AuthorHouse UK | Beatlemania!

As +AuthorHouse UK laments the passing of Beatle, George Harrison in 2001, we reflected on the time of so called ‘Beatlemania’– was it a real case of mass hysteria by pubescent girls, were the bands that good (or bad as we couldn’t hear them over the screams)? Or was it the birth of a new era following WW2 and the austerity of the post-war years.

Tosh! - I was there it was the Dawn of Aquarius, The Swinging Sixties- We were young and in love. And rock and roll. Do you remember those haircuts, mods and rockers, Carnaby Street; it started with the Beatles and the Stones and finished with Scott McKensie going to San Francisco with flowers in his hair - the Hippie era (and unfortunately the Vietnam War).

Do you agree that the Sixties was the decade in which the young broke free, overturned many centuries old fuddy-duddy conventions and finally broke free? Or was it just Beatlemania?

Whatever the root causes the Sixties were the decade of fundamental changes in society across the globe, not just in music, but all aspects of life- from sex to politics and the epicentre was the UK, and in particular, London.

London was the centre for music, fashion, academia and the arts. It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was an era of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. As I have said one catalyst was the recovery of the British economy after post-World War II austerity which lasted through much of the 1950s, but was there something more?

Journalist Christopher Booker, a founder of the satirical magazine Private Eye, recalled the

 "bewitching" character of the swinging sixties: There seemed to be no one standing outside the bubble, and observing just how odd and shallow and egocentric and even rather horrible it was."

Even Adam Diment's spy novels featured Philip McAlpine, a foppish, long-haired, pot-smoking British spy straight out of Carnaby Street, not the straight laced, chauvinistic Commander Bond of Ian Fleming 50s fame.

Whether you were there or not, whether you liked or disliked the Sixties, it is a fact that it was the decade of change, mostly for the good I believe.

AuthorHouse UK reviews acknowledges that if we could get back to the spirit of the Swinging Sixties and forget all the silly squabbles about religion and turf:-  Ah but then!