"WE ARE THE SURVIVORS"

Born Before 1940

We were born before television, before penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, frisbees, and the pill.
We lived before radar, credit cards, split atoms, electric blankets, laser beams and ball point pens; before dishwashers, tumble dryers, air conditioners, drip dry clothes, and before man walked on the moon.
We got married first and then lived together - how quaint can you get ? We thought that fast food was what you ate in Lent, a Big Mac was an oversized macintosh, and crumpet we had for tea.
We existed before house husbands, computer dating, and dual careers; when sheltered accommodation was where you waited for a bus; when a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins, and 'now' meant 'now' long before this point in time.
We were before day care centres, group homes, and disposable nappies. We had never heard of FM radio, tape decks, or electric typewriters, let alone word processors or yoghurt.

There were few, if any, artificial hearts, and young men didn't wear earrings. A chip was a piece of wood, or a fried potato. L.S.D. was money, and you could buy a decent cotton shirt for 14 shillings and 4 pence (72p in today’s currency), or go to the Shifty Filling Tailors (actual name Fifty Shilling Tailors) for an affordable suit. Hardware meant nuts and bolts, software wasn't a word.
Before 1940 ‘Made in Japan' meant junk, the term 'making out' referred to how you fared in your exams. A stud was something used to connect a collar to a shirt. And 'going all the way' meant staying on a double decker bus until it reached the depot.
ln our day it was fashionable to smoke cigarettes, grass was mown, a fix was what the unwary got into when bills were unpaid, coke was kept in the coal house, a joint was what you had on Sunday, and a pot was what it was cooked in. Crack was what caused the toilet to leak, and rock was grandmother's lullaby.
El Dorado was an ice cream, and a gay person was the life and soul of the party, and nothing else. Aids just beauty treatment, or helping someone in distress; 'that bad' was an unused term, but things were not as bad as that !
We who were born before 1940 must be a hardy bunch when you think of just these few ways in which our world has changed, and the adjustments we have had to make leave one wondering that we are not more confused — and then there is the generation gap l

But ..... by the grace of God, we have survived ...... Alleluia!

(This was a notice displayed on the notice board of a school staff room. I imagine it was written by a teacher showing his or her age, at the end of term !)

July 1996.