Ben Lowry: Happy 80th baby boomers! You had the good fortune to be born at a very good time in history

(To read Ben Lowry’s main column, click here: ‘Jim Ratcliffe was clumsy but largely right in his comments about benefits and immigration - and he should not be apologising about his core points, let alone facing sanction’)​

A baby boomer is someone born between 1946 and 1964. I am the generation after that (so-called Generation X, people born after baby boomers, and up until 1980).

But strictly speaking a baby boomer refers to the boom in births after the two world wars, and is someone conceived after Victory in Europe Day on May 8 1945 – which means having been born nine months later, from February 8. Eighty years ago last Sunday.

I know so many people who were born in that latter part of the 1940s and who have richly fulfilled lives, some of whom are still active in work or business in their late 70s or, now, at the age of 80. It is wonderful to see. I think the early baby boomers were born at perhaps the best time in history: they missed the horror of the wars but experienced some of the austerity in the aftermath of World War Two, and so they appreciated the prosperity that came later (more than those of us who never knew any different).

They benefited from modern medicine, low house prices, great pensions, mass transport and many of them now savour the digital age.

In fact, I think there is a half century in history when it was a fine time to be born, from 1927 (too young to fight in the war) to 1977. Then things got trickier. But I do not feel sorry for the young. They are living in a thrilling age of hyper technology and other wonders.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor