Ignorance is Bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.

Seventy odd years ago the world was a simpler place because there was so much we didn’t know.   We were past the point where doctors actually recommended cigarettes to calm the nerves, but nobody turned a hair to someone smoking whilst pregnant.   As for foetal alcohol syndrome we’d never heard of it.   Everyone I knew drank while they were pregnant.   I had an ashtray beside my bed in hospital when my son was born.   We lived in blissful ignorance and didn’t feel the need to share everything.   Cancer was virtually never spoken about, until someone died, and medical conditions were usually kept private.   At most we might have been told that an aunt had ‘women’s problems’, or a uncle had ‘plumbing problems’.    It would have been thought an invasion of privacy and undignified to discuss these problems in detail.   I had an Italian boyfriend and I had to explain to him that ‘How Do You Do’ was a greeting and not a question and the proper response was to say  ‘How do You Do’ back and not to embark on a long description of some (imagined) problem with his liver.  He had an excuse of course because he was foreign!   The stiff upper lip is (or perhaps was) a British characteristic   We don’t need to know everything about everyone. Someone’s sexuality should be their own business (and that of anyone they want to have sex with) but not casual acquaintances and, in the case of public figures, it shouldn’t be a topic for newspaper headlines.  As for ads on television.   In those far off innocent days when there was no commercial television newspaper advertisements were discretion itself.   I can remember sending off for a free sample of charcoal biscuits as advertised on the back of a book of stamps – they were supposed to help with digestion – but we only wanted them because they were free.   We didn’t realise that they were designed to help with flatulence – although as I recall we didn’t need much help with that!   There was something called trapped wind, but that would have been a blessing in a small classroom!  Today commercials talk openly of erectile disfunction and incontinence pants on television.   I can’t imagine how horrified and embarrassed I would have been if one of those had come on when I was sitting with my parents.  

As for sex education, it was extremely rudimentary – we learnt about reproduction in rabbits and when it came to people we just picked that up as we went along trying to sift the facts from fiction, which led to some weird theories but most of us worked it out in the end.

Our parents had just been through a war where family and friends had been killed or badly injured so they weren’t very sympathetic if we fell out of a tree!   We lived a much freer (and probably much more dangerous) life although the only injuries I remember, apart from the usual cuts and grazes – we seemed to have permanent scabs on our knees – was when my brother broke his arm falling off a wall and I came off my bike and shot through the wheels of the of the mobile grocer’s van but was amazingly unhurt apart from having gravel embedded in my stomach that took weeks to work it’s way out!   I don’t think Health and Safety existed – ponds didn’t have signs saying ‘Danger Deep Water’ and likewise it wasn’t deemed necessary to have a sign by a sink saying ‘Danger – Hot Water’ or indeed a warning on a packet of peanuts informing the consumer that the package ‘may contain nuts’.   In those days the government made the assumption that most people had a vestige of common sense and didn’t need to be nannied every step of the way.

My generation was pretty stoic – we weren’t encouraged to make a fuss.   If we fell over and hurt ourselves we wouldn’t be given a sweet (they were in any case rationed at that time) unless we were being particularly brave.   We didn’t get points for crying.   My father brought me up and he had some very strange ideas.   We were never allowed to complain about our feet – not that I remember having anything wrong with my feet – but he felt that only the very poor or the very careless would have ill-fitting shoes that would cause problems.   Being car sick was forbidden too – for some reason it was considered ‘common’.   I can’t imagine children today even know what that means.  

We either didn’t know, or didn’t care, about what went on behind closed doors.   We talked about having a gay old time but never equated that with the male couple who lived in the village.   Homosexuality was illegal so people were discreet and whatever happened in their home was none of anyone else’s business.   A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be is probably not a saying that anyone grows up with today.   There must have been domestic violence, probably quite a lot of it, but it wasn’t discussed much, if at all.   The terrible thing is that even today most abuse within the home is kept hidden so the knowledge that it happens hasn’t made it go away.

As for being a consumer – we have far too much choice today.   When I was young you just bought shampoo now you have to decide what hair type you are and then search through hundreds of different types – is my hair dry and fine, oily and coarse, dry and coarse, fine and oily – I don’t know, it’s hair!   As for creams and unguents for the face – that is a minefield.   I do occasionally buy some expensive cream that is thrust at me by a salesperson who assures me that I will look years younger – I have finally realised that this requires me to use it regularly, frequently in combination with several other expensive creams, and that just having them on my dressing table doesn’t work.   It is all so complicated – it could take up several hours a day – and in the case of famous film stars I’m sure it does, but then it is their livelihood.   My mother used something called Vanishing Cream – whatever happened to that?   I think the clue is in the name!