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7^th September 2013

Top Picture: Books for the Adolescents

Bottom Picture: Did the sexual revolution start with the pill?

Sex Education

Sex education at school for most folks of around our age was almost if not completely non-existent; this was an addition to the standard school timetable that was never, every considered by the school board (there were no GCE’s in this subject!). We had all heard the fantastic tales that were widely spread by our parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts over the years. Tales such as “You were found under a gooseberry bush” or, “You were found in a cabbage or rhubarb patch” (causing us all to avoid any cabbage or rhubarb patch like the plague), “the Stork delivered you” was another, as was “the Midwife brought you along in her bag on her bike” and the rather strange one I heard remembered lately “The Midwife brought you because your Mum was lying poorly in bed and could not go out and get you!”

I know that none of us were satisfied or fooled by any of these stories but in most cases, Pam and myself included, our parents fought very shy of even talking about it and any form of Sex Education at school was totally unheard of. The nearest some of us got to sex education was if we happened to take Biology. During some of these classes Nelson Trowbridge went through the basics of the reproductive cycle of the rabbit but never, ever touched on the emotional and physical properties of the act as it applied to human beings, it was all put down to the birds and the bees!

I must have been about thirteen or fourteen years of age when one afternoon, after school, I discovered a booklet with a blue headline band produced by the Daily Mirror on the facts of life carefully placed on my bed. The book had a teenage couple holding hands and staring into each others eyes of the front of it and as far as I can remember it was not at all a “user friendly” production and I think, at that time, I already knew more than the book discussed.

The nearest my father came to talking to me about the facts of life was when he told me that there were some undesirable women who hung around the Dockyard and Guildhall areas which I should have nothing to do with. But he never told me why!

Pam says that she had a similar reading experience when she was about the same age when she discovered a facts of life book on her bed one day which she assumes was placed there by her mother.

During the 1950’s and early 1960’s sex education was never a topic taught in junior and very, very rarely in senior school, most certainly not ours! It was inferred that this definitely was not a subject for discussion. On very rare occasions parents would sometimes allude to it very briefly and sometimes even some religious institutions and youth clubs sometimes offered guidance, but not many. Unfortunately, this led to many misconceptions that existed about sex during the 1950s. In many homes, the discussion of sexual issues was simply considered totally impolite and so this topic did not often or ever arise in conversations and was normally swept quietly under the carpet. The Marie Stopes publications and Family Planning Clinics and advice were unheard of in our house.

As teenagers we grew up through the 1960s, during the so-called "Sexual Revolution" where some people challenged the established moral and socially acceptable guidelines of the majority of the older population. Additionally, university researchers began devoting more attention to the topic of sexual education as a legitimate subject.

Then of course there were those sex scandals of Profumo, Keller and Rice-Davis affairs and the like which we all heard of and lived through.

The rise in promiscuity may have contributed to an increasing incidences of sexually transmitted diseases during the subsequent thirty years or so but this is not a subject I intend to go into.

Maybe you had more liberated parents with less hang ups than most of us and maybe you were lucky enough to have everything explained to you but I suppose the way to sum up the attitude at that time and in particular our own sex education at the time would be, if you will excuse the pun, a “hands on” experience.   

Keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

I Write:

Some time ago, through some quirk of the Internet I managed to contact the 1960’s American star Bobby Rydell. We have corresponded for some time and he is now happy to pass on news about his activities.

Bobby has just returned from a successful tour of Australia and is really looking forward to performing with, as he puts it, the one & only Chubby Checker in the very near future. He will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from UNICO (Unity, Neighbourliness, Integrity, Charity, and Opportunity.) at the organization's national convention July 31 in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

News and Views:

Sad to hear of the death of Sir David Frost, one cannot imagine the 1960's without him and That Was The Week That Was. It is also sad to hear of the death of David Jacobs.

On this day 1^st  September 1960-1965.

On 01/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/09/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/09/1963 the number one single was Bad to Me - Billy J Kramer and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/09/1964 the number one single was Have I the Right? - Honeycombs and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/09/1965 the number one single was I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.