What was life like in the 80s?

I was a child in the 80s (went to high school in 1990). I remember primary school being so much more fun than it seems now. We did loads of art and in the summer would play rounders all afternoon. Projects took weeks and if we were doing a concert in the church we would practice for months ahead.

My mum was part of a baby sitting circle where you earned points sitting for other people's children so you could 'pay' points to get a sitter for yours. My parents and their friends would hold dinner parties and play mahjong.

We only watched TV when there was something particular on that was worth watching. Sundays there used to be a lot of sport on; cricket, golf, snooker.

I remember talk about the recession and people being out of work but we lived rurally so it felt like it was happening in another world.

Roller boots
Bright coloured clothes, makeup and neon socks
Pink frosted lipstick and blue eyeliner and mascara
Big earrings
Lady Di hairstyles with big flicks and lots of hairspray.
Shoulder pads
Dallas and Dynasty glamour on TV
Eastenders started on TV
Only 4 channels on Telly.
Recording the top 40 music charts on a Sunday to play on your walkman the rest of the week.
Going to the park with your mates all day
If you were really lucky, you might get to go on a package holiday to a sunny country
Going to a resteraunt was a very rare treat
Fruit and veg and lots of other household stuff was bought on a Saturday at the town market
Bigger supermarkets and frozen food at Bejams had just started to be a thing.
You could spend a whole Saturday morning in Athena choosing the perfect poster for your bedroom wall.
I remember it as a great time to grow up in, but I think that my parents must have gone to great lengths to shield me. There were significant worries from nuclear war to the Falklands to miner strikes to inflation.

I don't remember it being quite as shiny as depicted in Stranger Things - maybe in America, but British shopping centres weren't like Starcourt mall.

The sweets were amazing though. Much better than today. And if you bought a bag of crisps, you paid 10p and they were full up to the top of the bag, not half a bag of air like now!
No one worried about health so it was guilt free fundus crispy pancakes and other shit from beejams in our house.
Sunday's were mostly okay for me because I lived in London so there was still stuff to do. There was still that miserable feeling at tea time though when songs of praise came on and you remembered that you hadn't done your homework and it was school tomorrow.
I remember owning bright batwing jumpers and thinking I was going to grow up and be a stockbroker and wear suits with massive shoulder pads. I longed for a dynasty style wardrobe but was a bit too young.
It was hard for a lot of people, including my parents but I remember it as being full of possibility - magazines like Cosmo were telling me that nothing was out of reach for me and I could be anything I wanted.

Racism and homophobia were acceptable in many circles
Keeping up with the joneses
It being shameful to live on a council estate
Eating out a real luxury
Nothing like the chain coffee shops
Packed lunches for work
Free school meal children being given a ticket and everybody knew they had fsm
No mental health support for teenagers
Children being expected to fit in with the family, they were an obligatory inconvenience and knew it.
Old women going for a shampoo and set weekly
Polyester flowery dresses and pink or purple rinses

TV was limited compared to today - only three channels at the start of the decade. So people tended to watch the same stuff, at the same time. Viewing figures for the top shows were astronomical compared to today. BBC didn't broadcast through the night. There were some great sitcoms, and US imports were popular. Most people only had one TV. There was a cheaper licence if you only had a black and white TV, which a few still did. Later in the decade Channel 4, which was new and radical; then satellite TV.

Also a limited selection of radio channels. The BBC had the only national stations. Independent radio was all local. TV and radio listings were proprietary - you had to buy the Radio Times, which had the BBC listings, AND the TV Times, which had ITV and later C4. When they were deregulated, and could both print listings for all channels, oddly enough, the price doubled overnight. Newspapers could only prints listings for the same day.

Video recorders became popular over the decade - VHS tapes were the standard. High streets had video shops where you could rent a film on video for the night.

No internet. Mobile phones were rare, expensive and big clunky things - a few people had them for business.

Newspapers were more widely bought. Local papers were published more frequently - some towns and cities had a daily paper still. Story comics were popular - they tended to be divided by gender. Some had photo stories. Paper boys (or girls) delivered papers to people's home by bike. I think you had to be 14 to get a paper round.

