Fond dreams of the 70/80's

[ElderDruid]

OK so I'm giving myself away to be aged but I don't care. Was reading another super poster who is cooking a load of party food from scratch it made me think back to a time when I didn't have to be a pro at this adulting business.

All the foods our parents would cook, sitting in a pub with a can of coke and bag of crisps, parties with home made grub and cheese/pineapple hedgehogs. The local social club for weddings and parties. The same place hosting random bands on a Saturday, bingo on a Sunday. Or the bigger ones that had a bigger lounge, where you'd go after bowls on a Saturday, watching your family play on fruit machines, just wanting to be allowed to press the button.

Being able to bike for miles, swim in rivers, jump off bridges into the murky depths below. Exploring, so much exploring. Going cap in hand to a farmer who's track we'd followed, coming back at dusk on our bikes to see the gate bolted. Getting a brew & cake from the farmers wife, whilst the farmer told the best stories.

Going to the play park / recreation ground after hours with alcohol you paid a random adult outside a shop to get you. Cigarettes that cost next to nothing. Fish & chips on Fridays. As a rare rare treat a trip to the Chinese, which wasn't actually for you, but prawn crackers dipped in your Dads curry.

Babysitting for kids you barely knew, because the parents knew a friend of a friend of your parents. LP's, proper music you had to save for, not just click buy on iTunes. The Atari was tech golddust. No computers, the first when I was in my teens in the 80's being the Amstrad CPC 464, screeching tapes to load a game. That's right kids games on cassettes. Although you don't even know what a cassette is. Not to mention TV before Sky, how did we cope? We got Sky pretty much as it came out, even then there weren't a thousand channels. Your brother watching German TV late at night, because, well we all know why.

Those phones you had to dial with your finger in a circle. Any phonecall after 10 and you assumed someone must have died. VHS tapes to record stuff, with murder being a choice when someone taped over your programme. Has to be mentioned, trying to record to top 40 on a Sunday old style disc jockeys. None of this down with the kids stuff. Although possibly shouldn't mention them as not all are the paragons of virtue we believed. Disco's where you usually ended up in the school toilets with a friend with smudged mascara as a boy had been a dick. Hairstyles that are simply the opposite of the straightened within an in of its life look now. Not knowing if you lit a cigarette after using half a can of hair spray if the room would combust.

Kissing and smoking behind the bike sheds at school. MLiving in fear of getting in trouble because the teachers could launch the blackboard rubber at you or worse, the phone call home! Times when your parents would take the teachers word as tacit proof and you'd get a bollocking at school then worse at home.

Im sure I've missed loads out, but does anyone else remember those times of simplicity fondly?

[VintagePerfumista]

(not disputing, but she is now scratching her head and saying well, her own father was long dead, my Dad was gone- she just presumes she got one easily because she had a fulltime job?)

[VintagePerfumista]

(she says the original mortgage was in both names, then he fucked off in late 71 and she just transferred into her name) (don't know if that would have made a difference) He was certainly in no situation to be her guarantor then, if anything it would have been the other way round!

[skerrywind]

Skerry op was asking about childhood experiences, as a young child you would not know about all the things you mentioned

Really?

When I was 5 years old I witnessed my neighbour, a young mother being beaten regulary by her husband, even jumping out of her bedroom window and fracturing her hip, Police were not interested.That woman was dosed up by her GP and eventually fell head first into a coal fire does up so much that her head cooked for several hours, found only by her 4 year old child in the morning.
I was bullied at school, saw friends being hit by teachers and parents with belts, i was casually groped by neighbours and drunken people at parties as an 8 year old, my friend was seriously sexually abused at the age of 9 and was told not to "make a fuss"".

I can assure you these were all childhood experiences and I was very aware of what was happening.

[skerrywind]

dosed up

[skerrywind]

" working women were routinely refused mortgages in their own right, or were granted them only if they could secure the signature of a male guarantor, according to a Mintel report Women and Finance "


www.theguardian.com/money/2004/apr/18/womenandmoney.observercashsection

[ElderDruid]

They do even do the Conga at kids parties anymore more, let alone that one where you sat down banging the floor like muppets. But it was fun wasn't it. It makes me sad that parties are £15 a head at football centres, or mini me salon parties. What happened to a village hall, disco and buffet with partygames. You can't even do pass the parcel unless everyone wins.

I think there were dangers in every era. There was a girl who wasn't that great at swimming that drowned. That affected us all for quite some time. I even recall a friend of the family that was inappropriate when we were in our teens, obviously my fault for being pretty back then. So yes attitudes do change for the better.

