I REALLY don't want to be a Special One ("Baby Boomers deserve praise for surviving Barbarella", The Herald, February 8). For some years I have considered myself to be one of the Fortunate Generation; after all, most of the benefits came to me due to the actions of others. There was nothing "Special" about what I did. From the NHS (one month younger than I am) through cod liver oil, orange juice, school milk, school dental checks, vaccinations, immunisations, inoculations, student grant, maternity grants, maternity allowance, child benefit for three, bus pass, free eye tests,free dental check-ups all the way up to two new knees, I have enjoyed drawing a long straw. Fortunate indeed and mightily grateful for it. For myself, I studied and worked hard (ish) and thought ahead while making pension arrangements. I now benefit from that but will never forget the previous generation who made it all possible.
My heart goes out to the young today.
Mind you, my husband has cynically coined the description "we're the jammy b******s".
Rachel Martin,
Whitehill Avenue, Musselburgh.
"BABY boomers deserve praise for surviving Barbarella", writes Brian Beacom. Rather it is their mothers who deserve the praise. The maternity ward in the 1960s; no radio; no TV; no telephones; endless mugs of Horlicks and bowls of tapioca pudding; having to perform exercises whilst grasping the end of the iron bed when your stitches made you gasp in pain. The real treat was those shiny black cockroaches that emerged from the sluice-room every night and if you had forgotten to tuck your counterpane under the mattress, would climb up so that next morning you would wake to find that you had shared your bed with several black bugs. It was also quite nice to see your baby occasionally when its metal trolley was rolled down the ward for you to catch before it hit the cupboards.
The positives were the nurses in their pretty starched caps and uniforms; Matron in blue keeping everything as tickety-boo as 1960s conditions allowed, and the clanging bell which told (tolled) the start and finish of visiting. Strangely, I don’t recall any smell of bleach but rather a lot of very stinging Dettol.
The 1960s? Happy days.
Thelma Edwards,
Old Comrades Hall, Hume, Kelso.
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