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

My pixie boots were soft pale grey suede .
Warehouse , Chelsea girl and miss selfridge and 2nd hand , vintage type shops ,which were dirt cheap was my style .
Also my grandads /dads shirts and diy alterations .
Beer was 33pence 1/2 pint .
I do remember the serious things too , strikes , power cuts ,aids ,the threat of war was very real and i worried a lot about it .
I hated stinking of smoke after a night out ,loads of people smoked,i was chuffed when that was banned.

^"The 1979 Conservative government
The incoming administration of Margaret Thatcher raised interest rates to 17 per cent, as this was seen by the government of the time as a key weapon in combating inflation. It did have the effect of reducing inflation, although critics noted its negative impact on UK manufacturing exports. Interest rates began to rise again towards the end of the 1980s, partly under the pressure of house price rises."^

people who had mortgages often couldn't pay them any more, and lost their homes.

Unemployment rose to a staggering three million.

manufacturing industry, and the skilled jobs it had provided, collapsed.

The music was epic but everywhere stank of smoke and men were lecherous. More so than today.

I can’t really explain it in a way that’s meaningful to you. But for me it was a decade that started with Who shot JR? Super Trouper, Kelly Marie and Tom Baker as Dr Who, and ended with me going to Uni, the justified ancients of MuMu and the start of house music.

It had just the right amount of health and safety.

I had the time of my life in the 80s.Finished school and moved to London and started working in advertising after college. Everything felt, I don't know, more lighthearted. No mobile phones really in early 80s, so you actually had to communicate face to face! Loved the clothes, the music, the clubs, the night buses home etc

@Itwasacceptableinthe

I can’t really explain it in a way that’s meaningful to you. But for me it was a decade that started with Who shot JR? Super Trouper, Kelly Marie and Tom Baker as Dr Who, and ended with me going to Uni, the justified ancients of MuMu and the start of house music.

🎤 JUST ROLL IT FROM THE TOP🎤

I loved the bold colours that appeared out of nowhere, patterns to. Shell suites, shorts, padded short jacket, denim jacket, walkmans, bum bags, strange materials, it all felt special growing up amongst it all but now looking back I didn't realise what a special time it was. I'm so glad kids now appreciate how great the music was then, you will never beat 1988, my kids love testing me to guess the year of 80's music, it's great it really takes you back. How many now 8 year olds will remember the music they listened to in 40 years time?

I remember my first job, sat in an office next to a guy who had page 3 topless girl pics stuck on his board - Sam Fox and Linda Lusardi, with an ashtray on his desk. He’d make sexist comments constantly, but all that was normal then. If anyone had topless pics on their boards now, there’d be an absolute uproar. I remember the manual typewriters and tippex, and learning shorthand.

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.

Coogi? Absolutely hideous things, looked like a woollen mill had thrown up, but inexplicably hugely popular.

For me it was all the music: Pete Shelley, Sisters of Mercy, Killing Joke, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, New Order, so much good stuff...

(Why yes, I was a bit of a goth)

Teachers staff room stinking of smoke and coffee, even the GP had boxes of cigarettes on his table. People smoked wherever they wanted, in shops! Imagine that now in tesco! There were a lot of campaigns at school which felt ground breaking, stranger danger, green cross code, just say no -drugs. I remember a company coming into school doing demonstrations with yo-yos which everyone wanted all with pop logos on. On that not the pop man used to come around so did the scrap man. I think I remember Coca Cola strangely being given free to try do to door in our street, it was a clear version! Anyone remember that or was I dreaming?

🚂👍

I was born in the mid eighties but seeing stuff in series etc (like This Is England, for example) of the bog standard clothes worn by people day to day, the homeware, give me ptsd flashbacks thanks to the people who bred me. Chinos, moustaches, beige coats, brown glass tea mugs, foil ashtrays, etc. Bleak, grim, relentless is what I think of. And the stench! Greasy people, frying oil, damp busses, everyone stank of cigarette smoke, wet wool, poverty, I like music from the 80s and 90s but my actual life then was a living nightmare (because of the choices of adults)

@Sparklingbrook

No, if the hole was there then you couldn't tape over it. Blank tapes came with a little tab that you could lever out to make them read only, and you had to put sellotape over the hole if you wanted to record over them again.

I knew it was something about sellotape and holes but yes that was it. Nothing worse than finding your Mum had taped Crossroads over your Robin of Sherwood.

Ah yes Robin of Sherwood. I had a massive crush on Michael Praed, and it was never the same after he left, although Jason Connery did his best. Oh and that's reminded me of the ludicrous Dynasty storyline he was in where he was a prince from "Moldavia", and the Dynasty inspired fashion for big shoulder pads. We really did wear some odd things in the 80s.

Yes evenBetter. I found This is England hard to watch it bought back all kinds of memories and the sensation of my gran’s sticky flat.

