I’m Simon, and at the beginning of The Eighties, I had just turned ten years old and was still at primary school. My time at secondary school was still eighteen months away.
Here I am in my school uniform in the obligatory new kid pose. I’m presuming that this was so that they knew who they had on roll. Just who were these anonymous members of the herd?
Goodness gracious, I was even smiling.
By the time the 1990s rolled into town, I was a slightly more mature University student – well I was shaving by then! What went on in between went a long way to making me what I am now.
Think about it. I lived my teenage years solely in the eighties.
A Chronological Note or A Little Context
Dates like 1/1/1980 and 31/12/1989 are of course fixed and do bookend what chronologically we refer to as “The Eighties”. However, I’d argue that culturally or politically, they started on 4 May 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK and didn’t end until the 28 of November 1990 when John Major was elected leader of the Conservative Party and therefore, the new Prime Minister.
Why those equally arbitrary dates? Well, I don’t think that it can be argued that she and her government did not set the tone for the decade… Anyway, that’s enough context for now. What about the specifics of what I was up to? What was I engaging with and enjoying?
Diary 1986
I’m able to offer almost exactly what I was doing in 1986, for that year I managed to keep a diary for the whole year! It was the year of my last half year at high school (surely, secondary school? Ed.) and the first chunk of my time at Sixth Form (i.e. post 16 education).
Here’s a brief flavour,
Thursday 9 January 1986
Whoo! Wow! This was a seminal day for 1980s television, for BlackAdder II was broadcast for the first time.
It was, I noted, “Brill. Ace! FANTASTIC!!” Rowan Atkinson, who as well as playing the title role, had co-authored the first series, but had left the writing of this second series to Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. I’m sure you will agree that the result was much slicker and Atkinson, freed from writing the dialogue, delivers a much more polished performance.
We were back at school, which was “boring”, and the weather was cold. It being my ‘O’ level year I had an interim report – unfortunately, I make no mention of its contents. However, I did have an insurance policy mature, delivering me the princely sum of £250. I Can’t remember what I frittered it away on! But fritter it I certainly would have.
I also noted that Michael Heseltine resigned. It must have been those bloody helicopters!
So, here we see mention of one of my loves – sitting on the sofa, watching telly. Then an indication of how I viewed school and an incidence of the most common word in the entirety of my diary “boring”. Also, there is a little look into my attitude towards money – i.e. not good, if it’s in my hand, I’m going to pass it on to someone else… in return for something or other. Shish, I’m not just giving it away.
A (tiny) Little Bit of Politics
My final comment from my diary was about politics. Yes, this sixteen-year-old had noticed that Michael Heseltine had resigned. What’s more, I knew it was regarding the Westland Helicopters farrago – he preferred that the struggling company be bailed out by a European consortium including British Aerospace, PM Margaret Thatcher was quite happy for the American company Sikorsky to be its saviour. She won, but Tarzan would get his revenge at the end of 1990.
A Little Bit More Politics
Two political events set the tone for the eighties, certainly in terms of the United Kingdom and the United States. It is unarguable too that they influenced world events during the decade and only slightly more contentious to state that they have influenced world events ever since.
I am referring to the election of Margaret Thatcher to the position of Prime Minster, but also to 4 November 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected to the Presidency of the USA. One can argue (I already have) that Thatcher’s policies had (and continue to have) a much greater effect in changing the UK than Reagan’s did in the US. However, both had a major impact on the world order, certainly in terms of the ending of the Cold War.
For example, 9 November 1989 – the fall of the Wall. This was the goal of Western leaders since it was thrown up in the first place, in August 1961. Arguably, this was accelerated by policies prosecuted by the US, as evidenced by many of Reagan’s speeches, in particular his 12 June 1987 speech calling for the Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. The speech was made in the Wall’s shadow during a visit to West Berlin.
Prior to this speech, Reagan had made his “evil empire” observation during a speech to the US National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida on 8 March 1983. Then before this, we heard the term “totalitarianism” when speaking to the House of Commons in June 1982.
Royal Wedding and Fancy Dress
What were you doing on 29 July 1981? This was the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. It was just into the school holidays so no extra day off for us, but we did have a street party. My standout memory was the fancy dress competition. I was attired in a fez, a smock and half a pound of gravy browning. Very PC. This gave me a less than one per cent chance of winning.
My brother, on the other hand, was dressed as Adam Ant. Stand and Deliver had been number one for five weeks in May and June and was still bubbling under just inside the top 50 on the day of the wedding. Guess who did win? The number one single on the day was the Specials’ doom-laden anthem, Ghost Town.
These Wheels on Fire?
Another standout date is Friday 22 April 1988. This was the day that I took my driving test. Back in the day, there was no theory test – you were just asked a few questions from the examiner and that was about it. There was no hazard awareness aspect to the test. Well, there was if something cropped up as you were out there, but if nothing did, you were not assessed on your hazard perception.
I was assessed on just two manoeuvres, reversing around a corner and the dreaded three-point turn. Only, it wasn’t a three-point turn, it was “turning in the road using forward and reverse gears”. And there was no independent driving, no choosing where I was going to go. Nope, I just followed the examiner’s instructions to the letter, including my emergency stop when he whacked his clipboard on the dash.
