Look Out: The Bulge is Here ...

[Colwyn]

.. and I ain't talking about some minor midriff issues. I am talking about the explosion of the UK population after the Second World War; memorably, if inadvertently, one of my students in his examination paper explained this as: "The baby bulge after WWII was caused by the soldiers coming back from war and putting up their weapons". A long time ago on CBF I commented on the dissimilarity of the Turkish and UK population profile. The UK's profile I described as a Janus-like, two-faced portrait of Dennis Healy with his famous eyebrows representing the population bulge. Unfortunately I can't find that graphic again and the original CBF post has, I guess, long since been archived. So, you'll just have to take my word for it that there was a sudden increase in the baby population between 1947 and 1949.Found it!



When we kiddies of the late 1940s were born we packed the maternity hospitals, when we went to school they had to put on two entry classes instead of one to cope with our numbers. We became teenagers (the word had only recently been invented, in the USA) in the early 1960s - too late for Elvis bursting on the UK music scene, but just in time for us to form camps around whether you were a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stone fan (or an oddball, like me, that thought the Kinks were everything). We were there when sex was invented (or so we thought) and were either drug-taking hippies or Marxists revolutionaries (or some, maybe, just confused). We believed that the world might very well suddenly end in nuclear annhilation over one weekend during the Cuban missile crisis, we cried over the death of Jack Kennedy, and (contradictorily) we protested on the streets against the Vietnam War (that he did much to put the driving force behind). We were naive and idealistic, and we knew that we were, and we didn't give a damn. Our parents shook their heads over us and thought we might be a doomed generation.

And now we are getting to retirement age. And we are determined to get old disgracefully. We are starting to draw our pensions and we will cost you young working people a fortune, but we don't care - your life would have been a hell of a lot worse if it wasn't for our stroppiness and refusal to take what we were given and say thank you. I got a letter from the State Pensions people last week that asked me to phone them to make my pension claim. I did so and was asked to phone back in three months time because they are bit busy just now. Of course they bloody well are; we baby bulge kiddies are here, and the Government has sacked half the people who were supposed to deal with this increase. You knew we were coming; you've had since 1947 to prepare for it. There will be trouble if this goes wrong because one thing we baby-bulgers do is vote, and vote in large numbers. And we ain't averse to a bit of protesting in the streets either.

Be warned, the ranks of grumpy old men are being swelled every day - like I said "Look Out: The Bulge is Here".

[peter16]

This post I like, possibly written very tongue in cheek, but amusingly accurate.
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[Highlander]

Forgive me Colwyn, but when I saw your graphs I immediately thought of The Hitchcock Hour from years ago.

[Colwyn]

And here's something I forgot - I seem to forget more things these days - perhaps that's to do with me - or perhaps more things are more instantly forgettable. Anyway, another thing about the bulge . . .

Our first, real, growing up ("teenager") music - our "own" music - was in the 1960s. That was when (post-Elvis) music was created. And that has lasted with us. So when I decided to take my daughter's black lab for a walk this afternoon, and he insisted on being taken my local (The Masons) I wasn't particularly surprised at what transpired - but very happy with it.

As I may mentioned, The Masons' Arms is the haunt of the most miserable, grumpy, foul-mouthed, bunch of racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, old gits that you would ever wish not to meet. I take it as something of a challenge to my own liberal, tolerant, politically correct (in "my day" we used to call it "ideologically sound" - but tongue-in-cheek), inclinations. Whatever our differences, once some 19602 stuff comes on the jukebox we all start to join in. Off-key,  perhaps, even raucous, but the songs demand singing. So no great surprise this afternoon that a horrid choir (including me) let loose. By coincidence today it seemed to be songs about women. So we assaulted - Minnie the Moocher, Long Tall Sally, Runaround Sue, Sweet Sixteen, (She Wore) Blue Velvet and a great pile of others.

Coming to a pub near you - unless you watch out.

[Scunner]

The graphic clearly shows that if you get through 61 years of age, you might live a long time. If you don't, you didn't.

[cheers]

So who introduced the dog to the pub?  Was it you who showed it where to go or your daughter?

[Colwyn]

Not my daughter's sort of place at all, Cheers.

[maximumtom]

Did the UK bring in Euthanasia at 85 ?

[Colwyn]

Not so much about capping the population; more about decapitating it.