The Baby Boomer Generation Read Online Free PDF

sets when Independent television (ITV) first began broadcasting commercially funded television programmes to the London region in September 1955, and sales continued to increase each year as ITV gradually rolled out its regional broadcasting coverage. By the end of the 1950s, three-quarters of the population had access to a television set.
    Throughout the 1950s, cinema was our main source of entertainment outside of the home. With only limited access to television programmes, it was the only way we could see what was going on outside of our own little cocoons. It also provided us with the means to escape from our usual humdrum existence: for a few hours we could enter a world of pure fantasy. There were so many wonderful British and American films for us to enjoy and even us kids liked to watch the Pathé newsreel with its dramatic voice-over narrations. We were so captivated by these films that three-quarters of us went to the cinema at least once a week and we would happily queue for up to an hour outside in the rain for the one-and-nine-penny seats, and then, at the end of the main film, everyone would stand while the National Anthem was played. As time went by we noticed that cinemas were beginning to interrupt the films’ end credits and starting the National Anthem early to catch those who were looking to get away immediately. The distinctive sound of the anthem’s intro usually stopped them in their tracks and kept them fixed to the spot until it ended.
    Any ideas of things like telephone cold calling, junk mail, email, credit cards and Internet shopping and banking would have been pure science fiction in the 1950s. Instead, we had door-to-door salesmen selling everything from insurance to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , and tallymen selling all sorts of goods for 1 shilling a week on the never-never. In the 1950s, the postman would deliver letters and postcards twice a day and each morning the milkman would deliver milk to every house on the street; each wore a smart uniform including a shirt and tie and a peaked cap. Our parents paid for gas and electricity in advance through ‘shilling in the meter’ boxes that were fitted in our homes. Most people didn’t have a bank account and so workers were generally paid in cash at the end of each week, sometimes on a Thursday. This meant that the majority of purchases were paid for in cash, including all the routine household bills. All of the main services and goods suppliers had local offices or shops where you could go to pay your bills in cash. People didn’t need to have a bank account; many preferred to put their savings in a Post Office account and buy postal orders for any payments that had to be sent by post.
    Healthcare was nowhere near as advanced as it is today and we lacked the benefits of modern-day medical treatment, but the healthcare system we did have seemed very efficient and somehow more personal than it is today. The National Health Service was still in its infancy, having only been formed a few years earlier in 1948, and there seemed to be much less red tape than there is nowadays. It was very easy to see a doctor when you were ill and there was no need to make an appointment to be seen at the surgery. You only had to ask for a home visit and the doctor would be there the same day, seven days a week; they would even come out in the middle of the night if required. Of course, the population was much smaller in the 1950s and so there was less pressure on the health service, but there were a lot of chronic and incurable diseases to contend with and medical care was much more labour intensive, especially in hospitals. From a patient’s point of view, the hospital nurses seemed to be much more hands-on in the wards and they had much less administration to contend with.
    There were no prescription charges in the early days of the National Health Service, but this was later reviewed and in 1952 a charge of 1 s per prescription form