Let me introduce Bob the Boomer.
Bob the Boomer isn't rich, doesn't have wealth stashed away, worked hard - is still working hard - for not much money and he deserves your respect
Comedian Geoff Norcott tells us about working class nicknames - Fireplace Jack, Dead Steve, names with as Norcott puts it, back stories. This got me thinking about the Bobs, a bunch of men I knew in and around where I live. Irish Bob who was, oddly enough, Irish. English Bob who was an English teacher (a job he arrived at via the army, building sites and assorted small businesses). Bob the Builder was, of course, a landscape gardener and Bicycle Bob wasn’t to be confused with Biker Bob despite both using two-wheeled vehicles. There may have been other Bobs (there was definitely a Robert but he’s a churchwarden so above these chummy hypocorisms) but I want to talk about an entirely imaginary Bob - Bob the Boomer.
It has become popular to treat the ‘baby boomer’ generation - people born between 1945 and 1965 - with a degree of scorn and even distaste. A few years ago the ‘OK Boomer’ meme was confined to the murkier parts of the on-line world and largely associated with antisemitic attacks on conservatives who support Israel. Then, as happens with these things, the retort became a commonplace put down directed by younger people to older people - even (as with the most famous example of NZ MP Chloe Swarbrick) where the comment is directed to someone born after 1965. This retort, sometimes witty but usually just straight up rude and ageist, is associated with a wider tendency - the blaming of all our economic and social failings on ‘boomers’. Housing crisis - boomers. Inflation - boomers. Creaking healthcare - boomers. Racism - boomers. Not being nice to trans people - lesbian boomers.
The theory goes like this: at some unspecified point in recent history boomers took control of everything in society and shaped it in their specific interests. Critics rightly point to wealthy homeowners playing the NIMBY card by insisting that new homes are built somewhere else (or ideally not at all). And to the huge fiscal disaster that is the UK’s triple lock on old age pensions. But it is a huge stretch to assume that there is some sort of boomer conspiracy to keep all the good stuff. Especially since describing boomers as universally wealthy, home-owning folk is a gross distortion of reality. So let’s introduce Bob the Boomer using the lives of those other Bobs, all of who are from that generation.
Bob the Boomer lives in a rented cottage with his girlfriend - partner I suppose we’d call her these days. Although he retired a few years ago, he still does odd building and gardening jobs to get a little extra cash to supplement his old age pension. Just the state pension, no fancy superannuation and no lump sum from selling a house.
Bob the Boomer is divorced and lives in a small council flat. He used to work the doors and a host of other security jobs none of which paid that well but all of which he enjoyed. Bob’s also on just the state pension but has a small lump of money from the sale of his terraced house in Keighley - probably no more than thirty or fourty grand but every penny is welcome.
Bob the Boomer is still working. Building stone walls, digging out field drains, helping another Bob out with the haylage. Bob knows he’ll carry on working for a long time yet - well past the official retirement age because he’s never owned a house and the old age pension isn’t enough to live on. Bob loves his motorbike and hopes he can keep riding for a few more years but his partner nags him to stop.
Bob the Boomer retired from teaching. Got a small pension (he arrived late into teaching) and a little military pension too so feels well off. Not so flush as to afford a brand new 4x4 but his old Landy is just fine. Bob’s health isn’t good - two heart attacks and COPD mean he’s short of breath - and he’s still giving his ex-wife money for her rent, a deal made when they split up. A lifetime Labour voter, Bob owns a modest semi-detached cottage.
Bob the Boomer creaks up the hill from his farm on the old black bike. A tenant farmer, Bob is in his early 70s and still doing 12 hours work, seven days a week. Fattening sheep and a bit of hay isn’t really the basis for a living so Bob relies on working tax credits and a small bit of farming subsidy. Bob’s only holiday in recent years was two nights in Morecambe for his grandson’s wedding.
I could tell a hundred more tales of these dreadful boomers with their selfish attitudes and huge housing wealth. I could speak about the lovely Jeanie who recently passed on surrounded by a host of kids, grandkids and great-grandkids - leaving a legacy of love but no money. Or the lovely Indian couple in a Cottingley council house filled with tales of Mauritius and how cold it was in Yorkshire when they arrived all those years ago.
The boomer generation are not peculiarly selfish or insensitive. And like every generation their lives are filled with story, overflowing with family and blessed by a life - almost the first ever generation with this experience - lived in peace. This generation - my generation - are grateful for the sacrifices made by our parents’ generation and because of this get accused of obsessing about the second world war. This generation - my generation - were brought up in a time of social and economic upheaval. The previous generation worked in what we thought were stable industries - steel, coal, textiles, cars, machinery but my generation - not just in Britain but across the developed world - watched as those industrial certainties ended, ripping the heart out of communities and causing untold economic harm to millions. Pointing and shouting ‘greedy’ at a generation who once worked as miners or in the now empty factories and mills is to forget recent history and the pain of industrial decline.
When I read comments by high income, single young people accusing boomers of stealing their future, I have some sympathy. The lack of affordable homes and public finances crippled by the economic and health needs of the old cries out for a new approach but you do not get people to understand the need for change by calling them names or by blaming them - especially when millions of boomers are not wealthy, not hogging expensive housing and not asking for anything more than the wherewithal to live out their remaining years in peace and comfort.
Bob the Boomer isn’t going to run you out of town if you make the argument for more new homes, for reforming public finances and for having a future where young people can have some of the opportunities that some of the boomer generation enjoyed. But Bob the Boomer is going to answer you back if you blame him for all those problems - most of the Bobs aren’t rich, don’t have wealth stashed away, and have lived a pretty tough life. In discussing what policies we should put in place to set a good future for the children and grand-children of those Bobs, we should start by recognising their actual circumstances rather than indulging in ageist name-calling.