What was life like in the 80s?

there was a sense of innocence and trust and a sense that hard work and education would still get you places
That idea persisted up to the turn of the century because parents passed it on to their own kids, who didn’t discover it was false until they got to their 20s and couldn’t get jobs.

School milk was rank. Why were the cartons always covered in black sweaty smelly stuff? Why did the teacher always put it in front of a radiator?

Oh yes, only having 4 TV channels rather than the hundreds we have now.

I was primary school aged in the 80s. I moved from my birth country to the UK and remember having English support sessions in primary school as I didn't know a word of English at all.
I remember coming home after school to watch children's ITV and my favourite program was Knightmare which looked so high tech and futuristic at the time. We would also watch Blockbusters as a family on a daily basis.

No YouTube or streaming of music meaning I would catch it in the radio on the Top 40 every Sunday if I wanted to hear my favourite song. My parents couldn't really afford to buy records or cassette tapes, so I had to save up and only started buying music in my teens, when I was allowed out without an adult.
I remember being off school during the hurricane in 1987.

Sunday afternoons recording the charts from the radio and getting really annoyed if the dj spoke over any part of the song

Only making phones calls after 6pm, sitting in the hall on the stairs.

Everything changes, but everything stays the same.

For me, things aren't that different. I still drive to work, still work full time, doing the same job, still have the same hobbies, still holiday abroad a couple of times each year, still with the same partner.

Things are different around the edges, i.e. more channels on the TV, record TV on a hard drive rather than cassette tape video, more of my work is done by computer, I text friends/family instead of using the landline, but all that is really peripheral.

Aaagh, "council houses still existed and WERE" a viable option, before the Grammar Police pick me up.

(Any chance of a spell checker and grammarly clone, Mumsnet?) Yes, I know, if I was using the right browser it would do it automatically for me... ;)

I was 13 in 1981....

Things that were better:

• The world was not as insanely fast as it is now. People's expectations of what one ordinary human person could do in a day were more realistic.
• You could buy a house, your own house, on one wage. (No, really. Unless you were unlucky enough to end up in negative equity.)
• Council houses still existed and was a viable option.
• Even poor kids like me could dream of going to university some day, knowing it would be funded if your parents earned under a certain amount. In my part of the world nursing or joining the Armed Forces or working as a holiday rep were all still pretty respectable and decently paid too.
• You could still get a joiner or a plumber or electrician without having to sell your soul to the bank to pay for it.
• Music, TV and films.
• There was less choice of food (yes, that can actually be a positive. You don't spend as much time faffing about on deciding things. It's either there or it's not, and you make do, or you don't. We're probably going to be rediscovering that 'less choice' thing in the not too distant future).
• Despite some of the awful things we now know were happening, amongst many people there was a sense of innocence and trust and a sense that hard work and education would still get you places even if you hadn't gone to the right schools/universities/knew the right handshakes; there was a hope for the future which has largely gone now, I feel.
• Spitting Image.

Things that were worse:

• Healthcare technology, although the staff had more time to care and having a sense of humour hadn't yet been outlawed.
• Cars were less reliable; TVs were less reliable. Many things were less reliable. Things kept blowing up or overheating. On the other hand clothes were made to last and even disposable fashion wasn't that disposable.
• How long everything could take (I was overseas in 1988 to 1989 in Europe and EVERYTHING, from getting messages home to being paid, took FOREVER).
• Having to conform more. If you didn't have the right "brands" woe betide you. Do not pass "Go", do not collect £200, go straight to Hell.
• AIDs.
• Fear of nuclear warfare.
• Smoking was still accepted.
• Attitudes in general were incredibly sexist, racist, and homophobic and no one saw anything wrong with this, seemingly....
• PE teachers were evil little monsters who all got rolled off a cookie cutter line somewhere in Loughborough....other teachers might have been strict or not my cup of tea or disliked you because you were crp at their subject, but PE teachers were just the spawn of the devil; things like dyslexia, autism and dyspraxia and eye conditions weren't even on the horizon for most of them. You were just sht at games, and they had deigned to come down to earth from the lofty heights of Mount Olympus because they were never going to be professional sportspeople or soldiers...
• The miners' strike. Shoulder pads. Yuppies. "Loadsamoney" and Alan B*stard types. (Though they're still around today.)
• The Internet and email were both still in their infancy and only a handful of people knew about them. (Though I sometimes think that was a good thing.)
• The fashions and the hairstyles and the neon makeup. The ludicrous bonkbusters writers kept churning out.
• The Troubles were still rampaging in Northern Ireland with occasional flare-ups in London, Manchester, Birmingham....
• Thatcher's government was in power for most of the 1980s. Though some people thought that was a good thing.
• If you think regional accents and the working class and disabled people and people of non-Caucasian ethnicity and LGBTetc are a rarity in public life now, just have a look at some genuine footage from the 1980s....there's plenty on Youtube!

