What Was Wrong with the 70s????

[Menofsteel]

I wasn’t born until 1980 but my husband is a 60s child. He’s showed me public information films from the 70s and just introduced me to the original Survivors. I saw the remake with Julie Graham? Why is everything from the 70s so much creepier?!? I’m starting to believe we are a bit softer nowadays .

Mum wouldn’t let us have that. She made us have home made cakes and tarts...

Neon jumper that’s awful. I’m so sorry.

Child in Northern Ireland. Swings chained up of a Sunday. Church. Home. Dinner. No tele. No Sunday papers. Read the bible.

Sent out so mother could do housework on a Saturday. Dad not involved. He was there, they were married, but all he ever did was shout.

Mother worked. Unusual. Most people’s mums didn’t work.

Expected to get my brother up and nappy changed and washed and ready for school. Walk the dog. Before school. Pushing my brother in a high pram. I was 10.

Having to do all the family ironing from the age of 11. Cooking three nights a week from about the same age.

The belt for anything and everything. Often. And hard. Welts. Still have a scar now if I look for it

Always cold. Chilblains. So so cold all winter.

Bus being attacked. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Not allowed out after tea because beatings and bomb scares.

I don’t miss it and I wouldn’t go back for anything.

That sounds almost Dickensian. 💐

I never had a whole mars bar until I was 16! 3 way split until then, mum used to cut into 6 slices with a sharp knife and we’d get 2 each

My mum used to do this too! I'm convinced Mars Bars have shrunk since then!

@whenwillthemadnessend

We know now but in those days the general public loved saville

Always been Creepy tho.

Anyone remember Charlie says ads
Scarred me witless.

Yes to being hungry and out all day
Kids at school with just a crisp sandwich or jam was pretty standard.

I remember the smell of Sunday dinner cooking being torture and hanging around carving to get scraps of meat. No wonder obesity was rare.

I remember the ad where a kid got trapped in an abandoned fridge and died.

We didn’t have central heating until I was 13 or 14. And our electric went off early coz of the power shortages. I remember sitting in front of the fire and trying to dry my hair in a power cut and running upstairs with the hot water bottle because there was ice inside the windows.

I have fond memories of 70s Christmases - lots of brightly coloured decorations, satin-covered baubles, Matchmakers, Rose & Lemon Turkish Delight in an octagonal box, massive box of Terry's All Gold that hung around until well into the new year with the hard-centred ones that no one wanted.

And every programme had a 'Christmas Special'. You knew it was Christmas when Tom and Barbara were knitting festive sweaters for Jerry and Margot, and the Blue Peter presenters started lighting the candles on the tinsel and coat hanger health & safety nightmare that was the 'advent crown'.

Yes the 1970s and early 1980s everyone and everything was 'tougher' than recent years (although who knows after the pandemic).There were still places that had been bombed out in the war left to rot, housing estates which were shiny and new in the 60s began to show their age, smoking everywhere, the war generation were 'in charge' be it in politics/policing/education and there was a no nonsense approach to everything. That's how I remember the 70s.

Did love it too though... and yes to the best Christmas'

@Squiffany oh yes was thinking about that fridge public safety ad whilst writing my first post.. and the kite/electricity pylon one...

@MajorMujer

I was born in the early 70's and as a pp said we were the last of the "free range" generation. It felt like the world was for adults only & kids just had to fit in. Very different to the child centric world of today.

Well I grew up in the 90s and I feel things were different even then. For example as a kid you were expected to stand up to let an adult sit down on a bus or waiting room. These days it's the other way around.

Sexist, racist & homophobic sitcoms.

It Ain't Half Hot Mum
Till Death Us Do Part
Are You Being Served?

My mum and dad loved all that sort of racist homophobic “comedy”. I remember the Black and White Minstrels being on.

Horrible.

Totally agree that as kids we just had to fit in. I think Generation X have had the worst of both worlds to be honest because of this.... when we were kids it was an adult's world and now we are adults it's all about the kids!

@UntamedWisteria
Steptoe & son
Love thy neighbour >>

It definitely felt more dangerous, too much roaming around on our own with the potential for all sorts of crap to go wrong- and it often did.
Being smacked by parents and teachers, seeing school friends get caned. Fear of physical punishment from adults was constant.
Being cold, no central heating, ice on the inside of windows.
Poverty was just normal on the council estate I grew up on. Kids in plimsolls in the middle of winter because their parents couldn’t afford shoes for them.
On the plus side GPs could see you the same day and often did home visits for kids. No ringing 111 a GP was on call overnight and at weekends.

I dont remember the 70's like that at all. Was this all early 70's? Mid to late, We weren't cold, no power cuts, no coats on the bed. I remember being perfectly happy.
And I don't have a problem with spending all day in the summer holidays out on our bikes with the kids in our cul-de-sac, building dens, and only going home for my lunch and dinner.

Ah yes, forgot about Steptoe & Son. My dad loved that ...

@monkeytennis97

Totally agree that as kids we just had to fit in. I think Generation X have had the worst of both worlds to be honest because of this.... when we were kids it was an adult's world and now we are adults it's all about the kids!

Yes, very well put. I've often felt frustrated by this. There was a sort of 'your turn will come' consolation as a child in the 70s/80s but by the time I was an adult, the tide had turned completely in favour of the young ones.

Rising Damp
George & Mildred
Some Mothers Do Ave Em
The Liver Birds

@Oblomov20 I remember no heating upstairs at my nan and grandad's house, lots of use of hot water bottles during winters, blankets and no duvets, seeing your breath on a cold winter's morning when you woke up. I had a very middle class upbringing.

Primary School- Ritual humiliation by teachers of kids, teachers and any adult being able to whack kids. Open racism by adults in school (dinner ladies/teachers/'helpers'), lots of disablism (name calling). Very little child centered teaching-90% chalk and talk.

@WitchesSpelleas absolutely how I remember it, so looked forward to being an adult as it was all about the adults when we were kids and then it flipped!

Les Dawson & Benny Hill

Hated the 70s. Women were treated so badly. Male colleagues felt it was perfectly acceptable to grab bits of you, complain and you would be accused of being frigid or ‘ not up for a laugh ‘. Going into any male dominated space i.e. a garage, would fill you with fear, as you knew every bloke in the place would be looking you up and down , generally treating you like an idiot. I was a teenager then , we were called ‘ dolly birds ‘. We earned a lot less then men, and it was still expected that we would either give up work upon marriage, or definitely when we had a child. I look back on it as a dark time for women, feminists ( we were called women’s libbers ) were derided and fodder for 70s comedians. I could go on, it was dire.

I hate with a passion, the fact that parenting has swung completely to the other end of the spectrum, re 'the kid is central'.

How and why that happened I haven't still quite grasped.

Yes I fitted in more with parental life. I really don't see what is wrong with that.
I was happy and felt loved.