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The Sixties at The Corner Café

A lava lamp (or astro lamp) is a decorative lamp, invented in 1963 by British entrepreneur Edward Craven Walker, the founder of the British lighting company, Mathmos. The lamp consists of globules of special coloured wax suspended in clear or translucent liquid inside a glass vessel. The glass vessel is then placed on a box containing an incandescent light bulb whose heat causes temporary reductions in the density of the wax and surface tension of the liquid. The warmed wax rises through the surrounding liquid, cools, loses its buoyancy, and falls back to the bottom of the vessel in a cycle that is suggestive of lava, hence the name.


The 1960s, or more often called the Sixties, was a time of great change in popular culture and the political situation around the world. Rather than strictly meaning 1960-1969, this cultural decade more closely followed the time from the Kennedy assassination in 1963 to the Watergate scandal in 1974.

Here are some pictures that depict the 1960’s and Im sure many of you will remember them !

Cars of that era looked like cars, and you could tell what a car was by just looking at it, not like now, most of them all look the same.

Television in the sixties was a lot different to what we have today. Smaller screens, they had tubes in and only 2 channels. You had to get up to change the channel or to turn the volume up and down as well. Perish the thought say some !!


This was my time for growing up and they say if you can remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there. It was a magical time. Everything was new: new fashions, new music, and a new way of life. Women had more freedom and boy, did we enjoy it.

There will never be another era like it for fun or music, and the music of then is still as popular today.

Again who remembers these? I do and this is what we had when I was 14. You had to actually dial the number by rotating the numbers, and the one we had had letters on it as well which depicted the area you lived in. We lived in Sydenham so our phone number was SYD. The operator was free to dial as was TIM the speaking clock and directory enquiries. Not a mobile phone in sight!!

And now for the music, what can I say, the start of it all really and so many good groups and songs. The music of that era lives on.

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