I was born in the late 70’s so the 80s were my childhood years, becoming a teenager as the 90s started. I have very fond memories of my childhood but looking back there was a dark undercurrent going on. There didn’t seem to be any responsibility for children, you were warned not to speak to or take sweets from strangers so if you did and were abducted and/or murdered, that was your fault for being stupid/not listening. To be fair, parents would also judge other parents for not instructing their kids properly too. There was a very high profile child abduction/murder case in our area when I was growing up but it didn’t stop us being sent outside to play and wander the streets all day, we were just told to be careful or we’d end up like X. Some lovely victim blaming there. A friend from school was hit by a car and very seriously injured (She was ok in the end but it was a long recover) and I remember my mum saying that it was a lesson to us all about mucking about on the roads, despite my protests. To DM’s credit, when the news did come out that it was a drunk driver who had mounted a pavement, she did actually apologise for having jumped to conclusions. During school holidays, if parents were working, there would be some vague communication around the neighbourhood to determine that at least one adult would be at home all day and then all the neighbourhood children would be chucked outside to roam free, knowing we could go to that adult in an emergency.
We had a few kids at school with obvious learning difficulties who were mocked by teachers and children (with teachers’ encouragement) alike for being stupid. There was one boy who couldn’t read or write his own name, even at 10 years old but there was no support for him. The way we treated him chills me to this day. Children were smacked over the teachers knee in my first few years of school or could be belted by the headmaster for very serious incidents. I wasn’t aware of that actually happening to anyone during my time at school although a friend’s older brother had had the belt a few years before and used to retell the story while we listened in awe and terror. I remember my parents being furious that corporal punishment was eventually banned in schools. It was all Dr Spock’s fault and children would no longer be kept in line. We were smacked at home so all sorts of misdemeanours. It was horrible and I’d never treat a child this way. Racism and homophobia was rampant with lots of jokes about both being told in the playground and in adult circles. When a “P*” family moved into our neighbourhood, my dad tool me and my sister out to throw eggs at their house. Others did worse. It makes me sick to think about it all now.
My parents were that interesting breed of working class tories. Despite the fact that we didn’t have a lot of money, they worshipped Maggie Thatcher and liked to see those worse off than them get their comeuppance. They aspired to be better off and unlike most of my friends, we went on holiday abroad every year. All the money we had went towards our holidays so our house was falling to bits, we never had new clothes or toys and mum and dad would be miserly about heating, electricity, phone bills etc (their favourite ploy was to call someone and then hang up just as the person answered so that the other person would call back – they would claim a fault on the line – and therefore pay for the call instead of us) but we could crow about our regular air travel to exotic holiday resorts.
My parents belonged to a social club – it had once been a working man’s club but had relaxed to allow women in, so long as they joined the lunch-making rota – and we would spend a lot of time there in both afternoons and evenings. I remember the place being full of smoke and I used to play games with some of the old men, trying to catch their smoke rings. So much fun! Everyone would be drinking and when not playing with smoke, the other children and I would be given a few packs of crisps and bottles of coke and would play in the ladies toilets while our parents drank.
Sundays were family days. There were no shops open and it wouldn't have crossed our minds to expect that. We went to sunday school, despite my parents not being religious, then were picked up and driven to my auntie's house where we'd meet the rest of the extended family. Every single sunday. We'd then come home for a full sunday roast with all the trimmings. We'd listen to the chart show on radio one while eating. We were not allowed to play with friends on sundays and most definitely not allowed to accept an invitation to have tea anywhere else.
I remember a time when not everyone had a phone (and by that, I mean a landline) so when arranging to meet someone we’d have to ask “are you on the phone?” first rather than assuming they could be contacted that way. We did have a phone but were always the last to get any other sort of tech and I remember once borrowing a neighbours VCR while they were on holiday – we had an amazing week watching every film we could get our hands on from the video shop and afterwards we missed it so much that my dad eventually relented and bought us our own VCR. Luckily we choose VHS over beetamax. There was one TV in the School and one computer (a BBC). It was the ultimate treat when we were told that either would be coming to the classroom and four pupils would be chosen to wheel the contraption from the store cupboard to the classroom. We watched school programmes on an occasional basis on the TV and at the end of term we were sometimes allowed a film. One year, it was Return of the Jedi and my mum wouldn’t let me join in as I wasn’t allowed to watch sci-fi. It would put nonsense ideas in my head. I had to do maths exercises on my own in the music room instead. We used the computer to play an educational game called Granny’s Garden, involving all sorts of logic, maths and grammar puzzles. During one “wet lunchtime” when we were not allowed into the playground but had our lunch in the classroom, the computer had been left on and I completed the entire game all by myself. I got into so much trouble for that.
The threat of nuclear war was always there and we were not shielded from the horrors of the news like Hillsborough etc. For both Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, I remember classes being grouped together in the dining hall and the big tv wheeled in so that we could watch the coverage as it was so important. I remember reading information leaflets about what to do in the event of an attack, they were presented in cartoon style and I remember thinking the whole thing looked very exciting, not quite grasping the seriousness of it. Then I watched When the Wind Blows and despite this also being a cartoon, it had a profound effect on me and really instilled the fear.
On the plus side, despite being a girl and living in a poorer area, I don’t remember ever feeling constrained or told I couldn’t do things in life. Anyone could do or be anything and I think this was reflected in the variety of people and appearances particularly in the music industry with punks, new romantics, men wearing make-up and pvc, women looking androgynous. It was a really exciting time and the music was amazing.