We were the generation that was going to change the world.
We made love not war (I can hear myfather 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.
Facebook Author Page
Amazon Author Page
amazon.com/author/jennytwist
Twitter: @JennyTwist1
