To absolutely long for the 80's again

[bertybertyberty]

I was around 16 during the peak of this era. I was just coming into pop music, walkmans & fashion.

Young, care-free, no responsibilities, slim. It was such an easy-going era. No smart tech. You could phone a company and actually speak to someone without waiting in an endless queue or going through a list of around 10 different options. Shops had extra stock 'out the back' so you could always ask them to check 'out back' for more sizes etc. Less cars on the road. Less rules/regulations/H&S in general, much more easy going (although I recognise that some of the rules nowadays are essential and should have existed back then) Less tech meant less opportunity for scams/thieves/hacking.

Life was generally so much more laid back, casual & easy going. I LONG for these days again so much. I don't actually like modern day and the stresses that come with it. I wanted to make a booking for a day out with the DC the other day, I was on hold for 1 hour 45 minutes. I gave up and hung up.

Anyone else resonate ?

It’s probably partly that you were young and beautiful! I remember the 2010s very fondly now (as unbelievable as that may be to some) and long for them often because they were my teen/early 20s years and I had the world at my feet. It’s a feeling of power and possibility you only experience once.

I agree, mostly. I don’t envy my own teenage DC. They may have more materially, but the pressure is immense for them in the future, Maybe it is rose tinted but I just remember little things made me happy. I didn’t need all the things all the time. Simpler times, would love to go back to 1982……

"And now we have AI to worry us too!"

@asterel There were fears about AI back in the '80s too. In fact, that was the whole premise of the Terminator movies.

@TheThingIsYeah the strange thing for me in ROI was NI news was no different to any other news. I was geographically at the opposite end of the country and I was young in the 80s, still a kid. I remember the constant news showing bombs etc but I never really distinguished between the NI bombs or the IRA bombs in UK. I don't think I ever even distinguished which 'side' they were, it didn't matter as they were murderers as far as my family were concerned and I know that sounds very uneducated now but that's how it was. I was 100% cocooned from it. And to be honest I'm grateful for that bubble.

@asterel great post thanks. I agree with every word!

@TheThingIsYeah the strange thing for me in ROI was NI news was no different to any other news. I was geographically at the opposite end of the country and I was young in the 80s, still a kid. I remember the constant news showing bombs etc but I never really distinguished between the NI bombs or the IRA bombs in UK. I don't think I ever even distinguished which 'side' they were, it didn't matter as they were murderers as far as my family were concerned and I know that sounds very uneducated now but that's how it was. I was 100% cocooned from it. And to be honest I'm grateful for that bubble.

@asterel great post thanks. I agree with every word!

Whoever mentioned Threads, yes! So traumatic.
One of those things everyone was talking about the next day in school. When we only had 4 TV channels…
Ditto the first time we saw Boy George on Top of the Pops, that time someone swore live on the phone to Five Star on Saturday Superstore, that awful spoof documentary for Halloween where half the nation was convinced Parky had filmed ghosts, David Icke on Wogan saying he was the son of God. These were hot topics in the playground!

I'd agree. My best social life was with my colleagues: I loved working in an office and the banter and learning to get along with people from all walks of life. No tech, so when you went for a walk or shopping no one could get hold of you until you got home.

And we weren't aware of climate change and hadn't yet experienced it.

Yes- we were starting to hear about a hole in the ozone layer but I don’t remember much more. Although we did get a hurricane- I can’t remember the year.

I was just remembering yesterday how some friends and I moved to London from a Northern town in our late teens and rented flats in Kensington! In those big white wedding cake houses. We all had jobs in bars and as au pairs but we could afford to live in Kensington, just off Hyde Park. Then I moved to Hampstead with some other friends. All of us in unskilled jobs.

It was a very different time.

It was legal for a husband to rape his wife in the 80s, so that wasn't so great.

I miss being 12 years old in 1980! I miss being young sometimes. I miss the fact that what was going to be no.1 in the charts was a big deal. I miss people watching the same things on TV.

Ironically, lots of things that we have now, streaming films, tv and music, computer games etc I would have loved if you'd told me about them then. Instant access to books for eg.

Sometimes I think it would be amazing to go in a time machine to then for a week or something and experience it again. But maybe forget double maths. Just to have clearer memories. I've thought time travelling back then with my adult dc would be fascinating. Seeing what they'd think about it.

I looked at an old listing of the Radio Times from them. The style and the programming was so much more patriarchal than it is now.

Hang on do I mean patriarchal? I mean adults/authority "knowing what is best for you"

Didactic?

Of course; but that was very much science fiction. For us it’s here and now!

It should have been shit for me , my dad was unemployed and we were living getting by, you could duck and dive then, I bet you can't now, we survived by doing exactly that ducking and diving,you'd be shopped now too much surveillance. me and my mum had numerous cash in hand jobs and we survived, I was a teenager and slim and good looking ,I loved the fashion and music it was glamorous, I couldn't wait to get ready for a night out. I fucking hate life now, it's grim and depressing there's nothing to look forward to and everything is grey, I'm glad I was young in the eighties.

