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 turned three in 1980 and had an amazing childhood in the ‘80s. Everyone did the same thing in those days - we watched the same things on TV as our parents - the suitable programmes that is! We were all in the same room is what I mean. Then at school the next day you could talk about the same shows, because there was nothing else to watch.

Athena and the Body Shop. Woolies, Our Price... Going to the park on my bike, which had fluorescent spikes on the wheels, building a den with my friend, climbing trees then going to the corner shop to buy Hubba Bubba or Jawbreakers. Oh and those cigarette sweets, which were disgusting!

Fluorescent clothes, big hair. Heated rollers as I never had a perm! Smash Hits. The sticker albums.

The girl and clown test card. So weird to think there weren’t TV programmes on all day.

Yes, house was cold, but I didn’t know any different so it didn’t bother me too much I guess. Sunday bath and hair wash.

I also remember being worried about the IRA and AIDS. Strangely, I remember the big new events of the ‘80s more than any since.

I still love music and films from that decade. I kind of wish I’d been maybe 5 years older to experience the teenage years...

The rise of the microwave

80s tech!

The excitement of getting our first microwave! Everyone having tomato soup in plastic bowls for weeks. My dad was the type who never bought the insurance they'd flog alongside appliances, but the microwave was an exception because he thought it likely to break, and he bought the insurance ... the microwave purchased in 1982 made it to Y2k before conking out.

Also, the fascination of our first remote control TV and ... CEEFAX! Spent ages on Ceefax waiting for pages to scroll through, also Oracle and 4-tel.

The thrill of getting a video recorder - we were late adopters so it was a VHS. Some earlier adopters who had gone with Betamax (superior tech but more expensive) were left by the wayside.

And the legendary ZX Spectrum ... later superseded by the Commodore 64. Loading computer games by cassette.

For some weird reason we had to cover our exercise books for school. Started off using wallpaper, or brown paper. Then realised the centre pin up from the middle of Smash Hits was the perfect size. So each book had a different band on. Still don't know what the covering thing was for.

I was a student in Brighton from 1982 to 85 ...I had the best years .
AIDS was scary as it was becoming a real problem. Lots of young guys coming in the the RSCH with unexlained pneumonia,skin cancers etc.
Clubbing 3to 4 nights a week
Bronski Beat ,culture club ,DuranDuran ,Spandau Ballet,Wham ,Alison Moyet to name but a few legends.
I was a student working in AE the night of the Grand Hotel bomb by the IRA
I cannot remember all the political problems...too busy having fun 🤩
Went off to Sydney in 1987 and worked in AE at the Royal Prince Alfred teaching hospital.
Australian Bicenntenial celebrations was the best day...out on Sydney Harbour getting very pissed by 9 am 😂
Travelled up to cairns and cape tribulation
I really think the 80s was my best for fun and partying .
I met my best friend on my first day in Sydney and she is still my bestie now 💕She lives in NZ and we keep in touch...am planning a trip to NZ when the Covid shitshow calms down!!
Sadly my Dad died suddenly whilst I was there so not the best trip back to the UK .
But yes the 80s were bloody marvellous.

@shouldreallynamechangemore I still have a packet of letters and drawings on torn out exercise book paper that my best friend wrote me while we were on study leave during A levels, as neither of us were allowed to spend hours on the phone.

I treasure them, they are hilarious

I'm 49 now so certainly lived the 80s as came of age
For my own experience (England, south) - the early 80s was all New Romantics.. and the term then was 'gender bending' , so when I hear so much about 'non binary' today, I think, it's nothing new... and girls wanted to look like boys. Because the boys looked quite girlie. At my school, girls didn't want to look like Sade, or Alison Moyet, (although Bananarama and Madonna were definitely role models) but most girls wanted to have hair like Limahl, or Nik Kershaw, George Michael, or Boy George (BG was make up goals, anyway...) At my school anyway,, it was not considered cool to do your makeup and hair like a female popstar but to emulate the often more glam men more (and it was pop stars that were our idols then, not actors/ actresses) but to still dress quite femininely
By the mid 80s, new romantics had died out but pop music was still fabulous
Clothing involved a lot of pastels and we rarely wore jeans. Trousers tended to be baggy and checked or plain pastel but it was nearly always skirts. For me, Rita Sue & Bob Too depicts 80s schoolgirl fashion the most accurately I think. The dayglo period was pretty short lived but lots of fun. But pastels and any kind of skirt ruled in my crowd... pencil skirts, pleated skirts, button front skirts every colour of the rainbow..with a skinny patent belt, usually worn with a Wham! or Frankie Says t-shirt, or a pastel sweatshirt, or a teabag top . We always wore kitten heels or flat slingbacks to school, and stilettoes to go out in. And go out we certainly did...we were getting served in pubs and bars from about 14 onwards. No iD back then.
The fear of AIDS was drummed into us.. I'm surprised any of us actually lost our virginity
Boys still got caned, but not girls. Teachers would throw chalk dusters and stools at us and it would never get questioned.
We got v drunk with the teachers on school trips.. and I do mean paralytic drunk inc with the headmaster
I frequently bunked off school to hang out at Kensington Market or the tv studios in Borehamwood . London was EVERYTHING then... all so exciting and for me only a quick train ride. I still love it and did live there for a while

Frankie say RELAX

Oh, a pp just reminded me... writing to companies for information for a school project then being so excited a couple of weeks later when a package arrived with leaflets and maybe even a sticker!

