I have only just read this thread and would like to back Maggy's assertions in each of her posts. A lot has been made in the media through the years about the promiscuous swinging 60s but as someone who was a teenager in the early 60's I can confirm that a lot of the reports were exaggerated and aimed at grabbing headlines.
I spent a lot of time on the "Manchester Scene" I went to all the "In" places and mixed with the so called "In" people doing the same things as those who hit the headlines. I even have the odd newspaper clippings documenting my youthful escapades similar to those that are brought out to try to prove that the youngsters then were as lacking in morals as subsequent generations have been and I can happily state it's all cobblers.
The majority of my generation did still show respect to authority and the threat of pregnancy was still a very real deterrent against promiscuity. Yes, there were unmarried mothers but they didn't get pregnant by choice to get a council flat, most of the disrespect we showed was in the same vein as children testing the bounds of authority and on the whole that was how the authorities dealt with us. We were a generation of student protesters, CND supporters and in my case a Flower Child
I'm not someone who harps back to the good old days of my youth but I do wish some of the innocence and naivety of that era was still visible in the young people that have drawn Miss Lumley's to make the comments that she has done.
The world has always changed, each subsequent generation finding fault with the generations that followed. We can not go back. The Genie is out of the bottle and we have to learn to cope with people as they are now.