The 50s & 60s : the best of times

The 1950s - Liberty bodices, suspender belts, little blue waxed paper twists of salt in packets of crisps, black Bakelite phones, and Ford Populars, Sooty puppets and Meccano sets.

The 1960s - Ready Steady Go, Radio Luxembourg, 'going to work on an egg', Lambrettas, mini cars and skirts, Biba and The Beatles.

If these allusions evoke a wave of nostalgia, then you are undoubtedly a 'baby-boomer', a child of 1950s Britain who grew up in the best of times and lived, loved and laughed your way through adolescence to adulthood in the changing times of the 1960s.

Alison Pressley has collected personal reminiscences from all over the country and from widely different backgrounds.

The funny, poignant, sometimes sad vignettes will take you back to the 1950s childhood innocence and the fab days of the 1960s that we thought would never end.