But if you look back before iPads and the like. Tell me what you'd do of a weekend morning if you weren't lying in. You'd have the TV on and they made half decent shows that made Saturday mornings epic. Now if a child wakes up in the morning it's politics and food shows. You need Sky to get the same repeated drivel that drives parents insane. I've got a sulky son losing at some game, he's not yet been up an hour. Ok if I wanted WW3 I could advocate he do something different, but you find you buy presents birthdays & Christmas. Seldom used because it's almost like an addiction to all things electronic. I couldn't say to DD, how about you draw a nice picture, or let's make something from empty boxes. She'd think as has thought I'm insane.

Boxes of free Lego, as in not a build Batmans world or Lego City. Unless there's a purpose to it, it's a no go. So all the Lego that was passed on plus Lego we've bought in boxes isn't used as it doesn't have instructions. Instead hundreds have been spent on Lego Batman, Marvel etc. I'm sure it could have been built with the masses of Lego they have.

Do you find that children now have hardly any imagination? There's pretend play but they have mini whole kitchens with realistic looking appliances and tools. Dress up involves actual outfits, children wouldn't wear a cape and be superman, they need a whole actual superman outfit.

[Magzmarsh]

Agree with everything skerry said, it wasn't all flares and cola cubes op. Plus there was loads of gang and football violence. My brother was beaten to a pulp by the police and thrown in the cells for the night because he was waiting for a bus home from work and got caught up in a skinhead versus punks battle. There was loads of police brutality and corruption, nowadays people have to be accountable for their actions thank goodness.

[OccasionalNachos]

The old style HiFi stacking systems that had your dual tape deck, radio, record player, then later ones CD. With speakers that you could move.

Ah,we had one of these. It was enormous! I spent ages making mix tapes on it.

Agree with the poster above who said everyone thinks their teenage decade was the best. Every era has good aspects and bad aspects. I am 31 and am glad that there was (almost unrecognisable now) internet in my teenage years, but I would hate to be a young teenager now with all the snapchat and Instagram nonsense. I just loved the primitive Smash Hits website circa 1997...

[OccasionalNachos]

OP all those things you mention in your last post still exist. I got my godsons boxes of mixed Lego for Christmas. I've had to search through loads of cartoon drivel before giving up to Radio 2 whilst waiting for Andrew Marr to come on at 9am. My niece has a play kitchen but ignores the fake food with it & concocts whole scenarios and imaginary games with random items.

[ArchNotImpudent]

I agree, OP. I don't remember the 70s and 80s as being so fiercely aspirational as the present day - perhaps because people weren't constantly putting their lives on display via social media.

It's interesting that different things have become conventionally branded as shocking. A PP mentioned On the Buses - it would be considered outrageous in today's terms (casual sexism, racism and homophobia) but the humour is very unsophisticated - mostly slapstick - and the height of the family's aspirations is to install a low-flush lavatory. Conversely, the casual swearing and sex on TV today would have been beyond the pale in the 70s and 80s (remember the fuss when Johnny Rotten used the word 'fuck' during a chat show?).

There was definitely more of the idea that 'children should be seen and not heard' (my grandparents used to say this if my sister and I were being too noisy). That philosophy had dangerous aspects which have been well-documented - children being afraid to speak up about abuse, for example. However, there wasn't the expectation that the world should be a child-centred place, and children's needs/rights should trump everything else, which today, although by no means universal, is seen as a valid point of view.

Most wanted toy - I was absolutely desperate for a 'Frogger' electronic game in the early 80s - but had to make do with the Tandy version of 'Simon Says'.

[motherinferior]

My daughters have grown up assuming they can work for the same pay as a man, that they are as good at anything as a boy is,that their lesbian and gay friends can be out at school, that their black and Asian friends and relatives should not be subjected to racist abuse and stereotyping...all a damn sight better than my experience in the 1970s.

[ElderDruid]

I'm sorry that people had negative experiences. Holding my hand up yes similar happened to me, nothing makes it right, but I wholly choose not to define my childhood, on occasions where inappropriate things happened. I truly have empathy for those who were victims, I wanted to focus on the positives.

Money wasn't exactly flush but we got by, even through the difficult times. Comparing them to now, family 'appeared' to be more important. We'd go out with relatives and Grandparents. We had weekends staying at Grandparents with cousins. I fondly recall the pool man, my Grandad sat there of a Saturday afternoon with his pool slip listening to the football results.

You could rent various things from shops, you had the catalogue which was a staple of most people's side units, along with the phone book and yellow pages. DH would kill me, but I'd love a proper side unit. The kind that had cupboards underneath, a pull down bit that you stored important stuff in, the shelves for your ornaments.

Did anyone else have the stripy bedsheets. They're like gold dust now, I had a look on eBay. Being tucked into bed was really being tucked into bed with various sheets. With the top bed spread that felt so heavy when you were young. It's perhaps why we slept so well.

