For the over 40s - lighthearted!

[MissFlite]

I'm not trying to make light of this whole situation. Well I am a bit as otherwise I might lose the plot.

Just thinking about how this whole crazy scenario would have played out in the 1980s. My children have so many things to occupy them at home I'm sure they'll be fine if we need to stay home for weeks on end.

I was 10 in 1980. If school was shut there was no work sent home, no way of getting any and resource books just weren't a thing!

Would not be be allowed to phone friends as too expensive.

A week to wait for a decent programme to watch (Swap Shop)

If I was stuck at home back then I'd have been arranging my books endlessly and playing Simon, Mousetrap and Spirograph, alone probably as no siblings and parents didn't do as much 'quality time' as they do now Maybe writing stories.

Our kids are so lucky and they just don't know it.
What would have kept you amused back in the day?

Gosh yes, I used to watch open university programmes, and read a lot. I also would write poems and stories, not very good ones but it kept me amused. I drew a lot too. I remember writing plays, and then my siblings would act them out.

Gosh, I remember the OU programmers! And the pp was right - almost always a beardy bloke in tweed pointing to a diagram.😂

I would have spent a lot of time reading and rereading. I could/can read my favourite books many times over. Back then, it would have been Enid Blyton. Famous Five and Mallory Towers and St Clares, oh, and the Adventure series too. The Secret Seven was ok but not my favourite and I outgrew the Faraway Tree series pretty quickly.

I was 5 in 1980 I'd have spent ages colouring in,playing with my Nan,playing with my bestfriend she lived 1 door away so we spent so much time together that I don't think us being together would have made much difference(because we were allways together)we'd spend alot of time playing in my play house that my Dad had made me.

I can't get the Sons and Daughters theme tune out of my head now!

I'd probably have written several books! I loved writing stories. Still do.

Thames I had the Children of the World to colour in and cut out. I played lots of imaginary games with them too.

This is a nice nostalgic thread. I loved my Spirograph, my Etch a Sletch and my Battling Tops. Also loved skipping and throwing two balls against a wall to various rhymes and patterns. My mum was an ace skipper and could do three balls with ease. She was the coolest mum on the street.

Similar age and an only child. I would have been:

Reading a lot of Enid Blyton / E.Nesbit books
Dipping into Just Seventeen Patches / Jackie magazine
Recording my own radio show on to cassette
Writing and illustrating endless stories
Spirograph
Begging my mum to get out the plastic embedding kit and being told 'not today'
Watching children's BBC and probably getting m6 main updates from Blue Peter and John Cravens Newsround

And not worrying because I would so much less knowledge or information than my DC have today.

I loved Pipkins! leave Hartley alone you judgemental lot, he was a greatly misunderstood Hare! The same way Zippee was misunderstood in Rainbow 😀

I'd have been desperate to go to the library to change my books!
Lots of my classmates would have been chucked out of the door to play "they'll be fine, what a fuss".

BettyBoo I loved Zippy myself and am currently drinking my tea out of my Zippy mug. But Zippy looked clean and not like he'd offer you meth. Unlike that pox-riddled hare.

When I was off school in the 80s, my Mum would rent me videos to watch from the shop (remember the vide shop?). I loved the old musicals. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was my favourite. I also did a lot of imaginative play with my stuffed toys. I used to take them on adventures all over the world in my mind.

I'd usually have prem (luncheon meat) & piccalilli butties with a glass of Corona pop (yes, it was called that) watching Pipkins, Button Moon, Chorlton & The Wheelies.

Loved The Sullivans and Paint With Nancy.

Also watched lots of b&w movies esp westerns and musicals. And the Sullivans!

Probably some sort of complicated family inter warfare with my 3 siblings.
Making up ghost stories in the bedroom.
Doing gym routines using the side of the bath as a beam
Playing cards or monopoly

The TV was shite. Littlest hobo anyone?

Paint with Nancy, there's something I thought I'd forgotten!

I probably would have beat up my younger brother a lot haha
Played in the garden for hours
And whined " im bored " I don't know how many times!

My mum didn't approve of TV, and especially not ITV. I'd have been making dresses for my dolls or myself depending on which end of the 80's, reading my books and playing with the assorted livestock