of pirate radio stations in the 1960s had such a huge impact on the teenage music consuming audience that it was forced to loosen the reigns and the BBC completely changed it’s format to suit a younger and more music savvy base.
But it wasn’t just the arts, The Open University was established by Royal Charter on April 23, 1969 and the working class saw fit to take advantage of this opportunity. In Fact, the working class having returned from WWll in 1945 saw an enormous growth in income and status in general. It took some time but the country began to regain it’s global footing and rebuild it’s self. There were many challenges along the way, in the 1970s with the closing of mines and factories, which created a switch to the service industry as the main source of income. The trade offs took time to be seen, better working conditions, women’s and children’s rights. More opportunity for women to be competitive in their professional careers. The growth of the NHS and better housing and education. Again, these things took time. Thatcher opened up the EU which created free travel and an open market where Great Britain could complete on an even footing with European countries. This inclusion into the EU was not met with joyous reception from all people. Those who had suffered throughout WWll were understandably sceptical and resentful that Great Britain appeared to be ‘Bailing out’ European countries.
The 1980s were considered the ‘Me Generation’ although having lived through it them, and now living through this period, I would have to disagree. Yes, there was a period where personal style and growth became front and centre, but I experienced that time as one of growth and not of greed, the greed came later. Again, throughout the eighties the arts grew exponentially and we started to see signs of personal tech growing wildly and sometimes too quickly. The 1990s saw the introduction of the personal phone, followed quickly by the advancement of the personal computer. Yes they had been around for some time, but they were not accessible to the average person on the street. I sold computers in the early 1990s and I remember selling four desktops to a company, they were $10,000 each and had a 200 MB HD and 56k of RAM. We thought we were the bess knees and I remember one salesman say, “CD ROMS were a fad and we will never need anything bigger that a 200mb HD!” Oh how short sighted.
I had my first PC, an Apple iMac, it was a wedge and it was blue, it was 1999. I made a short film with iMovie and fell in love with the ability to to create. I had a website called ‘Actorconnection.com’ you can still find it on the ‘Way Back Machine’ It was a member based site for Actors for the Washington DCArea. I was not very observant and didn’t realise what I had. I knew that tech would replace had copy paper resume’s and photos, it was just a matter of time.
I think the problem now, in 2026, is everything is so quick and so accessible that we don’t have time to even consume the content that is being created every second of every day, which is why I have gone back to this format. AI has taken away the thought process and just like that period of time was possibly the most optimal for humans, thinking, actually thinking with face to face communication with another human, is possibly the optimal way for human beings.
Be Brave, Believe, Be Kind!
Lee
Middle Aged Not Dead 