Brookside reruns

[Redglitter]

Has anyone else been watching today? I've watched 4 episodes so far. Dated, but loving it

That's an interesting thought ,it hadent crossed my mind ,but now you mention it quite possibly!

My favourite ever Brookie scene, is the one where Billy Corkhill drives over everyone's front gardens saying "I'm only a doley!", so really pleased to see he has now got the car to do it in!

That's my favourite Brookie scene too, it's stayed in my mind for all these years!

Apparently they wanted to physically dig up the road for those scenes with the sinkhole, but there was some technical reason why they couldn't do it, so instead they raised the roads and pavements with wooden boards painted to look like the road / pavement surface.

Always makes me laugh with Billy Corkhill's garage that has no driveway to it and I think a lamp post in the way

Regarding child care in the 1980s, I started school in the late 80s and my brother started in the early 90s.

We had play school, which was in the local
church hall or school somewhere like that, it was only mornings.

I don’t remember there being full time nurseries or child care facilities like there is now, I think in those days people worked around it or relied on family.

My mum could only work a few nights a week, and sometimes relied on my nan for childcare. We even had one car in those days that was mainly used by my dad who worked shifts in a prison. One car families weren’t unusual in the 80s or early 90s

I guess that why lots of women in their 50s and 60 today have gaps in their employment or had to heavily reduce their working hours because they were predominantly in charge of the child care.

The only other alternative to family was a child minder.

My son was born 87, he went to the childminder from being 8 weeks old and I paid the princely sum of £35pw. He started at a nursery attached to the local primary school for 2 and a half hours a day just before he turned four. Childminder dropped him off and picked him up. I think childcare provision depended largely on where you lived.

Were child minders regulated back then?
I know my mum paid her friend to look after ma and my sister during the school holidays but we were older and she only paid her a few quid a week.

@x2boys Son's childminder was on the approved list with social services, She wasn't subject to Ofsted but she was regulated in so far as numbers and ages she could mind and also that premises were suitable.

We had a silver Christmas tree just like the Corkhills!

Spoiler alert, but Debbie’s first episode!!!! Yeay!!!

Yeah I can't remember if I have said this before on this thread but the actress who played Debbie came to my school in around 1988/89 and filmed something with Johnny Ball I have no idea what it was and they didn't think to explain it to us I just remember the main school corridor was locked off and she was walking up and down wearing one of our uniform, s I know this sounds bizarre but I have mentioned this on a group I'm in for ex pupils and others remember it too but nobody really knows what it was in aid of!

We did too, used every year from the early 70s to the mid 80s. I loved it so much that I bought a 6ft gold tinsel one when I saw it online a few years ago. My son thinks it’s a travesty, according to him Christmas trees should only be green so it goes in the home office where it won’t bother him so much 😛

We had one in the 70s, but it got snapped in half circa 1976 when my Mum's younger brother and his mates came round for a NYE party.

The state of that hair salon!!

It took my a while to work out Traceys hairdresser teacher was the cook in Downton Abbey !

Ooh yes it is

Wow so it is!

Damon as a 19/20 year old hanging around the school waiting for a 15/16 year old to come out.

Seemed sort of romantic at the time (given the Damon and Debbie spin off) but it would be frowned on now, and rightly so.

I was 15/16 in 1987. There was a 15 year old in my class who used to be picked up from school by her 24 year old boyfriend. That was pretty shocking at the time, but nobody seemed to step in and check on her.

It would be frowned upon now and rightly so but i don't think it was that uncommon in 80,s Britain for school girls aged 14/15 /16:to have boyfriends in their late teens early 20,s I was at high school from 1985 yo 1990 I didn't have an older boyfriend but loads of girls. Did

I think he's 18 at this point.

Yes, 2 years younger than Karen, and he was 14 in 1982 and aren’t we up to 1986 now?

January 1987

Has Karen officially left now ? I don't remember seeing her go ' all the way down to London ' but guess she's written out now?

Yes they didn't make much of a deal about.it she said she was going and that was it we didn't see her again .

Oh gosh! Episode 462 is a hard watch. All that rowing between Sheila and Bobby over Sheila’s trip to Rome with her sister and child! Controlling; much?! Run Sheila, run! How things would change in the next 10-15 years.

the interaction between Damon and Bobby brought back by own childhood; rowing parents oblivious to the effect of their behaviour on their children.

I’m surprised this time around by how much I’m disliking Bobby Grant. I’m a big fan of Sue Johnston / Ricky Tomlinson in The Royle Family and have always thought of Jim Royle as a lazy, less supportive, more selfish and more sexist version of Bobby Grant. Watching Brookside back I’d take Jim Royle over Bobby any day of the week. I’m shouting at the tv every time he talks angrily about Shelias rape along the lines of “it happened to meeee too”, along with the view that he’s babysitting for Shelia when he has his own daughter. I miss Karen as a supporter of Shelia. The irony of Bobby being a principled union man there for his members (men) but not for his wife is interesting. I’m rating Simon O’Brien’s acting as Damon in these scenes.