Friday 12th May

The concert was just a part of it. There was such a feeling in the air that all of this, money, power and property would come tumbling down in the very near future.  After all, the edifice was so rotten, so creaky and tottering that only the slightest of nudges would surely bring the whole thing down like a tower of playing cards.  And Labour had been elected in 1964 and already things were changing, there was a feeling that this time it would be different.  There was a mood of optimism, that everything would get better from now on, and the Music was reflecting that.  Not just the Pop stuff, the stuff that got in the charts, but all the Music was evolving and changing so fast that it was sometimes hard to follow.

Just take the Beatles, the cheerful early Beat tunes like ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want to hold your Hand’ were subtly changing into ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘Help’, and then suddenly there were songs like ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Paperback Writer’ only to be eclipsed by the weirdness and brilliance of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and all of that Sergeant Pepper Stuff.   It just got better and better, and we had this overwhelming feeling that it would continue forever.

So mixed in with the Music, was Politics and Optimism and Social Justice too. This is what we mean by ‘The Sixties’, it was a feeling that anything was possible, because nothing could stop us.  It was there in the fashions, the style of things, the politics and the Music.  It was as if we had all just woken up to a bright new world that was unshackled from the failures of the past; that was forward looking and would never end.  Or so thought Jane.

*  * *

“Oh Jane, when will you ever learn?  Spouting all of that revolution stuff, when you must know deep down that we are the privileged few, we will be the first heads to roll if they can ever get off their fat arses and actually do something rather than just sing songs about it.  And listen to the Beatles for Christ’s sake. “Money can’t buy me love” one day and “Taxman” the next.  It’s all a game Jane; you just have to learn the rules, and how to break them without getting caught. When are you going to learn to stand on your own two feet or will I always have to be here to look after you?” Reasoned Harriet.

*  * *

Well, that was Harriet, with her cynical take on everything; just like the Beatles in a way – she was sarcastic John to Jane’s idealistic Paul.  But that was just her way of course, she had to be different, to take the contrary view.  Not that Jane would have ever admitted it out loud; she had always believed and would assert to anyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not, that her sister was always right.

But her dear dear Harriet, who Jane had always trusted to do the right thing, who she always believed to be right in everything she did, turned out to be wrong in the end, and in the biggest way imaginable.