After I had viewed the film "The Boat That Rocked" (Based on a true story of
Radio Caroline, a Pirate Radio Station operating just outside British
territorial waters).it brought home to me the atmosphere of living in the
1960's. I was 14 in 1966 and in Form 3 at Westall High School.
My grandparents had lived and soldiered through two world wars and The Great
Depression.
My Parents had to live with that legacy while living and soldiering through The
Great Depression and the 2nd World War and then Korea. The legacy and trauma was
pushed onto our generation and we had the executions of John F Kennedy and
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X then the Vietnam War. Where our brothers and
soon us, through conscription, would be sent and we just went because we were
told.
There was no such thing as Post Traumatic Shock Therapy.
People were on the front line one day and then the next week taking Grade 6 at
Primary School.
I have first hand experience of this. Our teachers' name was Mr Ward and the
other was Mr Wakefield and all through the year all they could talk about was
their experiences in the war. As for the younger generation they followed
instructions purely because of the look in the eye of their parent or teacher.
It was a look that cannot be reproduced on any movie or play. It was a look that
conveyed all of their lifes experience and when that look was given even the
toughest kids obeyed.
There was no such thing as A.D.D and the like. Only good kids and bad kids and
the bad kids got "the cuts".
The first seven decades of the 20th were extremely authoritarian and therefore
people blindly did as they were instructed by the Governments of the day and the
Military in order to lead simple normal lives. Lives which they cherished
because they saw what was going on in other countries.
So comes the Westall High School UFO incident. A bunch of school kids see a
flying saucer.
Again with the authoritarian atmosphere. To which every one was used to, and
respectful of.
A cover up should be and was a piece of cake and it was.
In fact I think it took about a week and a half and nobody was talking about it.
We were all studying so hard to pass our next exams and the staff made sure we
had no time to think of anything else.
If the same incident had happened today, 2009, the response would be much
different.
There would be mobile phone pictures all over the net and the powers that be,
which don't have the same respect these days would have a hell of a time
covering up the story. Let alone getting away with our evidence.
This is just another angle of looking at this story and it can be expanded to
infinity. By other peoples stories of what their lives were like in the law and
order of the sixties.
I hope that some readers respond to this and whether you agree or not it all
makes for good grist for the mill and will help those younger people understand
why events unfolded as they did.