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 discovered the B side of the Chicken Song recently. It's called "I never met a nice South African". Completely of its time.

Mad cow disease! And even now, I can't give blood in the US because of having lived in the UK during the 80s.

I wanted to look like Stephanie Seymour or Brooke Shields. Have a google of them from the 1980's-they were so beautiful.
Knickerbox, Sock Shop, Benetton and Woolworths!
Yes to flashers! My mate and I were smoking aged 15 and a weirdo leapt out from behind a tree brandishing his shaved 'area'. I remember we just sniggered, but I'd get the bloody vapours if that happened now
Army jackets and school bags from the Army Surplus store!
Tiny badges with your favourite bands on.
Fan clubs for bands!

Re the Benetton type jumpers, weren't they Capital Connection?

There was lots of strife in the 80s, I was 16 in 1983. The miner's strike, race riots, mass unemployment. But if if you got good o levels, ie 5 good passes, you could get a reasonable job. If you got to university your future was pretty much secure and you could realistically expect to buy somewhere to live in your twenties. No mobile phones, no home computers except BBC Spectrum. I had a full grant to go to university, no tuition fees. I left university with no debt.

Oh, yes as others have mentioned the fall of the Berlin wall was incredible. I got engaged while on a trip to Germany soon after the wall fell. I remember walking through a huge East Berlin car park choc full of trabant cars and we joined a crowd of young people hacking off a lump of the wall. Earlier in the decade it had been amazing travelling through Poland, visiting Gdansk and witnessing the wind of change there following the Solidarity movement. Looking back it was indeed a weird decade; a time of immense political change and possibility but also living for many of those years under what felt like a very real threat of potential nuclear war. Summed up by the poster of Maggie and Reagan in an embrace mimicking ‘Gone with the wind’ with a mushroom cloud in the background.

And yeah what was it with all the flashers? They were everywhere. I mean to the point where us girls knew where we were likely to get flashed at.

I last got flashed in 1995 and was a bit taken aback even then at the retro nature of it.

I was thirteen in 1980 and I don't remember the decade with fondness. Thatcher, strikes, job losses, the CONSTANT sense of being on the brink of a nuclear war, the financial crash, AIDS, youth unemployment, rampant sexism, racism and naked capitalism. If you didn't have cash it was a miserable time to be a young person. And most of the music in the charts was beyond cheesy. I am completely perplexed by the way the eighties have become fetishised. I much preferred the 90s which seemed to me a kinder, more tolerant decade.

Lots of smoking. Casual racism and sexism. School trips cancelled as the IRA were very active and there seemed to be a bomb threat at every museum or castle we tried to visit.

More freedom for kids - I'd go bike riding for miles with friends. Quieter roads. Things seemed less frenetic - you could have a nice life on one standard income so lots of mothers didn't work, there were fewer kids activities, less tutoring, etc.

no phones stayed out with friends not stuck in on the internet

peopple respected police more thannow-nothing was pc say what you want

@VeganCow

Has anyone mentioned Rita, Sue and Bob too?

YES!!!! i thought about that too , sooo 80's and very funny. May be not considered so funny in 2021 ?

Channel 4 Started
BBC used to play the national anthem before the end of transmission (usually around midnight) then no programmes until the morning.
Brookside
Dallas
Dynasty
Howard's Way.
Magpie
Blue Peter
Tiswas
Swap shop

@MarthasGinYard
I absolutely loved my burgundy pixie boots! I can remember them so clearly, gorgeous soft leather....

oh four channels thats it when a film was on you were excited

Something else we didn't have, good restaurants, if you ate out it was a special occasion and it was usually Chinese or Indian, going to Pizza Hut was a treat! Mcdonalds were only in large town centres, drive-throughs didn't exist, nor did coffee shops, no Costa or Starbucks, coffee was for posh people! I still prefer Nescafe

Now you can get pretty much any cuisine in every town, although sushi has only just become available where I live!

Rita, Sue and Bob too, one of my top ten films

'We're having a gang Bang'

Ice Magic on ice cream.
Coke floats

Two very different realities.

My Mum found it the best decade of her life. Parties, youthful exuberance, friends, fantastic music, liberation etc.

My Dad was a few years older and remembered the 80's with a far harsher realism. Endless picket lines, police brutality, constantly being skint, unemployment lines and the dole.

Two contrasting experiences but one that eventually brought my Dad to the town my Mum lived in and the rest they say is history. A decade neither would have changed given the opportunity.

I remember a lot of the news being about the miners strikes, and Arthur Scargill's sideburns! My dad loathed Thatcher so there was a fair amount of tutting and eyerolling when the news was on. I remember Gregory's girl, getting a video recorder and then being able to go to the video shop to pick a film! Musically, I loved Culture Club, Duran Duran and Shakin Stevens . I wore a ra-ra skirt to my first school disco and thought I was the bees knees. I remember roasts every Sunday and also having a bath Sunday nights before school, and drying off in front of the gas fire in winter.

Oh and Saturday night treats sometimes were at the Berni Inn

I was born in 1968 so was a teenager throughout the 80s. The music was great, I loved the pop of Haircut 100, Cyndi Lauper, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet in the early 80s and then a few years later The Alarm, Big Country and The Smiths. Record shops were a haven for discovering new independent music and many nights were spent listening to John Peel and Janice Long on the radio. I was a reserved, sensible type who my parents trusted not to turn to drink and drugs so I had the freedom to go out to independent clubs while still at school (and underage!) I saw bands like Primal Scream, Sonic Youth and the Jesus and Mary Chain in their infancy. I lived near Glasgow and there was a real political atmosphere around because of the introduction of the poll tax, the submarine base at Faslane and the abolition of student grants and I was out on marches and rallies a lot. Teenage conversations were often about how much we hated Maggie Thatcher or how to start a fanzine and looking back, we were quite idealistic and innocent. Unemployment was high so I signed on as unemployed after leaving school despite having good exam passes. Jobs, careers and apprenticeships for school leavers weren't easy to come by in Glasgow then. It was definitely an interesting decade with a lot of social change, although the social change differed depending on what part of the UK you lived in.

the CONSTANT sense of being on the brink of a nuclear war,

I think this really did inform so many things. It was such an extreme notion to have present, all the time. Even if you didn't consciously think of it, it was like a pp said just there. There were news stories about how more or less likely it might be, presented like a genuine narrative as though whether it was likely or not was an event in itself but one that was ever unfolding and ongoing. There were as another pp said many many songs about it, some of them outwardly perky sounding like enola gay for eg but actually bleak as hell.

We all got classified as "generation X" thanks to bloody Douglas Copeland but actually I think there's some truth in that, in the nihilism etc re what was going on. It's no coincidence that heroin was massively popular at the time because heroin puts you right out of it. A couple of years later, when Kurt Cobain was singing "whatever, nevermind" he kind of summed up a lot of that.

I was a teen in the 80s.
I remember having lots of clothes in bold colours: electric blue skirt, bright red 3/4 length blouson coat with silver press studs; pink legwarmers and grey suede slouch boots; tight jeans with zips up the ankles...
You could wear make-up and white sling-back stilettos to school. People would smoke on the school buses. Smoke was everywhere.
No uniform or smart dressing in the 6th form - you could wear exactly what you wanted and express yourself how you wanted. It definitely felt a freer time than it is for teens now (even without Covid).

My daughter is 14 and says being gay or bisexual is now really cool. Half her classmates are. Things have definitely moved on from the 80s. No one was autistic, just weird or thick.

Oh god Rita, Sue and Bob Too was so funny!

"Ah thought ah were great."