Dressed in a pair of white levis you're driving around London in an MGB with David Hemmings and one of the Redgrave girls, shaking your stuff to The Yardbirds, making your way to the next photo session with Jane Birkin and Nanette Newman in white PVC, while Jane Asher is at home cleaning the lino and Dennis Waterman is delivering furniture in a large Arran sweater and a fish tail parka... The REAL Swinging London. Oh behave baby, indeed . . .

For children of the Sixties, life was so much simpler. A sunny optimism permeated everything, and possibilities seemed endless. This was the 'permissive' decade, and the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1963 heralded a new freedom for women. Milk still came in bottles and doctors still made house calls. In Britain, the police were still called "bobbies" (and walked around instead of driving around in vans with wire mesh over the windows), and while TV may have been black & white, it was far more entertaining than most of what the TV stations churn out today.

With employment high and most enjoying a reasonable income, the 60s saw an increase in consumerism. Leisure time could  be enjoyed by shopping, going to the cinema, watching television and traveling abroad. By mid-decade motoring had also become a pleasure affordable to most, and cars were still made in America & England!

In the 1960s England really did swing like a pendulum done. By 1965 the center of the universe had swung from Liverpool to London. London was where it was at. London was 'Fab', it was 'gear' , it was 'groovy'. The whole metropolis was throbbing with creativity; photographers, models, musicians, designers and actors were emerging from every nook and cranny of the city. Youth culture took the lead, and Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton modeled the latest short dresses by Mary Quant and the innovative hairstyles of Vidal Sassoon. Boutiques and discotheques were the chic places to go.

The 60s also saw the most spectacular technical achievement of the 20th Century when America won the Space Race and man landed on the moon in July 1969 - but the greatest shock of the decade was the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. 

In the United States, the Sixties were also a period of great unrest, and dramatic change. The Vietnam War and the civil rights movement were both beginning to make major changes in our society, and young people were rebelling against the tremendous conformity of the Fifties.

The second half of the sixties were the years of change. No year in the decade saw greater change than 1967. It was the year of Peace and Love. It was a year perfectly summed up in San Francisco by Scott McKenzie. Dressed in a kaftan, beads and bells and wearing flowers in his hair, McKenzie may have looked a right pratt. Nevertheless, he and the rest of the Hippies believed that through rock music, drugs and "free love" (sex), they could change the world. They had the innocence of children. They called themselves Flower Children. Their slogan was "Make love not war" and they took their message to military establishments all over America and Britain until the authorities banned them because of increased violence as soldiers fought each other over whose turn it was to beat up and/or make love to a flower child.

Flower Power became the message, manifesting itself in everything from psychedelic fabrics to peaceful rebellion and experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs.

Just as 1967 was the year of peace and love, 1968 became the year of protest. In Chicago, hippies clashed with Mayor Daley's police force; In Tokyo, Red Brigades smashed police blockades; and in Paris students rioted on the boulevards. 1968 was a year of anger. The year when young people finally said "No" in songs that voiced their bitter frustrations at the establishment. No area of society was immune to the wave of revolution.

If you lived through the sixties you should certainly find something here which strikes a chord. For those of you born since then, take a look at how innocent the world seemed back then . . .