Imagine waking up in the 80s

That's a shame. Obviously catcalling is not okay. 

I was a bit harsh. Some things were nice. I think I was better off for not having a mobile!

Um, I did wake up in 1986, I lived it. The two men on the corner would have catcalled me, in a threatening way, without a second thought. The area I grew up in was not well maintained. A young man greets you politely? Never happened here, only on holiday in Spain where people were warmer. Don't reply to the young man anyway, in case you invite rape -- all your fault, of course! Take today's sexism and racism and times it by god knows how many times. Properly worried the bomb might drop. Oh, and autism and mental health issues an even bigger taboo than now. Unthinkable to broach them. Social conformism was rife (the bad kind). 

Music was great, though.

Thatcher and widespread youth unemployment, no thanks! 

However, 1986 was a turnaround year for me, I started working at a university doing a job I enjoyed, but '82-'86 was horrendous.

Problem is though Bananatropics, the rest of us don't live in your head, so we can't access the version of the 1980's that you hold, some of us can remember them though.

Whats are these cyberpunk times we're entering, where are we entering them from and do we have too?

Well well that's a smashing account of events there WHSmith! I'm talking about the 80s that lives in my head. We are like entering cyberpunk times now in 2025 I hate to think what world will be like in 2035 haha

Strikes me as a rather romantic view of the 80s. I was in Durham in the early 80s – the mines were closing, unemployment in the pit villages was soaring, the roads near me were a mess, drug addicts could be spotted if you kept your eyes open. Oh and the Falklands War – and one of my (British) students had cousins in the Argentinian army, which made for some fairly intense counselling sessions!

Lots of people were encouraged to get signed off as sick to massage the unemployment figures. I think that when you get to your late 50's and 60's, pre retirement age, depending on what sort of illness or injury you have, you should be able to have medical retirement instead of looking for a job, you're probably never going to get and aren't fit enough for anyway.

One good thing about Maggie and the 80s, when unemployment went through the roof, my father was made redundant from a woollen mill, with his mental health problems he had no chance of finding another job, so he was offered early retirement on a full state pension at the age of 57 so he wouldn't appear in the unemployment figures.  

Now, people in their 60s have to work till they drop or claim universal credit doing 35hours per week job seeking, or risk being sanctioned and left penniless.

Shoulder pads everything had shoulder pads!

We started having to have a career instead of a job.

The floppy disc revolutionised computing and meant not more punch cards.

There was a lot more comunity infrastructure such as youth clubs, then they all got closed down and everyone started wondering why there was such a massive rise in vandalism and general bad behaviour.

You could see live music pretty much every night of the weeks as everybody was in a band and played in church halls and comunity centres.

The Thatcher government proved the old saying about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, pretty much everything that gave cohesion and value to peoples lives got cut because of cost savings, but somehow everything still went up in price for the average person. They encouraged greed and brought out the worst in humanity, the sell off of so much of our national infrastructure into poorly regulated private hands, who make vast profits at our expense started here. I'm not saying there weren't problems, because there were some whoppers, over mighty unions holding the country to ransom and there was waste in public services, but the cuts were insane.

An interesting time for me. 8 to 18.

8. Dad made redundant. Not much money

9. Emigrated to New Zealand. Such an outsider - speak funny.

10. Move again. Starting all over again.

10-18 Serial groups of different friends, but happy times too.

Bigger picture: New Zealand becomes Nuclear Free, Homosexual Law Reform Act, up in the night seeing Halley's Comet, fall of the Berlin Wall, wondering if we're going to living 'The Day After'. 

3 good things from that era:

1. Feeling young and able to take on the world.

2. Watching 'A Room with a View' on repeat.

3. My first job working in an ice-cream parlour.

So yes, happier, more carefree days for me. xx

Don't forget going for a MaccyD's was an experience as they were new! Food was terrible back then.

I don't think I could cope with returning to the 80's it was bad enough the first time around.

I think it's a bit of a myth that everyone was friendly, I think it depended on where you lived, I knew enough people who'd look at a stranger saying hello like tey were an axe murderer or something.

There was lots of horrible grotty run down housing, there was a lot of poverty, drugs, alcoholism, DV and child abuse, sexual assaults and rape, the difference was nobody really talked about it and the police did little or nothing. There was Thatcher rampaging around parliament fixing things that were't broken and breaking things that worked well. There were riots, nuclear war felt like something inevitable, and many women joined peace camps and protested, there were huge strikes, especially in mining areas, whole areas were ravaged and left to rot and still are rotting from lack of investment, generations abandoned. It was a dangerous time to be gay, as laws were being put in place to clamp down on talking about it or promoting it as the rhetoric was at the time. The IRA was in the midst of bombing campaigns, every xmas you womdered if you went xmas shopping in London would you get blown up or caught in the aftermath.

I remember other things as well, like the hge parts of London that were semi derelict from being bombed in the war, a chimney place and peeling wallpaper in a first floor room or what was left of it and the neighbouring house propped up. I remember places like Ladbroke Grove and bits of Nottinghill being really run down and full of squats, many houses, nobody knew who owned them, now they're some of the most expensive areas of London, people who bought their flat and then the others in their building as they became available and did them up found themselves 30 years later worth millions.

Bananatropics26 said:

There is 2 men standing on a street corner smoking reefer

I'm pretty sure that was illegal back in '86 - I certainly didn't see much of it back then and I was at uni so it would be the place to find them.

Bananatropics26 said:

Tower blocks built in the 60s and 70s litter the skyline.

They may look nice but they were aweful to live in. My best friend lived on the 14th floor of a block of flats and vandals were always breaking the lift so getting to his flat was aweful when you were doing the shopping.

Bananatropics26 said:

Pubs are busy and crowded and people are socialising and smiling.

Pubs were in a permanent fog from smokers. Utterly disgusting and it stopped me from going to them.

Bananatropics26 said:

You walk down the street and a young man greets you and asks how you are? It's a lovely day!

In South London that would probably get you beaten up. This was only 5 years after the Brixton race riots and it took a lot longer for those scars to heal.

Also no mobile phones so you can't find people so easily if it wasn't meticulously planned in advance. 

No contactless card payments so everything had to be by cash.

No internet so working out where to go or what to do was a big unknown.

Terrible rail services, smoking on busses and many trains, smoking in restaurants, very little on TV (just 4 or 5 channels) and this was just half way through the Conservative party reign.

etc etc.

It was far from a utopia but I do have fond memories of it from some aspects but without the rose coloured classes.