Bastards

In the 50s the term bastard was generally applied accurately rather than as broad brush swear word. A bastard was someone born of parents who were not married; any such child tried hard to hide the fact from the rest of the world as a bastard was someone to be picked on in school. Of course, it was never the child’s fault and it was only the conventions of the time which made bastards less than fully acceptable. Nowadays, few people would take any notice of the marital state of someone’s parents at the time of their child’s birth – in fact, I believe that around half of all births nowadays are technically illegitimate.