WATERLOO SUNRISE: London from the Sixties to Thatcher

Why London? Why now? Swinging London was a journalistic phenomenon of the 1960s, headlined by designers like Mary Quant and stars of pop culture like Mick Jagger. London had been leading international fashion since 1963, when the iconic model Jean Shrimpton first appeared on the cover of Glamour magazine. Mary Quant and Barbara Hulanicki of Biba pioneered affordable women's fashion for London's army of female office workers, but it was the new visibility of men's fashion that came to define the era, with John Stephen setting up his business in Carnaby Street and becoming a centre for the "Mod" movement in men's style. In spite of the general availability of high fashion, there was a class divide in sixties chic, with up-market venues such as Annabel's Club catering to a rich elite in which British aristocracy mixed with highly paid stars such as Michael Caine or photographer David Bailey. Many Londoners, however, will say the decade that was celebrated in journalism passed them by, and each chapter in this fascinating book takes a look at a different aspect of London life during the era. The author's overall argument is that the sixties sand seventies made the rise of Thatcherite ideology inevitable, and that Thatcher herself was following the zeitgeist rather than imposing her own ideas on the culture. There was a darker side to all the pizzazz. At the beginning of the sixties the river Thames was polluted beyond anything our present water lobby could envisage, and the great smog of 1962 led to respiratory problems and deaths from bronchitis. By the end of the decade dockers' earnings were only a third of what they had been ten years before. The bottom fell out of the shipbuilding and docking industry, together with public transport, health and other public services. Inner city areas disproportionately suffered mass unemployment and resulting political disaffection. 588pp, notes, photos in black and white and colour.