Monica Makes Sense: Life for today’s teenagers couldn’t be more different

In 1957 Bill Haley coined the description ‘Teenager’ when he was on a UK tour with his band ‘The Comets’.
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Young people in the 1950s were on the cusp of something really big, although they didn’t know it at the time. Things would never be the same again. Unbelievably, the school leaving age in Britain was only moved up to fifteen years old in 1947 having been delayed due to the war. Many young people in the early 1940s had been working for years, although they couldn’t see a film at the cinema or drink in a pub. They had to take life seriously in those days, although very much under parental control. For young men, not only acquiring a job, often in the steelworks where, like local government, it would be ‘a job for life’ but then faced with conscription at 18- years-old, and the uncertainty of leaving home for the first time to fight in a war they were totally unprepared for.

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Girls were expected to obtain a job suitable for their sex. Nursing and office work were appropriate and anyway they would probably be engaged before they were out of their teens, then married and with a family.

Bill Haley and the Comets who coined the description ‘Teenager’Bill Haley and the Comets who coined the description ‘Teenager’
Bill Haley and the Comets who coined the description ‘Teenager’
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The 1950s and before were not kind to girls who ‘got into trouble’, they were stigmatised and abused with babies put up for adoption very soon after birth. The sorry plight was always the fault of the girl. The father invariably got away scot free.

Teenagers had limited freedom, were controlled by their parents, teachers, clergy, the police, and school inspector who could put the fear of God into them, and they had little economic power. Socialising was often limited to family outings or church dances with no shops or cinemas open on Sundays.

Then the 50s happened! There was a booming economic climate and most of all the music which was not anything like their parent’s music. In 1952 American disc jockey Alan Freed coined the phrase ‘rock and roll’ which was derived from African/American blues and country music and embraced the themes of young love and teenage rebellion against authority. Before long, the generation gap was huge not only in music but in dress, beliefs, pastimes, and expirations with many teenagers described as juvenile delinquents and the stars they followed like Elvis Presley or the Rolling Stones and Beatles, leading to corruption as far as their parents were concerned.

The overall mood of the 50s and 60s for teenagers was of fun and relative innocence. At first, we frequented coffee bars like the Teenage Tavern on Pinstone Street and even the El Mambo on Norfolk Street which had a certain reputation as a den of iniquity although in fact it was a pretty innocent and non-judgemental sort of place but with the kind of clientele that our parents warned us about as being no good. It certainly opened our eyes to the fact that there was a big wide world out there and totally different to the safe suburban life we had grown up in. With an eclectic mix of people, the first juke box in the UK and an Expresso coffee machine, not to mention the fact that Jim Dale who was appearing at the Empire Theatre, had popped in and given an impromptu concert, it was a magnet for teenagers who had largely been shielded from real life.

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Even when we patronised the Mojo and Club 60 going into the 1960s, they were, by and large, innocent with only soft drinks served, although there was a steady stream of young people going into the back door of the Ship Inn on Shalesmoor having got a pass out from Club 60 by means of a stamp on the back of their hand.

We were largely untouched by drink and drugs in those days although there were rumours connecting Jimi Hendrix with drug taking when he appeared at the Mojo Club in January 1967. Life for today’s teenagers couldn’t be more different. The only thing we seem to have in common was that, in both cases, we were neither children nor adults. Whatever the decade, being an adolescent has never been easy. Today’s teens have often been used to a higher degree of affluence than we were with parents who often own their own homes, have more than one car in the family and enjoy foreign holidays, but things are not always easy for them, especially the way things are at present in a lockdown situation which keeps them away from their friends, hobbies, and sporting activities. Teenagers can be lonely, anxious, and depressed. They can be targets of cyber bullying. Constant use of the Internet has exposed them to pornography, violence and obscene language which is often seen as part of life. There are often little parental controls over what teenagers watch or play online. There are more eating disorders, drug taking and self-harm amongst young people today, not to mention teenage suicides which show the level of despair. In many ways they seem to be the lost generation. They really cannot win. Youth unemployment is high. The cost of further education is rapidly rising and at present young people are worried about the situation with exams, college courses and the pandemic. There is a drought of affordable housing and the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is not always an option. The teens of yesteryear whilst with none of the sophistication of those today did at least know that they would get a job when they left school and, in the absence of affording their own home, would be able to move into a council property. The Right to Buy scheme certainly did no favours for those needing housing today. Cynics might say of today’s young people. ‘At least they didn’t live through the horrors of war!’ But the reality is that teenagers today are living through a different but no less relevant conflict.

In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a digital sub scription or buying a paper. We stand together. Nancy Fielder, editor.

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