Come with me back to 1984...

[LadyOfTheCanyon]

I don't know whether it's simply nostalgia or whether as you get older you are able to see the past more clearly, but I was 14 in 1984 and I was simply in love with Eden by Everything but the girl ( massively underrated album!) The Unforgettable Fire by U2, The Smiths first LP had just come out, Brilliant Trees by David Sylvian- Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Coke and the commotions, Hatful of Hollow (remember waiting outside OurPrice in Hammersmith for that one!)

I was wearing DMs and dyeing my Levi's black because I couldn't find any in the shops, cutting sleeves off my brother's shirts and buying studded belts from Kensington Market. Taping The Tube on Friday nights before going out to meet my friends.
Free festivals in London Parks in the summers, saw so many great bands between 84-86. The Pogues, The Men they couldn't hang, The Boothill Foottappers, The Style Council, The Frank Chickens, The Communards...

Was just thinking about those years and wondering what other people's memories were of those years... no judgement here !

I was only three but remember power cuts and the doctor coming to see me at home because I had mumps. Unimaginable now.

I had completely forgotten about Look in magazine!

I left school in 1984 too. I loved Sade, Diamond Life and Mange Tout, Blancmange album. I can't remember what I wore it was a while ago to be fair. Big hair came later.

I muddled mostly sleeplessly through the early 1980s trying to survive two babies 15 months apart. The only cultural thing I remember clearly was the film ‘Threads’ about the effects of nuclear war on Sheffield, where I was living at the time. As a result, what little sleep I did get was destroyed by terrifying nightmares.

Miners strike.
CND and anti- apartheid protests.
Billy Bragg.
Squatting scene.
Hitch hiking.
Dole queues.

I was 19 and had started at teacher training college that September. I had Garfield posters on my wall. We used to go to the Athena poster shop on Saturdays. I had a big square floor cushion from Woolworths. It was decorated like a big red oxo cube. We used to go to Chelsea girl for outfits to wear at the student unions discos on a Saturday night. There was a Benetton shop in the High Street. It seemed impossibly expensive to me and my friend. A very posh girl in my hall of residence used to shop there. She would buy jumpers in the correct size to wear and jumpers that were a size too small to drape over her shoulders. This thread has taken me right back. My mum bought me a bar of Imperial leather soap for my wash bag. The smell instantly transports me back.

Honestly I've had a little happy nostalgic cry at this thread. Thank you all so much for sharing your memories -I couldn't be happier reading them all.

I'd forgotten about Hard Rock hairspray! Good Lord I got through cans of the stuff.

i was 17, left a small town in ireland and spent the hot summer working in london with aomw driends and my big brother at 19 'minding. me 'loyd Cole , Carnaby street, free GLC concerts , the cure the smiths , C&A and Wallis - top shop also i think? unimaginable excitement and culture shock doe my 17 year old self

I was 9. I remember being allowed to be out all day on my bike with no one knowing where I was, until dark in the summer! I was a tomboy and friends with a gang of boys; we biked for miles, climbed trees, made dens and so on. I lived in dungarees and had a bowl haircut, was constantly referred to as a boy. I didn’t mind this!
I was also into Madonna, Wham, AHA and the like.
i was a bookworm too: Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, as well as Michelle Magorian, Phillipa Pearce, Joan Lingard, Tim Kennemore, Judith Kerr, and then the clasics- What Katy Did, The Railway Children and so on. Plus I loved Bunty, Mandy, Girl and all of those.
I was either reading or playing outside.
My home was not a happy one though so I imagine I created a lot of escapism. Still lots of good memories though.

I was at Uni in England at the time, and just loved the albums OP mentioned in the original post. I remember seeing Lloyd Cole on totp with the single perfect skin. Went to London to see Smiths. From a rural farming background, then boarding school, there was such a sense of freedom and possibility for me. I remember dreading going back home to Northern Ireland at the time during holidays, not concerned about my safety but rather the bitter violent sectarianism of where I lived. In England I felt free!!

I was 18 that year and in the 6th form doing A levels at a private girls school.
Torvill and Dean win gold at Sarajevo.
Dynasty
Heather shimmer lipstick

I remember those cameras in shops! They were massive! Like domes on the ceilings, they did look like daleks.
My dad went to Northern Ireland with the army in 84, the IRA were very active then, hence the Brighton bombing aimed at Margaret Thatcher.
Mid 80s had cold winters and long hot summers.

