Did anybody grow up in the 70s?

[floraloctopus]

The 50s and 80s threads are fascinating. Can anybody shed light on the 70s please?

Queuing up to use the phone box.
Roller skating everywhere with those skates which you would strap on over your shoes.
Roaming the neighbourhood for hours on end in the summer.
Bombing down the hill behind my house on my bike (no one wore helmets)
Playing on building sites and waste ground.
No convenience foods, everything was cooked from scratch
A whole range of shops in the neighbourhood, which was only a mile from the town centre, but most people did their shopping locally, on foot. We had 2 bakers, 2 butchers, a greengrocers, a post office, a hardware shop, a knitting shop and a pet shop, and many more which I have forgotten . Most of them have gone now.
Half day closing on a Tuesday when most of the local shops were shut. Also, I grew up in a Northern mill town, and we still had 'Wakes week'. A lot of the independent shops would close for a week in August and a travelling fair would come to town. It dates back to when all the cotton mills would close for a week and all the workers would go on holiday, usually to Blackpool. Each town in the area would have its own week, so not all the factories were shut at once.

Being able to cross the road safely because there were literally only 2 cars every 5 mins.
Angel Delight (had that today).
Going to the local woods in the school hols at 9am and not returning till 5pm. Parents didn't turn a hair as we all thought it completely normal.
TV was brilliant because we didn't have so many channels (puts my teeth on edge watching DCs mindlessly scrolling through 500 odd channels to find something to watch.
Stealing my parents library tickets then dragging a bagful of library books home because we actually read books then.
Fighting with my brothers every week when the Look-in comic arrived through the letterbox to see who got to read it first.
Best of all. no internet.

Also, being bored sometimes. If it was raining and we had to stay indoors, it was either reading or making up your own games with whatever toys you had (mostly soft toys and action men etc.). If we complained to mum about being bored, she’d just say “use your imagination”! There were no dvds/internet to distract us with so we had to make our own entertainment. But learning to cope with being bored is a skill we need to learn after all.

The whole school football team plus subs (so 13 boys) fitted in the heads estate car for away matches.

Beginning of 70s we still lived in a farm and my parents only had tv during the winter. It was in the days when everyone rented TVs and white goods. Nobody we knew bought such things.

I remember a trip to London from Devon with my brother. I must have been 10 to his 16 and he wanted to see things I didn't so he put on a hop on hop off bus on my own and collected me when it finished. No one thought anything if this.

I would be put on a train on my own at similar age to visit my married sister who would pick me up at other end. Again, this was seen as nothing unusual.

I remember for the silver jubilee celebrations we had a street party and I made coconut ice in the form of a Union Jack flag. So much colouring to make the red and blue my fingers were stained for weeks.

The Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.
Pippa dolls in a purple case (the shoes always got lost)
"Sweet cigarettes" sweets
Woolworths pick 'n' mix
Thames TV skyline ident
Halfpenny coins
Cassettes
No mobile phones or internet
Rockeries
Pampas grass
Bambi
K9 and Romana
'The Generation Game' with Larry 'shut that door' Grayson. The conveyor belt memory game where there was always a cuddly toy.
Vienetta

Crackerjack
Shep on Blue Peter
People actually watched Eurovision
No remote control or wireless anything
Coming home from school and there was nothing being broadcast yet
Playing out for hours
Cycling all over south Devon
Picnics by the beach or on the moors
A pair of flares my mum wore that had a little bell on one ankle
Fur coats were desirable
Long skirts/dresses for parties
Hardly anyone wore jeans
Gloves on elastic
Sunday roasts
Eating apple before bed instead of brushing teeth because that's what Mum thought was good for us (hence my crowns and fillings now)

Black & white TV
No daytime or late evening TV
Three channels, BBC1, BBC2, ITV
No car seat belts
Sitting in the boot of estate cars
Playing on building sites
Angel Delight was a treat
Never eating out in a restaurant or café
Home made clothes
Party line on the telephone
No duvets, just a sheet, blankets and a bedspread
Wrestling on ITV on Saturday afternoons

walking half a mile to school age 5 with my sister age 7
Hot summer with a week away in Great Yarmouth 1976
Saving water in 1976
Strikes and queing for petrol and some rationing in shops
Silver Jubillee and a party in the village hall for all kids
Day trips on a coach to Clacton with Tea in Cordeys
Days and days spent outside playing
Stubble burning

