A FASCINATING COLLECTION OF TESTIMONIES FROM A UNIQUE GENERATION OF WOMEN

The ‘Swinging Sixties’ are commonly depicted as hedonistic days. A point in history remembered for the generation of young people who shed the trappings of their parents and grandparents and, fuelled by sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, set out to put the world to rights. A time when individuality was heralded and convention widely challenged. A time without precedent.

But what was it really like and what is this generation up to now? Is sixty really the new forty? Despite pursuing careers, raising families, many becoming grandparents, some caring for ageing parents or enduring all manner of medical problems, is it true that these new hipsters, some literally with new hips, have an undiminished appetite for life?

Sixty Somethings looks back over the lives of 67 women in their sixties who lived through the Sixties to explore these questions. What did they expect from their lives, and were they so different from those of their parents and grandparents and, indeed, even their children? Had their youthful ideals and expectations been matched by reality?

How too do these so-called ‘Baby Boomers’ react to the negative press they commonly attract? Living through a period of rapid social change they are now also often heralded as ‘lucky’, ‘privileged’ or even greedy and unscrupulous in holding on to wealth and jobs and disadvantaging younger generations. Is this really fair?