To wonder if it was as bad as people say in the 70s?

[juicee2]

I am quite curious about it.

What caused the poverty? I thought the 80s were a poor decade - am I wrong?

We didn't like the 3 days week - nor the shortages of electricity, I can assure you Gwen Being an adult already in the 70s I can assure you it was a sxxt decade!

Sugar wasn't rationed but it was in short supply for a period of time. The three day week, power cuts, water stand pipes in the street in the hot summer of '76 were all awful. Bin strike resulted in piles of rubbish in the streets. Caretakers' strike meant we went to school in a church, mornings only and that only because it was our exam year.

As a teenager in the 70s my stand out memories are of the Bay City Rollers, the Osmonds, David Cassidy, TRex, Bowie, school tuck shop and Dallas .

There was no rationing in the 1970s.

I was a kid in the 70s so it seemed all right to me. Very smoky though which I didn't much like even at the time.

I was a 70s child and remember power cuts. My dad lost his job in construction and had to travel for work but I don’t remember feeling poor.

Things I remember:

Ladybirds everywhere.
White knee socks with Union Flags up the side for the Silver Jubilee.
My first ever school trip being cancelled because the Yorkshire Ripper was at large.
Weebles.
Everything being brown and orange.
Manhattan Transfer singing 'Chanson D'Amour' on Pebble Mill at One.
Painting With Nancy.
Farmhouse Kitchen.
Crown Court.
The Cedar Tree.
Angel Delight.
Chorlton and the Wheelies.
The Flumps.

It was bloody excellent, actually.

Oh folding the sheets with mom in the laundrette :) coins in the metre.

I know my children had a good childhood in the 90s but it wasn’t as good as mine even with all the extra money we had as parents

The 70s weren't awful, but Sundays were so boring. We had sardines on toast for tea, after listening to the top 40 every Sunday. I had lovely food in the 70s - my DM was a great cook and we were fed really well. We were always dressed well, even though 70s fashion was horrific. We had a 2 week holiday across the sea every summer and the odd weekend away in the UK. I was very young in the 70s, so was unaware of any hardship but I can recall the power cuts, but they didn't bother me as I was too young really. My DM was on her own bringing us up and she worked really hard to take care of us. We were very lucky.

I was a kid in the 70s. I don't remember power cuts and my dad was self-employed so no 3-day week for him. I don't remember the rubbish piling up in the streets. All my family cook from scratch, so that would've been the same as ever and the food wasn't awful, but then my mum is a fantastic cook! The 70s were a happy time for me.

The clothes were a bit questionable looking back actually they were relatively expensive too so we all had 2nd hand things from the ‘nearly new’ stalls. tv was limited and black and white for us and many others. I remember lots of powercuts, though as I was a child then and went to bed early it didn’t affect me so much. asked my dad whether the political upheaval and strikes etc felt awful at the time and he said not - just like now most things only really affected part of the population directly at any one time. He preferred the 3 day week as he didn’t mind working longer for 3 days as he liked having 4 days off. My DH is a bit older than me and he remembers hot school dinners were replaced with spam sandwiches due to no power 🤢

Bread and sugar weren't rationed in the 70s! Not that i remember anyway.
I am a bit baffled about tales of no telephone or central heating and we used to go on holiday to Ibiza before it was a party island.
I think we were the last generation to grow up with parents who had learned parenting at their mothers knee.They were confident and in charge.Children were allowed much more freedom to go out and explore and learn how to manage risk, get along with other kids etc.Nowadays lots of parents were brought up by nurseries and have no idea

It was difficult times for parents/adults. Petrol stations were closed, rubbish wasn't collected, funerals could't take place, TV was shut down every other night, regular power cuts, over a million workers were laid off, people were very short of money. No one liked it, I can remember how worried my DPs were.
I can really remember the rubbish in the streets piled high.

However, for me a carefree teen it was the best time ever. I was in love with Marc Bolan, I lost my virginity (not to Marc unfortunately) and discovered free sex, Radio Caroline, pop concerts, I left home, I had a ball.

Toss. You've brought back some fab memories for me. The Flumps was ace!!

The Seventies weren't terrible. Some people were poor, deprived and undernourished, same as in Britain today. Sugar rationing didn't last long, I don't think it had much of an impact - how many people use lots of sugar in their food when cooking? I don't recall any power cuts after 1973. We weren't particularly well off, but had a telephone, washing machine, fridge and at the end of 1973, a colour telly.
There's so much rubbish written about the 70s, many people had a reasonable standard of living. Lots of people went abroad - by the mid seventies the boom in package holidays to Spain was well underway. I do feel that there's a lot more blandness in life generally these days, it seemed in the seventies to be much more acceptable to be colourful, flamboyant and original, probably a continuation of the 1960s. There was a lot of creativity. TV is much better nowadays, it could be quite crap back then. However music was terrific, glam, disco, punk, new wave, so much better than the charts these days.
I do think "Life on Mars" is a pretty accurate representation of the 1970s.

Strikes, rubbish piled up in the streets, high unemployment, racism, homophobia, processed food, only three flavours of crisps. Teachers could hit you, 3 tv channels, endless list of horror. It was crap but the music brilliant.

We had a telephone on a ‘party line’ where 3 or 4 houses shared the same line. You had to press a special button down on the phone before using it so your neighbours couldn’t listen in! Not that we got to use it more than a quick ‘hello’ occasionally to granny as it was very expensive.

I think the overall standard of living was lower for everyone. I remember a lot of what pp have said, bath once a week, hand me down clothes, pretty basic food, no 'treaty' food in the house, no car, no phone. But most people (on our estate) were the same so we didn't really notice.

'Posh' was the one family who bought whole boxes of crisps! Like in the pub!

I barely remember the 70s as I was a toddler when they ended.

I've got old photos of my parents in 70s flares.

My mum remembers the year I was born was very hot but she didn't like it as she was pregnant.
Then when my sister was born it was proper deep snow.

The power cuts were inconvenient for a short while. They really didn’t last that long. Food was good, we both enjoyed cooking and were inspired by Italian food, Elizabeth David and the early days of Delia (before she got so annoying),
We had our children in the early seventies and took them on camping and gite holidays to France and Italy. We both worked full-time and shared the housework and childcare.
I loved my brilliant Women’s Group and we felt that together we were challenging outdated attitudes to women and forcing change.
I don’t recognise my experience of the seventies from some people’s views on these threads.

I was 10 in 1974, it was truly wonderful as a kid. We played our all day on our chopper bikes and just came home for meals.
Long summer days playing out, we lived near fields too and everyone played out.

It is amusing to compare this to the holiday club thread where parents can't think what to do with the DC so they send them to camp. We made our own fun back then.

1 family on our street had a car, all us kids used to watch them polish it on a Sunday

I remember mom panic buying both sugar and bread once but no idea why!!! Maybe a strike there were loads of those.

Children seemed far more resilient. Teenagers too. No one cried at school generally or had melt downs. According to my teacher friends teenagers frequently do now.

sugar rationing I would've been 2 so don't remember it. I vaguely remember my Mum making her own bread for a short time.

There were far more people around in the day then though senua most people’s mums didn’t work where we were, so if you did something wrong someone else’s mum would tell you off and tell your mum too, so you got told off again at home.