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

I've on the inside of your bedroom window. Once a week baths . Rich mahogany Harmony hair colour . Pirate shirts and pixie boots . Finding your music tribe . Whole families watching the same tv programs. The excitement of discovering Pot Noodles. Seeing my first microwave and Walkman . Wrinkle pickers from the charity shop . Clothes from the market . Blue eyeliner and purple lipstick. Huge hair . And on the flip side . Wondering if you'd have enough time to get home if the nuclear warning happened. The miners strike. Living in an area where some of our miners went back mid strike and seeing bricks thrown through their windows . Easy mortgages but crippling interest rates. The iron curtain. Fear of IRA bombs . Dreadful racism and appalling homophobia. Teachers being able to hit you and your parents saying you must've deserved it. YTS slave labour schemes . No uni as standard. Very low expectations of girls . Smoking everywhere. A real fear of predatory men . Flashers. Bum pinching . Having to walk everywhere in thin coats and shoes .
Great comedy though. Habitat furniture. Seeing my first cordless phone. Videos were like magic . It really was a decade of awakening for so many things .

@LeaveMyDamnJam

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

There was a film made about a nuclear bomb in Sheffield

Ah the 80's.

I am grateful there was no internet or smartphones as I was wild. My first job was selling insurance door to door in London where I met so many fascinating families from all over the world but it was also a free for all for men in power, within a month the MD had me up against the wall with his hand up my skirt and although I managed to get him off me, it was the first of many times I was harassed in the work environment and HR didn't exist, there was nowhere to go if you wanted to keep your job

I was in care so a target for men who wanted sex with underage girls, very common, even acceptable to a point, there were no organizations or charities to turn to, you either survived or you didn't. Esther Rantzen set up Childline in the mid-'80s but it never occurred to me to call them

Thatcher was in Power and although she was considered evil by half the country, to see a woman in such a position of power was inspiring to those of us whose mothers had grown up being told their place was at home. So the landscape was changing and it felt good to be a part of it, even with the downsides

I think it was the best decade for music and 'tribes' as a PP mentioned earlier, there were punks, skins, goths, casuals and I think I tried out all of them! Mobile phones were huge, you had to carry the battery around which was the size of a shoebox, I didn't use a computer at work until the early '90s and everything was on paper and filed, liquid lunches were positively encouraged to win business so ended up getting stupidly drunk with customers but it did the trick.

Interesting time with huge shifts in power for women

There were social problems like any decade but I was a teen in 80s and looking back it was great. Loads of freedom to go out all day 2p in pocket for emergencies

I got a sat job at 15 and early enough cash fir a cinema trip and some clothes records etc. Getting another job was easy just walked about town and asked at the till.

We were accepting of others but I'm sure some bullying went on.

School for Me was a happy time. Some teachers were mean but I was ok. Flirting with the boys in farahs and back perms hair dos. Lovely Music was great. Looking back i realise actually how good it was Didn't appreciate it so much then.

Also, dog shit everywhere.

I remember prising it out of my soles on a regular basis.

My sister was a lot younger than me. When we went down the ginnels I had to go first, yelling at the top of my voice DOG SHIT 1 O'CLOCK or DOG SHIT 3 O' CLOCK.

A lot of it was white? Why?

I lived in Blackpool in the 80s, primary school age. I remember the annual Tory Party conference (which was held in Blackpool) meant that you couldn't post a letter in a post box, because they were all sealed up for the duration of the conference, because of bomb threats from the IRA. Also, if a helicopter ever flew over the school playground the kids would shout, 'it's Margaret Thatcher coming to get us!'.
Also white dog poo!?

Also, flashers. There were so many flashers. I was even flashed in a church wearing a brownie uniform.

The 80s were my formative years - went from my teens to early 20s.

The best bits: looking back, we had some good music. I miss the individualism of how people dressed back then - used to be common to see guys wandering around with spectacular green mohican hairdos, make up and bondage trousers (and - shocked whisper - this was in the west country!) And I can still remember watching the Berlin Wall come down, me and then boyfriend sitting there watching it on TV and feeling stunned because we never thought it would happen in our lifetime.

The worst bits: unemployment, AIDS crisis, the Cold War, Thatcher. Appalling racism and sexism. Rubbish secondary modern ‘education’ (some teachers I’ll probably never forgive). Sitting on the top deck of a bus was like walking into a fog bank as that’s where everyone smoked - ditto pubs, your clothes stank of it whatever you did!

White dog poo is because dogs ate bones

Bones= white poo

I was wearing the brownie uniform, not the flasher

That would be very 2021, not 1980s

I was born early 80s. I remember Madonna, Michael Jackson, Culture Club, Queen and Wham.

Neighbours with Kylie and Jason, Madge and Harold and Guy Pearce.

