Survey highlights lifelong regrets of the over-60s

ONE in three over-60s regrets letting a perfect partner slip through their fingers and a whopping 66% of those questioned in a new survey says the swinging ’60s passed them by.

Forget Twiggy, John Lennon, flower power and Carnaby Street, it would appear young people in the ’60s had more in common with Mary Whitehouse than Mary Quant.

In a survey about regret released yesterday by MORE TH@N Life Insurance, it seemed the most rebellious things people did were grow their hair long (63%) and read Lady Chatterley’s Lover (78%).

The research also shows it was the north-west, the Beatles’s back yard and home of Merseybeat, which was the true capital of sixties’ popular culture.

Despite London’s world famous Carnaby Street boutiques and psychedelic music clubs, just over a quarter of Londoners admitted living their lives by ’60s’ ideals compared with 60% of scousers and mancunians. Among the other biggest regrets cited by the over-60s, romance featured heavily. One-third of British women (30%), and about two-thirds of men (58%) regretted not dating more people before settling down, while three in 10 (31%) regretted letting their one perfect partner slip through their fingers. Worryingly, nearly a quarter of all men (23%) and a third of all women (30%) regretted marrying the wrong person.

Two-thirds of all respondents regretted not travelling more. However, it seems many over-65s’ memories were blurred by the heady atmosphere as 8% said they attended the 1966 World Cup Final at Wembley — placing the official attendance figure at 925,920. Pete Markey from MORE TH@N said: “It seems in the ’60s most people were too busy with their jobs and raising families to have been involved in all the action we associate with this era... now they wish they hadn’t let all the excitement pass them by.”