The accepted line about Bryan Ferry is that his is one of the greatest reinventions in English pop culture: Peter York said, in 1976, that his life was ‘the best possible example of the ultimate art-directed existence’. But watching him at the Albert Hall, I couldn’t help thinking of my father. That’s not to diminish the show — which was a lush and all-enveloping pleasure, like getting into bed in a very good hotel — but I couldn’t help wondering if there was actually something very specific about Ferry that tends to get ignored: his generation.
He’s 74 now, though from a distance you might put him in his mid-fifties, especially in his beautifully cut suit. And he is a product of postwar Britain, specifically of the Butler Education Act of 1944, which opened up grammar school and university to the likes of him (and my father). That alone enabled the son of a farm labourer from County Durham to transform himself, and it’s often struck me how the working-class children of the postwar years felt no shame about their upward mobility — my dad never did — while today you can’t move for the prosperous and well-educated claiming to be horny-handed children of toil.
Lewis Capaldi is exactly what Ferry never wanted to be: Another Bloke
Ferry didn’t stop at getting a job in management and a Rover 2000, like my dad.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in