What was life like in the 80s?

[Strangerthanadeadting]

As a recent fan of Stranger Things and having only been four years old at the end of the eighties, I'm fascinated to know what life was like for teens & adults back then.

It's depicted as being so much fun on TV. So colourful, the music is brilliant, the fashion so vivid. It was a time before the Internet, social media, plastic surgery, the Kardashians.

I'm fascinated. I'd love to hear what life was like. What people did for fun, what they ate, how different a working day was, if it really was as glamorous as it looks, if the hairstyles took forever, what people thought the future would be like? Was it a better life? A better time?

Mars Christmas stockings with the red netting on like the pet ones are now,

Hellas chocolate bars My parents always bought the strawberry one.

Last time i was abroad was in 1986 School trip to Switzerland for a week. Still remember hearing Spitting Images The Chicken Song echoing over the mountains as some of the kids were singing it . The girl who was next to me on the chairlift (we were in pairs) and i didnt realize we were supposed to collect blankets before we went on and we were freezing.

We've loved reading these posts! We're going to move this thread over to Classics now but do continue sharing your 80s memories.

I feel very old. Anyway, grew up in the countryside here in Ireland and it was tough. VAT was very high as was the tax on my father’s wages. Home oil was very expensive so only used for a few hours a day. No using the landline until after 6oclock, two television channels, shops shut on a Sunday, We spent Christmas and New Year either with grandparents living on the otherside of the country or headed to Scotland to visit relations. We missed the ferry a number of times due to the border checks. We brought back stuff that was cheaper to buy in the UK.
No mobile phones so friends would arrange to meet either in school or just turn up at the door. We used walk across fields to get to friends houses.
Television used to close ar 11:30 with the national anthem, actually, I seem to remeber most public events finished with the national anthem. We holidayed on the west of Ireland and the only place in Dublin was the train station.
I pretty sure Charles Haughey was our taoiseach and he creamed off the country while we tighened our belts.

I was 9-18 in the 1980s and have a lot of the same memories as many here - perms, shoulder pads, playing out, genuine fear of nuclear war (I remember an English class exercise being to write a story about the bomb dropping one day while we were at school!!), Smash Hits and loving the music, electric blue/shocking pink/fluorescent yellow being the colours everywhere. But also poverty, Thatcher, unemployment (I grew up in what is not an ex-mining village).

I also remember Dial-A-Disc - you rang a number and could listen to a different record from the charts each day; similarly you could check the time with the Speaking Clock (“at the third stroke it will be eight...forty-three...and twenty seconds...beep...beep...beeeeeeeep”).

Fan clubs: you sent your postal order off to a PO Box and got a cardboard (or laminated if it was really posh) membership card and some “exclusive” photos - I was a member of the Duran Duran fan club.

Penpals: Smash Hits had listings at the back and you picked someone out who sounded cool - but not too cool if you were a bit of a nerd yourself - and wrote to them on whatever overly brightly coloured writing paper you’d bought from Smiths or Athena on your Saturday morning trip into town on the bus with your best friend.

Dancewear and aerobics becoming a big thing: Arlene Phillips released an exercise cassette (yes, really...it was accompanied by a leaflet showing you what you should be aiming for with each exercise while she talked you through it breathily over a background of the hi-energy equivalent of lift muzak); also Pineapple Dance Studios and the Green Goddess (Diana someone?) on Breakfast TV in an emerald green Lycra leotard and footless tights.

My abiding food memory of the early 80s is pork chop grilled to the consistency of grey leather served with tinned boiled potatoes and followed by Angel Delight...my mum was not a culinary genius!

*what is NOW an ex-mining village

I spent most of my spare time on computers - ZX80 then ZX81 then Spectrum, then Commodore 64. Coding and playing games was a big part of my life back then.

Me and friends used to compete against eachother for the biggest and best program we could create on the ZX80 which was basically a single screen of code.

I've loved reading these! I was born in 1982 so I do have some memories from the 80's and they are all great. I love 80's music, 80's movies, tv shows.. anything to do with the 80's. I think I was born 15 years too late!

Honeyroar, I left Ireland in the late 80s and wrote letters back to my family, then posted them and waited about three weeks before their letter back to me would arrive.

You could work at age 14. I had Saturday jobs in shops from age 14 and earned 35p per hour. In school holidays I worked full time. At that age I used a meat slicing machine and cheese cutter!

IndieTara children still can work - from age 13 actually. Maximum 12 hours per week in term time and 25 hours a week in school holidays for 13-16 year olds.

The difference is there used to be loads of seasonal/ holiday and Saturday jobs open to 14-16 year olds and it was easy as catching a bus to secure yourself one, but now they're few and far between from what I hear.

www.gov.uk/child-employment/restrictions-on-child-employment

That's interesting @anothernotherone
I left college in 1985 and walked into a ft job too as a 192 Directory Enquirues operator. We were paid with cash once a week!
For me the 80's were never a problem job wise, always found loads to apply for

I was a chambermaid in the summer I was 11/12! All my mates worked in the local tourist industry, it was the norm.

Left school in 1981 aged 16. Unemployment high (NI). Met nearly all of my class queuing to sign on. Went on a few YOP/YTP schemes in the local tech to keep busy paying £16 a week. Gave my mum £7 keep plus bus fares and the rest was mine.
Went to discos on a Friday and Saturday night. They started 7.30 and finished no later than 1 am. Perms and padded shoulders were all the go and New Wave Romantics too. Great music from Duran Duran, Human League, Alison Moyet. For most people, a kiss at the end of the evening was all that was on offer!
Went on my first foreign holiday to Majorca when I was 20.
The shops closed on Christmas Eve and didn’t open again until a few days after Boxing Day.

I was 18 in 1981 and went from being a punky type of teen to a more Sade style. Life felt the same as now but I was always wanting some cafe culture and never seemed available in Newcastle in the 80's! Never had a perm which people find hard to believe now but it was possible to look good in the 80's and avoid all that stuff. Bought all the glossy magazines religiously....

I moved to London in 1987, my mate had a council flat on the 14th floor of a tower block in Elephant & Castle.
I paid her £20 a week to live there and earned £300 a month.
We were heavily into the London club scene and had to bought Timeout each week to find out where to go.

I loved it

To be able to search for a scientific article.on PubMed and download it and read it within minutes is such a joy. In the 80s you had to find the article in the bound heavy collections...wait for a machine...have enough change....and spend hours photocopying. Then you had to store them in a 4 drawer tall grey filing cabinet...at home if you didn't get office space. Paying for email. Paying $1.00/minute phone calls to family. Bullying was allowed and thought normal. Sexism. Shoulder pads. Big Hair. No one needed 4WD except farmers. Dogs shat white poo. People did not like their photos being taken as there was one taken and no filters were applied and they usually looked awful. So very little open vanity going on. Eating thai food for the first time. Oh god....and lycra as a fashion item....fat men in cycle shorts.on city streets with no bicycle. No snacking. No "treats" or "me time" or other ridiculous notions to encourage spending.