To ask what you were doing in the 70s?

[PossiblyPattio]

I feel like having a nostalgia moment. I was a teenager in the 70s and I remember wanting to be like Patti Smith, I idolized her much to my mums disapproval... I was Patti and my friend was Stevie!!
Looking back I was quite cool!!
Any mumsnetters who were teenagers in the 70s? What did you enjoy doing? Who did you want to be? I'm looking back and I miss it so much!!

I was but an egg chilling in my mums ovaries. Don’t even think my dad would have his swimmers then lol

I was at high school then university. Started at Young Farmers at 16.
Learnt to drive and passed my driving test at 17. I drove a mini van with holes in the floor a la Fred Flintstone.
Life was idyllic looking back except for me never getting a horse. Bloody tightfisted father.
Great music Elvis Costello Kate Bush Heathcliff It's Me Catheeeee

I also remember going to a Jumble Sale pretty much every weekend. We always had new shoes and underwear but most of our clothes came from jumbles, as money was tight. We also used to choose one new dress every year from the catalogue, and this would be our 'best dress;, worn for birthday parties and other high days and holidays. Mom would pay for them over 20 weeks.
Another highlight was dad getting the Pontins holiday brochure. I remember being enthralled by the 'Pontinental' pages, which I assume was Pontins abroad.

Being Wonder Woman, or Lois Lane Or one of those women on Blake's 7 and occasionally Sapphire from Sapphire and Steel.

Sorry, not quite a teenager...I was primary school age in the mid 70s. I remember when the tarmac melted in the hot summer, endless days playing in the 'back field' - now a housing estate, being slightly in awe and a little bit scared of the punks in the shopping centre!

Thanks OP for the trip down memory lane.

I was very young. Playing with the boy next door running around the houses. Trips to see my Nan on a Sunday and sneaking up to listen to the Top 40 with my Uncles. No car, no phone, walked everywhere or got the bus. The weather seemed to make more of an impact, you couldn’t really escape a cold day in a draughty council house, but summer days just seemed to stretch endlessly. All the men drink beer and smoked. Christmas was properly exciting, I miss non LED fairy lights and crape paper chains.

I also remember the nasty mean girls at school bullying me.

The 70s were when I became politicised. I grew up in an area where racism and racist abuse where the norm, the National Front had its HQ in the town and we would go and demonstrate outside their meetings and at rallies. From that starting point, I got involved in more mainstream politics too.

I forgot how every adult seemed to smoke and drink drive in the 70s. The fun of going to the green shield stamp shop and cashing in our books to get things like kitchen equipment. We also had a rag and bone man come down the street with his horse and mum would send me outside with all the old crap.

TV at weekends with parents would include Within these Walls with Googie Withers and the brilliant Dave Allen as well as the horrific Danny La Rue and Benny Hill.

Gosh this is taking me back to some very happy times when life seemed so much simpler.

We didn't trick or treat, but we had mischief night and penny for the guy.
2p phone calls and putting more money in when the pips went.

@wizzler

We didn't trick or treat, but we had mischief night and penny for the guy. 2p phone calls and putting more money in when the pips went.

We did Mischief Night too. Nicking people's garden gates and putting treacle under door handles. Are you from Yorkshire wizzler?

I was a little bit older than you. In the 70s I met MrBubbly and had our first daughter by “accident”. I also delivered leaflets for Mrs Thatchers election campaign and voted to not join the EEC but it took a lot longer to see that one through!!

I too was a teenager in the '70s. Here are some of my memories from that era.
Unpicking the seams of my trousers and inserting brightly coloured triangles to turn them into flares.
Cheesecloth shirts that tied in the front.
Tie dye.
Huge collars on shirts/blouses.
6-inch cuffs on blouses.
Laura Ashley floral "milkmaid" dresses.
Wearing a short sleeved jumper over a long sleeved shirt.
The 3-day week.
Power cuts, candles in supermarkets.
Ladybirds!
Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors & John Mcenroe at Wimbledon.
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
Mike Yarwood.
That's Life.
David Cassidy.
The Osmonds.
Slade.
T-Rex.
Smock tops.
Platform shoes.
Etam, Van Allen, Jean Jeanie, Chelsea Girl.
Findus Crispy pancakes.
Slide rules.
Logarithm tables, sines and cosines.
Abba.
The Val Doonican Show.
........ and on and on!

I was a kid and spent most of the school holidays off on my bike, at friends houses watching Swap Shop or Tiswas or Why don’t you?, or at the 50p sports day at the local sports center where we spent half the day running around doing various versions of tag or obstacle courses and half the day trying to drown each other in the pool. Which was brilliant.

I remember half day Wednesdays when the shops all closed on Wednesday and how utterly boring Sunday’s were.

Most kids’ activities from sports clubs to Guides were pretty mediocre but they were also dirt cheap so even though we qualified for free school meals my mum could still afford to send us without having to ask for some kind of means tested discount.

There was a lot wrong with the times. Child abuse and domestic violence were glossed over. People didn’t care that much if kids played truant. Corporal punishment was fairly common and they even had it in schools.

But the freedom was pretty awesome and the comparative lack of income inequality (I’m not saying there was none, just that it’s a lot worse now) made the country feel more like it belonged to everyone.

@80sMum

Oh my God, that brings it all back. I remember having to take up my jeans as they didn’t come in different lengths as well.
I used to shrink my jeans too by putting them in a cold bath.
Getting my copy of Jackie and doing the quiz ! I loved those.
Rimmel eye shadows. Blue mascara with a special sort of wand.
I remember those Laura Ashley dresses too.
Cheesecloth everything and blouses that tied at the front.
Also Farrah Fawcett hair! I had my hair like that and used to use heated rollers. Later it was permed hair.

Mostly eating Spangles.

I used to gaze at the Icebreaker chocolate bar in Woolworths wishing I had the 6p to buy it.

It was a great time. Married with baby, then husband left me for the “other woman” then met met 2nd husband who I’ve been married to for 29 years. Life is good.

Typo Make that 39 years!

@Thenightsky yes I'm from Yorkshire. I the 1970s I lived in Leeds.

I remember the electricity going off around tea time and having candles for light.

We didn't trick or treat, but we had mischief night and penny for the guy. We went guising. We dressed up and had to sing a song. Scotland.

I spent half of it swimming around in my dad’s bollocks

I had a wonderful career travelling around the world. Then at the end of the decade I married the wrong man and despite later marrying a lovely man my life has never been as magical again.

The smell of creosote. Lucky bags. Pop man. Pork pie.roundabouts and rocking horses and little and big slides ( council have taken them all down now). If you fell off anything in the playground you hit the tarmac! Black Beauty Little House on the Prairie. Getting gold stars on my work and doing PE in my vest n knickers ( primary). The ropes and ladders that used to hang down for pe in the school hall. Sat on the hard wood floor in assembly singing puff the magic dragon accompanied by the piano. Record players. Renting the TV. and washing machine. My mum going to the club to play bingo. My tiny tears doll. Making guiders ( go karts ) out of crates and pram wheels