It's 1986!!

[NorthernLiner]

TOTALLY inspired by Dame Jilly Cooper's 'Rivals' finally gracing our screens today😄

So what were you up to in 1986?

I was 28.. my first born was one year old.
I was enjoying the joys of motherhood.
My Parents were alive .
All my siblings were alive.
We all got together every week.
My husband was working as a lecturer at Leeds University.
I decided to become a SAHM until daughter started school age four.
I went to Mother and baby groups.
I looked after my friends daughter ( who was born day after mine ) two days a week.. l wet nursed her.. we were members of Le Lechè and helped other Mums with any breastfeeding issues.

7 years old and at primary school, learning a dance routine to True Blue in the playground. I don't generally like Madonna but still quite like that song 😁

I was 29 and working for stockbrokers at the very epicentre of 80's hedonism and decadence. Champagne breakfasts, 4 hour lunches in fashionable Nouvelle Cuisine restaurants. Filofaxes, car phones, personalised number plates and wine bars. Listening to (and dressing like) Madonna. Wearing Ray-Bans and Rolex. Thatcher was selling off anything and everything and we were like pigs in the trough. It was wild and exciting, an endless party. I look back with affection but very little pride.

17, living with my boyfriend and his 5 year old daughter whilst at college. Happy days.

Wasn't even thought of yet. Parents got engaged a few months later.

Being born, in the November

I was 11, so probably gaming on my ZX Spectrum. While listening to Paul Simon's Graceland.

Same here! And going away with the same friends to celebrate our 50ths next year - viva the 80’s!

I was 18, and working as a nanny whilst waiting to start my nurse training. Going out with an odd guy called Ben (thank God that never lasted!) it was my last year of living at home.

I was 14. At secondary school, uncool. not one of the popular crew...but I was reading Smash Hits and dreaming of Duran Duran's John Taylor asking me to marry him 😍🙈

Just started senior school. Highlights of the year were friends' birthday parties and the school disco (can't imagine any senior school has them now!). There was always lots of discussion about who would 'slow dance' with which boy. My friend had a young trendy mum who did our hair with a hot brush, mousse and loads of hairspray so we looked cool for the evening (in our eyes!).

13 with a really shit haircut. The highlight of that year was spending my whole summer holiday with my aunt and uncle in the USA. I didn't want to come home!

I'm so sorry you are going through this! As I parented my 2 DDs through teens and 20s I was afraid history would repeat itself, thankfully it didn't. My parents went through hell but they had absolutely no idea of the hell I was in from age 14 to 23. My much older sister kept the secrets I chose to share whilst monitoring the situation. I finally escaped the mess but have since wished my family had forcibly moved me to the other end of the country. Keep her as close as you can OP, even if it means listening to things you don't want to hear and acting fairly neutral. Always be on her side. Sending strength your way. X

Wasn’t born 😆

Just starting out with dating, slightly belatedly at 18 (I was a bookish teen 😄), and rather angsty because it wasn't going particularly well. But also, having a great time going out at night with friends, and getting to grips with a gap-year job before starting uni. So a busy time, and on balance a happy time. Great music that year too.

"Champagne breakfasts, 4 hour lunches in fashionable Nouvelle Cuisine restaurants"
And all on expenses right @ginasevern !

Criticize was an absolute banger!

True Blue is 👌

I was in my mid teens - outrageous "fashion", big hair, great music and no social media, undoubtedly the best decade of my life thus far.

I was chilling in my mums tum 🥹

I was 18, just finished art school and volunteering on my first kibbutz in Israel.
I went on a three month placement but ended up staying for 11 months.

I would have been playing with my Care Bears, riding around on my BMX, going to roller disco and brownies listening to my Madonna and WHAM LPs on the new hi/fi my parents brought and told turn the music down.

Sneakily watching Eastenders from the stairs (My Mum would never let me watch it) and when I got the chance sneakily playing with Avon little blossom ( think it was called) and Constance Carroll make up!

I had a pair of magic steps shoes for school ( second year of juniors as it was then aged 9) and loved taking my Le Femme grey and pink holdall style bag with my calculator pencil case with rainbow pens and scented rubbers in it!

1986 was absolutely brilliant for me! I would love to go back and be 9 again just for a day or two!

Well, for most of it I was merrily gestating inside of my mother, but I made my entrance into the world towards the tail end of the year, and I imagine I spent most of the rest of the year sleeping, eating, and soiling myself.

I had just turned 5 and started school and my sibling was about to be born. My parents were still together and at a guess I was living the life of riley in our old house.

Living in Germany, my dad was in the army. Started secondary school which a school disco room/cellar at lunch time on Fridays. My mum was the proud discoverer of Lidl and Aldi. According to her anyway. Loving Madonna and Michael Jackson. Enjoying proper seasons, hot summer and snow in winter.

Year 4 at school (2nd year juniors in my day) and my class were the coolest because we’d got the cool, young, newly qualified teacher who looked like a buxom Princess Diana.

I wasn’t very cool so my pop culture is not the best, but I remember being annoyed by everyone singing Living Doll by Cliff Richard all the time, that Dirty Den turned the Oxford Street Christmas lights on that year, and that everyone was addicted to The Mysterious Cities of Gold on CBBC (apart from me - I found it irritating and could t wait for those losers to find the city so it could be OVER).

All in all, a nice year. I had a terrible short haircut and was going through a particularly chubby, ugly phase but I cared not. All my grandparents were still alive and in good health, my dad had a decently paid job, my parents were obsessed with Laura Ashley (so many dull Saturday afternoons being made to look at twee wallpaper fabric for curtains), and my best friend and I were inseparable.

I was doing my university finals and starting work. My grandmother died, I lost a ton of weight due to the stress of exams and being thrown in at the deep end at work, I caught chickenpox and passed it on to my siblings, one of whom took it to university and started an epidemic there, and I dumped the drippy boyfriend I'd allowed to waste a great deal of the time I should have spent living the high life as a student.

I read Scruples, A Woman of Substance, Valley of the Dolls, and the BMJ.

Thank you. We’re trying but she’s hardly allowed to see us.It’s so hard.