The myth of the ‘lucky’ boomer generation

The healthiest types of yogurt and the ones to avoid | The insider’s guide to the Edinburgh Festival

 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏

Unsubscribe

Open in browser

Saturday, 2 August 2025 Welcome to From The Editor – the very best from our newsroom delivered to your inbox daily. Much has been written about the lucky “wealth-hoarding” generation, born between 1946 and 1964, that benefited from a house price gold rush. But the headline figures often gloss over the tough times that left many baby boomers behind. Mattie Brignal, our Senior Money Reporter, spoke to those people who faced double-digit interest rates, bursting property bubbles and negative equity. The truth is far more nuanced. P.S. You can enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Today’s headlines Trump moves nuclear submarines towards Russia Son Heung-min to leave Spurs Peter Phillips is engaged to NHS nurse Pensioner charged after children ‘poisoned’ at summer camp Car finance scandal: could you still get compensation? US ‘greatly concerned’ about free speech in Britain We believe in freedom Free press. Free speech. Free markets. If you share these values, join us today. Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   ‘We never had it easy’: the myth of the ‘lucky in property’ boomer generation Mattie Brignal Senior Money Reporter   It’s hard to deny that baby boomers got lucky with the housing market. A house in Britain today costs 25 times what it did 50 years ago. Buying shares in Microsoft in 1993 and selling at the height of the dotcom bubble would have netted similar returns. We’ve all heard the much-spun yarn that people of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 are now sitting pretty, enjoying their comfortable retirements in their mortgage-free homes through sheer luck and no hard graft of their own. But the headline figures belie the tough times along the way, and the brutal reality is that many missed out on the house price gold rush. A record number of boomers live in rented accommodation, and those lucky enough to have clung on to the housing ladder have been battered by double-digit interest rates, bursting property bubbles and negative equity. I wanted to speak to the boomers who have been left behind. Jane Anderson, 72, couldn’t afford her mortgage after being hit with 17pc interest rates in 1979 Credit: Stuart Nicol Rob Trewhella bought a home in Cornwall at the height of the 1980s property boom. But within two years interest rates had spiked, house prices had tanked, and he could no longer afford his mortgage. He was forced to sell at a loss, and has been renting ever since. Jane Anderson and her husband Sandy still live in the same property in Ayr that they bought for £15,900 some 48 years ago. It may be worth around £250,000 today – but that’s not the full story. They almost lost the house in the late 1970s when their mortgage payments doubled. Jane considered pawning her engagement ring to make ends meet. “It was horrendous,” she says. “I defy anyone to say we had it easy.” This isn’t to say that younger people have nothing to be envious about. The intergenerational wealth divide is growing wider and properties becoming less affordable. But in a debate that treats all boomers as rich, Jane’s and Rob’s are the voices that get squeezed out. Read the full analysis ➤   Opinion and analysis   Camilla Tominey Daily T presenter and Telegraph columnist Keir Starmer has become a domestic disaster and an international embarrassment Continue reading ➤     Charles Moore Former Telegraph Editor The British terms for recognition of Palestine are not addressed to Hamas or Israel Continue reading ➤     Annabel Denham Acting Comment Editor & columnist There is one way Nigel Farage can be defeated Continue reading ➤   Sharpen your talking points Explore incisive opinion from Britain’s leading comment writers Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   Must reads Sir Chris Hoy interview: ‘Aren’t I lucky? I’ve got the time to really appreciate life’ The healthiest types of yogurt, and the ones to avoid Ireland’s ‘Viagra village’ braces for Trump’s tariffs Why white working class rage is surging in Britain The insider’s guide to Edinburgh Festival – and the top shows to book     The best of the Telegraph   Fiona Phillips’s husband on her life with Alzheimer’s: ‘Bit by bit, she’s not there’ When former GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2022, at the age of 61, she didn’t fit the stereotype. Dementia sufferers were meant to walk with zimmer frames – not, as her husband Martin puts it, be “wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled boots”. The couple’s brave new book, Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer’s, lays bare the unvarnished truth of what it is really like to live with this pernicious disease, which affects one in three people in the UK. In this heartbreaking interview, first published in July, Martin describes how he is “living with grief on a daily basis” for the woman he has lost. “It’s like someone has passed because bit by bit, she’s not there. One bit will come back and then another bit will go. It’s really tough.” Nothing you can ever Google about dementia will prepare you for this highly emotional discussion about love and marriage – in sickness and in health. Continue reading ➤   Discuss Every day, our journalists discuss the day’s biggest issues with subscribers on our app and on our website. Today, Tony Diver, Associate Political Editor, responds to a comment under his article about Labour’s plot to silence migrant hotel critics. Robert Cawsey This sort of thing was going on during lockdowns when they were censoring dissent. All those people are still there in the bureaucracy and the uniparty, Labour, wanted even harder lockdowns and censorship, it’s baked into the system, statist thinking, not so much a party thing more broad regime thinking.   Tony Diver Hi Robert. The team monitoring social media posts now is actually exactly the same as the one that was looking at lockdown posts during the pandemic. I was on the team that broke the original story about the Counter Disinformation Unit. It’s been moved to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and rebranded, but its purpose and work is the same. I think it’s interesting that they have now banned the team from flagging posts by journalists and politicians – after the backlash that followed our original story.   Get full access Unlock Britain’s best news app and our award-winning website Enjoy three months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. Subscribe now   Listen Click below to enjoy one of our agenda-setting podcasts   Newsletters Read and sign up to our newsletters Telegraph Money • Wednesday Want to be richer? Make your money work harder with our experts + Sign up   Ukraine: The Latest • Friday Critical insights from the hosts of the world’s most listened-to podcast on the war + Sign up   Business Briefing • Daily Step inside the C-suite with the City’s best-connected journalists + Sign up   Three months’ free access Subscribe now

We have sent you this email because you have either asked us to or because we think it will interest you. Unsubscribe from this newsletter. Update your preferences. For any other questions, please visit our help page here. Any offers included in this email come with their own Terms and Conditions, which you can see by clicking on the offer link. We may withdraw offers without notice. Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited or its group companies - 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. Registered in England under No 14551860.