Things that were the same

• Eejjits were in charge.
• Families were still dysfunctional.
• We still needed to breathe, drink, eat, sleep, and take shelter to survive. (In that order, mostly.)
• We still needed to get an education (though it's debatable how useful some of that education was), get work, find a suitable partner or other living arrangement, maybe have a family, and look after other family members. (Not necessarily in that order.)
• Love was still the answer. Ultimately. Or, dispassionate compassion might be a better way to describe it. ;)

Keynote of the 1980s for me?

Terminator (the first one), when she stops for gas on her way to Mexico, and the attendant says, "There's a storm coming". And she looks up at the sky and says, sadly, grimly, resignedly, "I know".... prophetic, eh?

No fear of knife crime or suicide bombers.

Maybe not, be we had the IRA, with bombs in London, Birmingham and Manchester that caused similar levels of a feeling of fright and terror not knowing where the next would be.

If you want to feel really old, this thread is like someone in 1980 asking people what life was like in 1940!

It was the girls abducted in 1999 that changed the law on school absence, I think.

There was a lot of DV, Child abuse/neglect about that nobody, including the Police reacted to.

I had a half sister who was mixed heritage and the Racism went unchecked. We lost good black Teachers because they'd had enough. If you were Gay were i lived you'd have to leave after a few kickings.

My friend's Mum finally left her Dad when he put her face through the window and she was lucky that she lived. She had to flee without her children and eventually the youngest girl went to live with her. They lived in real poverty and fear, as did a lot of Women.

Children's bruuses would be ignored at school, so would absenteeism. The Jamie Bulger murder changed the law, on absenteeism.

Schoolgirls were seen as fair game and we were sexually harassed and assaulted. Bill Wyman was with a 14 year old and celebrated for it in the press.

Teenagers were dying doing dangerous things on Youth Training Schemes. That started the H&S we have today.

Not having the Internet etc meant you relied on those around you to guide you and if they didn't, then life didn't go well.

Women were still having to give up their children due to poverty. 17 year old Mothers weren't entitled to benefits and had to get on with it.

In some places the Magdalena Laundries type places were still open and bavues taken away.

Institutions were still going and children who were in wheelchairs but had no intelligence issues would be sent to an inadequate special needs school.

So it really depends on where you were from and how your Family was.

I still have a record case with coal not dole stickers.

I was 16 in 1980, so this was my freedom decade, but also scary times. Live music was great and relatively cheap. We seemed to be able to afford any gig we wanted to see. Fashion for me was mohair jumpers, picture knits (my mum made me a New York skyscraper jumper that I wore constantly through uni) plus boho embroidered skirts and petticoats worn with slouch boots. I had the classic bad perm and sun-in highlights combo. And dark grey combat trousers from Chelsea Girl.

But it was still scary. The Regan/Thatcher poster expressing fear of nuclear war was in most uni rooms. CND was very important and the drama Threads petrified me.

My first job in 1985 as a public sector accountant had a salary of £4600 which was untold ritches. My first work skirt (pleated, with opening buttons up one side) came from newly-opened Next. Having lived through the three day week and blackouts of the 1970s, I never trusted that the good times would last. And I could never quite get the conspicuous consumption. I had a pretty bad book habit though.

There were still lots of tiny village shops. I'd go out for a bike ride (no helmet, no mobile) and stop off at one and buy a bottle of Panda Pops.

I did fruit picking piece work for a couple of summers. You were doing well if you made more than £1 an hour.

Doing homework on Sunday night listening to Annie Nightingale on the radio.

I lost my 9 year old cousin from Leukeamia in the early 80s. Maybe now she would have a better chance of survival?

I was a teenager in the 80's. I read so many books. 3 TV channels and no computers. (A few local families had computers when they started out, which came with a handful of very basic games and no internet of course!)
Teachers were horrible verging on abusive at times. Children had to shut up and listen, had no rights really.
Lots of girls/women had short hair (don't see much of that today)
No GHDs, lots of frizzy, curly, wavy hair.
No Trans students. A couple of gay students. When they came out, it was viewed as quite shocking.
Simon Le Bon, Nik Kershaw, Wet Wet Wet, early Madonna, Culture Club, Debbie Harry, Bowie, early Prince and Michael Jackson at the height of his fame.
We went out all day from a young age and nobody knew where we were.
Building dens, reading magazines, chatting with friends all night on sleepovers, with no phones or computers to record.
Acid House and House music.
Cold War fear, planning what to do when they dropped the bomb (very real fear)
Olive Oil instead of sun lotion.
Being considered mature enough to babysit neighbour's baby when I was 12 (when many Mumsnetters won't leave their 12 year old home alone at 12 in the evening)
Constance Carroll makeup, candy floss lipstick.
Jackie magazine, Suzie Sioux, taping the charts every Sunday, coming home and playing out every night.
No fear of knife crime or suicide bombers.

