Oh Dear, I've just realised, I'm 21 again! Oh Dearie Dearie me!

1952. Second World War still very real in people's experience, families still mourning lost loved ones. Bananas amongst things still rationed.

I'm a baby boomer, but William George Taylor is uncle-less as Marine George Selkirk had perished at sea off Anzio on HMS Spartan in 1944.

The ship with 530 men on board was hit by a Henschel Hs 293 radio controlled glide bomb. Aren't we lucky, in a world still riddled with murderous conflict, to have experienced relative peace!

1973. I'm 21. I'd been rushed into St James' Leeds as a baby. Our NHS only a baby itself.

Thank you NHS! We moved in 1955 to our "slum clearance" Parker Morris council house in Birmingham. Attended my 1909 built primary school then the local Comp. developed from the Newsom Report co authored by our head, Mr JE Smith.

I was one of the 8% of the then 18 year olds who got to University. The City of Birmingham Council paid my tuition fees & I qualified for the full subsistence grant of £365 a year (weekly student residence rent about £3 a week then). Thank you City of Birmingham Education Committee!

1994. Aged 42. Been working in the Youth & Community Service (not many youth workers around these days) for over 20 years. Married, children 13 & 9. Wife teaches at the local Comp, kids attend local schools. We've moved to our second home. I've been a Councillor for 14 years, chaired the Recreation Committee, been Mayor & Deputy Mayor, Chair of the Finance Committee & Deputy Council Leader. John Major was Prime Minister following the Thatcher years.

And now? Retired. Conferred as a Knight Bachelor. "Kids" flown the nest, working days behind us, reasonably comfortable on our pension, wonder how post working life will look for our kids & their successors? We were lucky, university tuition fees "only" £1,000 when ours went to university as 45% of their peers had done. Now it's up to £9,000 a year, then student loan burden.

NHS under much stress, more older folks living longer, some classes taught by unqualified "teachers", libraries & community centres closing or reliant on volunteers. Owning a house disappearing as a prospect for many young adults! Much of the world riddled by war, terrorism, civil conflict.

MMmmnn...wonder if I'll be around in 2036? And what will the world, my world & yours, be like then?