To ask for your Eighties memories

[sadsack78]

Hi! I'm starting a project based on my mum's memories of being a teen/ young woman in Eighties Glasgow, and would be delighted if anyone who lived there at the time would share any memories or stories. Especially about what you wore, the music you liked, your memories of the city at the time.
This thread is also open to anyone who lived elsewhere in the UK and fancies sharing what their Eighties were like! Thanks everybody, I can smell the Cacharel LouLou from here grin

DH and I were in Glasgow in the mid 80s.
We had our first date in Denholms Bar near Central Station. I needed to use the loo, he said I had to get a key .#Eh? Thought he was kidding , till I had to ask at the bar , the barmaid escorted me down the stairs to the empty bar and stood outside while I used the loo .

Horseshoe Bar - longest bar in Scotland , possibly UK.

Razzle Dazzle under the bridge.

Lewis's , major store (now gone and its the Enoch Centre)

The Underground

It always seemed to rain

Bonfire Night display and Fireworks at Glasgow Green

I was a teenager in the 80s. I remember a lot of tension between the USSR (as it was then), and the USA, and Iran. Nuclear war seemed likely, especially when Ronald Regan got elected.

I lived in a Yorkshire coal town and the miners strike was on my doorstep. My dad wasn't a miner so we were not directly affected, but it was all around.

On a lighter note, I remember ra ra skirts, leg warmers and dyeing my hair burgundy (the really cool girls had burgundy hair and a blonde fringe). I was also a Goth when I got a bit older.

One thing that always stands out to me is how women were old at 40. You were basically a "matron" and hurtling towards your dotage. When Dynasty came along and a 40 something Alexis/Joan Collins was still glamorous and attracting younger men (Dex Dexter), it was a revelation.

Tights with different coloured legs!

I had a pair with a neon yellow leg and a neon pink leg and a pair with a blue leg and a red leg

Omg!!😂 Somehow this has bypassed my memory. Must have been too traumatic. I think I would need a guided CBT session to recall without a breakdown!!

It was colourful in the 80s though. You have to give it that! Not like now blandy blandy.

Reversible sweatshirts - one side had a large picture on, the other had lots of tiny pics. Usually Disney characters - I think mine was Winnie the Pooh. To be worn with ski pants and pixie boots, with neon leg warmers & matching finger-less gloves.
Clothes from Dash.

White dog pooh
Just don’t see it these days.
Back then if it had been on the pavement for more than a couple of days it would turn all white and dry.

I have the book One Day For Life, I also have the Live Aid book and the souvenir edition of Smash Hits with Bob Geldof on the cover (I have the Live Aid DVD too ... and some photos I took off the telly screen)

Top of the pops. Everyone would watch it.
Listening to what was the number 1 single on a Sunday night.
Watching neighbours.
Dallas.
Frankie goes to Hollywood and banned single "Relax".
Madonna Duran Duran wet wet wet.
Pixie boots
Leg warmers.
Fingerless gloves
Mohair sweaters
Going to pubs getting served under 18 never asking for ID.

Also recording music from radio with tape recorder.
Having a sony walkman.
Rubic cubes.

Buying magazines Jackie and I think it was Blue Jeans?

I wasn’t from Glasgow but visited regularly and remember being so excited that I was nearly there when I passed Paddington in the window of a house in Stepps.

tothesea it's mind bending.

London:

• One of my older sisters' wearing a green jump suit to go out with her mates as it was the "in" thing
• Charles and Di's wedding
• Falklands War and having to watch radio transmissions on the news. (Didn't realise years later I would work with some veterans of it.)
• IRA bombs and their bomb threats (Did realise a few years later I would work with someone injured by one of their bombs.)
• "Maggie Maggie Maggie Out Out Out"
• Not being allowed at the top of the bus due to smokers
• People allowed to smoke everywhere so the King's Cross fire
• Yuppies moving into the local area and pronouncing local names wrong in posh accents
• Why Don't You
• Grange Hill
• Heidi which was dubbed
• Rainbow
• EastEnders starting
• Lycra in every item of clothing
• Fergie bows

Got married in 1979.
No house phone, the milk man, permed hair, shoulder pads, Channel 4 started (used to watch The Irish RM) , had a twin tub washer. The GP did home visits
New mums stayed in hospital for at least 5 days.
Oh and the fashion- I found these the other day:

Fuckofffortnite
White dog pooh

Jesus. You've summed it up. I recall this. Like actually recall it vividly. The colour of the white poo outlined starkly against the black of the newly tarred street. Or blending into the pavement until you were almost right on top of it.

You forget how much cleaner we've become in public. I remember how tough it could be doing doodge the shit when walking on the street sometimes. Blimey the things you think you forgot!

