What was life like in the 80s?

I grew up on a new council estate in the south east. Most people worked and gradually people started buying their houses, then doing them up. There was a lot of social one-uping as the diy exploaded and it became very obvious who were still council tenants. Having said that aspirations were only really driven by consumerism, my mum divorcing my dad and getting a degree on the Open University was considered a bit weird by our neighbours.
There was a lot of playing out on the street until it was getting dark, which was always as good as the kids you were playing with, if you had friends who were neighbours great, but if you lived near the local junior psychopath not so much. A lot of the time you’d go “knocking” for friends, or kids would knock on your door and ask if you wanted to come out to play. We’d cycle or roller skate down back alleys avoiding white dog poo and neon pink hubba bubba welded to the tarmac. Or sneak off into local woods and fields. There were less cars and vague warnings not to accept sweets from strangers in cars. Government information films regularly terrified us to keeping relatively safe. But cold rainy days could be very boring, watching tv or drawing or playing with toys alone, my mum was very hands on but I don’t remember her actually playing with me.
The music was great, very varied. The alternative music scene was also brilliant, my uncles used to be constantly out at gigs or playing in bands themselves. Top of the Pops was talked about at school on a Friday, on Sunday I used to tape my favourite songs off the chart show and end up with half jingles stuck on the end of the songs. But at the time all our parents said music was much better in the 60’s/70’s.
Fashions were bright, lots of neon and denim. White jackets with the sleeves rolled up. Electric blue eyeshadow. Not everyone followed fashion but it was becoming more accessible.
There was a lot of anxiety about nuclear war and aids. The political landscape was dominated by the Tories and it gave us a lot to rebel against, a bit like now except in the 80’s we were riled against the stuffy old guard rather than the blatant nutters of today. People were still openly racist but society started to move ahead of them. The same with homophobia, I think music and the media made people start to see things in a different light.
I think there was a lot of change in the 80’s, 1989 was a very different world from 1980. I sometimes feel nostalgic but I know I love too many things about the modern world to ever really want to go back.
Now, let me tell how much more fun the 90’s were....

I was born in 1980, I went to a play school in a hall but our school did have a nursery with nursery teachers. All the local schools did (I still live in the area). My DB went to one.

left school in 86 , the 80s were a fab time halcyon days in the summer riding bikes everywhere in a pair of old knackered dunlop trainers

Duran Duran , Bronski Beat and Toyah were all some of my faves

Tv limited but we knew no different , loved Kenny Everett

Money was tight but M n D would save and let us go on school ski trip

Lots of village hall discos mid 80s

The more I read, the most I remember!

Anyone remember Cremola foam? I got told off on a school trip once for taking a tin of it with me! I hate to think what that did to your insides - makes aspartame look like a health food.

The Alpine lorry - fluorescent fizzy stuff that you'd take the bottles back to every Wednesday when they came round.

Soda stream - tasted shit but we drank it anyway.

I don't remember anyone actually drinking water. 😁

Department store cafes with those sunlamp things to keep the big dishes of crap food warm. Woolworths was the benchmark.

McVities Guest bakeries that served as a pre Starbucks option for our generation.

Mid decade, cappuccinos became a thing and the nation completely lost its mind.

Raymond Briggs - The Snowman and Fungus the Bogeyman.

That's not true about reception classes at least in my school and other local schools to me @Elmau, I started school.in 1978 and started in reception I was four nearly five when I started school , my sister started in 1976 and was also four ,I think what did happen though was depending on when your birthday was you could start after Xmas or after Easter ( in my school anyway) I don't know when schools having nursery classes became the norm though? I went to a play school a few mornings a week ,I don't think there were nursery teachers though ,and they were normally in church hall type places .

I was born in 84 so my memories are hazy...
Going to Granny and Grandad's house every Sunday, walking the dogs then tea and cake at their house as nothing was open.
We didn't have much new stuff--wore awful hand me downs, went to the library every week, rented videos. I still buy a lot of second hand now!
Shell suits 😂
We never had meals out and had cheap camping holidays but enjoyed them.
Weird memory--awful scratchy toilet paper like tracing paper in public toilets!
My dad had a handlebar moustache and wore short shorts 🙄😁

Oh and LA Gear trainers, we used to buy them from a local man with a large garage full of “goods”

I had an Atari with a console made of WOOD my friend had a Commodore 64 and we’d have to put a tape on to load, go out and come back 3 hours later to play!

