Imagine waking up in the 80s

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.

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.