1960! And so the famous decade began, pop music, mods and rockers, flower power and CND. The 1960s changed the world forever and there was no going back.
In 1960 there was an event which I suppose stimulated this part of my blog. In November John F Kennedy was elected the 35th US President, the youngest ever at 43 and the first Roman Catholic. He didn’t become President in 1960 because America has a curious system whereby the winner has to wait two months before officially taking office, but I suppose this at least gives time for the outgoing Chief Executive to clear his personal possessions out of the White House and for the new one to choose alternative wallpaper and soft furnishings.
Staying with politics it was in 1960 that the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan gave his “Wind of Change” speech to the South African Parliament, on 3rd February 1960 in Cape Town at the end of a month spent in Africa visiting a number of British colonies, as they still were at the time. The speech signaled clearly that the British Government intended to decolonise and most of the British possessions in Africa subsequently became independent nations in the 1960s. The South Africans, being extreme white supremacists, didn’t approve of this and the speech led directly from their withdrawal from the Commonwealth and their continuing support for the apartheid system.
Another significant event of 1960 that was to have far reaching consequences was the formation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This was an event that would leave the west dependent on the Middle East for its oil and has resulted in a succession of international difficulties in the region.
In 1960 there was an event which I suppose stimulated this part of my blog. In November John F Kennedy was elected the 35th US President, the youngest ever at 43 and the first Roman Catholic. He didn’t become President in 1960 because America has a curious system whereby the winner has to wait two months before officially taking office, but I suppose this at least gives time for the outgoing Chief Executive to clear his personal possessions out of the White House and for the new one to choose alternative wallpaper and soft furnishings.
Staying with politics it was in 1960 that the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan gave his “Wind of Change” speech to the South African Parliament, on 3rd February 1960 in Cape Town at the end of a month spent in Africa visiting a number of British colonies, as they still were at the time. The speech signaled clearly that the British Government intended to decolonise and most of the British possessions in Africa subsequently became independent nations in the 1960s. The South Africans, being extreme white supremacists, didn’t approve of this and the speech led directly from their withdrawal from the Commonwealth and their continuing support for the apartheid system.
Another significant event of 1960 that was to have far reaching consequences was the formation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This was an event that would leave the west dependent on the Middle East for its oil and has resulted in a succession of international difficulties in the region.
Well, that’s the serious stuff out of the way, so on to trivia. 1960 saw the introduction to Britain of two new must have toys. The first was the Etch-a-Sketch, which was a big bag of aluminium dust behind a plastic screen that you scraped doodles into, like you would on the window of a steamed-up car. But rather than use your finger you had to demonstrate enormous amounts of persistence and agility and twiddle two knobs which was an action that required almost impossibly high levels of eye to hand co-ordination. Etch-a-Sketch was invented by a man by the name of Arthur Granjean who developed what he called ‘L'Ecran Magique’, or ‘The Magic Screen’, in his garage. After several years of being ignored as a load of magnetic twaddle L'Ecran Magique was eventually bought up by an American toy firm and renamed Etch-a-Sketch.
Actually Etch-a-Sketch was really hopeless and it was impossible to draw anything really creative. The box suggested all sorts of drawing possibilities but in reality although it was ok for houses or anything else with straight lines beyond that it was excruciatingly frustrating to draw anything that anyone would be able to meaningfully identify.
Much more important than Etch-a-Sketch was the introduction of the construction toy Lego which was seen at the Brighton Toy Fair for the first time in 1960. Lego is a Danish company and the name comes from the Danish words 'LEg GOdt' meaning play well. Now this just has to be one of the best toys ever and when it was first introduced the brightly coloured bricks sold by the bucketful. Pre-Lego I had a construction set called Bako, which was a set of bakerlite bricks and metal wires that could be used to construct different styles of houses but nothing more inspirational than that. Lego changed everything and the only restrictions on creativity thereafter were the number of bricks in the toy box and imagination!
Others agree with me about the importance of Lego and the British Association of Toy Retailers has named Lego the toy of the century.
From Lego to leg over because 1960 was a big year for pornography when the book ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ was published by Penguin books and whipped up a legal storm. ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’ is a novel by D. H. Lawrence that was written in 1928 and printed at that time privately in Florence. The publication of the book caused a scandal due to its explicit sex scenes, including previously banned four letter words. When it was published the trial of the publishers, Penguin Books, under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 Act had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could demonstrate that a work was of literary merit and Penguin books took up the challenge. At the trial various academic critics, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on 2nd November was not guilty. This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the UK and soon newsagent’s top shelves were bulging with glamour magazines with pictures of pretty ladies with no clothes on.
A nice story about the trial which illustrates just how big a watershed 1960 was in terms of changing social attitudes was when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked the jury if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
Much later than 1960 I found a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ on the top of my dad’s wardrobe and was able to go immediately to the offending passage because the book fell naturally open at exactly the right spot. It’s a boring book and I suspect most of it had not been read at all but the few pages of dirty words were well thumbed and dog-eared and over the next few weeks I contributed to this by sharing it with all of my mates whenever they came around to the house when my parents were out. This all stopped when one day when the book had gone from the top of the wardrobe and although nothing was ever said I think I’d been rumbled.
One final thing about 1960 is that John, Paul, George and Ringo became the Beatles and the world of popular music would never be the same again and Russ Conway never had another number one hit!
Others agree with me about the importance of Lego and the British Association of Toy Retailers has named Lego the toy of the century.
From Lego to leg over because 1960 was a big year for pornography when the book ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ was published by Penguin books and whipped up a legal storm. ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’ is a novel by D. H. Lawrence that was written in 1928 and printed at that time privately in Florence. The publication of the book caused a scandal due to its explicit sex scenes, including previously banned four letter words. When it was published the trial of the publishers, Penguin Books, under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 Act had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could demonstrate that a work was of literary merit and Penguin books took up the challenge. At the trial various academic critics, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on 2nd November was not guilty. This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the UK and soon newsagent’s top shelves were bulging with glamour magazines with pictures of pretty ladies with no clothes on.
A nice story about the trial which illustrates just how big a watershed 1960 was in terms of changing social attitudes was when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked the jury if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
Much later than 1960 I found a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ on the top of my dad’s wardrobe and was able to go immediately to the offending passage because the book fell naturally open at exactly the right spot. It’s a boring book and I suspect most of it had not been read at all but the few pages of dirty words were well thumbed and dog-eared and over the next few weeks I contributed to this by sharing it with all of my mates whenever they came around to the house when my parents were out. This all stopped when one day when the book had gone from the top of the wardrobe and although nothing was ever said I think I’d been rumbled.
One final thing about 1960 is that John, Paul, George and Ringo became the Beatles and the world of popular music would never be the same again and Russ Conway never had another number one hit!
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