What was life like in the 80s?

I was an 80's child from a working class family in England. I remember lots of hardship and a distinct lack of glamour. My abiding memories are; lots of unemployment, power cuts, watching the police beat the shit out of striking miners on the News, mohair jumpers, Roland Rat, clothes from the catalogue or market stalls, mum perming all the aunties hair in the kitchen, rubber shower attachments on bath taps, transit vans with kids piled in the back (no seats, let alone seatbelts), people hissing "that bitch!" at Maggie Thatcher on TV, walking to the phone box at the top of the road, hunting for 50p coins to put in the electricity meter, huddling round the Calor Gas fire in Winter, having a Sunday bath (sharing the water) and strip down wash at the kitchen sink every morning, the provvy man knocking on Friday evening and trying to be the first to make it to the doorstep for the milk delivery to get the cream at the top of the bottle (unless the birds beat you to it).

Princess Di was everywhere

Yes! I was talking about this only yesterday

My first job in 1985 - earned 50p an hour

@MrsMiggins37 Me too!!

Oh and Princess Di was everywhere. People in power seemed to be women. Plus, discos with pick and mix.

A huge black cloud came over the U.K. after Chernobyl.

AIDS! Jesus fuck. Those leaflets and the scary ad with the tombstone and the flowers! Terrified the shite out of me, despite being at zero risk!

I was in my mid teens in the late 80s. We could go down the pub and never got ID’d, even in our school uniforms. Music gigs and festivals were less corporate and felt freer. There was less sex stereotyping than today. I think the 80s were more exciting.

Chernobyl meant I couldn't play outdoors

Where did you live?

I was a child the whole decade. Life felt normal. Hairstyles were permed. The future was going to be like on Back to the Future. We watched playschool, Grange Hill, pigeon street, superted, Thundercats, he-man. Played with My Little Pony, Star Wars figures, Care Bears. We ate rice crispies, ham sandwiches, cottage pie. We drank vimto and soda stream. When ET and Ghostbusters came out there were toys in the cereal packets. We had dial phones on the wall or went to the phone box. Top of the Pops meant we knew every chart song, and Smash Hits magazine had the words or we taped from the radio and wrote them down. We wore ra ra skirts, did Hula hooping, roller skating, played on bikes, played on the street with kids on our road. Played monopoly, cluedo, game of life, guess who, murder in the dark. Went camping.

I have no real memory of eighties world affairs apart from vaguely hearing about miners strikes, the IRA bombs, Nelson Mandela and the word apartheid. We watched the challenger explode. I was terrified of AIDS, and accidentally climbing up an electric pylon.

Wham! Culture Club. Poodle perms, bright blue eyeliner, bright pink lips. Anais Anais or Poison. Puffball skirts. Pedal Pushers. Relax tee shirts. Plastic shopper bags which popped together and plastic shoes. Huge glasses, huge earrings. Great, amazing music, but it was the time that fashion and taste didn't get on that well.

Berni inn, wimpy, slush puppy. Saturday job earning 85p an hour. Which went up to £1 an hour once I was 15. My first office job paid £50 a week.

I was aged 3 in 1980 so I remember my primary and early secondary schooldays in the 80's. I was too young to really be part of any teen culture but looking back the music and fashion was cool. I am also glad that I grew up pre mobile phones and social media. I think having the privacy that being uncontactable could afford you was great and possibly important for mental wellbeing. However I remember lots of negatives too - poverty with kids smelling, in dirty clothes and raiding the discarded food after school dinner, corporal punishment being allowed at school, money being very tight at home due to my dad having died and Thatcher's disgusting attitude to lone parents. We were "selected" every year for school medicals (thank heavens they seem to have disappeared now) and my mum was sure it was to check if we were being cared for. Which leads on to prejudice. Racism was widely accepted, I remember being asked by another child if my mum was going out with a "wog" when my mum briefly dated a black man (they split because he had seemingly forgotten to tell her about his wife and because he was a wanker not because of his colour). No one said anything. Single parents were still gossiped about, being gay was at best a subject for crude jokes (usually much worse) and disability awareness was poor. And the treatment of women - marital rape was legal and sexual harassment widespread and accepted. It was assumed you'd done something to invite attention if you tried to complain. So, a mixed review from me. I''m sure in middle class enclaves away from grim reality it was paradise. I still miss some of it. But would I like to be an adult then? No.

The idea that we'd die after a nuclear bomb attack was perceived as a real risk - see Ultravox Dancing With Tears In Our Eyes.

Scouser. Skint, bailiffs, my dad often not being paid.

But they were my parents worries, I enjoyed my childhood. A lot of freedom. Liverpool is SO different now to how it was then.

Playing out. Going gout for hours as a teen without parents having contact. Unimaginable now with mobiles. We were just trusted.

I was born in the late 70s so was a child in the 80s. My father was made redundant twice and it took more than a year each time to find new jobs. Read the early Adrian Mole diaries - I find them very nostalgic for that time!

Fun for me, as a work hard, play hard teen durany, even with my various awkwardnesses.

Less fun for DH a little younger and son of a miner striking whether he wanted to or not.

My mum used to rotate the same meals. So every Monday we would have the same food, every Tues, etc.

Cheap beef burgers full of gristle with lumpy mash, findus crispy pancakes with alphabet bites, always a roast on a Sunday, fried eggs and bacon one day.

Dad used to make his own yoghurts every week. There was a little row of pots in the bathroom culturing or something. He made his own wine as well.

Mum got a bit exotic at some point and started buying pizza which was quite fancy!

We had a sodastream which I thought was magic.

I was just saying after Stranger Things last night that I had a CB radio - used to talk to people all over the world. Where I lived when the wind caught it right I could hear Russians and Germans

One Four for a copy ...

Getting a microwave. Chernobyl meant I couldn't play outdoors. Polly pocket. Poppies. Mum and dad going for noeuveau cuisine, photographing it and printing photos!

Yes, recording 'the charts' on a Sunday 😄

We also had riots in Bristol - a major one in St Paul's and a smaller one in Southmead .

Smoking - trains, planes, everywhere - no one gave it a second thought.

As a child I loved it. We had so much more freedom than today's kids.

I remember strikes and having no.money. We were the only, single parent family in our area. And dirt poor. My mum owned her home, I remember her once saying if she'd have been employed when the interest rates shot up we'd have been homeless. So I'm guessing there was some sort of mortgage support. But as a child none of this mattered. The strikes were fun as the schools opened their kitchens so we'd all trudge up for a free lunch. And double puddings.😂😂😂 Going to the market and asking for left over veg for the none existant rabbit and bones for the none existant dog (( stew )) honestly didn't matter as there were so many in the same situation. Expectations were a lot lower. All of our clothes were home made, my mum used to sit at the sewing machine for hours making and altering clothes. Clothes from an actual shop were a big treat.

We were lucky we had a mum who prioritised holidays. No matter how poor we were we'd get a week in Butlins each year. Very self catered. And again absolute freedom. We wouldn't be seen. I absolutely loved being a child, but I think that had a lot to do with having a good set of childhood friends and cousins to maraud about with. I think we were extremely lucky.

It wasn't all good, there were some very, dark times. And issues with abuse not being taken seriously. But in the main. I'd rather have grown up then than now.

Two words

The Equalizer

The series NOT the film.