It’s a Sunday in 1989, what are you doing?

[Moaningturtle1]

I would have spent the morning playing out probably on my roller skates. I’d be able to smell roast dinners cooking from all the houses on the street.

Then to my nan and grandads for a roast, played with my cousins and had Sunday tea (cake, crisps, trifle, nothing savoury in sight!).

Home to watch something like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I would then have my only bath and hair wash of the week and mum would brush and dry my hair in front of the fire watching Antiques Roadshow.

I was 7yrs old. Granddad always gave me a pound on a Sunday. I would get a quarter of rainbow drops, a couple of bags of crisps, a chocolate fudge and still have change.

Watch Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons and Land of the Giants.

Listening to the Top 40 on Radio 1

I was a 20 something living the free and single life in London. May 1989 wasn't the best time for me as my boss was trying to get me sacked but I soon afterwards got another job where I was going to be much happier and I was able to jump ship before I was pushed. If it was a Sunday, I would most likely have been experiencing the Sunday blues, dreading work tomorrow.

I would have been kicking around my heavily pregnant mother's belly for another week or two!

My student social life revolved around societies so my weekly pattern was very structured. I'd be playing Dungeons & Dragons every Sunday afternoon with one set of mates, and then down the college bar in the evening with a different set of mates for a society meet-up drinking snakebite and black and talking harmless studenty bollocks.

I was 19 just entering my second year of a proper job.

1st job paid £4755 Pa. Then I got a new job paying £5255pa. So Sunday mornings were usually spent congratulating myself on not having a hangover despite drinking enough to fell an elephant and Sunday afternoon driving around with my friends in my allegro estate. I’m sure mums roast dinners would have featured in there somewhere and sometimes I’d help out my old work waitressing a Sunday lunch

At this point in 1989 I was 12 and blissfully unaware my mum would die unexpectedly in 2 months time. It was really strange, but a few weeks prior I had a dream my best friend's mum died and it was horrific. I woke up and realised how lucky I was to have my mum and was extra nice to her. I don't generally believe in odd stuff like that, but it's always comforted me... like I was given a warning.

I was born on a Sunday in 1989

I was 7 months pregnant with my first DC (young mum). It was around this time I moved into my first place. It was only small. Combined living/bedroom but separate kitchen, bathroom and weirdly huge hallway! I liked it there. Without trying to put a downer on things I'd had a shit life until then so getting my own home and looking forward to my baby being born made me so happy. It's interesting actually to think back on it. A lot has happened since then!

I would have been 10. Played out all day with my friends, popped home for lunch and then back out. We had so much freedom then didn't we!

We would have had a roast for tea then a bath, watched boring Songs of Praise and then the Antiques Roadshow. Before an early night for school.

I would have read Mallory Towers or something similar in bed.

I was 5 (or in May 1989 I was almost 5). Playing with my older brother on his SEGA Master System after helping Mum prep the veg for Sunday dinner. Dad would be sat on living room carpet with his back up against the sofa (never sat on the sofa - always on the carpet!) watching old western movies or Tom & Jerry(!), smoking his Gitanes! (Yep both parents smoked in the house but being old enough to be my grandparents, they were of a generation that didn't realise the risks. Mum later quit).

Then after dinner it'd be water the garden, bath & Antiques Roadshow before bed!

Possibly sat outside the house of the boyband at the time.... hoping for a glimpse (not a grown up stalker now 😬)

Are you my sister?!

I would have been sleeping off the previous nights excesses most likely. I didn't tend to see much (if any) Sunday mornings back then.

I would have been 2, 3 at the end of the year so busy being a toddler

I would have been 2 or 3 depending on the date, so probably throwing a dramatic tantrum, being annoyed with my baby brother, or winding up my 4/5 year old sister.

Odds are high, I have 7 siblings 😁

I would have rolled in from a club about 3am and slept till 1pm. I'd be waking up to the smell of my dad cooking a roast. I'd do a bit of studying for my GCSE'S before watching the antiques road show.

Lounging at our local lake with my first boyfriend, awaiting my GCSE results. Or going for a mooch with him & our friends down The Big Horseshoe Hill (excellent for speeding down in the snow on an old toilet seat)!

On a weekday in the holidays, working as a tech in my friend’s Dad’s electronics factory (for a whole £86 a week full time!), then down to our local pub - the landlord didn’t bother we were only 16/17, as long as we were spending money! - a couple of snakebites or pints of real ale.

And on some nights, helping to do tech maintenance at our local theatre, crewing the odd kids shows - the delights of Rod Hull & The Chuckle Brothers - at the weekend. Occasionally going to our sister theatre as a projectionist!

A soundtrack of Gloria Esteban, The Cure & sweet, sweet Bon Jovi. Working blissfully in the theatre with the big sound system pumping out Phil Collins & Smoke On The Water.

I’d go back in a heartbeat.

Pretending to study for my GCSEs.

2 months into my nurse training so probably cleaning out the sluice and scrubbing bedpans

On this day in 1989, I was almost 16 and would most likely have been out for a drive somewhere along the East Sussex coast with my first 'serious' boyfriend... sigh.... nostalgia's kicking in. He was utterly gorgeous, all my friends thought he was gorgeous, had a car, the loveliest brown eyes, floppy fringe, a labourer's suntan (and muscles) and he thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. It was, most definitely, the start of one of the best summer's of my life!

Whenever I hear Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream', I think of him.

Playing at home quietly trying not to disturb my dad who would be snoring loudly having spent a large amount of the day in the pub, having Sunday dinner with my mum (and maybe dad), having a bath and watching Surprise Surprise before bed. I was 4.

I would have spent the morning ironing and cleaning because no doubt mum would have worked a night shift the previous night. Mum would be cooking a roast and my dad would be doing nothing except getting pissed and then he would find a reason to complain about dinner and throw it at her, beat the shit out of her, rape her and the police would do bugger all because it was 1989. The teachers wouldn’t do anything when I told them every single Monday morning because it was 1989. The neighbours wouldn’t do anything because it was 1989.
I have lots of good memories from the past but a Sunday at home in 1989 isn’t one of them.

Lovely nostalgic thread!