The 60s: The Beatles Decade

S01E05

The Party's Over 1969-1970

As the decade came to an end a more chaotic world was to come. But what had changed dramatically during the 1960s was the education system and the introduction of the 11+. (Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney went to Liverpool Grammar schools). Paul and John's wives, Linda and Yoko, had one thing in common - they were strong, independent women, but with very different personalities. They typified the changing relationship between men and women which was beginning to emerge in the late sixties. The Beatles split up and Harold Wilson had been gone, the sixties had well and truly ended. By the end of the decade, Britain had genuinely changed. Youth culture had been born. Political protest had taken to the streets; and blind, class deference had gone forever. The Beatles had personified this social revolution - and their split coincided with the return of conservatism. But in the historical ebb-and-flow of the decades that followed much of this change would be permanent.