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

I was a teenager in Glasgow in the 80s.

Shopping in Sauchiehall St at Razzle Dazzle, Chelsea Girl, Virgo, Miss Selfridge (entered by a downwards escalator!). Also the Savoy Centre.

Where the concert hall/John lewis are now used to be wasteland. Would get off the bus nearby and walk across it. Sometimes had a funfair there with a particularly scary ride called The Cage!

Chips from Blue Lagoon at top of Buchanan St. Quite dodgy round there at the time, once saw an unconscious man who'd fallen downstairs outside a pub.

All the record shops in Union St and Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones at the Apollo!

Getting free sample of L'Oréal Freestyle mousse from Boots and going back for more multiple times!

Wimpy, and (maybe 70s) the Kardomah in Buchanan St. Oh and big John Menzies in Buchanan St. As well as books and magazines it had toys, records and a nursery dept.

We had The Cage as part of our carnival fair every year.

The shopping centre in Chelmsford was handing out two free Applause chocolate bars per person when they first came out.

I remember a horrible poster in the doctor's waiting room showing a girl who was meant to have drank bleach. And the safety films about railways, someone usually lost their feet.
The Body Shop did unscented bubble bath etc and you could choose your scent from big bottles behind the counter. I think that was the 80s.

Ooh remember ‘bath pearls’ little balls that burst in the bath and were filled with bubble bath?

I've still got my programme for the Glasgow Garden Festival 😀

We called the garden festival the Coca Cola festival.
There was a big thing around the Coca Cola yo-yos and doing tricks with them such as “walk the dog”.
IRN BRU advertising on billboards and the slogan “pure dead brilliant”.

OMG bath pearls i even remember the smell

The street lamps turning on was your call to return home.

Walking to a phone box and calling friends and hoping someone hadn’t pissed in there.

Toys at the time...

Mr Frosty
Rainbowbrite
Sandy doll and action man
My keypers (I think that’s what they were called)
Cabbage patch dolls.
There was also a card collection thing called garbage pail kids that came with a stick of gum and they were vile.

TV shows
Number 73
Blue Peter
Knightmare
He man
Top of the pops was big and you would wait to see who was number 1
Jim’ll fix it (nuff said)
Why don’t you
Grange Hill
Neighbours was huge. Kids were pretending to be ill to stay at home and watch it. It was a big thing when it was shown in the evening.
Charlene and Scott’s relationship was massive. Many people bought the track played at their wedding. It was called Suddenly.

Doing chores or part tome work for money as very few parents were in a position to just hand our cash.

Writing notes to pass to friends in the classroom and hoping the teacher wouldn’t intercept. A really mean teacher would read it out to the class and it could be a note “asking someone out”... very embarrassing.

The fear of being told to get spare PE kit from lost property if you forgot to bring yours in.

School dinners.
Fudge tart, pink custard.

Swapping novelty rubbers was a big thing. Scented ones, shaped ones, coloured ones.
Oh how easily pleased were were.

Safety information programmes.

Check some of those out on you tube.

Talking to strangers, don’t play on railway lines, don’t play near water. They were quite horrific for us youngsters but it got the message across.

Oh, the AIDS warning advert.... brutal.
Don’t die of ignorance.

Hamlet cigar adverts were funny.
Google a few of those.

It was all about wearing badges and being angry at the world.
We were branded Thatcher’s Children.
The miners strike. That caused so much starvation and struggling.
Watch the movie Pride.

The Falklands war ( I feel more should be taught about this) and watching my Dad leave to fight in the war on the QE2 ship.

I will pause.

London, an early-80s late teen.

The Marquee to see Nick Cave, the Birthday Party, the Cocteau Twins, Apocalypse, The Alarm, Nine Below Zero, Icicle Works, to name a few.
A drink in the Intrepid Fox beforehand and dancing the night away in the Wagg Club afterwards.

Watching bands at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden, the ICA and the Africa Centre.
Miniskirts and the low stilettos from Shelleys which were a nightmare to wear on Covent Garden's cobbles.

Tights and stockings with seams at the back and bows on the heels. Shopping in Kensington market for all things vintage.

Rara skirts and drop waist dresses, the fun shopping in Top Shop in Oxford Circus, long lace gloves, pixie boots.

Dinner at Peppermint Park, half entertained and half petrified by the creepy egg headed "robot" which we knew was a guy called Roger really but he was sooo freakily realistic with his robotic movements.

Long hot summer nights, coming out of Covent Garden station when the lifts were broken having climbed the spiral staircase as far, it seemed, as heaven, and walking out to that sweet wall of heat that you only ever feel when you're young.

Dancing, laughing at the Camden Palace, meeting Steve Strange, hearing Prince for the first time and knowing that he'd wipe the floor with all others, and looking back tonight with tears in my eyes because the beautiful, sweet friend i used to go there with has MS and is now in a wheelchair.

Skintight jeans, batwing jumpers, convincing the person on the door that I was old enough to be allowed in, being on the guestlist, The Jam at the Rainbow, walking over Waterloo bridge to get home and knowing that I lived in the most fabulous city in the world.

Those were the best of days.

Safety information programmes.... Talking to strangers

I grew up in Nottinghamshire and we had the local constabulary come in to our school to talk to us about stranger danger. They played us a song and I somehow ended up with a 7" single of the song (I presume they must have handed them out) - I found it in a box with a load of old junk the other week

Bizarrely, I still remember the lyrics:
Say No to strangers, say No, No, No, No, No!
Say No to strangers, don't ever with them go
Short or tall, thin or fat; young or old with a big black hat
Say No to strangers, say No, No, No, No, No!

