Fortysomething achievements

It’s easy when the going gets tough and everyone seems to be blaming us for the horrible eighties – or for raising rude children – to forget that people in their forties have been responsible for many little-noticed social advances. The next time some smug baby boomer is talking their earlier generation up, let them know how it was yours and yours alone that:

· Encouraged the boom in Kumon tutors, so that no one, including your children, need ever know that you don’t understand quadratic equations, the basic laws of physics, or anything about history apart from Henry VIII’s wives.
· Made sure that rock festivals provided decent toilets instead of plague pits, so that even your teenage heavy metaller was grateful.
· Brought back Duran Duran from the dead.
· Talked up British seaside resorts as ideal for family holidays (even if it was basically because you couldn’t afford to go anywhere else).
· Made camping fashionable – er, ditto.
· Made the editor of Mojo appreciate that there was room for yet another feature on Eric Clapton or Neil Young’s health problems.
· Created a market for hen lit – why shouldn’t people know what happens beyond the post-partum divide.
· Became Yummy Mummies – why should all those corporate time management skills be wasted when you could be raising your child like a Goldman Sachs fast tracker?
· Saved Bagpuss from oblivion.