Toby Forward

If you were to fold the twentieth century in half and open it out again, you would see that I was born on the crease, 23rd February 1950, the day the second Attlee government was elected, led by the greatest Prime Minister of the twentieth century. Before that, the century was marked by two world wars, a general strike, Gracie Fields, the depression, bad haircuts, rationing, and the terrible winter of 1947. After that, it was peace, prosperity, Sandie Shaw, the welfare state, the white heat of the technological revolution, the flourishing of the grammar schools, the end of apartheid, the new universities, and rights for women and gay people. Modesty prevents me from saying that this new age was entirely because of my arrival in the world, but it looks like more than just a coincidence, don't you think?