@onionsndsage

Teachers staff room stinking of smoke and coffee, even the GP had boxes of cigarettes on his table. People smoked wherever they wanted, in shops! Imagine that now in tesco! There were a lot of campaigns at school which felt ground breaking, stranger danger, green cross code, just say no -drugs. I remember a company coming into school doing demonstrations with yo-yos which everyone wanted all with pop logos on. On that not the pop man used to come around so did the scrap man. I think I remember Coca Cola strangely being given free to try do to door in our street, it was a clear version! Anyone remember that or was I dreaming?

I remember the clear coke and being very excited about it but can't remember what it was called

Oh yes and you would sometimes go to HMV or Our Price on a Saturday afternoon to buy a record or cassette tape, or later a CD. Like that was actually a weekend activity as it was the only way to buy music then.

Bullying in school. Homophobic bullying was rife only it wasn’t called ‘homophobic’ back then.

People brought Rubik’s cubes into school. You were allowed to play with mercury in the science lab.

If you told someone you were a vegetarian (which I became in 1986) they would look at you like you were an alien species.

@Egghead68

Oh and no microwaves, showers or dishwashers (except maybe in more well-to-do houses than ours).

Of course no mobile phones of internet and computers were extremely basic (ZX81, Commadore64) and most people, schools and workplaces didn’t have them.

A perfume called Poison was big as was Body Shop Dewberry.

Perms were in fashion.

My aunt had the only diswasher I saw as a child, a portable that rolled across the room and you attached it to the tap. I thought it was so cool.

As an adult, all my dishwashers have been portable - I've never happened to buy a house with a built-in and I've always just bought a portable rather than give up the cupboard space, I'm sure it's because I remember them so fondly.

I was a child in tbe 80s at primary school. I remember lots of vinyls and cassettes. Top of the pops. Walkmans then later cd walkmans.
Kids tv= Grange Hill, Byker Grove, Neighbours and Homa and Away starting.
Fashion...neon everything, shell suits, permuda shorts, perms!!

@shouldreallynamechangemore

It was called Tab

I remember getting free Clark's shows at school as they wanted to test their shoes out on us. It was so exciting. I miss the 80s.

[quote Threadgood]@shouldreallynamechangemore

It was called Tab [/quote]
Yes!!! That's it

My experience, which might not be the same for everyone, here goes:-

School, you could get smacked on your head, board rubbers thrown at you, books smacked across your head, you wouldn’t go home and tell your parents as they’d ask you what you’d done. Parents didn’t get hugely involved in school, not like now.

Could easily have register and then walk outside, no fences surrounding school. PE lessons, cross country especially, often was me were told to run around the estate, ended up sitting in someone’s house!

Hair was big, in my case, didn’t move, dyed dark, lace gloves and bright day glo colours were the rage during the Madonna craze.

Vinyl records early 80’s, although by later 80’s cd’s were amazing and vinyl and tapes became a thing of the past.

Only phone we had was in the livingroom, stretched it into the very cold hall if we wanted to talk for longer, no privacy!

No central heating until the very late 80’s for us. Electric fire and immersion heater to warm the water up. Had to heat the water about an hour before you needed to use it. Sunday night was bath night!

It's Saturday tomorrow, so here's the plan as no work. We are 21 and single.
6 of us are having Breakfast at Poppins.
Pancakes and coke floats.
We are off to Etams for a new dress.
I plan a blue on with cross over bodice, shoulder pads and a tight skirt. With a little jacket, just like Dynasty.
There is a New Wimpy in Town. So might get a drink there.
Back home for tea, a bath and hair and make up. Dad is dropping me three friends at the pub, in town at about 7pm, and we are meeting up with the others.
At 9 we get the bus over to the next town, a free bus the disco provides, Disco is three stories high and is packed when we get there. Cocktails for all, they even do food.
Checking out the girls dresses. The boys are in jacket trousers and ties, or you can't get in.
Chuck at is at 1, the bus takes us back to the other town, and we all share Taxi's home.

The clubs and the music. I went to Uni at Manchester then worked in london: I remember ‘disco’ at the Cyprus Tavern, goths paradise at Jilly’s and getting stoned at the hacienda. Bought all my clothes from afflecks palace and missed lectures because I’d been queuing all night long to get concert tickets to watch bands at the Apollo. Then down to london and being blown away when my wild flatmate took me to kinky golinky. And weekends veered from wild parties in dodgy places ‘under the arches’ (illegal ‘dens’ south of the river) to legendary nights at the 606 jazz club. Everything was wild. My gay mate moved to NYC which was even wilder, and friends who didn’t get ‘yuppy’ jobs all did ‘TESLA’ courses and bummed round the world getting teaching jobs to pay their way. No one gave a shit where you came from or what your ‘tribe’ was, and our house share was stuffed with punks and hippies and withnail&I types, and we danced on the tables at the Dover st wine bar and went to ‘balls’ wearing bridesmaid dresses that we’d dyed black because we couldnt afford real gowns (no cheap shops in those days). And we all cried buckets when the Berlin wall came down.