Can I ask some stupid questions about life in the 80s?

[rainyeastcoast]

What benefits were available to single parents? Tax credits didn’t come in till Blair’s government, that is correct isn’t it?

How did people collect benefits before direct payments and how were people paid, did it go straight into the bank?

Was corporal punishment quite common in schools, not just caning but shoving and so on?

I was around in the 80s but was very very young so don’t know!

StripeyChina
Heads down loos was still happening in the early 2000’s too.
Mostly among the boys it would seem Always struck me as very odd

I got £8.40 per Saturday in my first Saturday job in a newsagent when I was 13. I had to swindle the work permit as I did more hours than the permit allowed and you needed to be 14 I think. My last Saturday job finished when I was 18 and that earned me £11. That must have been in 1985.

My first graduate job earned me £8,900 in 1988.

I was a teenager in the 80s. I don't remember there being corporal punishment but throwing books, chalk and blackboard rubbers was common as was being bellowed at by teachers and whole class punishments. Occasionally someone would dragged out of a room or down a corridor. No one got their parents in about anything. It wasn't something you would consider doing.

I bought my first house for £38k in 1990 on a 100% mortgage but the high interest rates meant that I was paying £450 per month out of that annual £8,900. I needed a lodger who paid me £250 per month.

Previously, as a student, I paid £64 per month in a large unluxurious house share. We could claim unemployment benefit in the holidays.

I was in secondary school from '79 to '83. Boys got 'the slipper', which meant bending over and the flap of the blazer lifted while the headmaster whacked them on the bum with a plimsoll. This was done in view of other pupils, so I dread to think what happened behind closed doors, probably caning.

One of our teachers used to violently kick the door open to get into the classroom, and would teach us sitting with his feet up on the desk. The desk drawer had a bottle of something in it. He reeked of alcohol.

After I left school a story went round that he had been arrested for putting explosives under his wife's car. I have no idea if this was true. But he was vile. And frightening.

The PE teacher would 'lift' boys up by the back of their collar and drag them off somewhere, probably for a good bollocking.

My memories are only of boys being treated like this.

It was a very well respected CofE school.

Chalk board rubbers (though they were called black board rubbers) were thrown at pupils regularly. They were wooden with a soft pad, so you'd know it if you didn't manage to duck in time and the wooden side hit your head.

We also had a teachers who liked to show off their exercise book throwing skills, rather than handing them out. But this was considered pretty cool.

When my Saturday job wage went up to £1 per hour I was well chuffed. Putting 'well' in front of anything made you sound really cool.

From 1982 -84 I taught in a secondary comprehensive and corporal punishment was not allowed. Earlier I worked for the DHSS from 1967-1970 when we had only 40 cases of supplementing the unemployed in a large north London area. The majority of claimants were Pensioners then, the sick and single /divorced mothers made up the rest.

I started school in 1986. The headmistress told the parents that that term (spring) she was allowed to smack the children, but the law was changing at Easter and she wouldn't be able to from then. Not that I can really remember anyone getting more than a mild telling off through my primary years (apart from the day in juniors where the headmaster ranted at me for flinging a piece of sports equipment across the hall in temper, and was threatened with suspension if I ever did it again... I was dragged to his office at the end of my arm- tall teacher, small child, that was the early 90s)

I remember the family allowence book being stamped, like a cheque book with stubs where the slips were pulled out. DM would save them and get a few weeks at a time.
Pensioners would queue up outside the Post Office long before it opened at 9am.

I started primary school in 1985. The headmaster would give the slipper in private in his office. It was usually boys that got it but occasionally it was used on girls. My older sister got the slipper for fighting in primary four.

I left school in May 1981after finishing our exams, the following day there were thousands of 16 year olds queueing up in the careers offices to sign on, we were given our UB 40 which we had to take with us on our signing on day (mine was on every other Monday) in order to get our unemployment benefit. A Giro cheque came by post 2days after signing on and you had to cash it at your nominated post office, if you didn't sign on you didn't get the Giro.

My mum was a single parent (late 60's - mid 70's) and received what was then commonly called social security payments.

CP was rife in schools from 1970-1981when I was there, blackboard rubber throwing was a particular favourite in junior and senior schools as well as the ruler, the plimsoll and the cane, while a slap on the legs was common in infant schools.

