The Sixties! What are your memories?

Well, I was very young in the sixties - born in December 1964 - so have very few memories of the decade at all but it is interesting reading other people’s memories.

My happiest times though not like many here
I was married in 1958 and in 1960 after living in “ rooms” my H and I had saved enough for a deposit on a new build semi.
We were very young but so very happy, we had a motor bike but after furnishing the house we bought a car, made really good friends with the neighbours, all young like ourselves and had a wonderful life .
Or first baby, a daughter was born in 1965 and our life was complete.
In 1967 my H got a huge opportunity to further his career and we moved to Manchester away from family and friends but a chance not to be missed
In 68 we bought another new build, again making lots of new and forever friends and early 1970 our son was born, completing our family.
I have never experienced such total happiness and contentment since.
I consider them my halcyon days.

I loved it. So exciting. As Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities
‘to be young was very heaven’ The music was marvellous, I was at high school then uni. We wandered around with flowers draped round our necks ( thank you San Francisco) and we had great dances, singalongs, drinking sessions etc. I once won a drinking beer competition for speed ! The women out drank the woossie men easily,I am proud to say. Things settled in the 70 s because I got married and had 4 daughters but I’ll never forget those crazy days.

Not just Beatles other groups too. I wasn't a groupie

Too long winded to tell paris. Too many tales. I've been on local radio a few times with my stories.

In 1970 I was 17, and for a few months I lived on Eel pie Island
Very hippy life style and thinking about it now quite dangerous because we lived in the derelict hotel.. 🤦‍♀️
I remember going to see Pink Floyd in Hyde Park

Kate1949

I too won a competition to a TV show. I sat on set behind The Beatles on Thank Your Lucky Stars. I have a picture of me and them blown up in our hall. I have many Beatles stories to tell. With apologies to GNetters who have heard it all before. I wasn't going to post but it was too tempting!

ohhhh id love to hear about yr Beatles stories, do tell...

l remember hearing their song' Hey Jude' being played for the first time on the radio as me and my best friend walked around our local park. l remember saying to her l wasnt impressed lol, little did l know good music when l heard it, but then l really wasnt into music like my then to be boyfriend. He was besotted with them but he never got to see them, he was training& working all hours, so just bought all their music.

There was a shop near our digs crammed with cheap cotton clothes, loons, cheesecloth smocks, trailing dresses, it was an Aladdins cave, and everything so cheap.
I felt like I’d found my style at last, and although it’s evolved, I still wear variations of the same.

Biba, buying Ossie Clark clothes. Mini skirts. The Small Faces, Kenney Jones the drummer was my boyfriend in the early days. He lived round the corner from my house. Going to dance halls as they were then, the Tottenham Royal and the Ilford Palais. The Marquee in Wardour Street. Such good times.

I should add that though I was aware of the Beatles, I didn’t have the remotest interest in them. I now wish that I’d got their autographs or some memorabilia, which would mean nothing to me, but which I could now sell for a fortune!

I was an art student from 63 to 67 so basically the coolest thing on the planet. My grant (remember them?) worked out at £5 a week and that went quite a long way. Once Biba started I was in Kensington most Saturdays, I think the dresses were about £3. My friend and I went to concerts, saw The Beatles, The Stones and The Kinks to name a few. I saw Bob Dylan at the Albert Hall and The Pretty Things at the RCA. One of my fellow students was Ian McLagan who went on to join the Small Faces. I don't think kids today have it half as good.

I was a postgraduate student in London in the first half of the 60s. It was absolute heaven. As I was doing research there were no set hours or lectures. I and the friends I shared a house with spent all our spare time and money going to the ballet and opera and theatre. It was the time of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, and we used to queue all night to get the cheapest tickets. Maria Callas was there too, but I couldn’t afford the £5 tickets to hear her sing. I saw a lot of famous actors, ranging from Laurence Olivier to Kenneth Williams! Also a young Maggie Smith.

Of course there were the clothes, too. I was tall and slim, so looked quite good in sixties fashions. My pride and joy was a pair of knee-high black leather boots, from Freed’s, the ballet shoe maker. I also had a wonderful Jaeger coat, that cost FAR more than I could afford, but took no end of punishment, like being rolled up and stuffed under theatre seats. I loved that coat.

The second half of the sixties I had to come down to earth and find a job, and then I got married in 1968.

Late 60s were fantastic years for me. Fab clothes, loads of boyfriends, seeing top groups every single weekend, having cash from working weekends and holidays, being a size 8 with long hair down to my waist. Having loads of friends, many of whom I am still in touch with.

I didn’t leave home until 1970, so although it was all happening, it wasn’t happening for me.
But it was nevertheless exciting, I think we all had a sense of great changes. The day I left to live in my student accommodation, I was wearing a brown check, not quite, mini skirt and a cropped jumper, I thought I looked quite cool, but I was so conventional, it all had to go, and having no money, my new look was exclusively charity shop, until I gradually managed to buy some cool clothes.

Queuing up at the cinema to watch the Beatles films. The queue snaked all round the town and we had to wait for hours to get in.

I had a Saturday job in the boutique, which was attached to the local Co-op department store. It sold Mary Quant cosmetics, which I lusted after. My father would not allow me to wear make up, so I used the testers, then wiped it off before I went home.

I was a wild child and suffered the consequences. However, I picked myself up and recovered. 1967 was a particularly poignant year - so many great groups & records.

Kate1949

JamesandJon33

Well! Very liberal. Jazz clubs and folk clubs nearly every night. Quentin Crisp as a life model. Marvellous atmosphere of uniqueness and irreverence. A marvellous time and DH was there waiting .

Thank you.
It sounds as if it epitomises the swinging 60s.

im trying to remember my time line..l was born 1952, left school at 15, so was that 1967 ? l got married at 18 in 1971.....

I too won a competition to a TV show. I sat on set behind The Beatles on Thank Your Lucky Stars. I have a picture of me and them blown up in our hall. I have many Beatles stories to tell. With apologies to GNetters who have heard it all before. I wasn't going to post but it was too tempting!

Now you really have my memories flowing as l was a teenager in the late 6o's. l remember going to our social club were a band called' The Small Faces' appeared for the first time. My best friend was a 'Mary Quant' fashionist and l remember my lovely white mini dress with chain belt l bought at the boutique that at had just open by our house. for my first date with my husband. l was forever chastised by mom for my skirts being too short lol. My first job was a office jr nk to a promtion office for bands and was always being chatted up by the guys popping in there for their gig bookings .l wasnt interested,l only had eyes for my boyfriend who l married at 18 and we have been married for over 50 yrs l also had a favorite yellow blouse with all frills down the front. l bought a red maxi coat with my first weeks wages.
My husband remembers he won a competion with his sister to see live' Top of the Pops' show which was televised on tv. But he cant remember who was on lol. He was mad about the Beatles and spent all his wages on Beatles records. He kept all his collect up to 6 yrs ago where we sold them to help pay for out bungalow. He got a lot of money for them on auction !!
Iv only just realised how many generation iv seen come and go, the 50's, the 60's , the 70's , the 80s etc etc..all so clear in my memories ... l need to write these all down l think!!!

Well! Very liberal. Jazz clubs and folk clubs nearly every night. Quentin Crisp as a life model. Marvellous atmosphere of uniqueness and irreverence. A marvellous time and DH was there waiting .

You needn't, but it would be interesting if you did.

I was at art school. Need I say more

Reading the book, what really struck me was the speed of everything.
One minute in post war Britain, no such thing as a teenager, the next minute, propelled into this world of excitement, amazing music, colourful clothes, no wonder our parents were in shock.