SWINGING SIXTIES

 THE SWINGING SIXTIES 

My friend John said to me "We have to go to Carnaby Street" So I replied "Why"? And he replied, "Cos it is swinging". I asked, "What is swinging"? He answered, "I don't know but sounds good ". We were both about nine and we went. We left Islington and went towards Carnaby Street. It was very quick on the tube but it felt like going somewhere very far. We bought stuff. He bought cowbells and I bought an underground magazine. I enjoyed it as it was something really strange but great.

 "The Swinging Sixties was a  cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London as its centre.

It saw a flourishing in art, music and fashion, and was symbolised by the city's "pop and fashion exports". Among its key elements were pop groups and fashion. There was the iconic status of popular shopping areas such as London's Kings Road, Kensington and Carnaby Street; the political activism of the anti-nuclear movement. Sexual liberation was another key thing.

 Swinging London also meant British Cinema but as someone who saw most of the 60s films because I used to bunk off school a lot, I can tell you it was most dire, the most crap films ever.

During this period, "creative types of all kinds gravitated to the capital, from artists and writers to magazine publishers, photographers, advertisers, film-makers and product designers".If the Fifties were in black and white, then the Sixties were in Technicolor. The ‘Swinging Sixties’ remain the defining decade for Britain. In just ten short years, London had transformed from the bleak, conservative city, only just beginning to forget the troubles of the Second World War, 

But for most, it was carry on moaning. Jobs paid very little and if you couldn't get on the bandwagon of the new industry which was basically selling clothes and music to youngsters outside of the Carnaby Street and Kings Road radius there was not much going on apart from lots of nightclubs and dance halls.

By the 1960s, the first teenage generation free from conscription emerged in Britain. Young people were finally given a voice and freedom to do what they wanted, some did have a voice but mostly the educated university types fighting for an end to the war in Vietnam and maybe a revolution in Europe. The Vietnam war was seen as one of the great injustices that America ever did to another country and the war was totally uncalled for as Vietnam after they had fought with the Americans and eliminated the Japanese wanted an alliance with America.

Others like the Mods were only interested in fashion and music. Fashion in the decade mirrored many of the social changes of the Sixties. Mary Quant became famous for popularising the mini skirt which became the epitome of 1960s fashion. The mini was designed to be free and liberating for women, allowing them to “run and jump”. Her fashion designs used simple geometric shapes and colours which gave women a new kind of femininity. Women were free to wear more playful, youthful clothes that would have seemed outrageous ten years before. By the late Sixties, psychedelic prints and vibrant colours began appearing on clothes as the hippie movement gathered pace.

 The contraceptive pill became legalised for all women in 1967 and allowed them to broaden their hopes and dreams far beyond motherhood and marriage. It was the greatest liberating invention for women along with sanitary inventions.

 The Women’s Liberty movement was in its infancy when in 1968 at a Ford factory in Dagenham, 850 women went on strike, arguing for equal pay with their male co-workers. This action resulted in the passing of the Equal Pay Act of 1970.

 One of the biggest, defining aspects of the 1960s was music. Although rock and roll began having an effect on Britain in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the early Sixties and the emergence of ‘British Invasion groups like The Beatles, that music truly began its revolutionary changes. The Beatles are an excellent example of how music influenced the lives of young Britons. Although they continued the rock and roll genre of the 1950s for the early part of the decade, by 1967 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band became the turning point in music and inspired other musicians, such as The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones, to experiment with new sounds and develop innovative pieces of music. Their later albums included lyrics encouraging rebellion against the authorities, as seen in ‘Revolution’. Recreational drugs were also synonymous with the Sixties. Technological advancements of the 1960s drastically changed how people spent their leisure time. The increase in employment in factories and increase in money allowed people to spend more on leisure activities. Colour television and pocket transistor radios allowed people to spend their free time listening to music and watching TV. Every teenager owned a transistor radio allowing them to listen to pop music on the move.  By the end of the decade, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved the impossible by becoming the first men on the moon in 1969. The Sixties ended as if it had never happened. Everything became too commercial and the dream was over.

1.who wanted an alliance with America?

2. why was Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a turning point?

3.what allowed people to spend their free time listening to music and watching TV.?

4. Did TV change the rapport between people?