When i was in senior school there was a number of incidents in the classroom one day and our teacher had run out of things to throw at unruly pupils so he warned the class that it would be the ruler next, the most persistently unruly boy again started to cause trouble so the teacher picked up the ruler (yard stick) and threw it towards him, javelin style. We always wondered how this teachers aim was so accurate, chalk, pencil rubbers etc always hit the person it was thrown at, blackboard rubbers always hit the desk never the pupil and this yard stick hit the wall behind and about 6 inches to the left of the boys head. A couple of days later we were told by another teacher that this bloke was in fact a school champion shot putter, discus and javelin thrower.

School cane and slipper in my junior school
Cue for the nit nurse

The cane was a thing in my primary school ... but not many people ever got it , only the super naughty kids. The threat of it was enough iyswim.
I did get slapped round the head by a teacher - can you imagine!! My mum went up the school and created merry hell .
By the time I went to secondary there was no physical punishments but teachers would shout and throw things at us without a second thought . It was a strange time

No you didn't work and receive benefits, but you didn't pay rent and rates, you got child benefit on a weekly basis you got from the post office

Green dinner tickets on a strip at primary, like the ones for a win now in seaside arcades. There were three queues at the door to the lunch ball - paid dinners with a green ticket, free dinners had a green ticket with a huge red cross and a queue for packed lunch. I felt my friend's pain, even at seven, when she stood in a different queue to her friends. She was one of the few children of split parents in the school. I never understood why as all the dinner children sat together to eat in the hall.

Another unfairness was when I had my first Saturday job in a well known high at stationer. There were two Youth Training Scheme (six month jobs doing the same hours and jobs as full time employees and paid around £25 per week). They were treated much worse than us as Saturday people and discarded at the end of the six month with no job, to be replaced by two more. Seemed really unfair as the worked really hard for much less than we were paid as Sat staff for a possible job that never existed.😡 Suppose they did get some experience..

Born early 80s. Don’t remember any corporal punishment in school. At primary started a rumour that the head had hit someone with a belt but it was just a rumour.

My dad lost his job and had to sign on - can’t remember if it was 80s or early 90s but when he asked to miss his signing on appointment to attend a family funeral he was asked if he would be looking for work while he was there

If unemployed you had a UB40 form from which the band took its name. I am not sure what single parents got - probably nothing and had to work. Most youngsters were on a job training scheme and the government funded it to about £35 per week. It was taxpayers money to employers. Designed by Lawson, Tebbit and Thatcher I recall.

In around 1982 (the year of the Falklands War) he average house price was probably around £15,000 to £20,000 in the south and the average wage was probably about £7,500 to £8,000.

School teachers would ‘cuff’ boys in class, but don’t remember the same with girls.

The very early 1980’s (think miners’ strikes, high inflation) had a very different feel to the late 1980’s (low taxes, higher employment, Filofaxes and growing house ownership). The Specials dreary “Ghost Town” at the start was replaced by Yazz’s “The Only Way is Up” and Soul to Soul’s “Good Life”.

My mum and dad split up in 83 when I was 12. My dad lost his job and had before that had been on strike. Life changed immeasurablely. Family Allowance was paid into Post Office with other benefits. DHSS office was a place I became acquainted with as I occasionally went with my dad to sign on or with my mum to benefit interviews. I just remember her crying there- a lot. Place was full of men who had worked all their days and looked bewildered at being unemployed. We were demoralised at every turn. We were given clothing vouchers but only one vile coat to choose from in BHS and only polyvelts in Clarks. I remember being treated with disdain in these shops by the assistants. We had a 50p electric metre and regularly sat in the dark. Free School meals were a huge stigma- I went hungry instead of getting my token. Divorce wasn’t spoken about so I didn’t even share with a friend. School was tough- bullying rife and no one cared. I just remember the 80s as being a huge struggle and a decade full of shame and humiliation for me, my sister and my mum.

Read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.
My schools had mostly given up on corporal punishment but it never occurred to us or the staff that throwing board rubbers or dragging a kid by the arm, twisting an ear, chucking chalk etc were punishment - it was just life. If you were daft enough not to pay attention and get hit by a flying book, serve you right.