perhaps you were in a dodgy place Keith, I was born in 1949, and it didn't seem quite that bad. we had free education, health care, a roller skating rink - ballroom dancing if you were a cissie.

school was unpleasant and full of violent degenerates, but apart from the teachers, it was okay.

I saw many of the great thinkers and artists of the day - Peter Brough and Archie Andrews, Hopalong Cassidy, Russ Conway.......we may have been culturally impoverished, but in many ways that a great preparation for all the crap folk music on the Mike Harding Show.

folk music is still tightly rationed on the media in England, but I am saving up my coupons for a Dave Van Ronk DVD.