Shops dedicated to selling sweets
Biotex for soaking clothes
Camay and imperial leather soap
Garbage Patch Kids Cards
Primsoles

I was at boarding school in the first half of the 80s.

I remember the Falklands War happening. We had a lot of forces children and the house mistress relaxed the rules on having the radio on so they could keep up with the news.

Haven’t read through but my memories:

Corona man
Tupperware parties
Pippa dee clothes parties
Microchips
Mr Men ice lollies
1/2 penny sweets like blackjacks/mojo/fruit salad,
Grolsch bottle tops on shoes like Bros
Rara skirts

Home and away and neighbours

Not a teenager but remember what everyone wants the shop and qou song. The big bouncy castle, the coy carp pond pavilion, wee malky hitting me on the head with his bottle from the pram, the forestry commission area, the fake plastic street scene at the entrance (was stored at Klondike garden centre for years afterwards in Kirkintilloch) and the giant kettle and teapots at the garden festival.

My mum said I nearly fell out the pram laughing at the punks outside HMV on Argyll street.

Watching West Germany winning the world cup and flicking to Indiana Jones.

Crimped hair with high side ponytail at school.

Yes, yes, yes to previous posts.

Making ra ra skirts in needlework classes.

Not having a pair of jeans with red piping down the sides.

Having woolly tights with different coloured legs but achieving this by wearing two pairs and twisting them. Red and black wore them to school. Super uncomfortable.

Henna for hair; left on for hours.

Lazer 558.

Pippa dee clothes parties

I still have a blue knitted Pippa dee top

I was fairly young in the 80s but a few thoughts.

Food

• Ricicles (with the freebie plastic reflector thing for the spokes of your bike)
• findus crispy pancakes
• Ice Magic ice cream topping that set hard
• Animal Bars
• 54321 bars
• salt and shake crisps
• angel delight
• parents serving crepes Suzette for dinner parties

Toys

• Glow worm
• lights alive
• Girls World
• Keypers
• Popple
• Flower Fairy anything
• Walkman
• Mouse trap
• Spirograph
• fashion wheel

Clothes

• global hypercolour t-shirts

Tv

• Fraggle Rock
• Trapdoor
• Superted
• play school
• pigeon street
• button moon
• pink windmill
• wackaday
• going live
• krypton factor
• challenge anneka
• Howard's Way
• Casualty
• neighbours
• cross roads

Random

• foil Christmas tree decs
• Fimo
• permed hair

"It was colourful in the 80s though. You have to give it that! Not like now blandy blandy."

Totally agree!

Dd gets annoyed with me but I cannot differentiate the "tribes" now aside from goth/emo vs EVERYONE ELSE.

I think they all look the bloody same- long dark straight hair, contour make up in a limited boring range of colours, same manicures and eyebrows, jeans in blue denim only with generic boring t-shirts and hoodies, trainers. BORING BORING BORING!

You can't look at the teens and recognise "they're into X music and hold y political views and believe in z ideologies" as you could in EVERY DECADE pre 2000!

My mum - a boomer, Beatles fan, more mod than rocker agrees.

"Pippa dee clothes parties" omg yes! My bff at primary school her mum did them and I used to ask my mum to get me the same stuff as my friend.

Findus Crispy Pancakes, French Bread Pizzas, Alphabites, Bernard Matthews everything
Dayvilles Icecream, Vienetta, Birds Eye Chocolate Magic Sauce, Coke floats
Buying vintage clothes from Flipp and Kensington Market
Buying new from Chelsea Girl, Hyper Hyper, Stirling Cooper
Shoes from Sacha and Dolcis
Clubbing underage at The Wag, Electric Ballroom and The Mud Club
Obsession or Opium perfume
Just 17, The Face, Smash Hits, ID, My Guy
Riders by Jilly Cooper, Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz
Black satin MA1 bomber jackets, donkey jackets, baseball jackets
Dungarees, second hand Levis, deck shoes, bandanas
Ra Ra skirts, fishnets, leggings, bodies, fingerless gloves
Anne French, Aapri facial scrub, Lipcote, Stop n Grow
Breakfast Club, About Last Night, St Elmos Fire, Gregory's Girl, the Goonies,
Piercing your own ears with an ice cube and a needle
Going to bed with a head full of bendy curlers or millions of tiny plaits
Shrinking crisps packets under the grill
Sniffing Tippex and swigging Benylin at the back of the class
Using baby oil as sun tan lotion
Brookside, Dallas, Dynasty, Danger Mouse, Grange Hill, Blockbusters, The Young Ones, The Tube, The Clothes Show, Tenko, Bergerac, TOTP

My 24 year old niece is into BTS She says they are quite political

The Mad Death