Milk was delivered to homes by the milk float, very early in the morning. The milkman also sold eggs. This declined over the 80s as more people shopped in supermarkets. I think glass bottles with foil tops changed to plastic over the decade. Full cream milk was more commonly drunk, although skimmed and semi were available.

Interesting to read the varied experiences - it very much seems to be divided between children/teens and adults as to whether the 80's were carefree or stressful.
I married near the beginning of the decade so my memories are of mortgage queues, arranging our wedding, and then learning to live with Dh (didn't live together before marriage) and working hard to pay the bills who h seemed to be constantly increasing. I earned £1900pa when I got married, increased to £2900 by the time I left work to have dc1 at the end of the decade. I had no entitlement to mat leave as I had not worked at that employer for two years by the time I left.
Dh and I managed to avoid redundancy, but many friends and family went through that.
I remember seeing and buying my first ready meal - lasagne from Tesco. All our furniture apart from our bed, was secondhand. We had a black and white TV. No video recorder until about 1985. We didn't go out much or have many holidays because our money was needed to pay the bills. Going out generally meant visiting friends or family for a meal and them coming to us next week.
I remember IRA bombings seemed to be a constant feature of the news and especially remember someone returning to work after lunch in tears because the Lyn home edition of the Evening News was reporting the Hyde Park Bomb. Sad days.
Although the 1980's were tough in many ways, there were a lot of lighter, happier moments as well. DH and I do look back on them happily, as they hold a lot of good memories for us - our wedding and the start of our family.

We didn't have as many "things". Life was less pressurised. Everything was just at a slower pace. The 80's were a great period to grow up in.

My life reflected Cold Feet. Every life stage they went through was at exactly the same time as me.

It's not exactly cheery stuff!

Some halls of residence had shared rooms, and definitely no en suites
Oh yes! Ours had 12 bedrooms to one communal bathroom and the shower just had a curtain so people thought it hilarious to whip it open when you were naked. 🤔 Luckily no mobile phones!

This is a nuclear war leaflet my local council printed off in the 1980s and distributed to every house.

I'm from the north west, my immediate memories of the 80s are of recessions and struggle (Boys from the Black Stuff) being told at school not to give up on the idea of finding a job, miners strike etc. I now live in Norfolk and have been surprised by just how differently people down here perceive the 80ss

The north/south divide used to be much more stark, Manchester and Liverpool are entirely different entities now.

Agree with pp that being gay was much harder. Even into the 90s I was working with people who felt it wasn't safe to be out at work.

Pop music was ubiquitous, if you wanted something different (ie good) you had to know the right record shops to go to, the right pubs and clubs, where to get the right fanzines etc. No internet to just look things up.

I grew up in a mining town. It was a difficult and worrying time to be a teenager. I felt like we were at war with the Government.

And there were always loads of punks in town. Proper big, spikey hair punks with studded denim or leather jackets. Not seen a punk in ages.

Weddings were either in church, or a cheap lowkey registry office affair. If you were divorced you couldn't remarry in the C of E, but some nonconformist churches allowed it. I think they started allowing weddings in stately homes at some point in the 80s, but only a minority did that. The idea of a symbolic ceremony combined with register office wedding dismissed as the "legal bit" was unheard of.
Not many had separate evening parties after the wedding. The bride and groom going away straight after the afternoon reception for the honeymoon was still a thing, with a special Going Away Outfit for the bride. This did change towards the end of the decade. You only had a few bridesmaids, and they were always unmarried. Wedding cake was always fruit. The wedding was usually paid for by the bride's parents. Not all couples lived together before marriage, and almost none had children first.

No women vicars; some female clergy in some nonconformist denominations, but few and far between. More people attended church (Sunday School for kids).

Mortgages became easier to get as the decade went on. Usually you could borrow 3x salary as a single person, 3 x one person's salary and 1 x the other's for a couple, based on the expectation that the wife would be giving up work once babies came along. There was great angst over rising house prices, especially in London, but they seem cheap compared to today ;) Buy to let was not a thing - private landlords existed but I don't think they could get mortgages on new properties.

Income tax reduced and was simplified over the decade. Taxes on alcohol, petrol, cigarettes, etc increased over the same period. Import duties were paid on goods from the EU, including things brought back on holiday.

Local government was funded directly by the rates, which were charged based on the property's value, with no cap for the top-end properties. State schools were all run by the council, no academies.

