From the summer of love to the winter of our discontent.

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1947

The title of my article could have read. “From the year the world went cold” This was the year the cold war became colder. It was also the year I was born, 1947. Had I been born a decade earlier or a decade later, I believe than destiny would have had other plans for me. We are all products of our environment, the history of the times sweeps us along.

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Many events took place that year and looking back many of those same events played a large part in the development of my interests even though at the time I was still just a bundle of joy, (I hope) yet looking back I can see what those influences were.

Thor Heyerdahl set off on his Kon-Tiki expedition. In Roswell something happened (the Roswell incident) that even today has not been properly explained. In the USA the CIA came into being bringing with it new problems for a new millennium. Another ground-breaking event was the founding of the state of Israel. Looking back today, did the world realise what this would mean to today’s generation and the effect it would have in the coming years? It was also the year, believe it or not, that the first mobile phone came into being.

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South Africa still used pounds, shillings and pence, King George the sixth was our monarch and Jan Smuts was our Prime Minister. Apartheid was not an official ideology but existed never-the-less in the minds of the people and had existed for a long time.

One Pound

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Jan Smuts

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When I started writing this post I meant it to be a potted history of my 70 years, spanning the post-war baby boom to the world today with all the problems we face as a nation and a species, hence the “winter of our discontent”. The summer of love was the counter culture of the sixties and all the hopes and later the disappointments that would come with it.

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As soon as I started writing I realised that this potted history would run into many pages and I would never be able to cover the time period in any meaningful way in a short Steemit post. I will have to split this writing challenge up into meaningful pieces.

Hits of 1947

So much has happened, when I started looking at the period under discussion I realised that it has been one of the most dramatic times in history and with the exception of the two great wars we are living in life-changing times. I will do the best I can to explain how the changes to society here in South Africa and also the immense world changes impacted me. I am sure that my experiences will strike a chord with many out there in Steemland and you will be able to identify with my story.

To be continued...........