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 astronauts having children the same age as me at the time

Going on strike in school. Being snowed in for weeks. Only having 3 numbers to ring your friend if they were the same area code. 10p for the pay phone or a bag of crisps. Great music, Perv teachers, hedge hopping.

@Threadgood my mum used to cycle the 4 mile to town on a bike for groceries. She left the bike against a wall up from the shops. She would buy bits and pieces and put them in the basket on front. Leave it there and go to other shops, kept doing this until she was finished. No one ever touched it or the shopping all clearly visible. She done this for years. You wouldn't think of doing this now.

The words 'continental quilt' have made my day. I haven't heard anyone say that since about 1983.

Parents were nowhere to be seen most of the time. We were all kicked out of the house to play after breakfast and left to it really with no supervision. The trouble we used to cause 🤣 I'm surprised we made it through our childhood relatively unscathed.

Everyone drove around pissed. "Refuse the cruise" was a big slogan. Ronald Reagan was going to start a nuclear war. The smell of hairspray in the morning. The fear of never getting a job after highschool. Depp hair gel. Piercing my own ears with a safety pin. Geometric plastic jewellery. And the day my mum bought me a Sony Walkman cassette player—I was briefly the most popular kid at school while everyone had a go on it.

The BEST music

Trying to record you favourite songs off the radio (on your cassette tape) while avoiding the adverts

Leg warmers.

Roller skates

Big permed hair

First Walkman was bright orange.
I was going to marry John Taylor of Duran Duran but later cheated on him with Jon Non Jovi.
I wanted to be Molly Ringwald.
Double denim was a thing.
Maggie Thatcher was all I knew.
Prince Andrew made my skin crawl even then... and I never wanted to be on Jim'll Fix It I thought Jimmy was a massive creeper.
November 1989 the Berlin Wall came down.

I was at secondary school from 1982-1987. Happy memories. Met friends on Saturdays to go to look around shops like Chelsea Girl and Benetton. We had lunch at Wimpey, which was a fast food restaurant with table service. We spent ages looking in record shops and I loved the 12" extended remixes of songs on vinyl. The shops were always busy. We had some really fun fashions in bright colours. Permed hair was popular. When I was 15/16, we used to go to a nightclub on the edge of the countryside called Fanny's 🤣it was full of underage kids with fake driving licences for ID. Our choice of drink was Malibu and coke or vodka and lime. That era was vibrant and full of energy. I wish people could go back and experience it

I was in my 20s and having escaped an unhappy upbringing and moved to London in the 80s. It was fantastic. Anything seemed possible
Hi light was Live Aid but it was all amazing.
Used to get up at 5.30am every morning and go running for a hour. I wish I felt now how I felt then
Only downers were the outright sexism on things like pay and you had to be careful of wandering hands in the office if someone had come back from a liquid lunch but you soon learned to put the finance director in his place.
And the fact getting to know something was incredibly hard as there was no such thing as Google.
The music though was incredible. Both dc have a wide range of 80s music.

Burgundy mini stilettos, burgundy flick, burgundy pixie boots, burgundy pedal pushers....

@ammary I visited Berlin just after the wall came down and have a piece of it. It's authenticity is up for debate though. It was bought at a souvenir shop

Oh my goodness also the King's Cross fire- I remember watching the news on TV, it was so frightening, my dad worked in central London and I felt v freaked out until he got home.

Also, Zebrugge- I really didn't get it at the time, how could someone leave the doors open on a ferry? it was a decade or so later that I read a book about the disaster and I started to understand more, and later learning about how errors occur, swiss cheese model and all that.

I think my 8 year old was working overtime trying to make sense of the world

By contrast for me, the 90s feel like a much more lively, positive, vibrant time for me, probably because I was a teenager, going to university etc by late 90s!

• my 8 year old mind!

Check denim and pinstripe denim

Razzle dazzle

Constance Carole make up

What's Razzle Dazzle? I can only remember Razzle, the dog from Jonny Briggs.

The sense of relief and optimism when the ‘Iron Curtain’ collapsed in 1989 was extraordinary. It may sound naive and silly now, but the song ‘Wind of Change’ really did speak for millions of young people all over Europe

It was an amazing moment after the fear of a nuclear war. It's one of those had to be there moments. I was in West Berlin that night, totally by chance, I will never forget the atmosphere of excitement and hope. Looking back it was the first time I felt part of Europe amd so,etching bigger than being English.

Moved to London, temping with an agency on £4000 a year which was enough to get a place in a house share in a pretty good location and have a full on social life. Electric Ballroom in Camden, little secret indie clubs that stayed open till dawn, rock against racism marches and watching fire eaters at my first warehouse party. A lot of dancing and partying and going to gigs in pubs wearing ridiculously wide shoulder pads and a fairly dodgy perm. There was a lot of unemployment but there was also a lot of opportunity. The jobs I talked my way into then would be unlikely to open to my children now without industry connections or far more qualifications than I possessed at the time.

There was a lot of crap going down politically but also affordable rents and living costs and a social system that provided a safety net or an opportunity to study without getting into massive debt. For some, but not all, it gave an opportunity for working class kids like me to travel, try a different lifestyle away from my small home town, be independent and play at being a grownup before the full responsibility of adulthood kicked in. There were certainly grim bits but it was also a blast.

I was born in the late 70s so only really remember the second half of the 80s. Spent a lot of time playing out in the close. mum was at home, dad got made redundant twice I think and my friend’s much older brother had their first house repossessed (too many s’s?). Food wasn’t very exciting, nothing exotic at all. Sundays were very dull. I remember watching the second royal wedding on TV at school. Football was about Liverpool, all the boys supported them even in our school in the south.

For those that don’t understand the very real threat of nuclear war in the 1980’s, watch threads.

Wow, loving this thread. Was born just after it all ended and makes me want to steal the best bits! My parents were young adults in the 80s and I feel like I understand some of their idiosyncrasies a little better after reading this post.

We also had our first holiday in the US, my first flight. I’m sure people were allowed to smoke on the plane. We were meant to watch the challenger launch in Florida but missed it because it was delayed. America seemed amazing, I guess we didn’t have as many TV shows and US restaurants in England. I loved the food!

Has anyone mentioned Rita, Sue and Bob too?

It was the best. I loved Madonna, Wham and Bananarama. I spent half my childhood rolling around on roller skates. My hair was crimped and in a banana clip. I always had my walkman. I enjoyed reading Smash Hits and Jackie. It was a simpler time. The films were amazing. I loved Dirty Dancing, Gremlins, Back to the Future and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Everyone read newspapers. I enjoyed doing the crossword and sundial in it. The fashion was amazing. I lived for my crop tops, leggings and neon legwarmers. I think wearing beads was pretty much compulsory 😊 Brilliant times

@Tootsey11

No not Bennetton. This will do my head in. Used to go up from school at dinnertime with a friend, she always had money, buying jumpers! Bright mad colours, loved them but couldn't afford them.

Naff Naff or there was another called something like Palo or Paulo...it will come to me I’m sure...there may even be one still in my mums loft!