Memories of mid 80's for my short story?

[onesmalldog]

What can you remember of the mid 80s living in the UK as regards house decor, colours, house style, furniture, knick knacks, wallpaper, doors, flooring, light fittings etc?

Also what did you eat and drink?

I'm writing a story need this sort of detail to make it realistic.

Would be so grateful to hear your suggestions - and fun!

This might be more late 80s. Bear in mind I was 5 in 1985.

The telephone where you wound the numbers round and it had to go back on itself.

Flavoured yoghurt, No. 20 cigarettes, nobbly wall paper, milk and biscuits being stopped at nursery, faggots for school dinner, fish cakes (wtaf), advent of fitted kitchens and not knowing where the bin was in peoples houses who had one, cream Laura Ashley sofas with pastel florals, The Top 40 on Sunday BBC Radio 1 4-7pm - writing all the songs down, maryland cookies (height of sophistication), tropical fruit juice, double chocolate chip muffins, freshly baked white bread or baguettes, flat pack furniture, condensation on windows pre double glazing, waking up and seeing my own breath.

Born in ‘82 and remember Appetite for Destruction in ‘87

LaCroix ahhhh Anais Anais. At 54 am I too old for this divine scent now? It was my first perfume. My parents always got it for
Me at birthdays and Xmas. Ahhhhh

The "broadsheet" Sunday newspapers were enormous. It took a whole week to read the Sunday Times.

Rag-roll and sponged paint effects on the walls. Walls were all apricot and peach coloured.

Bright blue mascara, big velvet hairbands with wire in the seams, so you could knot them.

Sony walkmans with music cassettes in them.

I remember being invited to a couple of really smart dinner parties (diplomats present) by my landlord. For one he'd cooked frozen chicken kievs with pesto spaghetti - it seemed so sophisticated

Everyone was on low fat Rosemary Conley hip and thigh diet (when not eating pesto spag and kievs)

Wham/George Michael played at every mainstream party and house music at warehouse raves.

I can't remember what we drank.

Petrol stations gave away huge sets of crystal glasses and dinner sets. Soup bowls were v popular from somewhere.
Love this thread!

I was born mid-80s and my memories of photos I’ve seen of that time are:

• t-bar shoes on all toddlers
• swirly pattern carpets and a stone fireplace
• Care Bears
• aggressive perms
• I was in terry nappies

I just asked my mum about her mid-80s memories and she said Neighbours and Eastenders started about that time, and that she liked Cagney and Lacey and Bergerac. She had a Vauxhall Nova and said doing the pools was popular with her older relatives.

The telephone where you wound the numbers round and it had to go back on itself.

Love this description of rotary dialling 😅

Press button phones were on the scene in the 80s - I worked for BT & remember the first ones very well 😆

I have a recurring nightmare where I am trying to ring for help on one of those phones and I don't turn the dial far enough and have to keep doing it over and over

Red, electric blue, bright fuschia pink clothes, shoes, makeup the lot. I was queen of the blue mascara

Lip gloss, heather shimmer, shaggy perms or short spiky hair died black or burgundy.

Huge earrings, I made my own with things like dangly birdcages and bells

Batwing tops

Eternal beau everything in the kitchen

Pierrot in the bedroom

Protests every weekend

Total fear of nuclear annihilation (I live reasonably near faslane), see above protests

Mass unemployment and figures being announced every day.

Rara skirts and neon legwarmers

Snakebite and black, wild turkey and coke and sobrani cocktail fags. B&H or Silk Cut for girls, Camel or Marlboro for boys

Not much age checking in pubs. I was 20 in 1986 and had been going to pubs and clubs since I was 14.

Miners strike, ambulance strike, just strikes in general. Grinding poverty and ex miners commuting suicide because of it.

It was a grim time. I think the bright colours etc. was a kick against that.

My Mum had out bathroom (avocado suite) clad with pine panels. We also had floral patterned borders stuck on the walls at waist level, and all the curtains, sofas and wall papers matched. Our kitchen was sort of country pine style. Later in the 80s I remember when the 'acid' style came in and everyone wore fluorescent colours, including cord wrist bands. I aspired to a shell suit and wallabies, which were a suede shoe. In the early 80s we all wore grey suede pixie boots (I was in primary school).
I remember when pop tarts arrived in the shops and we all went mad for them. As well as Angel Delight, Vesta instant curries and Findus crispy pancakes.

Oh yes and the trend for 'stencilling' designs on your walls. It never looked like it was supposed to, lots of smudges and drips!

I was born in 1992 but this thread makes me wish I was around in the 80s

We stencilled grapes on our door in the 90s and stamped motifs on a blind

Neon stationery and scented erasers marketed at schoolgirls

Stickers of all kinds

Scented pens etc

Posters on your wall from Smash Hits
Sony Walkman

The 'traditional' sitcom with Terry and June as a prototype - almost invariably set in the Home Counties!!!

So-
Home to Roost
Ever Decreasing Circles

Also I seemed to remember Radio 1 roadshows in seaside resorts in summer being MUCH more of a thing than they are now -
An 'ooh Gary Davies mug'?

Also T-shirts saying

"My friends went on holiday and all I got was this lousy T Shirt"
"Frankie says Relax" T Shirts

Mullet hairstyles
Lots of neon, baby!!

The F Plan Diet!!

Munch Bunch yogurts!!

My parents redecorated in 1988. We had green striped wallpaper halfway up the wall, then a border in a Greek key design, then above a co ordinating green floral pattern. It toned well with the new carpet in mottled shades of green, think it was called 'American Shadow'?

One of my university friends invited me back to her family home one weekend and it was wall to wall Laura Ashley. She had a beautiful bedroom with everything coordinated in yellow with a delicate bird pattern, she even had matching scatter cushions. I remember the sitting room had a soft green carpet and a salmon pink sofa and a large, white Adam's style fireplace. The curtains were pink and green and very heavily lined and swagged with huge tasseled tie backs.

To be honest it all looked incredibly lush and inviting and I still like that look even now.

We moved house in 1985 and the bathroom was chocolate brown. As was our neighbour's - the previous owner bought our neighbour's house as a new build three years previously and commissioned a chocolate Brown bathroom suite, moved in, then decided he preferred the house next door and replicated the same bathroom there. He must have really LOVED brown. My parents couldn't afford to change the bathroom until the 90s.

Oh and those stickers from (I think) a sports brand maybe Nike? That said "Do The Right Thing" - we had them everywhere. And i had small stickers from Smash Hits and Look In that i used to stick on anything that stayed still long enough, my mother's make up bag still has a Kylie and Jason sticker on it.

Laura Ashley dresses
Instant coffee/instant soup/instant mash/frozen pizza slices
F plan diet
Dempsey and Makepeace on telly
Boiler suits were still in vogue along with curly perms
Keep fit was still a "thing", lots of pastel shades, headbands, leg warmers.
Benetton jumpers in primary colours were trendy, as were primary colours in fashion eg electric blue/emerald green/bright yellow.
Abstract shapes like triangles along with squiggles were trendy for home furnishings and wall pictures.

Total fear of nuclear annihilation (I live reasonably near faslane), see above protests

This too - lived in Newbury so a few miles from Greenham Common - used to see enormous USAF planes coming over our flat all the time with parts for the Nuclear weapons stored there.

Ee used to say at least if there was a war we would be vaporized before we knew anything about it.

Do I dare throw in some slogans and adverts (this will probably run away with itself if so!)
"Hello Tosh...Got a Toshiba?"
"Ariston, and on, and, on"
"BMX Boys have a lot of fun"
Discuss...