(To York Councillors 27th March 2025)

A teenage wedding and planning policy

(Try listening to Chuck Berry‘s A Teenage Wedding before continuing.)

An embarrassing admission. I found myself actually sobbing listening to Chuck Berry’s You never can tell on Youtube. After playing several different versions – and crying at them all – I switched to Dire Straights, Queen, and even Bob Dylan and the crying stopped. It’s taken me a day or two to unpick this embarrassing reaction.

A teenage wedding

Chuck Berry’s song, written in 1964, full of optimism, started “It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well” but now weddings for the young are much rarer. 

The Office of National Ststistics shows there were hardly any teenage weddings in 2022 compared to 1960. In the 1960s the most weddings were in the age range 20-24. Now, the most weddings are in the age range 30-34.

Housing the youngsters

Chuck Berry sings…

They furnished off an apartment with a two room Roebuck sale.

These teenagers in 1964 could afford somewhere cheap to live and buy a little furniture. Since then, the cost of setting up home has vastly increased. In real terms houses are now six times more expensive than in the 1960s.

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