IT IS impossible to understand the significance of 1968 without knowing about the decades before. I was born in 1945 just as Labour came to power and gave my generation the best life in British history, with the welfare state, NHS, housebuilding and full employment. But although this was a big progressive shift in our economy, our culture remained deeply conservative. 

I had no interest in politics as a kid, spending time collecting newts and studying astronomy. When I left school I tried to get a job at London Zoo but they had no vacancies, so I became a technician at the Royal Marsden’s cancer research unit. 

My parents had always been working-class Tories but now I was surrounded by a dozen other technicians, all of whom were working-class Labour. I started work in 1962 just as a new generation of pop music burst into being. That generation from the 1940s changed our culture, not just in music and fashion but also with brilliant new actors.