{"id":29951,"date":"2025-11-22T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=29951"},"modified":"2025-11-22T13:23:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T12:23:49","slug":"what-the-best-year-to-have-been-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=29951","title":{"rendered":"What the best year to have been born?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The &#8220;Guardian&#8221; newspaper this week published this letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I agree with Julian Richer: the circumstances into which we are born affect how we get on in life (It\u2019s time to bust the meritocracy myth \u2013 I\u2019ll be first to say I\u2019m lucky, 18 November). I had a relatively ordinary background and worked in the public sector, but the security I had allowed me to have a good life. As he says, these things are not available to so many children. Considering the wealth in this country, that is a disgrace.<br>In 2009, the Guardian published an article about 1948 being the best year to have been born. This was based on every aspect of life you can think of: free education, NHS, availability of work, final-salary pensions and opportunities to buy houses at sensible prices. I was born in 1948. What a total privilege.<br>Mary Mullarkey<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I was actually born in 1948. I&#8217;ve offered sone notes on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/sixties.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/sixties.html\">&#8220;Why it&#8217;s fun to be in one&#8217;s sixties or seventies in Britain&#8221;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;Guardian&#8221; newspaper this week published this letter: I agree with Julian Richer: the circumstances into which we are born affect how we get on in life (It\u2019s time to bust the meritocracy myth \u2013 I\u2019ll be first to say I\u2019m lucky, 18 November). I had a relatively ordinary background and worked in the public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29954,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29951\/revisions\/29954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}