Father And Son

[poliphilo]

I find I'm thinking a lot about my father. Nothing deep, just picturing him, cap on head, as he was at weekends, Doing the things I'm now beginning to do- like digging and edging and pruning. It's how he spent so much of his free time.

I suppose that- like most of his generation- he came out of the war thinking, "That's enough excitement for one lifetime." It helps explains why the 1950s were so dull and drab- and why when the postwar generations started thinking, "Hey a little excitement would actually be rather nice," he and his lot opposed us so resolutely.

So, he'd be out in the garden, doing careful, peaceful things- and I'd be up in my bedroom- keeping out of his way- reading something like The Three Musketeers or Beau Geste or Alan Quartermain.

Have I had excitement in my life? Oh, yes. Plenty, thank you. But, unlike my father, who got more than he probably wanted in a brief four-year period, I've spread mine out over the decades...

Comments

[shewhomust]

Were the 50s really so dull and drab? I know it's become the received view, as a prelude to talking about how exciting the 60s were, but it seems to come from people who grew up with colour TV, never mind colour film, and can't imagine life in black and white.

Only it wasn't actually in black and white, of course. I was born in 1951, so this isn't exactly an objective view, but there was a sense of new things happening, wasn't there? We were post-war, there was the Festival of Britain, and the coronation. My parents bought a car, and we went to Europe for holidays, and marched from Aldermaston...

Sorry, I can see this becoming quite a bee in my bonnet!

[poliphilo]

You and I are the same age.

I'm thinking how class-conscious we were, and how conformist, and how dreadful the food was and how boring the clothes were and how tame the popular music was...

I like black and white- but I think the film culture of the 50s was much less interesting than what came before and after. 40s film was dark and romantic, 60s film was youthful and energetic- and in between came Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

[oakmouse]

I think you're right about the excitement issue. I remember a conversation between my dad, who was a Marine in WWII, and my great-uncle Charlie, who was in the Navy in WWI, about coming home to a postwar life. Charlie said something along the lines of "You just want life to be peaceful after that." Dad nodded and said something along the lines of "Right. And normal."

[poliphilo]

My father rarely talked about the War- and that was typical I think. Most of the people who'd been in it just wanted to put it behind them and get on with their lives.

[oakmouse]

*nods* None of the vets I knew from WWI or WWII ever talked much about it. Dad would get going on silly stories from the base in Hawaii where he was stationed, but it was stuff like the pranks the guys used to play on one another, never anything about the war itself. He never saw combat himself --- he ended up being a radio operator --- but he lost a bunch of friends; he was one of only two guys in his training unit who survived the war. Charlie just never talked about it; he'd change the subject to his pre-war hitch in the merchant marine instead.