Growing up in the 70's

[morethanpotatoprints]

I bet there's been one of these before but who remembers stuff about the 70's, looking back to me it was all a bit weird.

So some of my memories.

Mary Mungo and midge, the music in the lift. my orange space hopper, gridsy marbles and clackers.
Dehydrated potato, free milk you had to drink at school.
Playing out from after breakfast until dark or tea.

Does anyone remember eating paper (candy paper) and candy cigarettes.

Richard Beckinsale.

Oliver Tobias being a sex god.

When i was little i didnt fully understand what this song was about. I just knew that it was sad and that it made me cry.

As an adult it still makes me well up but now i know what its about.

Abba My Love My Life from the Arrival album.

The Purdy cut. I had this. A deluded customer at my Saturday job told me I looked like Audrey Hepburn. A wonderful moment, but I knew I didn't really. It suits Joanna Lumley, but I didn't have her cheekbones.

I wrote a series about girls comics, but Jackie was my favorite, set in the 70s. There used to be a section called READER CONFIDENTIAL where only the most shocking confessions were expunged! The one I did began with a plummy mum bellowing: 'But Margaret? A BLACK boyfriend?!!' (This was 1976!)

Also, Nina Myskow, who I met at a comics convention was one of the agony aunts (Cathy and Claire) and she and the other female writers were desperate to provide readers with proper contraceptive information because they would get sad letters from girls who were pregnant and had literally nowhere to turn. But DC Thomson, the Scottish publishers refused. In fact when I applied for permission to use some of the Jackie stories, they demanded script approval and also didn't want me to use the word 'lesbian' in a script because they said, 'it's offensive.' I refused to change it. Says a lot about their attitudes. There was also a Reader Confidential which I didn't use about a girl who goes to a party and is assaulted by this boy. But it's all her fault because she's wearing a low cut top! I kid you not.

Frizzbonce i only ever bought a copy of Jackie ...once i think. I moved from the Mandy/Tracy comics onto Just Seventeen and Smash Hits.

In this months Red (March issue) there is an article about teen mags.

I occasionally buy Wagon Wheels for DH Im damn sure theyve got smaller.

Curly Wurlys deffo have Apparently while they were filming Ashes to Ashes (Life on Mars sequel) they asked for authentic Curly Wurly wrappers and apparently they HAVE got smaller.

I remember:
1/2p sweets
Our car had plastic seats which got sooo hot in the summer & mum used to put towels over the seats for us to sit on
French skipping
Long party dresses - I never had one, mum used to send me to parties in my (nylon) long frilly nightie
Rainbow, Zippy & Bungle
Continental quilts! I slept under sheets & blankets before that...
Mum used to make curry and serve it with a little dish of sliced banana on the side (no idea if this was a 70s thing or my mum's weird ideas about food!)
Bright bright pink strawberry yoghurt chockful of artificial colours
Mum did all her food shopping at Sainsbury's and I remember their logo was "It's clean at Sainsbury's" or something like that!

i had long party dresses i used to wear for friends birthday parties. first one was green and white with green flowers and/or leaves on the bottom half and when i grew out of that one it was replaced with a long blue and white one.

I remember Energen Rolls, Ayds and PLJ. My Dsis always on a diet.
Maltegen (vile stuff)
Space Hoppers were rubbish. I hardly bounced at all.
Within These Walls with Googie Withers.
Cherry B and Barley Wine.
Plasticraft - how much I wanted one, but never did get one.
Hotpants
Fizzy pop was a treat, for your birthday. As was icecream.
Tank tops with stars on the front.
Waiting for things to come into season, like lettuce and pomegranates.
The first taste of new potatoes - only 2 each as they were so expensive.
Avon Pretty Peach and Topaz perfumes.
Boots Skin Care Story
Miners make up
I was left on my own from age 9, every night when parents went to the pub.
Open University programmes on BBC2.
Eating buttered Weetabix.
If you had felt-tip pens at school, you really were someone.
French knitting/skipping/hopscotch crazes. In the school yard all the girls were doing the same thing, then go on to something else.
Shaking milk in a jar to make butter.

Watching Shang a Lang
The Double Deckers
Rent-a-Ghost
Magpie
Lolly gobble choc bombs
That 'cooldrinkineverfizzin" Pepsi advert
Like to teach the World to sing coke advert
Nimble bread
Crotcheted waistcoat with ties
Trouser suits

Sugar sandwiches
condensed milk sandwiches
Angel delight
Shaker maker

Heather Shimmer lipstick and belted jumpers.

The Baxtendale boys and chopper bikes.

Teachers who had fought in the war and a classroom map where half the world was still coloured pink.