Film age ratings didn’t matter to anyone either, we used to watch everything.

Oh and Sundays were crap because everything was shut. We always went to my grans who would make terrible cakes which we had to eat.

I don't remember there being obesity issues back then

Didn't think of this, but neither do I. As kids and teenagers we spent a lot of time outside. My friends and I all lived a couple of miles apart so there was lot of walking to and from theirs.

My parents were fairly well off in the eighties, we lived in London and my mother was the child of immigrant parents. Food wasn't vastly different to what we eat now. We ate fairly cosmopolitan foods for the time. Although, we always had a proper Sunday roast.

Tv was so limited. Four channels...weekends were awful as you'd have the choice of a black and white film, horse racing, snooker, etc. Because of this we watched quite adult stuff...I was obsessed with the soaps even as a young primary aged child. My own dc now have never seen Eastenders or Corrie, there's no need as there are children's channels.

As a treat, we'd go to the video shop.

Our parents could leave us in the car whilst they shopped and no one called social services!

A lot of teachers were horrible...one vile teacher pulled my hair hard when telling me off. I told my parents but no one gave a shit really. Imagine if that happened now?!

We had a video man who used to come round with loads of the latest releases in the boot of his car to rent. Like a mobile blockbusters.

I rented Labyrinth every single time!

I had a joe bloggs jumper, cycling shorts with fluorescent stripes, a side pony tail, my dad used to come home from work with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, you would eat in at Pizza Hut, we would ride our bikes everywhere, along the river to the marshes, we had a CB radio, a large bag of chips was 40p, watching You Bet! on a Saturday night, then AIDS and the recession happened and it all got a bit dark.

continually I was often out from dawn to dusk and I did have great fun at times but the truth is that life was better outside the house as my mother had never wanted children. My brother and I are all too aware of that.

Oh, forgot. The joy of discovering Marks and Spencer's sandwiches. An average bought sandwich was 2 slices of white Wondabread, smeared with marge, slice of square jam or cheese, maybe a slice of tomato or cucumber. Those were the good ones. Without sell by dates I think.

I was 13 in 1980.

I look back at the 80s with fondness, I had a bloody brilliant time. Of course, I know that wasn't the same for everyone, but for us it was a good time.

School was fine - no issues, had good friends, some of whom are still my good (and oldest) friends. Home life was happy and stable for my sister and I. Mum worked part time and was home by 4 when we got home from school. I have a picture in my mind of opening the front door and mum would be in the kitchen making toast for us. First thing I would do is phone my friends that I'd just left at school about half an hour earlier. Mum would tell me off for not waiting until after 6pm because it was cheaper then. Dad was made redundant a couple of times and walked straight into another job both times.

Later, I got my first job which was in an office where you could barely see anyone through the fag smoke. Everyone went to the pub at 3pm on Friday and didn't go back to work. The bosses never said a thing. It was a good fun place to work, too sexist (there were absolutely no female civil engineers at that time at my place) but for every arsehole you came across with wandering hands and a filthy mouth, you had another 5 telling them to piss off. It could be tricky but I learned to handle myself in these situations and I look back now and hate that I even had to. It was as seen as 'just the way it is'. Thank god we have a different view now.

I had huge hair, huge shoulder pads and make up that you could see from space. Music was fantastic and my friends and I went to lots of gigs.

Moved to London in the late ish 80s and was paid a ridiculous amount of money for a very average job. Bought my first flat when I was 20 as did most of my friends.

The 80s were a happy time for me. The 90s? Not so much.

No floral - my experiences tally with yours.

To a large extent it’s pot luck isn’t it - I see every summer on mn people complaining their kids aren’t out from dawn to dusk as THEY were - but the truth behind that is actually a lot darker.

If you weren’t personally impacted though, you might not know.

Reading this thread I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the 1980s wasn't the problem, it was my parents.