Nobody I bored mentioned it to had ever heard of it. I don't live in the same county any more, so it might just have been a local thing. Does anybody remember this or did everybody else immediately bin their singles and agree on a rigorous nationwide omerta whenever anybody mentions it - or was I the 'lucky' winner of the only one they ever managed to shift distributed?!

No, I remember it! South coast, at school in the 80s.

I didn't get a single of the song though

Body shop perfume/bath pearls
Roller skates
Playing out in the street
80’s cartoons
Wackaday with Timmy mallet
The pop man coming round once a week
The milkman daily
Huge paper fans over your bed
Forever friends
That clown bedding
Care Bears
Skateboards
Breakdancing
Purple eyeshadow
Beauty spots drawn on with eyeliner
Punch & Judy toothpaste
VHS players
Betamax tapes
Being the remote control for your parents
Wood chip wallpaper
Ski yogurts
Milk in glass bottles
Ditto orange juice
That large yellow teapot toy every kid had

It was all about wearing badges and being angry at the world.

Patent shoes with bows
Wearing heels with stirrup pants
Cutting all my dad’s sweatshirts for that Flashdance look
Getting hair ‘frosted’
You Don’t Really Want To Hurt Me
Come on Eileen (and sniggering loudly)
Big slashes of ‘blush’
Jane Fonda work out
Baby Cham at the holidays

Fergie bows

banana clips

jelly bags...............a pickpockets wet dream

Ah, the 80s, now you're talking. Things I remember (I've often thought I could get a degree in the 80s if it was possible!)
The music: specifically (in my case) Shakin' Stevens, Bucks Fizz, Wham! George Michael, Boy George, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Bananarama and then later on my love of Stock Aitken and Waterman favourites Kylie, Jason Donovan, Sonia, Big Fun, Rick Astley et al.

The food: Crispy Pancakes, lamb chops that were definitely bigger than the ones you get nowadays (being told you were having chops for a midweek dinner was a real treat back in the day!), crinkle cut chips, Walkers Snaps, Vienetta being thought of as posh.

The drinks: Corona (the fizzy drink that was delivered on the back of a lorry to your door) - the Cherryade was like none I have ever tasted since!, Tab Clear ( I remember that was introduced in the late 80s, I think it only survived for a year or two). Kiaora, Um Bongo (they drink it in the Congo, you know), 5 Alive.

Sweets: Toffo (especially the mixed ones - banana and strawberry ones were the best!). Sweet cigarettes (what on earth were they thinking) - that came in boxes that were supposed to look like cigarette cartons. Treets - M&Ms are not a good replacement, at all!
Chocolate Tools - they had a specific flavour, I think. Milky Ways tasted different then. Opal Fruits - they just don't taste the same now they're Starburst. I remember them changing the name of those sweets in the late 80s/early 90s and I'm STILL cross about it!

I remember the miners strike, the NUT (teachers) strike. I remember being on free school dinners and getting a packed lunch on the days the school wasn't open at lunch times because of the strike.
I remember school discos, going to the cinema to see a 15 film when I was 13 (I didn't look anywhere near 15 but they didn't seem to care back then!). I remember using so much hair spray my hair moved in one solid piece on a windy day.

Clothes: donkey jackets, the skinniest of jeans in the early 80s, the snow wash denim of the late 80s, the duffle coats that were embarrassing at first, but then became cool, kitten heel stilettos, ra-ra skirts, knickerbockers (what my mum was thinking sending me to a party dressed in burgundy fake satin ones, I'll never know!). T-shirts with Ooh-La La written on them. Ski pants. Khaki trousers and shirts were a thing in around 1988 for me too (I was odd!)

TV shows: Young Doctors, Sons and Daughters, Grange Hill, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Neighbours when it first started, EastEnders, Saturday Superstore, No 73 (with Sandi Toksvig and Neil Buchanan), Tiswas, The Racoons, Roger Ramjet, Howard's Way, Bread, TOTP.

I was 6 when the 80s started and 16 when they ended, and even though sometimes life was a bit crap, overall, I have happy memories of this era!

O levels, no course work and exams at the end. DD's teachers are explaining this to us as if it is a foreign concept and terrible. To us older parents it is normal.

No A stars either.

CSEs for the less able.

Batwing acrylic jumpers from the market. And bat wing coats.

Watching Fame and the A team.

University rooms were breeze block walls painted white. Bathroom along the corridor. Or lodgings where sheets were changed every two weeks.

The non hurricane devastating the south.it blew the glass out of my aunt's school's windows.

My friend still had an outside loo that we used.

Shoulder pad build up - I remember wearing shirt and jacket and coat all of which had them. I looked like an NFL player ! Lovely !

Heart problem lipstick! I can still see my Nan's puzzled face peering at me saying I looked like I had a heart problem!

I think it's interesting how attitudes and stereotypes have changed. For women going out meant sheer black tights, court shoes, big hair and gold jewellery. I rebelled quite hard against that and would be out in the pub in big boots and drinking pints (aged 16 because underage drinking was far easier). That was really quite controversial (the pints, not my age!) it wasn't unusual for bar staff to downright refuse and insist on selling me 2 halfs instead.

I had lots of alternative rocker/goth friends and HUGE assumptions were made about people on the basis of how they looked and taken to be absolute truths.

We had various difficulties, most fairly minor such as being turned away from pubs for how we were dressed, or the train conductor shouting at us to get off his train when we were on our way to a gig.

More seriously, I was at the Donington Disaster in 1988, 2 kids died in the crowd due to overcrowding and unsafe conditions but the press victim-blamed them because it was bound to be down to the behaviour of the crowd. Even the official enquiry report repeated lies about what members of the crowd had done.