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?

Cherrypie, I remember when a MarsBar cost 3 and a half pence!

That's not true about the credit- my Mum was a single parent from 69 onwards and had her own mortgage. All our stuff was on credit because my Dad was feckless and kept not paying the maintenance for me. Catalogues, HP, we had the lot. (Maybe she could get it because she had a job- dunno- but she definitely had credit in her own right)

Women had to get a male guarantor's signature to get credit.

aeroflotgirl and

I was very lucky. We grew up in the countryside in SE. dad was a farm labourer, so poor. We had good fresh food everyday( dad grew all our veg, snared rabbits). We walked 2 miles to and from primary school. Came down to 1 mile once we were at juniors. Labourers cottages had 1/2 acre of land to grow.stuff, so we had somewhere to play. A tree at the top of the garden made a ships mast to climb, an anchor for swings made from baler twine and a piece of wood. Once we were older, we were all over the place on bikes, on foot. We didn't seem to miss out, though we only ever had one holiday. Dad.never had a car. I ate anything I could find, apples pears, chestnuts, hazelnuts, anything. Looking back, I'm sure it wasn't all bees and honey, but it seemed such fun. I knew all the local wildlife and where to see it. We played in old dumps.where there were all sorts of stuff . None of us ever seemed to get hurt , or be ill. Born in'61, it seemed idyllic.

Thanks very much cherry, I need that cake today as my son has got a stomach bug yet again! I grew up in London suburbia, so different experiences to som of you. My parents owned their own home, and dad had a decent job so we were lucky.

Elderdruit

You have described my childhood perfectly (apart from the parties at home!)

We were never home in summer till we were hungry. We roamed for miles on bikes to the river, beach, countryroads etc. We made rope swings, climbed trees, had a 'race track' in the woods for our bikes.

My kids have do this in summer and I encourage it although not so far as I used to go, they play in fields, woods and make dens, go to the park, have water fights etc. I am sad that my 14 yr old is now too 'cool/old' to do it now.

I know there was a lot wrong in the 70s and 80s but my childhood wise it was awesome. Real summers and real winters, sledging, snowball fights. We had a field outside the village and half the village would be there sledging. I will never forget one of the mums shooting down right into the burn at the bottom There was a real community spirit then, we all knew each other. You respected adults and yes you could get told off by anyone in the village if you were misbehaving and then again by your mum if she found out!

And no we werent ignorant, we werent living in some bubble, we had good schools, teachers were respected (even if we did call them names behind their backs, in class we did as we were told) if you were in trouble at school then you were in trouble at home too. I never say one parent marching to the school cos 'little johhny' had been in trouble and got lines when it was just not fair on him.

It seemed a more simple time for kids then, no pressure to have 'the latest thing' the only thing that mattered was not 'what' bike you had but if you could give 'backies' on it We all congregated at the local cafe and made a plate of chips last all night or sat on the pavement at a corner of the street in summer just talking and watching the world go by.

Clangers were awesome, ooh my poor wrists

My friends and I went into town on a saturday to try on clothes, buy records and go to a cafe for lunch at 12. (Small town not a city but we felt great doing it)

We would walk round the village with a cassett player, Sundays we would be listening to the top 40 and trying to tape your favs without the dj talking over it, lying in bed listening to Radio Luxy at night. And yes I want one of those huge stereos again, funny how we get rid of stuff when life changes then you regret it. I have a stack of vinyl I want to listen to again.

Funnily enough we ate all the food people are raving about today 'home cooked from scratch' meals with tons of veg every day as well as the occaisional quick meals like cod in butter sauce, angel delight with dream topping for an easy teatime.

We could write forever on what was wrong back then but it doesnt hurt to remember what was good about that time. The past isnt all one big horror story.

With half-term this week, I was thinking earlier about what we used to do in the holidays. A big outing for us back in the '80s was just going to the town park (instead of the one at the end of our road). They had an outdoor paddling pool, a cafe where we could buy an ice-cream, Punch and Judy shows and a witch's hat!

I do agree with others though, whatever decade you grew up in, I think you remember that fondly. Today's kids will of course look back on their own childhood in the same way, but I think the world changed in the late '90s with the arrival of the Internet and mobiles. I'm pleased I grew up before that...

Oh heavens, just seen the 'Boots' sets mentioned.
I loved the lavender and oatmeal stuff, had loads of it, it looked so nice. Got a 'basket' set for birthday once was over the moon! It was all packaged so nicely those little bottles with the stoppers, bath salts in sachets I was easy pleased

Tweed perfume for your mum for bithdays, there was an Avon fragrance (not the moonwind I hated that) in a purple packaging I am sure someone will remember it I loved that to. 'Charlie' and I had one perfume called 'Primitive' it was very 'exotic', I thought it was awesome (probably wouldnt now!)