My favourite outfit was bright green leggings with stirrups paired with a batwing jumper. The leggings were eventually transformed into a Kermit costume. 🤣 I really wanted deely boppers but wasn't allowed them. A lot of my friends collected " Love Is" stickers or scratch and sniff stickers. I was in the stamp collectors' club!

Oh yes the sales
I remember people would que for days out side shops between Christmas and new year waiting for the January sales

Terrible hair. Diary of an Edwardian Lady decor everywhere. Laura Ashley. Knickers blinds and curtains. Frills, flounces and probably furbelows, whatever they are. Thatcher. Riots. Miners Strike. Double glazing salesmen.

I spent a lot of the 80s writing letters to friends, relatives and even the BBC asking them when they were going to be showing certain films! (I was very into 1940s films but couldn't find the ones I wanted to rent so spent a lot of time asking for them to be shown ). I always got a letter back. Also wrote to my friend a lot when I went on holiday- and even when I was at home. She only lived 5 miles away but her family had a party line so could never get through on the phone and if I did calls had to be kept short or their neighbour complained.

I can honestly say I started school in the early 1980s, left at the start of the 90s, and learned nothing in that time.

We did maths from textbooks. I vaguely remember that purple was the top and hardest textbook and we just worked our way through them, asking the teacher for help if needed but because we were all on different pages and books, there was no teaching of concepts or how to do things. My mathematical knowledge is still awful because of this.

We did no literacy to speak of other than being read a story sometimes or being told to write our own. Art was literally ‘paint a picture.’ PE was dire and we had to get changed in front of boys even in year 6. Teachers were sarcastic, showed blatant favouritism and could be downright unpleasant.

Playing out was dangerous. Two of my classmates were run over, thankfully not fatally. Child abductions and murders were obviously rare but they did happen. Drowning, railway fatalities, electricity pylons, accidents on farms ... videos showed us what happened to silly children. Never any mention that maybe kids of seven shouldn’t be playing out alone.

Sexual abuse was rife.

Racism was rife.

Smacked backside and/or legs was damn good parenting.

The 80s were my teenage years and uni years and, on the whole, I'm glad they were then and not nowadays.

During my school years I don't remember the pressure that todays youngsters face. There was no mention of minimum grades, the school hitting targets etc.

The only drugs I came across during my school 6th form years was the occasional person smoking a spliff at a party (one of them being our music teacher but that's a whole other story!!) and even at uni it was still only cannabis.

Foreign travel wasn't as common as it is now. My 18yo daughter will have been abroad 3 times this year alone yet at her age I'd only been abroad twice in my life !

The food was crap back then and I'd much rather have the variety and healthier options we have today. The only curry I had as a teen was the nasty Vesta ones from a pack, everything seemed to be for convenience or terribly unhealthy.

It wasn't easy to grab something when you were out and about like it is today when every high street has numerous food outlets. Back then our little town had a bakery that sold takeaway sandwiches but the options were only cheese, ham or egg. Forget your paninis, quinoa salads or sushi!

On passing your driving test nobody had their own car, it was a case of borrowing your parents car (and in fact most families only had one car). No need for a Sixth form car park back then like they have nowadays!

I seem to remember that M&S didn't accept debit cards until the 90s? Or was it credit cards? I remember having to pay by cheque or cash.

The January sales didn't start until January (and shops were shut on 1 Jan as it was a bank holiday). They lasted the whole of the month.

M&S food was branded St Michael and they only sold their own brand.

No coins needed for supermarket trolleys.

Sunday lunch was a roast meal.

Angel Delight was a popular pudding for children - it came in a packet and you whisked it up with milk. Strawberry, chocolate and butterscotch flavours.

No one I knew had tattoos.

We believed the tabloid stories about Princess Diana being unhappy in her marriage were made up to sell papers ;)

My dad had a computer for business, and the printer used big sheets of thin paper with holes at the edges and green stripes on the back.

Showers were rubbish - it was so hard to get the temperature consistent and water pressure was poor.

Couple of random shopping facts, Marks and Spencer didn't used to have changing rooms, so 'taking things back to Markies' was a standard pastime. John Lewis was closed on Mondays and didn't accept credit cards.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten that. And there were very few size 8s, 6s didn't exist, but I was 5'5" and weighed 8 and a half stone and never had a single problem buying clothes as I was mostly a size 10.