3 day week
Power strikes and candlelight
No central heating - paraffin heaters
The world about us. The sullivans, cannon, starsky & hutch, Etc
Jubilee street party
Landlines with chair and note pad by them.
Gingers knock
Outside play all day remote from home on bikes sometimes including river swimming.
Rag and bone man with pony and cart ‘any old iron’ and everyone rushing to offload things.
Rust bucket cars.
European vote !!
Decimalisation.
Card train tickets. Old bus ticket machines operated by conductors.
Smoking on buses and trains and tubes and everywhere really.
Casual violence tolerated and used by teachers.
Casual racism tolerated at school.
Knowing middle aged people who had fought in ww2 - so close back then.

Buying an icecream from the Mr Softee icecream van when he came round in the summer holidays and collecting the little round cards with photos of popstars. I had Moody Blues, Lulu, Marc Bolan I recall.
Hessian wedge sandals in the summer and platforms in the winter
Tiered skirts made by mum.
Hair tied up with bobbles
Mum had a Hillman Imp car with the engine in the back and dad had a Vauxhall Cavalier
Every room in the house seemed to be painted green and there were loads of pot plants.
My bedroom had orange gloss paint on the skirting and doors, with mauve walls. I had posters up of Donny Osmond and David Cassidy and later, Elvis and the BeeGees.
Trying to tape TOTP off the telly with the microphone of my casette recorder
Wearing long dresses to parties, made by mum
The summer of '76, all the pre-teens and teens in my street walking around in swimsuits every day of the summer holidays
The dentist van turning up at school and the "nit van" would strike horror into us. Dentistry in general was like being butchered.
Mum washing clothes in the twin tub and poking it all down with a giant wooden spoon
My grandad smoked Players No 6 and collected the cards which he saved up to buy goods from a catalogue, a bit like Green Shield stamps
My hobby was stamp collecting and I used to send off for stamps through the post, paying with a postal order.

thesacredcow I too had a purple and orange bedroom. Even my dressing table was painted in purple orange and pink racing stripes ! What times.

I know, I miss the freedoms we had the lack of traffic congestion and pollution and the feeling of there being so much more space (South East).

I was born in 1966 and when I think of the 70s, I think of:

The Osmonds
The Stylistics
Bry-nylon sheets
The long hot summer of 1976
Chopper bikes
Dog poo everywhere
Chelsea Girl
The Tomorrow People
The Sunday People
Top of the Pops
Starsky and Hutch
Lava lamps
Brown house decor
Skipping with my sisters
Two ball on the wall
The pop van
Soggy white paper straws
Blue eye shadow

Golden wonder crisps and Womble badges shopping in bejams.

My blue Kickers. My favourite shoes ever.

A do-what-you-like decade. Alcohol, drugs, sex, cigarettes. Women just finding their feet. (Spare Rib)

Filthy trains, filthy buses, fag butts everywhere - but I sometimes miss the fugginess, the stickiness, of pubs.

A meeting in the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool (1977/8) about the slave trade.

Freedom and possibility.

@Watersnail wasn't the Generation Game Bruce Forsyth?

Larry took over from Bruce, Apple.
Both were assisted by various glamorous women, including Anthea Redfern and Isla St Clair, whose role seemed to be to waft about and look pretty.

Learning to read from Ladybird books.

I-Spy books.

Old shilling coins were in circulation as 5ps.

And the old sixpences were worth 2 and a half pence

Multicoloured Swap-shop - Noel Edmonds in flares
Trumpton/ Camberwick Green
Rhubarb and Custard (cartoon)

Terry towelling clothes and bedsheets in the summer/for kids
Patchwork / sewing own clothes, making my own dresses and skirts with help

Being left in the car outside my dad’s club in London, not for hours, but still freaked me out.
Sticking to the leatherette car seats on long car trips to see relatives. Dad always checking spark plugs, water and oil before a trip longer than 30 minutes.
Queuing for petrol - Outrage at petrol prices

Thinking there was only one tv channel - only watched bbc1

My mum ironing everything. Everything. Sunday night, mum ironing, crumpets by the fire, watching something about foreign locations/holidays.

Homemade everything - including bread (brown), pudding only after the Sunday roast, bejams and buying a cow between neighbours, and putting our cuts in the chest freezer.

