What was life like in the 80s?

The warm milk was awful. And the frozen milk in winter was only marginally better. I still can’t drink full fat milk in any form.

Me too Roly for some reason known only to them we used to.get school milk at afternoon break after it had been in a warm classroom all day ( no fridges of course ) it was vile and smelled of vomit ,I'm still not a lover of milk and rarely drink it and I'm 46 this year.

@OldBeans being Irish (or of Irish descent) was definitely problematic. Sectarianism in Glasgow was horrific. The running battles between the local protestant and catholic schools were awful. Proper organised arranged warfare.

Definitely not. Unemployment benefit for 16 and 17 yr olds was paid at a lower rate but people were definitely still claiming it when I left school in 1993 @x2boys

Yes DP was unemployed for a bit living at home in the 80s and his dad would not let him sign on.

It was a strange time to be Irish in London. We lived in what was then a very Irish area and my parents were quite scared of anti-Irish (read: anti-IRA) sentiment. They mixed in almost completely Irish circles - social clubs, pubs etc - and we weren’t allowed to discuss the Troubles in front of English people .

Lukewarm school milk 🤢🤢🤢🤢 The only way I could stomach it was to save a cola cube in my desk then hold it in my mouth while I drank it. Put me off milk for life.

I thought JSA or whatever incarnation it was then stopped being available for 16 yr olds sometime in the late 80,s @OldBeans and people had to be 18 to claim it?

Sex was something only bad girls did . Everyone in my immediate circle of friends were petrified of getting pregnant , the only options were to have the baby ( the shame it would bring on your family was repeated over and over ) or get a boat to Liverpool . I only remember one girl in my sister’s year getting pregnant at school . We were just too afraid to have sex . I was a virgin until I was almost 22 and in my third year at university.

They were interesting times, very transitional looking back.
I turned 16 in 1980 and sat my O levels. Went behind the Iron Curtain twice to Dresden and Moscow - now they really were grey and depressing and full of deprivation. Of course it was all finished not too long after and a good thing too. Went to music college, lost a couple of gay friends to AIDS in the early days when it was pretty much a death sentence. The rare sight of seeing someone with a "mobile phone" (think a large heavy handbag with an aerial and curly cable)
Leant a lot, grew up a bit.
Probably similar to now but without mobile phones and social media

nut

Yes @OldBeans my family were very anti signing on. Even after my Dad was very very ill he refused to sign on. There was definitely a stigma about benefits even in rough areas.

A standard nursery snack was (free) milk and nuts & raisins. I’d never heard of but allergies until well into the 90s. (That’s not a dig...they just genuinely didn’t seem as common then).

I was at university for most of the eighties (1981-1986). I lived in South Africa so my experience will have been very different in most ways from people elsewhere. But the things that were probably the same were the big perm, neon coloured clothes and jewellery and the cavalier disregard for health and safety (no thoughts given to sun cream, seatbelts, parents smoking in the car with the kids in the back etc).

What was different from other counties of course was the fascist regime and the war, obviously.

I remember a,lot of promotion of the dangers of Heroin, lots of grim posters depicting Heroin addicts ,looking pale, with lots of spots and greasy hair , and who could forget zammo in grange hill and his harrowing heroin addiction .

Yes there were more free retraining opportunities. My aunt was a teacher and took advantage of free training for office work. Her DH had a good job, so wasn't means tested.
She did the office work for a few years and then went back to teaching.

@sparkleypen you can stop in 5th year now. In the 80s, in shitsville you could stop whenever the hell you wanted 😂😂😂

Lots of 16 yr olds signed on for the summer holidays after 5th year, even if they had plans for work or further study (and this happened into the 90s, actually).

I was pissed off that my parents wouldn’t let me (Irish working class...a shame on the family etc).

Oh and if you hated school you could stop going in 5th year and no one would chase you up.

Yes to community resources. We had free summer playschemes. Turn up, fill out a form and take your playpiece money and you'd be there all summer. They used to do trips too. Although child safeguarding was less of a priority and there were no such things as police checks. But when I look at how much I have spent for clubs and child care this summer it is staggering.

Does anyone remember the EU food vans? I have hazy memories of being given free butter??? Did I dream this?

But lots of funding for community projects/employment schemes in very poor areas we're funded by Europe.

The leery uncle I had would not be tolerated today . He still gives me the creeps , I haven’t t seen him in almost 20 years and refuse to visit .The groping was rife.

TV was dreadful - Benny Hill , last of the summer wine , allo allo , open all hours . Women were objectified.
I hated the eighties mostly because I was trapped.
The nineties were my decade - university, going out, alcohol , living abroad for a year while at university, going out with a variety of nationalities ( I was fascinated with different languages and cultures and travelling ) , freedom .

@jennymanara

Yes! @

We had a playground attendant who was a proper battle axe and would scare the life out of us when she screeched ‘no going forwards down the slide!’

There was no DBS check to work with kids. So the exposure of sexual abuse scandals in the past in children's homes does not surprise me sadly.

Music was fabulous. You went on holiday/ guide camp whatever and sent a postcard. You wrote letters.
Entertainment was hanging round shops / the cinema/ the swimming pool or lido. You were bored a fair bit of the time.

Watched tv when it was on unless you were lucky enough to know someone who owned a video player!
But there was lots of homophobia, more sexism, most ppl went to school with v fixed limits on them - eg leave at 16 and work for a bank, become a nurse, there was v little encouragement to aim above that.
I remember a friend of mine saying that within 10 years we'd all know someone who had died of AIDS...