My parents moved from the North East of England to the South East in the early 1980s, my DF was lucky enough to have a job in the ship building industry which could be done away from the shipyards. As an adult I am now very aware that many others didn’t have that option.

I remember going back home to visit relatives and having to drive past all the police vans which were waiting as back up or relief shifts to put down the striking miners. The North East was badly hit by the pit closures, the shipyard closures and was not an easy place to live. Again, adult POV tells me why we always travelled home with a bag of clothes I’d outgrown, to be given to family.

However, I remember the excitement of my school getting a computer, 1 which lived on a trolley and each class got it once a fortnight. You could play a maths game on it! I was goggle-eyed at the computer room at secondary school- 12 computers in 1 room (1987). Printing using a dot-matrix printer onto stupid sized paper!

Music- more end of the decade for me: Bros, Madonna, early dance stuff and rap by 1989.

The same as it is now, with less gadgets.
There were good bits, music, etc.
The very real threat of nuclear war and high unemployment were the downsides.

I was still a student nurse in 1980. It was fantastic, living in a nurses home with mates, we were mostly on the wards training, we got paid! Nightclubs were great. I never had a perm, at the start I still had a 'Purdy', then a very sharp bob. I was a bit old for all the ra ra skirts and stuff but I had some pretty cool outfits, jumpsuits or 'flying suits' featured pretty heavily in the early 80s.

By the end of the decade I was married with 3 children and an astronomical interest rate on the mortgage, but luckily we were never unemployed although I moved on from nursing. It was still very sexist at work and maternity provision was nothing like it is now but when you had a baby they did look after you in hospital and men didn't have free access to the ward like they do now. You stayed in hospital for a few days even after a perfectly straightforward delivery 'for a rest' and to establish breastfeeding.

Nuclear war seemed like a real possibility. The Iron Curtain was a tangible thing; Yugoslavia was the only really accessible part of the Eastern bloc.

The IRA was also a major threat to daily life.

Islamic terrorism, and suicide bombers, had not been conceived of.

More women gave up work to stay home with young children, and there were far fewer nurseries. No nurseries at primary schools and I think no reception year either - children rarely started before having achieved their 5th birthday. Lots of playgroups where mum went with DC.

No SATs or National Curriculum in schools until the late 80s. Lots left at 16, some with no qualifications at all, but jobs were available for school leavers at 16 or 18. At 16, you took either O levels or CSE - the former for the more academic, pass grades were A-C, D and E were fails. CSEs included more vocational type subjects, and were graded by number. A grade 1 (the top grade) was supposed to be equivalent to a C grade O level (the lowest pass). If you only had CSEs you would definitely leave at 16. GCSEs were introduced late in the decade to combine elements of both, and were regarded as a dumbing down of O levels. Grades were harder to achieve than today - all As were very unusual.

Only a minority went on to university. The tertiary sector was divided into universities, polytechnics and colleges. You applied separately for each sector. You could apply to five unis on UCCA, four polys on PCAS, don't know about colleges. Most applied to both UCCA and PCAS. Oxford and Cambridge made unconditional offers to some students if they had taken their own exam (this was later for Oxford than Cambridge), but otherwise were the only places which expected AAA from candidates except for medicine or vet sci. Russell Group unis usually gave BBC offers.

University tuition was free for a first degree and there was a means-tested maintenance grant. Not many students worked in term time, but few had cars, none had phone contracts etc, or PCs etc to pay for. Some halls of residence had shared rooms, and definitely no en suites.

Computers were just coming in, and most people handwrote essays and assessments. Theses/dissertations had to be typed; I paid a typist to type up mine from my handwritten draft.

Men dressed like pirates, pixies or women.

Naval engagements.

Space invaders played from small tables in pubs.

Filofaxes to improve our lives.

The state was dismantled in USA, UK and the Soviet Union.

Every job started to have the title ‘executive’ appended.

Cheese salads were a regular menu item.

T-shirts printed with “My house is worth £40,000!” replaced three months later with “....£50,000!”

BMW 3 Series were the car.

Decline of butchers and bakers.

Gateway, Finefare and Cullens.

Pay rises were 5% or more - high inflation.

In 1981 £5 would pay for a night out, by 1989 it would be at least £30.

