swinging sixties

As someone who was a teenager during what is euphemistically called the Swinging Sixties, I was intrigued to watch the TV programme on Mary Whitehouse. For those readers who do not remember she was the lady who tried to clean up TV. As a teenager I laughed at her, at the time calling her fuddy duddy as not to, would not have been Hip or with it man. On hindsight the excess of the 60’s were restricted to London and other large cities rather then the provincial towns like Sittingbourne, where Sex outside of marriage was still frowned upon of course it happened but any girl admitting to it was called a slut, I personally never came across any drugs I was told that so and so was taking Purple hearts etc but never took any and was never offered it. Teenagers still went to church, as a Roman Catholic I had to go to Mass every Sunday, I did not want to but my mother insisted with “While your under my roof you do as I tell you”, yes in those days we still obeyed and respected our parents. As for Alcohol most dances in the town were alcohol free but more importantly we did not have the money to binge drink and if you did not look 18 you never got as far as the door in a pub, as for drinking out of a bottle unheard of. Yes there were punch ups, I have had a few in my youth, yet it was not the violence of knives or beating a man senseless it was not considered manly to gang up on an individual .
So why bring up all this nostalgia, well the Mary Whitehouse film allowed me to see my teenage years in a different light I always thought that the 1960’s was a teenage revolution but when you study it was teenagers being manipulated by a “Left wing middle aged academics” assisted by politicians like Roy Jenkins as an experiment. There experiment I feel failed and has led to the society of today, they may feel it has been a success for they wanted totally freedom of the individual, free to for them to express themselves in what ever way they wish no matter what the consequences. Freedom without Responsibilities to another Human Being or Society!
The Bishop of Rochester The Right reverend Michael Nazir-Ali said the collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society; It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum. His attack on liberal values, he maintains the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking He went on to say that “the consequences were 'the destruction of the family because of the alleged parity of different forms of life together, the loss of a father figure, especially for boys, because the role of fathers is deemed otiose, the abuse of substances (including alcohol), the loss of respect for the person leading to horrendous and mindless attacks, the increasing communications gap between generations and social classes - the list is very long.'
One wonders if more of has listened to Mary Whitehouse would we being living in a more genteel society today? One will never know.