Growing up in the 70's

Booths at the co-op where you could listen to a disc from the top 20 before buying it.

Littlewood catalogues with all the toys in the back at Christmas, Neapolitan ice cream, boil in the bag cod, Fablon sticky backed plastic, making Christmas tags with old cards and pinking shears, Woolworths and Timothy Whites, Ladybird clothes, amber smokey glass lampshades were all the rage, Brentford Nylons. Cinema and theatre cost 50p, long summer days and the total freedom and independence that went with it!

Chanel No5

Avon and Tuppaware parties.

Yep Piling into the school hall once a week to watch Wordy in Look and Read and Picture Box.

You changed TV channels by pushing in one of the buttons. Sometimes the vertical hold went and you had to adjust it.

Comparing then to now:
Ds is 12. He has a tablet, an iPod touch, an Xbox, a mobile phone. He is computer literate, techy savvy. He has visited countries overseas and eats a varied diet. He has friends of various co!ours and creeds. People being gay is normal.
He is aware of clothing brands and image. He is unfit and interacts via technology..

At 12 I had none of the above. I had never been out of the UK. I had never heard of herbs, olive oil, rocket, chorizo etc
My friends were white,catholic. I wore hand me downs.
I also travelled by bus on my own,I walked to school and back for miles,I spent the holidays roaming the countryside and seashore without having to phone home. I could be away from home for hours on end and no-one worried. I was fit and healthy.I looked after my younger siblings.
Sweets were a treat.

I wonder which of us has the best of it?

I remember so wanting a chopper bike and not being allowed one.

The Onedin Line on Sunday night, Crossroads each evening and The Magic Roundabout and the Klangers on tv.

I had stacks of freedom to play in our cul de sac and remember my best friend's parents had a brown capri car. Lots of very fancy net curtains and huge orange/brown/white circles on curtains.

Oooh yes - I remember the oil lamps. My mum used to light ours whenever we had a power cut.

And chat of oil laps reminds me of the old parrafin heaters we also had. My nan always had one in her outside loo in the winter. I used to love the smell of the parrafin heater.

Silver jubilee
Sale of the century
Curly whirlys
Long skirts and dresses my mum used to make for me.
Purple and orange nylon sheets and blankets on the bed
Sindy dolls
Sesame Street
Cherryade and playing bingo at the Working Men's club on my grandmas estate.
Watching my Dad get really excited playing Led Zepellin, my Mum liked Simon and Garfunkel.
Big sun hats (we lived in Cyprus)
People letting their dogs roam the streets all day - never see that anymore but everyone did it when I was a child.
Cars that broke down ALL the time and were boiling in summer and freezing in winter.

You could still get the sticky roller ball lip gloss in the 80s Came in flavours like mint or cherry (beauty product formulas have improved 1000% since then)

I loved Margot Especially when she sent her xmas tree back cos it was a centimetre too short.

Yes to parks being death traps. Eeny bits of gravel stuck inside the palm of your hand, going septic. Ugh.

Oh yes!

Fur coats
French Knickers
M&S nighties that looked like evening dresses
The Gossard Wonder bra (was it Gossard?)
M&S Cookery Books
Frozen Mousse
Black Forest Gateaux
The Good Life
Basil Fawlty
This is Your Life
Big glasses
Elton John
Liebfraumilch
Babycham
Bacardi and coke
Spag bol in tins with the mince at one end and the pasta at the other - eugh.
Benny Hill
Pan's People
Tony Blackburn
The Football Pools
Women's Lib
The Sex Discrimination Act
The first woman on the stock exchange floor
micromesh tights
pop socks
National shoes
Fur trimmed nylon slippers
nylon ruffled dressing gowns from M&S
Everyone having the same concentric hexagonal wallpaper and streaky patterned bathroom tiles
Chelsea Girl

One last one - a video recorder with a 'remote control' which was a long cable trailing across the floor with the controls on the end of it

Our local play park was a death trap. The slide was very very very high and there was no padded stuff or even grass - just rock hard concrete or tarmac. And even the tarmac bubbled up in the 1976 heatwave.

The climbing frame (again over concrete) looked like it had been constructed using scaffolding poles.

Dial a disc (you rang 16 if I remember rightly)

Covering the cork on your wedges with clear nail varnish to stop it crumbling

Trevira skirts

Simon shirts

Falmer jeans with three stitched seams on the back pockets

Silver wire chokers with your initial on them

Mood rings

Roll on lip gloss in fruit flavours

Pick and Mix at Woolies

Brown nylon quilted bedspread with frills (oh the shame)

Yy to continental quilts and oil lamps on after school.

I remember when we first got an automatic washing machine. We all sat on the floor and watched it go round for one full load

Junior Choice on Saturday mornings

Wearing long dresses and second hand ballet shoes to go to parties

All the boys in my class having parka anoraks with orange lined hoods and fur round the edge.

Babies were carted everywhere in carry cots - my sister used to go in hers in the boot of our estate car

Being smacked on the backside by my teacher for playing in the sandbox when she hadn't said I could ... followed by being kissed on the backside when she realised she had in fact said I could!!

Imagine the uproar if that happened to a child these days.

Crown Court on TV every weekday lunchtime. I loved that in the holidays. Hardly any TV on otherwise during the day except for the schools broadcasts. At primary school we used to go into the school hall once a week or so and sit in front of a big TV set in a metal frame that raised it up very high so everybody could see. For music and movement there was a wireless, ie radio, programme.

Pogo stick

ooooo I remember that rollerball lipgloss. Sooooo sophisticated!

Clackers - they bloody hurt when you didn't get it right and they landed on your wrist!

I also remember having a pair of special children's dress up shoes that were just a high heeled piece of plastic with a piece of eleastic over the top, lethal.

Some weird lip gloss stuff that was ultra sticky, fruit flavoured and came in a glass tube with a roller ball on the end, it was like glue.

Kaftans, flares, tank-tops, blouses with huge puffy sleeves.

Yes I remember Weekend chocolates.

Watching The Good Life - I so wanted to be Margot.

Long hot summers, cold winters, the three day week, strikes, etc., but an immense amount of freedom, I loved the 70's

Gin yep We had the Pru visitor too.

My mum made me wear knee high socks which kept falling down so she made me wear bloody elastic bands round my knees.