British pop music was diverse, entrepreneurial and very new.

People carried cheque books most of the time and paid for goods, meals and even exchanged them for cash at bars.

Cities would shut down for the same three weeks every August and families would often go to the same resorts every year. If you were different, you went to Goa.

Women were expected to be on the pill in 1980 but by 1985 condoms were worn.

The Falklands War
4 minute warning
When the Wind Blows
AIDS
IRA bombs

I was 20 in 1980 and just in London.
The City was taking off and there were plenty of highly paid jobs
Privatisation of the old nationalised industries meant lots of share buying
The Falklands war
Lots of positivity and a nearly bankrupt economy being turned around.
There were plenty of jobs in the South if people had the gumption to move
Preferred 70s fashion but had some good quality clothes
I could fill my supermini for £5
First McDonalds in 1979 and quickly they were everywhere
Pie crust collars and velvet headbands
Barbours
No social media
Telex tapes and carbon paper
Nice invitations for things planned ahead
Sexism, racism, homophobia
Sale of council houses which was very wrong
Diana mania
Sundays
Lots of balls and lots if fun but far fewer good restaurants
High interest rates
Furniture, white goods, clothes were much more expensive; holidays too. I remember in 84ish going to Greece with friends (not school holidays) and paying nearly £400 each for a flight and basic accommodation. Paid £550 just last week for a week in the sun in accommodation that was first rate.
BandAid and concerts in the park
Brilliant decade for me.

It was a period of great change - the UK of 1980 was very different from that of 1989, as well as the regional variations people have noted.

Smoking was everywhere - legal in public buildings and most workplaces unless there was a risk of fire. Trains had smoking carriages, often more than the non-smoking ones. If you commuted you often had to pick between a seat in a smoking carriage and being asphyxiated, and standing in an ultra-crowded non-smoking carriage. You could smoke on the Tube too, and on buses. This was despite the fact that the medical risks were widely known and there were advertising campaigns against it.

Also trains had corridors and the carriages had small compartments with (8?) seats. You could open the windows manually. Public transport was cheaper than today, but often disrupted by strikes and bomb alerts (usually false alarms).

Planes were expensive - no bargain airlines, so most people either holidayed in the UK, or drove over on a ferry, mainly to France. (No Channel Tunnel either.) Holidays abroad were mostly booked in travel agents, UK ones you would get a list of accommodation from the tourist information centre. Camping lacked mod cons. Hotel and especially B&B rooms often had no ensuite, you shared a bathroom down the hall. Usually just one family holiday a year, no weekends away except to visit friends and family.

You could get a cheaper passport for a year if you couldn't afford a ten year one and didn't plan on going abroad more than once.

We watched the challenger explode. I was terrified of AIDS, and accidentally climbing up an electric pylon.
Yes! I spent a lot of the 80s bring terrified of stuff ...nuclear war (remember the instructions on what to do in the phone book?)...the IRA...ferries (after ferry disaster)...and of course just about everything in the horrifying public information films (drinking bleach, crossing railways etc). On the other hand, my parents obviously weren't worried as I used to spend the whole day in the woods with friends (aged 8 - 10) with no adult to supervise.

Music and TV was much more of a communal experience as nobody had a personal screen or stereo. Always had to negotiate what to watch with parents (and mum wouldn't let us watch ITV so only 2 channels!) Same in the car - each person was allowed to choose a tape to take on long journeys (which in incidentally had been recorded off library records or radio, not bought!) which meant we listened to a lot of Wagner or Beatles (dad), Cleo Lane (mum), A-ha (me), Novelty summer singles (little brother - Hold a deck chair in the air...Star trekking across the universe ) on the way to our French camp site or gite . If we were in northern France we also used to listen to fuzzy Radio 4, my brother and I particularly liked the a announcements calling for people to come home from their holidays because a relative was dangerously ill (remember those??). Same holidays were regularly punctuated by dad saying he'd lost the traveller's cheques and we'd all have to go home before finding he'd just put them in a safe place.

The 80s were awesome. I turned 18 in 1980 and went off to uni. Met DH and got married in 1985. All our growing up to adulthood and shared memories were created in the 80s. The 1990s were all about having children but the 80s to us was a decade of pure hedonistic fun! We adored the music and the clothes. What a time!