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.

The Tufty club!
Tupperware parties

Having to get up and walk across the lounge to change channels on the TV or change the volume.

TVs were huge wooden things like a piece of furniture.

We had a radiogram that was huge and bigger than a sideboard. It sat in our woodclad diningroom instead of a sideboard.

Lavender

I totally agree, politically it was not a good time to be brought up.
Even if you weren't affected personally by any of the events you knew what was happening and how grim it was, it was in the air. No not good old days for many.

Binmen used to come into your garden for your bin.
You did your own compost, but no recycling plants.
Large supermarkets opening, half the size of those today.
Shelves being half empty and then full again, depending on who was striking.
The Yorkshire Ripper.
Jelly foam mushrooms and bananas, not the crap they are today, but really foamy.

Avon lady. Insurance man calling every week to collect the premium in cash. Huge printed Littlewood's catalogue circulated amongst the neighbours. If you bought anything from that, it could be paid for in weekly instalments over many months.

AllMimsy my grandad was an insurance man who called at people's houses every week.

My grandmas always wore hats.

Electricalbanana, that's familiar! I peddled off at 8am after a full English aged 8 and a sandwich box ( crisps, apple, sandwich spread) saddle over handle bars, and got home at dark. My parents knew I was at the farm ( no adults present, just a barn) or on the ranges ( yes, the ranges where the army practised! Don't go where the red flags are love, alright?)

Every weekend, even in winter. And after school- straight to the barn and back for dark.

No one ate foreign food either. Pasta, noodles, rice, no. That was for holidays and to be laughed at.

I also remember my df staring at the jam on totp and bemoaning the loss of Elvis, Des o Connor. And rubbishing rod Stewart ( who does he think he is?) before switching off in disgust.

Getting dressed in front of the coal fire in the living room in the winter.
Itchy, wet wool tights.
Toilets that cost 1p
Anything that cost 1/2p, 3d or 6d.
Green Shield Stamps
Jimmy Osmond, Tiny Tim, the Clangers, the Onedin Line theme music.
The "hot chocolate, drinking chocolate" advert.
Singing "Morning has Broken" every day at school assembly.
Weekly baths and only 2 painfully short dresses.

Our insurance man was from the Prudential. He called every Monday evening without fail.

If the TV went wrong, a man (always a man) came out from Radio Rentals to fix it. Not many people owned their TV. It wasn't economic to do that because they went wrong so often. Radio Rentals gave you a replacement set while they tried to fix the old one. We got a colour TV in 1976, a year or so before we got central heating for the first time.

The Generation Game. The sugar strike. The TV ending at night time and the National Anthem being played. My aunt standing to attention as soon as the drumroll began.

A cricket phone in my Dads study.

Gin yep We had the Pru visitor too.

My mum made me wear knee high socks which kept falling down so she made me wear bloody elastic bands round my knees.

Clackers - they bloody hurt when you didn't get it right and they landed on your wrist!

I also remember having a pair of special children's dress up shoes that were just a high heeled piece of plastic with a piece of eleastic over the top, lethal.

Some weird lip gloss stuff that was ultra sticky, fruit flavoured and came in a glass tube with a roller ball on the end, it was like glue.

Kaftans, flares, tank-tops, blouses with huge puffy sleeves.

Yes I remember Weekend chocolates.

Watching The Good Life - I so wanted to be Margot.

Long hot summers, cold winters, the three day week, strikes, etc., but an immense amount of freedom, I loved the 70's

ooooo I remember that rollerball lipgloss. Sooooo sophisticated!

Pogo stick

Crown Court on TV every weekday lunchtime. I loved that in the holidays. Hardly any TV on otherwise during the day except for the schools broadcasts. At primary school we used to go into the school hall once a week or so and sit in front of a big TV set in a metal frame that raised it up very high so everybody could see. For music and movement there was a wireless, ie radio, programme.

Being smacked on the backside by my teacher for playing in the sandbox when she hadn't said I could ... followed by being kissed on the backside when she realised she had in fact said I could!!

Imagine the uproar if that happened to a child these days.

Yy to continental quilts and oil lamps on after school.

I remember when we first got an automatic washing machine. We all sat on the floor and watched it go round for one full load

Junior Choice on Saturday mornings

Wearing long dresses and second hand ballet shoes to go to parties

All the boys in my class having parka anoraks with orange lined hoods and fur round the edge.

Babies were carted everywhere in carry cots - my sister used to go in hers in the boot of our estate car

Dial a disc (you rang 16 if I remember rightly)

Covering the cork on your wedges with clear nail varnish to stop it crumbling

Trevira skirts

Simon shirts

Falmer jeans with three stitched seams on the back pockets

Silver wire chokers with your initial on them

Mood rings

Roll on lip gloss in fruit flavours

Pick and Mix at Woolies

Brown nylon quilted bedspread with frills (oh the shame)

Our local play park was a death trap. The slide was very very very high and there was no padded stuff or even grass - just rock hard concrete or tarmac. And even the tarmac bubbled up in the 1976 heatwave.

The climbing frame (again over concrete) looked like it had been constructed using scaffolding poles.

One last one - a video recorder with a 'remote control' which was a long cable trailing across the floor with the controls on the end of it

Oh yes!

Fur coats
French Knickers
M&S nighties that looked like evening dresses
The Gossard Wonder bra (was it Gossard?)
M&S Cookery Books
Frozen Mousse
Black Forest Gateaux
The Good Life
Basil Fawlty
This is Your Life
Big glasses
Elton John
Liebfraumilch
Babycham
Bacardi and coke
Spag bol in tins with the mince at one end and the pasta at the other - eugh.
Benny Hill
Pan's People
Tony Blackburn
The Football Pools
Women's Lib
The Sex Discrimination Act
The first woman on the stock exchange floor
micromesh tights
pop socks
National shoes
Fur trimmed nylon slippers
nylon ruffled dressing gowns from M&S
Everyone having the same concentric hexagonal wallpaper and streaky patterned bathroom tiles
Chelsea Girl

Yes to parks being death traps. Eeny bits of gravel stuck inside the palm of your hand, going septic. Ugh.