When I’m 64: no home but the struggle
Indeed I am today, being born on 31st October 1956 as the Russian tanks swept into Budapest & just as Britain, France and Israel were starting the debacle that was Suez.
Clearly I learnt my politics at birth.
I’m not a great fan of birthdays, although they are statistically significant-2 years to my State pension, but as an historian one does note the passage of time.
The Beatles wrote a song about it, When I’m 64, that appeared on Sgt Pepper in 1967. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney with clarinet by George Martin. Ian McDonald in Revolution in the Head notes the form of the song harks back to the 1930s while the lyrics are a sort of satire on popular views of northern life at the time.
The song in that sense is social history but of a slightly different kind now than in 1967. McDonald argues it wasn’t terribly popular with those who bought Sgt Pepper-think Lucy in the Sky and Within You Without You. I wouldn’t know being (slightly) too young at the time.
Anyway on my 64th birthday I’m locked down in Wales,(but I still live mainly in Tottenham) I haven’t retired and I remain an active socialist and trade unionist.
I may have a beer….
I am 72, and my earliest political memories were Suez and Hungary, Nasser and Pal Maleter.