I was at university - I was in the cool clubbing crowd, with a moppy top hairstyle, a rag tied in my hair, big earrings, bruised eye make up and black clothes with DMs. I was having great fun, low level engagement with my course, chatting a lot, clubs and house parties, going out with the best looking guy on campus interspersed with demos - anti-apartheid, miners strike, anti tory stuff. What intense fun.

was 16, at college, 2 part time jobs, lived at home.
all my £ for me, out every night, went abroad with friends. Absolute time of my life.
loved getting ready at friends houses , the make up, the Martini 😩
Frankie goes to Hollywood, Chaka, Sade. TAKE ME BACK!

Fantastic year! We bought our first house and got married in 1984. Both of us lived with our parents beforehand. 2 bed house cost £18500. I worked in a bank and got a staff mortgage at 5%. Normal rates were about 10%. Moved in with no heating, no carpets, second hand 3 piece suite, cooker and fridge. No washing machine. The only new thing was our bed! Hen night and stag nights were literally a night out up town with our friends.

I was 3 and I remember going up in the lift at the hospital on the way to meet my baby brother. I have no memory of seeing my brother for the first time, just the lift.

@GuiltyPleasure me too re the Warehouse and Phono. Spent many an hour there. But also at Ritzy and Tiffany's 🤔....

@Effiebriest Tiffany & Ritzy were more occasional for me as I was still at school, but did Central Park every Sunday which adjoined Ritzy if memory serves? Think we may well have crossed paths at some point!

I was 17 - started clubbing in London (although we didn’t call it that then) and seeing bands at the Limelight, Gardening Club, Sole Sombre, Marquee - always in Camden and Kentish Town at gigs - and squat parties in Hackney and Stoke Newington - also remember free GLC gigs outdoors at County Hall. Kensington Market and Kensington Cash and Carry Clothes Sales in the Town Hall. Lived in Doc Martin’s and little bit of my the side of my head shaved and double piercing - thought I was sooooo wild. Bought loads of clothes from charity shops was the love child of Paula Yates and Robert Smith.

My younger sister was into Whitney Houston and wore Pringle jumpers, box pleated skirts and big permed hair.

I remember 1984 as the summer when everywhere you looked someone was wearing an oversized Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, and there was always the scent of bodyshop coconut hair gel in the air.

I was 16, and wearing vintage American denim dungarees and playing in a band and reading Spare Rib and going on CND demos and listening to obscure modern jazz and reading green-spined Penguin modern classics (and trying desperately hard to be cool, clearly).

@Glorified
I remember the Cash and Carry sales in the Town Hall! I was very proud of a black crop top I got there for a couple of quid that I used to team with rolled up jeans, deck shoes and as many necklaces as I could fit round my neck, thinking I looked ever so much like Madonna thank you very much.

I was 14/15. First proper boyfriend who was 18 and drove a Capri. Loads of clothes from Bury Market in various colours, mostly electric blue or fuschia pink with matching stilettos. Using sun in on my hair. Saturday job at local petrol station. Going to Manchester Apollo to watch bands. Loved rock music especially whitesnake, ac/dc, Bruce Springsteen. Life was good.

oh this thread! I had an oversized relax t shirt, and a rara skirt (I don't think I wore them together) and very short, gelled hair. I wore stripy trousers with braces and thought I was very cool. I read Smash Hits and thought it was just hilarious. (I think Neil Tennant still wrote for it then).

I stayed up all night watching the LA Olympics on a small tv that was next to my bed. My mum didn't know.

I lived in Nottinghamshire and remember the miners strike. My mum hated the scabs and loved Arthur Scargill. We loved Torvill & Dean. I didn't drink yet or go clubbing. I had a life size poster of Paul Young on my door.

I was 7 and convinced we were going to die in a nuclear war after watching Ultravox “dancing with tears in my eyes” video many many times! My dad was in the police and had a little pocket-book in a metal cover with instructions what do in the event of a nuclear attack. I used to read it in morbid fascination and watch the 6 o’clock news every night to see if the bombs were on the way.
I’ve always been a worrier to be fair!

I remember the summer of 84! I'd just finished my o levels and results were yet to come!

I spent a lot of the summer going to pubs with some older boys, sitting in the pub garden. Then we'd go home and watch the LA Olympics on tv for a few hours. They'd go home (it was all very innocent) and I'd nick my parents portable black and white tv, and fall asleep to the continuation of the Olympics!!

I just had a feeling of freedom, anything can happen after my o levels.

Occasionally I look up online to see what was in the charts, the cinema and tv listings from those days and it takes me right back.

I was in love with a boy who thought Howard Jones was great