@anothernotherone who was Adam Ant revealed to be???

I was 9 in 1980. Never even remotely trendy but it didn't seem to matter at primary school. Somewhere in the mid 80's onwards I started listening to John Peel on radio 1. Never looked back. Still hate pop. There was so much great alternative music in the late 80's. Much harder to buy though. I was so happy when a tiny independent record store opened in my home town and I could start buying the records I wanted. We lived near a small town, now very overpriced commuter belt. Clothes shops were aimed at middle aged women, nothing for teenagers. No cafes at all. Not one until around 1988. No where to meet up with friends. I was a very boring teenager and spent most of my time with my nose stuck in a book partly because there was nothing else to do.

Ice magic! It was fab dh bought something similar a couple of years ago but it just was ent the same😠

I was 13 in 1980 and loved the 1980's - the fashion, the music and the movies. This is what I remember:

• freedom. On Monday evenings I would go with my secondary school mates to the under 18's night at the local Top Rank and dance to Soft Cell, Human League, New Order, Duran Duran, Wham!, Visage, Japan, Ultravox, Adam & the Ants etc. It was a long way from one side of the city to the other for just 2 hours of fun.
• I had a Saturday job in a department store and earned good money compared to friends. I worked in the music dept. selling vinyl records and cassettes. I would have to keep the turntable going with current tunes and the new 'Now That's What I Call Music' releases made my job easier. At Christmas sales of Foster & Allen, Daniel O'Donnell and Barbara Streisand when through the roof (no, I never understood why!)
• Plastic earrings were great. You didn't get infections in your holes like with cheap metal ones (or green discolouration) and you just washed them at the end of the day to keep them clean. I had a range of colours and sizes!
• The tv drama 'Threads' was terrifying. I lived in a city that was 100% a target in the event of nuclear war the realisation that incineration was inevitable was depressing. That 'what to do in the event of nuclear war' government info documentary was also terrifying.
• I could easily go to corner shops and buy cigarettes and the local video rental store would happily rent out 18 cert films all as an underage teen.
• we had a large chest freezer and my parents visited Bejam monthly to stock it up and buy the most fantastically yummy convenience foods and ice lollies/ice cream. We had a make it yourself ice cream wafer maker and would make huge ice cream wafer treats. 'Ice Magic' also appeared about that time - liquid chocolate sauce that turned hard when if was poured over ice cream. Chocmint was my favourite!
• Commodore 64 home computer. My dad insisted that we needed one and bought it for Christmas in about 1983(?). It was so shit. No one could understand how it worked and we only played PacMan and early Donkey Kong on it.

Oh the memories. So rubbish but sooo fab!

I remember being Very confident and sure of myself. Life had a positive vibe and I looked Forward to a bright future. I had a full grant when I went to uni I and rent was very low at £18 a week in the West Midlands. I mostly wore DMs and a lot of black, still do, but lots wore acidic brights. It was a time that some of my friends came out as gay and there was acceptance, without prejudice, unlike a decade earlier when people were
Taunted at the slightest whiff of homosexuality.
But there was hardship, whole towns destitute, poverty and the first time I became aware of the huge gap between the comfortable high spending yuppies and the very poor.

I had an idyllic childhood in the 80s. Living in the Midlands, Dad had a stable job, Mum worked as a cleaner in the evenings so was at home in the day. Nan and Grandad and Aunties and Uncles lived within walking distance, spent lots of time with them.

So much freedom. Always out in the local fields and woods, summer and winter. Mum would whistle us to come in for tea. Stew on a Sunday! Caught the bus into town with friends from aged 10. Always holidayed in a caravan for a week in May with extended family.

Loved fashion and music. Such fabulous music in the 80s.

I was an early starter to clubs, late 14 and regular at 15. Didn’t drink, just loved to dance and hang out with mates.

It was a brilliant decade for me.

Yes the ice cold milk wasent much better .Children didn't drink very much during the school day just a glass of two of water with lunch as I recall and of course the horrid milk!

Most folk here left school after their O Grades, so at the end of 4th year, but if your birthday was before the end of February, you could leave at Christmas, so plenty kids were leaving school at 15 with no qualifications. They sometimes had apprenticeships or jobs lined up but not always. School was so rubbish and education so undervalued that they just couldn't wait to leave.
My 6th year had 26 kids, by contrast my ds1 had more than 150 in his.