Tasha? That was a purpley-maroon?

Vintage,
Yes I think that was it, thanks that would have bugged me all day.

I wonder if the Mums who worked though worked p/time - reason I say this is, my Mum worked p/time BECAUSE shops all closed at 5pm and half day Thurs so if you didnt work near shops (work places didnt have fridges in those days to store shopping from lunch time) you couldn't food shop - unless it was merely cans, bread or stuff not needing chilling. I knew of no mother working more than p/time (grew up on a big council estate) - and they all shopped every other day as lots of food was only bought fresh. Fridges in those days had a teeny freezer section so I just remember frozen peas and ice lollies in there!!

Fridges in those days had a teeny freezer section

Yes - I remember my mum buying powdered ice cream and freezing it in a Pyrex bowl. I'd love to taste that again - the raspberry ripple was my favourite (I think it was Sainsbury's own brand).

We got a chest freezer in 1981 and my sister and I went mad making lollies out of fruit squash - when you sucked them, all the fruit squash would come out and leave you with a lump of ice.

PS Anyone remember the thrill of finding out if you got two radios, tuned them in to the same radio station and put one each side of you, it was called STEREO?!!!!! I wouldnt like to be young now - there seems too much on-line bullying and anonymous nastiness, plus this Me Me Me/Oooh I'm having a GREAT time Selfie situ where most of it is shite lies! I wrote on another thread how my pals & I were out having a right laugh, 4 "late teens" were sitting nearby, misery faces BUT out came the mobs, lots of oooooh ha ha ha luvverleee Selfies taken, then the miserable/surly faces re-formed and off they went!!! (Plus lots of these gals like the bluddie awful fake eyebrow look -whyyyy?!?) I think it was perfectly acceptable when I was an early teen that we all had black (VERY dk red) nail varnish, black (very dark mauve) eyeshadow and black (very dk maroon) lipstick all courtesy of Miners or Mary Quant but no this wasnt punk era, this was circa 1968/9 :-)

PPS (Sorry!!) Just to say parents did know that there were paedophiles about but the word was not used then (by anyone) so the warning went to us kids ".......... and watch out for any strange or funny (odd) men or women when you are out playing; stick together and don't go off with ANYONE......" I'm not sure why some folk here on this thread assume no-one knew about this sort of thing??? The Moors Murders were 1963 onwards and probably there were previous paedophile incidents too altho I'm not old enough to know/remember....although the dreadful bullying nuns in Ireland springs to mind which must have been circa late 50's??? They used to beat up/mentally torture children (lock them up in the dark / no food etc) so same thing ...........

Fascinating to read this thread. I was a parent in the 70s/80s (I have two DCs in their 40s) and most of what you say about your childhoods doesn't sound so different from my childhood in the 40s/50s except many of our childhoods tended to be spent on bomb sites! I brought a hand grenade home once - Dad threw out of the window to the bottom of the garden. The pin was rusted in so I thought he was panicking unnecessarily.

I think as a child and a parent I must have been quite a bit better off than many as even in the 50s we had central heating and by the 60s we had big fridge freezers etc.

Yes, there was the nonsense about problems with mortgages, insurance etc. but as a second wave feminist we had a hell of a good time getting all that bollocks overturned and it certainly never stopped me having a full time career. None of my friends were SAHM either.

My DCs did have a lot of freedom too compared with what children today seem to have. The best thing though was that they were not overwhelmed by all this pink glittery shit (their clothes were eclectic and many coloured) and, thank God, not this horrible early sexualisation. That is what I hate most about today.

Yes, agreed Gerty. My parents always told us to stick together and there were lots on TV about don't get enticed away by strangers offering sweets, to look at puppies etc. My dad always ensured he was not alone in a room or would not drop one of my friends home without me or my sister in the car. So as not to make a child feel uncomfortable or have any wrongly accusations. People who claim it was unknown back then or brushed over must have lived in a different area to me.

We had a meat safe when I was little. Weird little cupboard with a mesh door. Then we got a fridge when I was about 7.

Vintage
My grandparents had one of those in the garage!! And by default we did too when we moved in with my pappa when gran died. And we kept the milk in a bucket of cold water in the summer!

When we got a fridge it was amazing!

And yes we all knew which house not to go into on which street. People all knew who was dangerous, it just wasnt publicised from one end of the country to the other on mass media as it is now. And all those public information films we were all aware of dangers in many guises.

I would hate to be growing up now with all the 'selfies' and the constant wanting to be 'liked' for just breathing! I have seen young people out in restaurants together having a nice meal but they were constantly on their phones reading other peoples facebook/snapchats etc and not actually talking to each other! Whats the point? We spent hours talking about everything then I was a teen, both boys and girls together, what happened?

