To ask you to tell me about the '80s?

[Trulyatraditionalman]

I was born in Dec '89. I absolutely love '80s music, and the way it is depicted in films and TV makes it seem like it was the most amazing decade.

I'd like to experience the '80s through your memories

The summers were hot, filled with ice cream and fun. The winters had exactly the right amount of snow and cosy perfection. You missed a real treat.

@ohioohioohio Bloody global warming eh? We don't get snow like we used to! Sounds like you had some really happy times

School was tough. If not beaten up by numerous bullies the teachers used to either throw tippex bottles at you or you got slippered for very minor things! Away from school it was a blast. Always lying to DM where I was going (usually a rave!).

You're kidding. It would take a whole book.
But my memory is of the City full of self appointed Masters of the Universe and it being boom time. Everyone bought a property as soon as they got a job - usually with friends. Liquid lunches, smoking in offices, Dynasty, Dallas et al.

It was amazing. Big hair, ultra glam outfits, big jewellery. Fantastic music. Great pub and club scene. I have some very special memories of that decade. You had to be there!

Everybody/loads of people smoked. And it was allowed everywhere. That is the one thing that they don't show in It's A Sin.

I was born in 1981, and although I had a good childhood, I remember the 80s as a decade of tragedies and disasters. Lockerbie, an Armenian earthquake, Hillsborough, the Marchioness disaster, terrorist bombings, a hurricane, plane crashes...

There was a dark side to the 80s. The miners' strike dominated the news of the early 80s. Also unemployment - there used to be a daily update with a map of job losses and gains throughout the country. I remember a sketch show parodying this where the 'gains' were things like one paper-boy in East Grinstead .

Glue-sniffing was popular in the early 80s - any subway, you'd see discarded stuck-together plastic bags and empty cans of Evo-Stick. Then as the decade progressed there was more alarm about heroin - as a teenager, you got bombarded with 'just say no' messages.

Nuclear war was seen as a big threat and it was worrying that Reagan had control of the 'big button' and had apparently lost his marbles! Often parodied on Spitting Image as his brain scuttling round by itself.

Thatcher, Kinnock and the two Davids of the SDP-Liberal Alliance (the then version of the Liberal Democrats) also much parodied.

Greenroom Common protests were also much in the news.

School was all frayed pencil skirts, white stilettos and big, big hair - changing rooms reeked of Silvikrin. Lots of smoking - staff and pupils.

Back-combing my hair and using an entire can of hairspray to hold it in place!

There was an innocence, before AIDS.

And then AIDS happened, and for someone in their teens/early twenties in the eighties it was a real shadow.

No duvets, shivering under sheets, no showers so the weekly hair wash was done using mums largest mixing bowl to rinse my hair in the bath 😄

Being dressed head to toe in whatever Clockhouse was selling. Watching Top of the Pops religiously on Thursday evenings and recording the top 40 each Sunday - fingers hovering over the record button on the cassette player to make sure you got every second of your favourite song!

Teachers smoking in the staff room at school. Spending my pocket money in Tammy Girl, rocking out to Bananarama and choosing the latest videos from Blockbusters on a Saturday.

Bloody loved the 80’s!

Cool teens like me carried huge ghetto blasters round the streets in the evening so the whole street could listen to the Top Forty. We used to do break dancing in the streets too.
There was a problem with racism in some neighbourhoods and the police were awful where I lived. Long summer nights with the police helicopter shining its search lights onto us. Intimidation was routine.
So y’know, good and bad.

Thunder bugs everywhere in the summer. Family parties with my Aunty's vol au vents and about a million ham or cheese sandwiches, home made cakes and biscuits. A real fear of nuclear war and massive worries about the Ozone layer and Aids. Cycling shorts being fashionable! And then bermuda shorts.

OP, I really recommend the Adrian Mole diaries (the first two) by Sue Townsend, if you haven't read them, for a flavour of what it was like to grow up in the early 80s.

@Trulyatraditionalman

I was born in Dec '89. I absolutely love '80s music, and the way it is depicted in films and TV makes it seem like it was the most amazing decade.

I'd like to experience the '80s through your memories

Are you Taylor Swift? 😂

I was born in 76.

It was certainly easier to be 13 in 1989. Your parents couldn't keep track of you by phone. Mine tried very hard to be strict but my school was more lax so bunking off and snogging boys was probably a lot easier than it is now.

No worries about phones or photos or social media. No crap abput designer clothes.

If you bunked off and went into Central London it was lovely - but Soho wasn't sanitised in that horrible 'cupcake for kids shop' way till the 2000s. Have you watched It's A Sin?

Oddly enough there's a music video that sums up being 13 - the end bit - and it's from 2008! Other than that, Boys of Summer is a great representation in my mind.

I was a child in the 80s and it was quite a tense decade. As another poster mentioned, there seemed to be disaster after disaster - plane crashes, fires, earthquakes, volcanoes etc. Social problems, with unemployment, racial tensions, the miners strike, the gap between rich and poor. And as I was growing up in N Ireland it was a constant backdrop of violence.

