Growing up in the 70's

Its funny how you remember childhood in fragments isnt it?
I just remember arriving, playing in the play area on the big red bumpy slide, going to the beach and it raining just as we got there. And the band. I remember sitting on the bottom bunk one evening reading my Mandy comic. And throwing up in the car on the way home And just in the last couple of days (possibly prompted by these threads) i remember two redcoats asking my parents if they needed babysitters and my parents saying no.

Darkest I remember roller skating outside, I've got pictures of me and my brother in the play area. I was nine and a half so he would have been coming up eight.I remember doing a fancy dress contest, the gaiety theatre and the freezing outdoor pool. And the chairlift.yes we had bunk beds and oh how we fought over the top bunk! Don't remember the band but my parents where the entertainment one night when they were called up on stage.

Love this thread.

Did anyone get Fanny and Johnny Cradock? And The Galloping Gourmet?

Magpie, with lovely Susan Stranks and Tony Bastable, Playaway with Brian Cant and its excellent theme song, Hector's House and also Gordon Honeycombe reading the news (happily he's alive and well, I believe)

and remember the Thames TV opening titles? Always a bit naughty, watching that instead of BBC!

I found a nice clipping from Jackie Magazine which says "It's amazing what goes on behind the scenes at Top of the Pops!: Not arf Pop Pickers!

do others watch top of the pops 1979, on tonight on bbc4 at 7.30

The word ‘trendy’
Record tokens
Wimpy Bender-Burgers
Cinema usherettes
Vesta chinese meals – just add boiling water! I still fantasise about the crispy noodles.
Peg front trousers with a massive waist band (on men!) worn with big platforms.
Dancing, Showaddywaddy style with thumbs hooked into aforementioned massive waist band.
“Opal Fruits, Made To Make Your Mouth Water!” (Starbursts are NOT the same thing at all!)
That Condor moment…
Kaftans
Macrame
Cravats
Ashtrays all over the house
Pouring G&Ts for the grownups
Bridge

And

“They peel them with their metal knives, then they smash them all to bits…”

And finally And this piece of joy, not sure if anyone has posted it yet

Mimsy thanks for that memory about airport days out
We often took our children for an afternoon watching the planes at local airport . They had a viewing platform on the roof . We loved it and had a radio that tuned in to the call signs .
Then 9/11 happened . So sad .

having the hilarious thought of kids these days dreaming of going on national television and competing with other kids, who also have their hearts set on actually winning a pencil. I'll mention this to 14 yr dd and see what she makes of it.

lost Crackerjack wasn't at 5pm... 'It's Friday, its 5 to 5, its CRACKERJACK!!! I always wanted to go on and win a crackerjack pencil.

Sweets were a treat, not an everyday thing and they came weighed out of a big glass jar into a little paper bag. I could make a quarter last a few days. My granny sometimes bought me a half, which was a mega treat and I wasn't supposed to tell my mum.

lostintoys, we had family days out to watch the planes at the airport!

Top of the Pops records with scantily clad women on the front
Filthy trains and derelict stations
portable record players that closed up like a briefcase
Secretaries
Girls being advised to go to Secretarial College
Early closing for all shops on the same day
Green shield stamps
Saving stamps for the Blue Peter appeals
My mother poring over Spare Rib
Olive oil in little bottles from the chemist
Dungarees
Sun-In - was that 70s or early
Rag and bone man
Crackerjack - it’s Friday, it’s five o’clock, it’s Crackerjack!
Tizer (and 5p for each bottle returned)
My Dad at the Hard Rock Cafe asking for the music to be turned down. Oh, the mortification!
Snoopy in the Observer Magazine
Sasha Dolls - fab 70s clothes
The excitement of Brent Cross shopping centre opening. We had a family day out just to gawp at it.
School runs with 12 children crammed into my Mum’s Mini
It’s A Knockout
Soda Stream

This apparently came out in 1974. Comedian Dave Allens anthology of his favourite horror stories. A Little Night Reading.

