POLITICS, TELLY, FASHION & POP

The swinging '60s were a magic period for Britain. With prosperity rising after a long postwar period of austerity, teenagers suddenly became important and it seemed life could be enjoyed as a big party. Twenty years after the Blitz, London became the center of the fashion scene, television was seized with innovative fever, pop music was born and news groups with weird names seemed to be sprouting almost overnight. Not a single-young person in Britain was left untouched by Beatlemania. The worldwide craze started in Liverpool in 1962 and spread like wildfire, reaching London, America and the rest of the western world the following year. Meanwhile, with the cold war still very much on the international agenda, politicians at home had been busy reorganizing the country. The Welfare State was no longer à distant dream and seemed to be here for good. But the Conservatives who had consistently been voted in since 1951 were rocked by scandal and seemed to be gradually losing touch. Harold Wilson's Labour returned to government in 1964 after 13 years in opposition, only to face economic difficulties. This book aims to give the student of the period quick references to who was who, what was what and who did what and when in those unique few years after which British society and the world would never be the same again.