to want to go on a visit to the 70s

[morningtoncrescent62]

I'm not dewy-eyed about the 1970s, and I know it was a time of unchecked sexism, racism, homophobia etc., with levels of child abuse that are only now becoming evident. I don't want everything to go back to how it was then. But I do sometimes feel left behind and overwhelmed by how much has changed since I was growing up - a bit like having culture shock when you go to an unfamiliar country. I just long to have a couple of weeks in the early 70s. I'll sing a few New Seekers songs, hang out on a picket line for a bit, do some shopping in Woolworths and C&As and then I'll come back and get on with my life here. AIBU?

My friends Dad worked for the company who produced those Top of the Pops cover albums , strangely we were less than impressed.
One of Mud was a regular at our local nightclub
Status Quo lived up the road
Saw Queen live at Hyde Park at a free concert (my first big rock concert)
And had a corkscrew perm and ridiculous platforms
Those were the days LOL

I remember going to see Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel in concert - I thought I was the dog's bollocks and it was fab! Shopping at Miss Selfridge, platform shoes, glittery nail varnish, Oxford Bags, Tiger Feet, school holidays that seemed to last forever and so on and on......Definitely things were more special and less abundant and I think we were happier for it!

Have to say I don't think life was simpler. We still juggled childcare, housework, both of us working full-time, no family nearby, mortgage, etc etc.
i don't see how having more TV channels and an iphone makes life more complicated.
I look back to the eighties when DH was travelling the world with his job and think how much easier a mobile phone would have made it, never mind Skype or Facetime.

We may only have had three channels, but we had the likes of Catweazle and Here Come the Double Deckers to watch. Yippee! And assorted very scary children's dramas.

I'm not sure whether things were simpler, I think it would always look that way to me because I was a child playing with my clackers - but it seems now that if you blink you've missed the latest technological innovation without which you feel like a dinosaur, and the latest added complication change at work. Having said that, the early 70s did of course bring us decimalisation which my parents never quite got over. I remember using 'new money' at school before the changeover, and it was puzzling when shops suddenly started using what I'd thought was play money just for school.

I wouldn't mind going back for the occasional afternoon, to stock up on long-gone favourite sweets and slide down grassy slopes on bits of cardboard, with my best friend peeing herself laughing. Not in winter, though. Sometimes I felt as though my toes didn't thaw out for months on end.

You'd have to come back to wash your hair though - I seem to remember a pathetic 300 watt pink plastic hairdryer. You weren't always making it up when you said you couldn't go out, you had to stay in to wash your hair. t could take all evening to dry.

I was a child in the 70s, we didnt have central heating but I dont remember feeling cold, maybe we were used to it or I've got my rose tinted glasses on.
I remember the clothes more than anything, cheesecloth tops, gypsy skirts, maxi dresses.

Oh I'd love to have a 70s holiday. Hanging round Biba, portobello road and Kensington market, blue and green mary quant nail varnish, listening to Joni Mitchell......heaven.

I was a young child in the 70s. I remember going to London, seeing a punk and demanding that I had safety pins in my ears and a mohican too.

I was dragged past the chap very quickly!!! He was so cool.

I was 7.

We had a fire in the lounge, the hall and stairs were freezing and we used to get undressed to night clothes in bed.

We had a single bar heater on the ceiling in the bathroom which we could put on 5 minutes before a bath to "warm the room"

When we wanted a bath we had to put the immersion on earlier.

Christmas presents were always things we needed (protractors, socks! thanks!) and one thing we wanted.

YANBU - it would be soooo lovely to go back to a time before the world became obsessed with gadgets. Life is waaay too fast and over complicated these days. A 70s holiday sounds fab

"Just don't visit in winter. No central heating or double glazing"

Ah yes, many a winter night spent cocooned in blankets in a bedroom where the inside temperature was probably below zero, so cold that I couldn't sleep. I remember my breath frosting in my bedroom, and ice on the inside of the window pane, even with the window shut. Fuck, it was freezing. need an icicle smiley

Can I come along to! Could we make it the summer of 75 or 76 please

I couldn't handle all the cigarette smoke in every enclosed space... No thanks...

If Jon Sim can accompany me, I'm in.

Yes to having proper weekends and half day closing on a Wednesday. Work wouldn't expect a mobile phone to be on so you were uncontactable out of the office.

However there were also strikes, power cuts and the three day week.

Every time DH or I worry about the recession FIL reminds us they lived through the 70s when the IMF had to take over our finances, and that those times were much worse than now.

I agree, go in the summer because it was fucking freezing in the winter.

I think it's the pervasive cigarette smoke that would make you cut your trip short. I remember having to take a flight as an unaccompanied minor whilst recovering from recurring bronchitis, and being seated next to a smoker. I practically asphyxiated with the effort of trying not to cough because it would appear rude.

Mind you, twenty years on from that, so twenty years ago, I found myself sitting in a cafe recovering from another case of bronchitis with a pregnant colleague and a smoker. She pulled rank on me because she was pregnant and hence I had to sit next to the smoker. I was quite pissed off with her but it didn't occur to either of us to ask him not to smoke: clearly that was out of the question because one of the main reasons we were meeting in the cafe rather than in the office was so he could smoke.

Perhaps we could have a Back To 70s Challenge?

Say, a month of (at home at least, work not possible, obv.):

• No computers, tablets, mobile phones or any other like devices

• No DVDs, VHS, CDs or other digital audio/visual formats - vinyl and cassette only

• No digital radio - analogue only

• Only BBC 1 and 2 and ITV 1 to be watched on telly, and only as broadcast (no iplayer etc)

• No digital gaming devices

(Flares optional)

Just imagine it now! We've just become so used to all the new tech that it's hard for me to remember what it was like before.

Down to the video shop on a Friday night.

Not in the 70s you didn't! We were some of the first people we knew to get a video and that wasn't until about 1982. It was rented from Rumbelows and the remote control was attached by a lead! And there were no video renter shops till the mid 80s. I remember a video renting place in Oxford street around 1983 and it cost about £10 to rent the vidoes but that was cheap because to buy them new was around £40. (IIRC you had to leave them a cheque for the £40 in case you didn't bring it back, you got the cheque back when you returned the video.)

There were big top loading video players available in the late 70s, but not many homes had one. We didn't until the early 80s.

I was referring to the 80s Balloon, following on from my first post. I don't know about the 70s.

We must have been rich because we had central heating but I rented many a flat in the 80's with a 2 bar fire in the living room and no other heat in the house so you waited until you were really desperate to pee before you braved the baltic hall and toilet.

I remember my mum food shopping nearly every day, or sending me for stuff, and I don't know how I would manage without a cash machine or debit cards, having to go into to the bank every time you wanted money.

Walking to the telly to change the channels or volume. Probably no washing machine or shower either.

"Probably no washing machine"

Or the twin tub that had to be hauled into the middle of the kitchen floor at each use.