Absolutely agree with you. I was out in our local town one evening over the weekend. Absolutely dead. I was walking through thinking back to when the streets were full of people spilling out from pubs, walking from bar to bar along crowded pavements. Proper pubs rather than wine bars,which were so full of great atmosphere. That’s where you met boys - so much better than online dating. Even the music was so much better - really quirky great genres of music. So glad I grew up in that era. I think it was the the last decade of the best times.

I was born in 1980 and lived in NI throughout the Troubles during the decade... it was anything but "unrelentingly miserable". I'm not criticising you, your ignorance of the situation is shared by many. They see bombs on TV and think "warzone".

Truth be told, unless you were directly involved in any bombing/shooting it didnt really affect you. Yes we had police checkpoints in towns where you were often pulled over and your dad had to show the cop his driving licence..."where you off to sir?" would be a common question..but that was it. The number of deaths was actually very low in comparison to other conflicts (the 1980s had less than 850 deaths, 300 of which were civilian).

https://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/troubles/deaths_by_year.html

Most major US cities had more homicides in one year in the 1980s than we had in the Troubles over the whole decade.

New York..1981 (1814 homicides), 1982 (1826 homicides).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#Murders_by_year

Philadelphia ("city of brotherly love" apparently)...563 murders in 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listof_cities_by_homicide_rate

Like OP I loved the 80s. Portrush, Newcastle, Giants Causeway, Safari Park, Jet centre (Coleraine), Funderland (Kings Hall Belfast), we had endless trips out. It was a magical time for most of us. An early memory was Sport Aid from 1986 where I ran two miles for charity (since learned that event was a follow on from Live Aid (itself a follow on from Band Aid and Do they know its Christmas)). 80s music and films are without doubt my favourite...and collecting Roald Dahl books as they were released (vividly remember getting Matilda in 1988)..the excitement was similar to how a later generation got each Harry Potter book. Benny Hill on TV, also loved the Chronicles of Narnia series on the BBC from 1988.

I feel like I’m in the 80s now, when ever I go out the music is 80s hits

Even in NI most of us were in a bubble. Apart from one incident in a town near me, I never directly came across the troubles. As I said above, 300 civilians were killed in the whole decade, that's a low number for a conflict. For comparison sake, in 2021 New York City had 491 homicides (and apparently it's now one of the "safer" US cities).

I loved the eighties. It was when I truly grew up. I was fifteen in 1980, preparing for O levels the following year and turned 25 in December of 1989, having married in August that year. 1983-6 was when I did my music degree and I had a whale of a time, studying my lifetime passion. Tuition fees were paid and we had grants towards our living expenses. It was a time with all the freedom of being a young adult without any real responsibilities apart from passing exams. I made some lifelong friends and enjoyed life generally. I loved the fashions and was a size 10/12 (more like today’s 8/10) so could really enjoy them. Of course, I was not immune to the not so good things that were happening in the wider world, but I was also very much enjoying myself. I think the key word is freedom and we had plenty of that. I travelled all over the place with my 18-25 railcard. I enjoyed the nineties because that was when I had my three children but the decade of my youth was the eighties.

To many people on earth what do you except. It will never be like that again

I feel the same. I was 17 in 1981. I was mad on Japan and Gary Numan. I wore, my mums, Rive Gauche and Opium, later 80s, Giorgio Beverly Hills.
In July 81 when Lady Di got married, we had the day off work. It was a hot day and I remember mum had the sun beds out on the patio and we kept running in to see what was happening on our little tele in the kitchen.
I miss being a child in the early 70s too. My friends. Playing out all day. Pineapple chunks, pear drops and jublees when they were big, not those tiny things they sell in Tesco now.
Mum making me dairylee on buttered digestives in the hols, watching The Double deckers, Casey Jones and White Horses on tele.
I feel massive nostalgia for those days and can get quite teary. I miss my parents and my DB.

An 80s child growing up here too. Loved it. Agree with you OP.

As an equestrian though I love the improvements in riding hats and back protectors and breeches with silicone on the bum to help me stay in the saddle. I look back on my riding school days (we couldn’t afford a pony as a child it’s been an adult thing I’ve done) and think how I survived a fall I’ll never know!

The hat I had then had just elastic round it to hold it on and rivets in the top of the head which have since been totally changed due to safety regs.

Loved the music, Top of the Pops with my tape recorder hoping no-one coughed or talked mid song taping and Grange Hill. Loved you took a chance calling up to see friends as nobody used the land line. We walked everywhere and if we did get the bus it was 2p with a conductor on board.

Happy memories!

I long for any era of my life prior to 2000.

Do you seriously think whether it is legal or not makes one iota of difference ?