I get that snapchat and such like is just another form of communication, and when you cant be with someone its good for chatting especially if you dont live close enough to see them after school but seriously when you are out with someone...talk to them you never know you might like it.

What do you mean? What happened then that doesn't happen now

Children were abused for years and had literally no where to go for help (the incest crisis line had to be exdirectory). Childline didn't exist, children were taught not to report things, the default for the police if anything did get reported was to disbelieve the child.

Add in to that no sex discrimination act, no race relations act, no disability discrimination act...

Children were abused for years and had literally no where to go for help (the incest crisis line had to be exdirectory). Childline didn't exist, children were taught not to report things, the default for the police if anything did get reported was to disbelieve the child.

Add in to that no sex discrimination act, no race relations act, no disability discrimination act...

I totally agree with this. I remember being groped by drunken neighbours as a child- my mother told me not to make a fuss.
My 8 year old friend was sexually assaulted and was left with genital injuries. Her parents called the police who advised them to drop their complaint because of the stigma and shame it would bring to the family.
Children had nowhere to turn.

I did enjoy the 70's. The make up. The clothes.The music, going out, snogging etc. Of course things were not all good. I had started to read books on feminism and could see that not all was right in the world. I was a bit ignorant about the scale of sexual abuse etc but only thought of it when I saw posters of missing children "Have you seen Melanie?". I always assumed it was done by people no one knew.

Funnily enough we were banned from going out one of the exits as a paedo had been hanging around (so we of course all wanted to see what a paedo looked like. For some reason we all thought of a cross dresser!!) However, I used to cringe on buses when dirty old men would come up behind me and put their hand on top of mine (on the pole in the bus) and breathe heavily by my ear. Still fills me with rage.

I started to notice racism in the papers. I moved from a predominantly white place to a more multicultural place.

I love everyone else sharing memories I had forgotten.

I remember being a small child and plonked in the inner tube of a tire with rope on as my Dad was swimming he'd pull me along.

Would I be right in saying that people really don't do that much walking anymore. On a Sunday we would walk to the river occasionally. Or during the summer holidays when we were younger we would go on bike rides as a family.

I remember steam puddings, my DD goes to the school I went to, I ask did she have say treacle sponge for lunch, they don't seem to do any of the classics. Another was flapjack & lemon sauce, snotty custard which was just mint custard over chocolate pudding.

I bought some corn flour and dye to see if I can entertain DD over the holidays. Just need a really good slime recipe.

I remember there was a girl at school who had to have special food, her Mum would come in at lunch with her meal. Compared to today where they have gluten free, lactose free options.

Thinking about what we used to eat, there was bread and cakes. So you might get home and have a sandwich. But usually it was meat and 2 veg. Just thinking how those with intolerances would have coped. I'm pretty sure there was different flour so if you were adventurous you could make your own pasta. Although that would be more of a 90's thing with food gadgets.

So I guess you would live off main meat & veg. No gravy as I think that has gluten in it. No home made gravy unless you had a thickener other than cornflour. I was thinking maybe gelatin but that would just be grim.

I remember the Linda McCartney range coming out for veggies.

I was looking down a few aisles shopping and they had their free from range, the choice is relatively new in the last decade.

*So I guess you would live off main meat & veg. No gravy as I think that has gluten in it. No home made gravy unless you had a thickener other than cornflour. I was thinking maybe gelatin but that would just be grim.
*

Cornflour is gluten free.
Gelatin to make gravy?
I've never heard of that, why would anyone do that?

We would get the fat that the sausages had been fried in spooned over our potatoes to moisten the dish.

I was more late 80s/early nineties childhood, but I remember:

• going out on bikes for hours and hours. Tearing through the park, up and down streets. Remember clearly that age 6 I was allowed to cycle on pavement up and down our street but no further. By end of primary I don't think there were any restrictions.

• dressing up, we'd be Sandy from Grease in leotards and leggings, or one of my friends had an old next door neighbour who let us have her old dresses which looking back were probably hideous (sequins etc) but seemed like the most beautiful things in the world then

• the excitement of having money to go to the shop: I'd get Tab and penny sweets

• Just 17 and Sugar magazines

• Those games on Going Live/SMTV Live etc where you would phone in and play over the phone by directing a little character around and trying to win points. I was so desperate to get on to play it! Think I was allowed to phone in once or twice but never got through

• when I went to dance club on Saturdays I had back to back lessons and would have to take a lunch. Dad would take me to shop on the way and let me choose stuff, I'd always get a pot noodle and a Cornish pasty...Wouldn't pass muster these days!

• don't remember having regular homework at primary except learning spellings. And occasionally special projects like writing a book review or making a poster. But I'm sure it was the exception not the rule.

• everyone had disco bouncers when I was in primary circa 1990...Other fads that followed on were skipits, cats cradling and those long stretchy elastics that you put around your feet and jumped between.