Takes you right back, doesn’t it? A Jubilee weekend! It ought to be a time to let it all hang out again, returning to the simple pleasures of our youth, to those hazy days of the Silver Jubilee when the Brotherhood of Man was on the cassette player, Bird’s Custard on your afters and a Swingball on the lawn.
But, alas, life is far more prescribed now; simple pleasures have knotted themselves into complicated marketing opportunities. We’re all a bit posher and more savvy about design. Back then, Apple and BlackBerry were the filling for a fruit crumble. Now, we have Botox foreheads and iPhone thumbs and waistlines that are three inches thicker, despite all the Zumba.
If it did all seem more innocent then, it wasn’t only because we were young with wonky front teeth, but because life really was quite simple. Three TV channels. Two Ronnies. One salad dressing. There were trousers with elasticated waists, a St Michael label poking out at the back. There was Stuck in the Mud, sprinkler dashes in just your pants, and paste sandwiches on the beach.
Those Seventies summers were, in memory at least, always hot. And there was never anything to do. Nothing. You made your own entertainment by slinging a sheet over the rotary washing line. The ground would be baking. Sometimes you thought that your jelly shoes might melt. Boys wore tank tops from C&A, even in the blinding heat.
Back then, a party was considered quite la-di-da if it had vol-au-vents. For the Silver Jubilee, crisps were ready-salted (they’d yet to meet a kettle). Now it’s all coriander, pesto, asparagus spears; it’s Middle Eastern flat bread and grilled vegetables, chilli jam and farmers’ market relish. We’d have been quite flummoxed by hoummos back then.
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Mums looked like mums, not MILFs. Only birds tweeted. Trestle tables wobbled because they were crap. Now, for a price, someone will beat a table with a stick until it looks crap.
And we’re hooked on those chichi shops selling distressed chairs, “vintage” storm lanterns and any amount of Jubilee tat that makes us go goo-eyed for some nostalgic version of a Britain that never quite was. You can buy this guff at the garden centre now: “old-fashioned” sherbet lemons, “homemade” preserves and legions of “Moroccan” tea glasses. A shop near me sells old string.
I bought some, of course. Looks lovely, there on the windowsill.