Sitting at the back of the hall at political meetings.Couldn’t see the front for all the smoke.
Smoke on the buses - standing up on buses for more or less any adult..

Going to a dinner/dance with my parents. They seemed to go to lots of dinner/dances..I’m still not entirely sure how that died out... civilised sit down meal followed by dancing - fab!
Dinner parties - being allowed to eat leftovers for breakfast.

Man coming round offering to sharpen knives. Rag and Bone. Milkman, putting a yogurt pot upside down over the milk bottles so the blue-tits didn’t peck at the foil lids.

Lucozade in the orange cellophane wrapping if you were sick/in hospital!

Max factor glossy roll-on lipgloss (or a knock off version from the markets which gave me a rash).

Terry’s chocolate orange as a Christmas present.

Racism, headmistress calling a child in my class a n. Caning him and one other “bad” boy.

Burst pipes in the outdoor loos at school, so days off every winter.

Enough, good to have thought of some positive memories, as in general it was awful.

I was 6 in 1970.

Showaddywaddy
Bohemian rhapsody
Playing Clackers, Marbles, jacks
Junket for tea - anyone remember that?
Tinned peaches with carnation milk
Power cuts and having a candle by the bed
Going off on my bike on my own with bread and butter sandwiches, no filling
Morecambe and wise
The two Ronnies
The Clangers
Roobarb and Custard
Captain Pugwash
Crackerjack
Abba
Having lessons out on the sports field in summer
Playing in the field nearby and poking cowpats with a stick
I only had one pair of shoes
Bathed once a week
Carving a turnip for Halloween
Sitting in the car with a bottle of pop and a pack of crisps while my parents were in the pub
Taking empty glass pop bottles back to the shop
Milk in glass bottles delivered
Sleeping on the back seat of the car on the way home from grandparents, no seat belts
Taping the top 40 on Sunday from the radio
Chewing liquorice root
Spangles
Yorkshire pudding with butter and sugar as a dessert! (In Yorkshire)
Toast and dripping
Walking to and from school
My mum making me drink egg milkshake (egg, start, milk and nutmeg) to build me up when I'd been ill
Lucozade after being sick (Not envy)

Brownies uniform included a beret!

Loved my Pippa dolls.

Fuzzy felts

Spirograph

Rupert Bear annuals

Don't remember any cars built for more than 4 people so remember 4 adults squeezed into the back of a standard car when travelling.

Going to the Coop for shoes and having your feet measured in a kind of x-Ray machine.

Alpine lorry delivering fizzy drinks.

Going to see the Osmonds at Glasgow Apollo.

Getting a Saturday job at Laura Ashley to pay towards a school trip to Italy and being paid the excellent amount of £ 6 a day.

Going to my Granny's neighbours house to watch Princess Anne's wedding because she had a colour telly.

Having time off school because of the power cuts.

Seeing the Green Godddeses coming out of the fire station as the army had been called in because of the fire strike.

Roller skating along the pavement in roller skates which you put on over your shoes.

Walking to school on my own from the age of 8 and then later taking the little boy next door to school when he started primary.

My sister and I having matching hot pants (although we did have different colours!).

Being in the Osmonds fan club.

Looking forward to to the new edition of Jackie coming out and going straight to the Cathy and Claire problem page.

Having a really cool purple maxi coat but really wanting an Afghan coat like my best friend's big sister.

Wearing long dresses (usually made by my Mum) to the school dance which was always Scottish country dancing. We used to practice the dances in school beforehand and you always dreaded that one of the uncool boys would ask you to be his partner.

Taping the Top 20 on my Dad's cassette player and getting all the background noise when you listened back to it.

Going to the youth club on a Saturday where you could borrow records. I remember borrowing the Killer Queen album and it always jumped at a certain point during Killer Queen. Even now when I listen to the song I'm always a bit taken aback when it doesn't jump.

Watching the Generation Game and Swapshop.

Saturday morning telly usually had an Elvis film on or Laurel and Hardy. Also Flashing Blade, Belle and Sebastian and Black Beauty.

Not being allowed to watch telly on a Sunday.

Only using the front room on a Sunday or for special occasions (usually Christmas or when visitors came).

I'm feeling very nostalgic now. I know the 70s were probably worse as an adult but they are one of my best decades.