The Fifties, small towns, MAD, Beatles and all that

The Beatles were seen as a greater threat to youth than nuclear war. PHOTO/FILE

I have been enjoying a book by Bill Bryson called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid in which he tells of his life as a child of the 1950s in Des Moines, US, capturing the giddy era of the post-war boom in America.

I am of a similar age to Bill Bryson (and share his sense of humour) so have been interested in comparing his experience to that of a kid growing up in rural small town New Zealand.

The Fifties had the Cold War nuclear stand-off between Russia and the United States. There was a term bandied about then that summed up the crazy escalation that threatened nuclear war - mutually assured destruction, or MAD for short. Never was there a more appropriate name for a military strategy.

As a child in New Zealand, I knew about this threat in a vague kind of way but it never really felt like it was something to do with us. It was about far-off places and distant dangers.

It wasn't until I went and spent time in Germany in my twenties that I realised the reality for Europe, with the west and east pointing weapons at each other. If you lived in Germany at that time, should a nuclear exchange commence, you would have had only 11 minutes before the first missiles arrived.

In NZ, I think rock 'n roll was considered more of a danger to the moral and social development of the nation's children than the risk of a nuclear attack. I can still recall hearing the early Beatles singles and adults tut-tutting about the lyrics - "Yeah, yeah, yeah", what is that supposed to mean?

Then there were The Rolling Stones - a southern English version of the blues and daring rebellion for adults to worry about. My first guitar lessons at age 12 have remained etched in my memory. I still know all the words to I Fought the Law and the Law Won, but never quite mastered White Rabbit, the Peter Posa instrumental. Where I grew up was very small - a little school, a general store, a small but beautiful church, local hall and dairy factory. Going to the city seemed like a major venture. It was a place where, as one of my songs says, "everybody knows your father and everybody knows your name".

The Bill Bryson book did remind me that as a child of the Fifties we did spend a lot of time outside, getting dirty, making rather deadly bows and arrows and days spend building tree huts. My father would question us on the location of various tools - saws, hammers - which we would then retrieve, rusted and blunt from around the farm. The surprising thing, when thinking back, is that we never seemed to come to any great harm.

At a certain age, you were allowed a pocket knife, a prized possession that would be sure to get lost somewhere only to turn up again, also rusted and blunt, at the bottom of the shed when the last hay bales were removed.

I did go through a short but productive bomb-making period. This sounds dangerous but I was careful and exploded them from a distance by shooting them with a rifle. I gave this up when I discovered the actual risk involved in mixing the stuff together.

I also refrained from telling my own children this story until they were all in their 20s and they thought it was an insane thing to do and had no desire to emulate the experiment. I think this is called being a good role model.

Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and social worker living and working in Sydney. Feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz or www.telsarten.com