Would be nice if publishers would issue a 40th anniversary reprint

vaultofevil.suddenlaunch3.com/index.cgi?board=ramsey&action=display&num=1187511482

Grange Hill remember the very first episode in 1978 (was 10)
Being off school for weeks on end due to fuel strikes
Winters being colder and summers being hotter
Penny and ha'penny trays in ye olde sweet shoppe
Little girls dresses being really short
Silver 2 1/2 pences
Crap corner shops
Strange random opening times for off-licences
Home made clothes
Only 2 families on our road owned a car
Playing all day long outside during school holidays
BBC strike so no bbc programmes at all during one summer

oh yes it was! Thanks. I kept getting "'Arry" but that was 'Enry telling 'Arry Carpenter to splash it all over!

Pan it was Henry Cooper who used to splash it all over!

Born in 1968. I remember parents, males and female wearing kaftans, lots of smoke, green swirly trouser suits, and lots of brown clothes often hand me downs from the neighbours. Sitting in the car ourside pubs with a bottle of coke and a straw. Spending all day in the holidays roaming the streets, on rollerskates. Taping the top 30. Kids stuffed in the back of an estate car. Vinyl car seats that stuck to your legs. Learning to ride a bike because one person in the street had one. I could go on...

I remember phoning a number and listening to the charts, and then getting told off when the phone bill came in. Also one Xmas most of the boys in my class got an evil Kenevil doll on a bike or a million dollar man doll with a bionic eye snd bionic arm. If you walked into a hall and the disco man was already playing D.I.S.C.O by Ottawa you knew it was going to be a bloody brilliant disco.

Pippa dolls and Action Girl. White Horses on the telly. People wearing dungarees and purple a lot. Brown and orange everything. Love beads. Family Circle magazine. A ghastly nylon wig on an inflatable head called a 'Kiddiwig'. The endless summer of 76. Tents were orange or royal blue, it was the law! Magpie. The Singing Ringing Tree being the scariest shit on the telly ever! Me and my sis walking 5 miles to the swimming bath and back again. Swimming in the river and getting munched by Horseflies.

OMG Row But i dont remember being in a club I was 8 and bro was 6 so we might have been too young if the youngest in that club were 9 yr olds Do you remember the band i described and the kids play area which had a MASSIVE red bumpy slide. And our chalet had a bunk bed. And a little black and white telly I remember watching the Incredible Hulk on it the day we got there while my parents unpacked.

Brilliant stuff! I remember ringing Jonny morris for a bedtime story, and the speaking clock.
Getting the bus to school on my own when I was five.
Summer of the ladybird an greenfly.
Winter of 78 when I was lowered out the kitchen window to dig the snow from the back door.
Being caned and school and knowing I deserved it.
Darkest, I did butlins skeggy in July 1981. Maybe we were in the 913 club together!

I've still got my black velvet jacket from 1978. It says size 14, but the waist is tiny. I can just about get it on, but its very tight all over, despite me being a current size 10.

What a fab thread, so many memories :)

I was madly in love with Donny Osmond circa '74 - anyone remember huge crowds of hysterical screaming girls at Heathrow when the Osmonds flew in? A couple of years later the object of my affections was Les McKeown of Bay City Rollers, then in '78 when Grease came out, it was John Travolta.

Fashion-wise I remember long leather trench coats, hacking jackets with corduroy patches on the elbows, 'nurses' shoes, sidepocket trousers (wide legged trousers with a massive waistband and buttoned pockets on each leg - the bigger the waistband, the cooler they were), also remember the boys at school wearing really wide shoes that were affectionately known as 'shit spreaders'.

Also remember going to Pizzaland (?) where you could get a pizza, side order of coleslaw and a mug of coffee for about £1, I used to go with my friend and we thought it was the height of sophistication.

Thanks scarlet Wow, fantastic, I know nearly everyone of the songs in the chart! I was 14 in 1978 and just getting into music.

Loved HiKarate!

Just to add to the thread, this was the top 100 pop songs in 1978. Interesting mix of classics and crap...

www.uk-charts.top-source.info/top-100-1978.shtml

As a result of this thread I looked in my vanity desk and found some Brut that a 70's friend bought for me as a b/day gift a few years ago....yes you can still get that too! Next time I go out I will follow Kevin Keegan's and that boxer who's name I forget's advice and "splash it all over."