You can never re-create the past. The past is gone and will never return. What you can do is provide tokens from the past to help with memories and to bring a touch of that past to the present.
And that's pretty much what happened with the inaugural Sixties Day at Cromer today.
They were dubbed the Swinging Sixties. Now I was a child of the Sixties despite being born in the early years of the 1950s. So I should have many memories from the sixties, but they seem to have been blotted out somewhere.
They say if you remember the sixties you probably weren't there. So using that logic I can't remember them so I must have been there.
As the 1960s were ushered in on January 1st I would have been eight years old and a pupil at Kinsale Avenue Junior School in Hellesdon, near Norwich. At the end of the decade on December 31st, 1969 I would have been 17 and in the sixth form at the Norwich School. I remember personal things like getting my eleven plus results but specific events surrounding hippiedom, rock festivals, the summer of love all seemed to pass me by. My only real memory is of England winning the World Cup in 1966.
So I probably dressed in a very unfashionable way, spoke in an unfashionable way and the whole sixties as an event passed me by.
So her we were, firmly planted in 2016 trying to re-create the feelings, the sights and the sounds of almost 60 years ago. So did it work? Well for a start the sixties were confined pretty much to Cromer Pier and the immediate promenade. Everything else was still firmly rooted in 2016.
Some people dressed for the part, some of the music outside the pier was dire (not the music but the way it was delivered). I listened as one duo destroyed Joni Mitchell's classic song "Woodstock" and then moved on to murder Paul Simon's "The Boxer." I think they then went on to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Earlier we had been subjected to the worst rendition of Arthur Brown's "Fire" I have ever heard. Ironically later in North Lodge Park we listened to a rock choir, followed by the Walker Brothers (that's the Norfolk Walker Brothers who are genuine brothers compared with the real Walker Brothers who actually weren't brothers if you follow me) and they were half decent. Certasinly those two should have been playing close to the pier.
There were Lambrettas and scooters and the best part was the pint for £1 on the pier. It was all quite jolly and I certainly look forward to next year when they might stretch the whole thing across a weekend. I was living and working at Cromer in the early 1970s and couldn't help thinking as I walked away from the event "They never had this kind of thing when I was working here." Then I realised that the reason for that was simple. Nobody celebrated the sixties when they were only two years in the past.
And that's pretty much what happened with the inaugural Sixties Day at Cromer today.
They were dubbed the Swinging Sixties. Now I was a child of the Sixties despite being born in the early years of the 1950s. So I should have many memories from the sixties, but they seem to have been blotted out somewhere.
They say if you remember the sixties you probably weren't there. So using that logic I can't remember them so I must have been there.
As the 1960s were ushered in on January 1st I would have been eight years old and a pupil at Kinsale Avenue Junior School in Hellesdon, near Norwich. At the end of the decade on December 31st, 1969 I would have been 17 and in the sixth form at the Norwich School. I remember personal things like getting my eleven plus results but specific events surrounding hippiedom, rock festivals, the summer of love all seemed to pass me by. My only real memory is of England winning the World Cup in 1966.
So I probably dressed in a very unfashionable way, spoke in an unfashionable way and the whole sixties as an event passed me by.
So her we were, firmly planted in 2016 trying to re-create the feelings, the sights and the sounds of almost 60 years ago. So did it work? Well for a start the sixties were confined pretty much to Cromer Pier and the immediate promenade. Everything else was still firmly rooted in 2016.
Some people dressed for the part, some of the music outside the pier was dire (not the music but the way it was delivered). I listened as one duo destroyed Joni Mitchell's classic song "Woodstock" and then moved on to murder Paul Simon's "The Boxer." I think they then went on to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Earlier we had been subjected to the worst rendition of Arthur Brown's "Fire" I have ever heard. Ironically later in North Lodge Park we listened to a rock choir, followed by the Walker Brothers (that's the Norfolk Walker Brothers who are genuine brothers compared with the real Walker Brothers who actually weren't brothers if you follow me) and they were half decent. Certasinly those two should have been playing close to the pier.
There were Lambrettas and scooters and the best part was the pint for £1 on the pier. It was all quite jolly and I certainly look forward to next year when they might stretch the whole thing across a weekend. I was living and working at Cromer in the early 1970s and couldn't help thinking as I walked away from the event "They never had this kind of thing when I was working here." Then I realised that the reason for that was simple. Nobody celebrated the sixties when they were only two years in the past.