Actually, comics only very occasionally had free stuff and it really was exciting to get even a sheet of stickers.

The freebies in cereal boxes.

Being able to order from a catalogue and get it delivered to your house 28 days later!

and the Top 40 on Sunday was the highlight of the week..

The launch of Breakfast Television. The novelty of programmes in the morning that weren't the Open University.

@Sparklingbrook

For some weird reason we had to cover our exercise books for school. Started off using wallpaper, or brown paper. Then realised the centre pin up from the middle of Smash Hits was the perfect size. So each book had a different band on. Still don't know what the covering thing was for.

Yes! What was that about? My children thought it was deeply weird when I told them.

@Sparklingbrook

For some weird reason we had to cover our exercise books for school. Started off using wallpaper, or brown paper. Then realised the centre pin up from the middle of Smash Hits was the perfect size. So each book had a different band on. Still don't know what the covering thing was for.

Oh yes!! I remember this. And the smell of bubblegum and wooden desks

Channel 4 starting up. Finally the extra knob on your telly that said 'ITV2' could be used for something.

I remember Ferrero Rochers and shower gel coming out in the 80s. Huuuuuugee! I really don't think shower gel was invented in the 70s? Anyway when they came out the gel was v v blokey, i don't think as aimed at women at all... we still had our pretty floral soaps and bath cubes! It took a while for shower gel to become more mainstream but it was what all men and boys got for xmas and birthdays...and Ferrero Rochers were a sensation (can't stand them now) as were Wispa bars when they came out...and bars were bigger then too

Paula Yates and Jools Holland on The Tube. Massive talking point at school the next day when your favourite band was on the night before.

Thatcherism, the Falklands, AIDS

But some great TV - the Comic Strip presents, The Young Ones, Spitting Image.

And some good music.

and all the jokes about George Michael being careless with his wispa..

I was 5 to 15 In the 80's and I loved my childhood , lived in london on a council estate , when I was little we played out all the time , time to come home was when it was dark .
We never had a car until I was prob 7/8 and then was one of the few on our estate that had one.
I was too young to remember stuff about miners plus being in london it seemed far away.
My dad had some time out if work but as kids we never noticed as we never wanted much, just playing out with our mates
School seemed less rules than now yet pupils had more respect for teachers then , prob because you would of been in trouble at home.
I loved being a child in the 80's it all seemed so much more simpler then.

For some weird reason we had to cover our exercise books for school. Started off using wallpaper, or brown paper. Then realised the centre pin up from the middle of Smash Hits was the perfect size. So each book had a different band on. Still don't know what the covering thing wasfor.
I always thought it was to protect the book from getty scruffy and torn

Big hair, shaggy perms, fluorescent items of clothing.
Big glasses (or maybe that was just me)
Teachers being on strike (Scotland) and having ages off school.
Just Seventeen magazine.
Scott and Charlene’s wedding which I watched when home for lunch from school.

Yy breakfast TV! I got up early specially to watch it and Frank Bough was there with his jumper going "this is a historic day" and my dad grumping around mithering that "they're not saying anything" lol. He was right, they weren't, and they still aren't now!

We covered the books to strengthen them as all that carrying around in our bags..the regular covers would just fall off.
i'd cover mine with Wham posters from Smash Hits and Number One and inevitably leave it for marking and someone would have got hold of them and written 'Wham! are benders' on it... sigh... they were always being defaced and I'd be FURIOUS...

@Sparklingbrook

When VHS came out I used to lie in front of the TV to tape my favourite songs off Top of the Pops.

And putting a bit of sellotape over the hole to ensure nobody taped anything over it.

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.

@BonnieDundee

For some weird reason we had to cover our exercise books for school. Started off using wallpaper, or brown paper. Then realised the centre pin up from the middle of Smash Hits was the perfect size. So each book had a different band on. Still don't know what the covering thing wasfor. I always thought it was to protect the book from getty scruffy and torn

Instead the covering poster and the book got scruffy and torn. But I got to swoon over John Taylor during double Geography so win win really.

I don't think there was a North / South divide as such I lived in the Northwest my parents were lucky enough to have well paid jobs neither of them had many qualifications to speak of but got office jobs in the Gas Board with great pension plans we lived in an affluent area ,very different to miners or mill workers