I also have great memories of being a child in the 80s and there is a lot to look back fondly on as well. But overall, I have felt safer as I have got older.

My friends and I played outside a lot more than kids do today. We rode our bikes, climbed trees, made dens and tried to play tennis etc. In the school playground we played hopscotch, skipping (with ropes), French skipping (with elastic) and made origami fortune tellers.

There was no internet. My Dad had an Amstrad PC with a joystick, but I don’t think most families had a computer. The TV had four channels and children’s TV was only on at set times. It’s hard to imagine now.

There was a dark side to the 80s. The miners' strike dominated the news of the early 80s. Also unemployment - there used to be a daily update with a map of job losses and gains throughout the country. I remember a sketch show parodying this where the 'gains' were things like one paper-boy in East Grinstead .

Glue-sniffing was popular in the early 80s - any subway, you'd see discarded stuck-together plastic bags and empty cans of Evo-Stick. Then as the decade progressed there was more alarm about heroin - as a teenager, you got bombarded with 'just say no' messages.

Nuclear war was seen as a big threat and it was worrying that Reagan had control of the 'big button' and had apparently lost his marbles! Often parodied on Spitting Image as his brain scuttling round by itself.

Thatcher, Kinnock and the two Davids of the SDP-Liberal Alliance (the then version of the Liberal Democrats) also much parodied.

Greenroom Common protests were also much in the news.

School was all frayed pencil skirts, white stilettos and big, big hair - changing rooms reeked of Silvikrin. Lots of smoking - staff and pupils.

*This.
*
I was born in 1973.

Being constantly aware that there were 2 red buttons that could be pressed at any moment, reading when the wind blew and not being allowed to watch Threads!

Finding gems of music when combing through the record collections of other people"s older siblings. Huddling under the covers listening to late night radio and trying to remember band names to find out about! Had to work so hard for music in those days!

Ah the 80s. Ra Ra skirts, deely boppers, pretty pastels, big hair, crimped hair, Jane Fonda, great cheesy tv, awesome movies, the best music, great DJs , like @OhioOhioOhio said, ice cream and snow. I remember it being cosy too but I hated the late 1980s.

mizu I was born in 1974 so we probably have a similar perspective.

Football hooligans and racism that make the current situation look like nursery school.

I right wing government that makes Boris look cuddly.

It was quite glamorous in some ways, there was aspiration (the yuppies) great music. Lots of 'tribes' for teenagers- the goths, the casuals, still punks.
Boys were as interested in appearance as girls. Thatcher was reviled and admired in about equal measure. We became aware of environmental issues and the ozone layer. Aids felt a huge threat, it felt almost inevitable one would get it and I knew 5 people who died of it.
It felt like the beginning of modernity it some ways, computers were entering the workplace.
The late eighties were fantastic for me. Lots of music, gigs, money, sex, possibilities.

1981 aged 17 I got my first job in a travel agency simply by being able to spell the names of capital cities correctly. I earned £36 a week and soon discovered that the managing director routinely sexually harassed any new female staff.

My line manager smoked at his desk, made spiteful remarks about my appearance and told me not to wear trousers to work.

Fortunately it was much easier to get another job back then.

Rent was cheaper than a mortgage. When we got our first mortgage I took on a second job to be able to make the £200 a month payments. It was quite easy to obtain a mortgage even if your job was unskilled labour. If one lender turned you down you just tried another.

I liked the 80s.

We used to go out and play throughout the neighbourhood all day. On bikes a lot of the time.

Renting a VCR to watch videos. Seeing "Goonies" in the theatre, which was small.

Going down to the corner store with friends to buy candy, and the store owner pinching your cheek.

Block parent houses, pork chops with canned mushroom soup and rice, playing the Atari in a friend's basement, using cassettes to play games on a computer, or later 10 floppy disks that erased when you lost the game.

Roller skating at the roller rink.

Going off on the day we moved into a new neighbourhood on bikes and getting lost and not returning until much later.

Listening to Macho Duck and Michael Jackson read the ET story on my own record player in the basement. Or David Bowie and Culture Club and the Rolling Stones on my parent's stereo.

Failing to get a Cabbage Patch kid but instead receiving a Garden Patch kid with one wonky eye.

Telling my sister to stick her finger in the car cigarette lighter.

Mums having tupperware parties.

Mums doing Jane Fonda's aerobics workout.

Stickerbooks, with smelly stickers. I had one that was a skunk that was considered highly desirable.

Super cool bikes with banana seats.

Sunbathing with a friend on the treehouse roof listening to Madonna.

Being spanked for fooling around with the stereo knobs.

Going to the parade and seeing all the McDonald's characters (Hamburgler, Grimmace, etc)

Tying kids (willingly) to the handles of the merry-go-round with skipping ropes and then having three kids spin it as fast as humanly possible.

And peculiar to Canadian kids - watching "Kids of Degrassi Street" when one of the characters (12, maybe?) goes to a party instead of watching her brother - he follows her and eats a pot brownie and things get real.