Care Bears, Button Moon, Pigeon Street, Cockleshell Bay, Jamie and his magic torch 🤔. He Man.

Shell suits, crimpers, back combing, hairspray, bright colours, scrunchies, side ponytails, perms and fringes.

@Cattenberg same, 81 baby. My Dad travelled a lot overseas, I remember a lot of plane crashes and it gave me anxiety with DF travelling, I thought I’d potentially imagined/exaggerated it as I got older but maybe not.

Smash Hits sometimes had a flexi disc stuck on the front.

Channel 4 started - interesting to have an alternative to the 3 other channels.

So much seemed to be changing during the 80s but the undercurrent I remember was fear.....war, nuclear bombs and Aids. There was a lot of sexism and racism. And Margaret Thatcher.

I loved Prince and INXS (still do), the Young Ones, great pubs and clubs, air travel seemed more affordable than before, early 80s was all about Big Hair.

I LOVE 80’s music too OP reminds me so much of growing up DM was really into music. I listen to Absolute 80’s in the car so the kids are listening to the same music I listened to at their age 😂

Smash, Angel delight, findus crispy pancakes.

My mum bought brown paper to cover my school books. It was "common" to use wallpaper apparently and people would judge. I think as a lone parent she felt really under scrutiny and as an adult and lone parent myself I can see why she was so keen to be seen to be on top of things.

@OhioOhioOhio

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.

Winters were no colder, but they were awful because at school you had to go out for breaks even if it was snowing. I hated that and I bet they don't do that to children these days.

Early 1980s at university. Took a pound over to the dining hall at 6pm. Main course, pudding and an orange juice for 60p then down to the college bar. 5p for a pint of lemonade. Put the remaining £3 into Space Invaders over the evening while drinking 10ps worth of fizz and breaking off to dance to Echo and the Bunnymen.
Great times.

@Tootsey11 and @Dippingoutofdowndawg
Paco?

Born in 81 so I was a young child. School was fun but harsh, the nuns would hit our knuckles with rulers if we were naughty. I remember buying sweets with half pennies, they were tiny (both the coins and the sweets!). Only a couple of hours of kids tv was on per day, but I never got bored. Chocolate bars were massive back then, I’m sure Mars bars were twice the size!

My first holiday abroad was with friends in 1988, had worked the summer to pay for it. We went on a Square Deal where you only knew your destination airport and when you arrived got on a coach and they announced who had been allocated which accommodation.

Huge cheers went up when they announced who was being dropped at the posh 4 star hotel, stifled groaning from those who got chucked out at the 2 star fleapit.

Punks with green Mohawks and studded leather jackets

‘Huts’ as school classrooms

No seatbelts in the backs of cars

Waiting 3 years for films to be on tv

Star Wars Lego being the best toy/gift ever

Debbie Harry

Fluorescent socks

AIDS adverts on tv

Women on top of the pops wearing jeans and jumpers eg Tiffany

Ghettoblasters

Unemployment figures being in the news all the time

Iran/Iraq war

Michael Buerk reporting from the famine in Ethiopia

Lockerbie

Kids walking to school alone

4 star petrol

MFI furniture

Violent cartoons like Tom and Jerry, Loony Toons etc

Going Live on a Saturday morning

Seeing hillsborough happen live on Grandstand

Stonewashed jeans

Being allowed to play out until dark

Findus crispy pancakes and vienetta

Michael Jackson and Madonna

I left school in 1984 , i had a childhood with lots of freedom , then a teenage with even more !
I had the best time ever , fashion , music , pubs , nightclubs - old school soul .
Woolworths , buying lps , miners make up , sun in .
I miss the build up of waiting for the weekend to come , i have not had so much fun going out since then .
Looking back i think it was a simpler time ,no mobile phones ,no social media , very few shallow , vacuous no- bodies earning millions on trashy celebrity programmes.
I had the time of my life ,my thoughts on the 80's are filled with memories of my nights out and the sheer joy of feeling so happy , like it would never end.
I was so relieved to leave a crappy typical 1980's secondary school and begin my life .
I feel quite sad how the young of today won't ever have the same experiences , that time is past now.
What would i give to go back !

Rara skirts, leg warmers, bleach wash jeans, permed hair, big wide elastic belts, great music, top of the pops every Thursday, TV only 3 then 4 channels and stopped broadcasting at the end of each night's programming, sat morning buying the latest single, corporal punishment still going at some schools.

Lots of power cuts, terrifying aids leaflet sent to every house, no hospices for end of life care, blind eye turned to bullying/fighting at school, horrendous intolerance of anyone gay, no support for or education re mental health issues.

Kylie and Jason getting married

Young kids watching crime watch and talking about it in school the next day

Reading Matilda

Gummy bears cartoon

The Racoons