DH was saying I really want a ghetto blaster, I told him mine was in my Nans spare room, a big heavy metal thing. He must have forgot about it, so might grab it as a surprise.

[ArchNotImpudent]

Ah, yes, wall-units! I used to love walking round MFI with my parents in the 80s, where they had dozens of units set up as rooms, with fake books and ornaments. My parents have still got their MFI wall units!

I remember when duvets first came in, they were known as 'continental quilts'. I rescued a box of old Argos catalogues from my parents' attic, going from 1976 up to the mid 1990s - they make fascinating reading. Orange was the colour of choice for late 70s homeware (preferably with a few decorative flowers); or brown and beige for crockery.

[skerrywind]

elder- but I wholly choose not to define my childhood, on occasions where inappropriate things happened

I don't think any of us are defining their childhood- but you did ask, and the negative experiences are a way of demonstrating the structure of the society that existed in the 1970s.

If you grow up in a wealthy, middle class, gentle family you will have good experiences no matter which decade that happened, but you really can't extrapolate that experience to define a time zone.

[ElderDruid]

Fragrances of that time, men and teenagers stank of Old Spice, that came in that white bottle. I think the other was Brut.

For the ladies or for me it was all about Charlie, my Mum was Anais Anais or another sickly sweet one, I think it might have been Poison. Or whatever was a hit in Avon at the time. White Musk rings a bell.

You look at make up we had back then compared to now. Although the majority of my pocket money went on hairspray and music. Nivea was the go to cream for anything and everything.

[ElderDruid]

You're right Skerry, my apologies. My rose tinted glasses were on so was thinking back to the good times. I know that there was lots of things that made those times not so great.

I do wonder like through the 80's how did people get by without food banks. I'm guessing it was due to family helping out where possible.

[Aeroflotgirl]

Skerry, I am sorry that you experienced that, for many including myself, my childhood in the 1980's was lovely and carefree, I mostly enjoyed it. Apart from dad dying of cancer at 11, and then it changed.

[Shockers]

We have the luxury of living somewhere that is sort of stuck in that era. On sunny days, there are loads of kids in the river; they all bomb about on bikes, or play footy, cricket, or rugby on the fields. The swimming club is closer than ours was in the 70s, so they mostly walk there and back. It's a very community minded town which reminds me of my childhood.

It wouldn't suit everyone though... if your child is misbehaving when out and about, you'll certainly be told by somebody! The flip side of that is that I've had people phone me to tell me how wonderful DS is with DD who has sn, when they've been out together.

I like it.

[skerrywind]

elder- sorry too.

And my personal experiences do cloud my judgement. I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a horrific council estate, witnessed shocking things. My own family were lovely- although very poor, but my immediate surroundings were awful, violence, grinding poverty, violence,food was scarce, I knew no one who had been to university.

It is only in hindsight that I realise how bad it was.

None of us can escape the colour of our glasses.

[Disappointednomore]

I remember a lot of freedom growing up in those times - far more than DD has now but I grew up in the country and we're now in a big city. She has much more opportunities than I did though, possibly because we're not as poor as I was growing up. There was a public safety video we were shown at school about kids playing on railway lines. It was in the style of a railway olympics where in each event some of the kids would die horribly. The worst was the tunnel event where loads of kids ran into a tunnel wearing shorts and white t shirts then a train went through and s few kids staggered out at the end looking like extras from The Walking Dead. Can't imagine thinking that would be appropriate now.

[skerrywind]

Disappointednomore - with "freedoms" comes risk.

I was a feral 5 year old.

[ArchNotImpudent]

Fragrances - in the 70s my mum wore something called Aqua Manda that came in an orange plastic bottle. In the late 80s, as a teenager, I used to wear Le Jardin (the one in the black bottle, as I thought the white bottle scent was too sickly) and Panache - I'd love to smell them again.

[skerrywind]

Aqua Manda- I loved that- unopened bottles are fetching a small fortune on ebay.

[ArchNotImpudent]

Disappointed Do you mean this one? I watched it again recently - it's terrifying! The teachers cheering the children on as they run in front of the train.

[ohdarling]

My sister and I, aged 7 and 5 were out all day on our own. Often in our nighties, because we liked dressing up as 'posh ladies'. One day we decided to hitch hike. A man stopped, we got in, and he asked for our address. We actually knew the first line of it, and luckily for us, he took us home. We got a massive bollocking from our parents. Well, I did, because I was the oldest.

No-one thought to wonder why two children of that age had been out for so long on their own.

Another time, aged 6, I was out on my own. Bored, I climbed over a fence into a field and found an old pot of blue gloss paint. Got covered in it. Again, massive bollocking.

The received wisdom at the time would have been that we were 'naughty' children. These days, someone might wonder if we were actually 'neglected' children.