Born on 1 January 1969

Back in 1969, the air felt like it was humming with a sort of frantic, hopeful energy that you just don’t get these days. If you stepped into a pub like this back then, you’d be squinting through a thick blue haze of Embassy No. 6 smoke, probably clutching a pint of Watneys Red Barrel or a Double Diamond, which we actually thought was posh at the time.

I remember the high summer was a real scorcher; we spent it glued to those bulky teak-veneered tellys, watching Neil Armstrong take those grainy steps on the moon while Mum served up slices of Vesta Beef Risotto—the height of sophistication, or so we told ourselves. On the wireless, you couldn’t escape the Beatles singing ‘Get Back’ or The Archies with ‘Sugar, Sugar,’ and every Saturday night was a ritual of settling down for *Monty Python’s Flying Circus* or *Dixon of Dock Green*. In the cinema, everyone was whistling the tune to *The Italian Job*, dreaming of owning a Mini Cooper.

The kids were obsessed with Corgi cars or bouncing until they were sick on those orange Space Hoppers, and I still remember the thrill of the first Concorde flight roaring overhead. It felt like everything was changing, right down to the jingling of the new decimal coins starting to appear in our pockets, marking the end of the old world.