'Do not go Gentle into that Good Night' -posted by Guest Author @JennyTwist1

Last week I wrote a piece about the Flower Power generation, suggesting that we had sold out. Now I would like to apologise to all those who protested vehemently that THEY didn’t sell out. They still believe in fellowship and justice.

I didn’t actually intend to imply that the entire generation sold out. Of course I don’t believe that. I myself never sold out, for a start. Nor do I blame those who did sell out. They were up against an irresistible force.

This is what I think happened.

It is my belief that big business put an end to love and peace.

The Victorians built things to last. I had a coal-fired range in my kitchen in Manchester that was well over a hundred years old and still worked perfectly. I cooked on it exclusively for two weeks until they came to fit the gas, and thereafter I used it as a warming oven.

But twentieth century manufacturers realised this wouldn't keep the wheels of industry turning so introduced planned obsolescence. When this still wasn't producing enough sales they engendered an entire culture aimed at making us want things we didn't need and also making it necessary for both partners in a family to work in order to buy these things.

I think this did more to destroy the old way of life than any other factor, including Women's Lib. 

We now live in a world which is gobbling up the world's resources at an alarming rate, filling the seas with plastic waste and engendering global warming on a scale that is fast becoming irreversible. 

Until the advent of Trump I thought that this was the major problem facing the human race. Now I think our most immediate problem is Trump. Specifically Trump. What he is doing to oppose action on climate change, including withdrawing from the Paris agreement on climate change, is worrying enough but he is also goading other governments into starting a war. I think he's just itching to get his finger on the button and see what happens.

During the campaign last year he said he wouldn't be averse to using nuclear weapons in Europe because 'Europe is a big place'.

So it may be we won't have to worry about the environment after all. Trump may have the final solution.  

I stand with all the brave protestors who are right now besieging America’s airports and I believe that these protest movements that are going on all over the world and particularly in America stand a very good chance of success because they scare the American government. The country is like a tinderbox ready to go off with one spark. Do they risk civil war or do they dump Trump?

So we have to keep speaking out. Thank you to all you people who responded to my previous post. Please keep fighting and tell all your friends.

Do not go gentle into that good night ~ Dylan Thomas 1914 - 1953

About Jenny Twist

Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.

She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history, at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.

She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.

In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, knitting and attempting to do fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.

She has written three novels - Domingo’s Angel – a love story set in Franco’s Spain and harking back to the Spanish Civil War and beyond - and All in the Mind – a contemporary novel about an old woman who mysteriously begins to get younger and The Owl Goddess.

She has contributed short stories to many other anthologies, of which two –Doppelganger and Uncle Vernon have been released as short ebooks.

Other works include the Mantequero series: novellas about a Spanish mythological figure, and An Open Letter to Stephen King & Other Essays, a compilation of non-fiction essays and articles.  Her latest novella, The Minstrel Boy, was published in the anthology Letters from Europe in 2016.

Whatever Happened to the Flower People? By Guest Author @JennyTwist1

We were the generation that was going to change the world. We made love not war (I can hear my

father saying, “One wonders whether they are capable of either.”). We Banned the Bomb.

We lived in communes and went on peace marches and sang protest songs. We joined the CND. We camped out on Greenham Common.

What happened to us? Did we all become merchant bankers, business tycoons or, Heaven forbid, politicians? Do we smile indulgently at our younger selves who were so naïve we hadn’t realised that the important thing was making money?

We sold out. We sold out and now we have got what we deserve. The two greatest world powers are ruled by a madman and a psychopath, and the fascists are marching again all over the western world.

People I know, nice people, say that we can’t take any more refugees because Britain is full and we have enough on our plate with our own homeless. And so we turn away the desperate and the destitute who are dying trying to escape the bombs and their own harsh regimes.

The Earth, our only home, is slowly choking to death.

And we shake our heads and say that perhaps it won’t be so bad. Maybe Trump won’t turn America into one huge unreality show. Maybe Brexit won’t destroy the British economy and our cherished National Health Service. Maybe it doesn’t matter that Theresa May has scrapped the Human Rights Act and ordered more nuclear weapons. Maybe climate change is a hoax.

We should be marching in the streets again. We should be camping outside the White House and the Kremlin and the Houses of Parliament. We should be writing to our MPs and our senators and demanding another election, another referendum.

We should not just be sitting here afraid to speak out.

What happened to the flower people?

About Jenny Twist

Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.

She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history, at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.

She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.

In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, knitting and attempting to do fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.

She has written three novels - Domingo’s Angel – a love story set in Franco’s Spain and harking back to the Spanish Civil War and beyond - and All in the Mind – a contemporary novel about an old woman who mysteriously begins to get younger and The Owl Goddess.

She has contributed short stories to many other anthologies, of which two – Doppelganger and Uncle Vernon have been released as short ebooks.

Other works include the Mantequero series: novellas about a Spanish mythological figure, and An Open Letter to Stephen King & Other Essays, a compilation of non-fiction essays and articles.

Her latest novella, The Minstrel Boy, was published in the anthology Letters from Europe in 2016.

  

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