It was my birthday this week. I have been on the planet 80 years. People have been very kind. One of my brothers, knowing my interest in serious political literature, sent me both The Beano and The Dandy annuals. Another sent me a Daily Mirror publication showing what was in the news on my birthday every year since I was born. Looking at these made me reflect on what has changed, and what hasn’t, in the last 80 years, and what challenges we face ahead.
Comics are still anarchic, just a bit more inclusive
The old favourites I used to love seem to have disappeared from The Dandy and The Beano. No longer is there Biffo the Bear (the bear in red trousers) in The Beano, or Korky the Cat in The Dandy, (my wife said I looked a bit like Korky the Cat). I always wear red running shorts because in an early edition the Mayor announced that the Beanotown Fun Run had been won by a “bear in red trousers” as if it was an everyday occurrence for a bear to win a race. It is interesting because when I did the Great North Run a few years ago the Mayor arrived in robes and a tricorn hat to set us off. I couldn’t keep a straight face because he looked just like the mayor of Beanotown.
Enough of this foolery. What is more important is how have social attitudes changed, if at all, over 80 years in The Beano and The Dandy?
The humour is still anarchic. Teacher, in his or her various forms, is always made a fool of. The Mayor no longer wears fancy dress but is now a Trump-like figure in a sharp suit who behaves in a bullying way, but our heroes always get the better of him in the end. Perhaps there is a message there. In the old comics the children were always hungry, and the plot often centred around getting sweets and tuck, or even the best delicacy of all, a pie, (this was the age of rationing of course).
The most obvious change is that there are now more girl heroes than boys, and often the boys are made to look stupid. Ethnic minorities now appear in Bash Street. Another interesting point is that the heroes often champion environmental issues.
These changing attitudes were obvious in the Daily Mirror almanac too. Women were hardly mentioned in the early post-1945 editions, except as film stars or housewives. Then we have the advent of women as more serious figures in society, beginning with Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Changing attitudes to sex meant that pin-ups became more explicit in the 1990s, and then the development of more feminist attitudes led to their decline in more recent years.
Cold Homes, Cold War, and a European Future
My own special memories are important too. My earliest was perhaps having to burn peat, something which I would never dream of doing now. The year the pits were nationalised, 1947, was one of a very cold winter, and there was simply not enough coal. The next year, 1948, there was an intensification of the Cold War in Europe. The isolation of Berlin by the Soviets and the subsequent Berlin Airlift. My father, as a civil servant, was involved in organising it, and I can remember him saying: “They can fly coal to Berlin, but we cannot get it here”.
I also remember Suez – a picture of a large pall of smoke over Port Said as British troops landed, and of course, like everyone else, when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Nowadays I realise this showed how weak Britain was after the War, then the menace of the Cold War, and finally our acceptance of our diminished role in the world after Suez. This of course led to the campaign to join Europe. I remember the Referendum in 1975 when we voted to go in. All this led to a much more prosperous country, something we should remember now. I was on a campaign bus. Happy Days!
From Post-War Hope to Present-Day Warnings
Perhaps the other big change has been attitudes to the environment. After the War we were trying to dig as much coal as we could. There was still a shortage as I have described. I also remember an old councillor showing me a letter he had received from Prime Minister Clement Attlee thanking him, as a lodge official, for persuading the men to work on Saturday and dig more coal.
What happened to the waste would not be tolerated today. It was tipped into the sea from flights (aerial conveyor belts), and the once beautiful beaches at Dawdon, Easington and Horden became polluted. Everything had to be sacrificed to dig more coal. I was later involved in a campaign to clean the beaches up, and we were successful in obtaining a large European Union grant to do it.
So I have seen changes in Britain’s role, changes in the position of women in society and much more concern about environmental issues. After the War there was a period of optimism. People vowed that wars would stop, and the United Nations was established. But they haven’t. Countries are still invading other countries to gain territory and eliminate cultures they do not like. We survived the Cold War but now have the world’s two biggest powers run by egotistical bullies, Trump and Putin. Our descendants must not look back fondly to the past but still fight for a better world.