I recall coming into a thirty-mile-an-hour zone doing about 40 miles an hour – the examiner obviously didn’t notice as he passed me anyway. Oh, and his skills as an optician were obviously first-class. Something I stressed about as a potential failure – reading a car number plate from across the car park – I passed with flying colours (i.e. I read it correctly).
Having just passed my driving test, I was off, zooming here there and everywhere, right? Well, no. That was it for me, bar the odd short trip (usually under supervision) for almost five years when I started work in January 1993.
Football in the Late Eighties
The next day, I was off to Villa Park as a Shrewsbury Town fan in the teams’ second division fixture. The day was very hot and at the time, Villa (West Midlands police) had a policy of opening the pens at the Witton Land end incrementally as they filled. Consequently, we were penned in very tightly and very uncomfortably, with vast acres of the full terrace unavailable to us. The attitude of the authorities towards football fans at the time was controlling rather than facilitating. For sure, hooliganism played a part in this attitude, but attending the match was not a pleasant experience and I know that neither I, nor anybody on the coach that I travelled to Birmingham with that day, was a hooligan.
In the final analysis, Warren Aspinall scored the only game (and missed a penalty) as Villa won 1-0 to assist them in finishing second and gaining promotion back to Division One.
I also have a diary for 1988 that I kept up to date for a few months. This contains events like my start at the University of Liverpool in October 1988. I’ll not add an excerpt here, suffice to say that I chose to go to Liverpool for one thing only. I was, and remain, a huge fan of Liverpool FC. Hitherto, I had been to Anfield twice, from here on, I would be a regular – I didn’t have a season ticket for this first season (1988/89), but I paid out the princely sum of £85 for my Kop season ticket for 1989/90 and have had one ever since.
Wait, what? You were a Shrewsbury Town fan? True, but this opportunity was too good to pass up for this eighteen-year-old lad.
Vinyl Memories: The Soundtrack of My Youth
From sometime in 1984 I secured myself a paper round. It was quite lucrative because as well as delivering the (daily and Sunday) papers I was also responsible for collecting the money for the weekly bills. That was Sunday morning’s task, once I had been around and delivered the Sunday papers; popped home and had a cup of coffee.
Growing up on a council estate, these papers consisted of about twenty News of the World, ten Sunday Mirrors, five or so Sunday People plus a handful of Sunday Express or Mail on Sunday. There may have been a couple of Sunday Times and/or Sunday Telegraph and a lone Observer.
They were bloody heavy to carry up the road from the newsagent, slung over my shoulder and making me unsteady as I wobbled up the road. After a couple of weeks of this, my dad decided that he would go down and collect them in the car. I would then rush back down with the money, making sure that I got to the newsagent before the 1 o’clock closing time.
Paper Round Earnings = 7-inch (and 12-inch) singles.
What did I spend my hard-earned cash on? Records, that’s what. Well, records and sugary sweets to be more exact. I would buy the sweets on the Sunday lunchtime, and I’d ask my mum to buy the records for me when she went into Shrewsbury to run her errands on a Friday afternoon.
Initially, I was a connoisseur of the 7-inch single, but later, after starting at Shrewsbury Sixth Form I was in town myself, so I progressed to buying 12-inch singles. I also bought albums, but they would usually be on tape, rather than LP.
The bands and songs that defined my teenage years.
This is just a flavour, but my top five, in no particular order are:
Madness, The Cure, Madonna, Kim Wilde and Eurythmics
Of the five, I bought more by Madonna and Eurythmics than the rest of them. In total, I bought 6 Madonna singles from 1984’s Like a Virgin to 1986’s Live to Tell. The 6 Eurythmics singles I bought started with Sexcrime (nineteen eighty-four) through to The Mircale of Love in December 1986.
Two examples of The Cure’s output that found its way into my record boxes were In Between Days and Close to Me from the Head on the Door album. I bought their 1987 offering Just Like Heaven. The Cure were always super cool and like Eurythmics had earlier material that I was aware of from the radio but did not have the means to buy for myself.
Madness
Madness was the band of the early Eighties. Having burst onto the scene as part of the phenomenon that was the Two Tone label with their first single, The Prince in 1979, they had a run of nine top ten singles starting with their second single, also in 1979, One Step Beyond. 1980 saw My Girl followed by Night Boat to Cairo (Work Rest and Play) EP, Baggy Trousers and Embarrassment, followed by The Return of the Los Palmas Seven, Grey Day, Shut Up and their cover of Labi Siffre’s It Must Be Love in 1981.
1982’s first single, Cardiac Arrest saw them miss the top ten before the next single House of Fun became their only number one single. Then five more singles made the top ten before 1983 had finished.
Wilde About Kim
Kim Wilde burst onto the scene in 1981 with her first single Kids in America which made it to number two in the UK singles chart. It was written by her brother Ricky and father Marty who had been a fifties and sixties pop star, with several top ten hits to his credit.
Her next single Chequered Love made number 4 but then nothing else made the top ten until 1986’s cover of The Supremes’ classic You Keep Me Hangin’ On gave her a number 2 hit. This one I bought this on 12-inch.
I Hope You Like My Musical Flavours
So that’s a flavour of the music I loved in the eighties. Each single that I bought, whether it be 7-inch or 12-inch will be reviewed here – I still have them to hand. Any LPs that are still in my possession will be too. As for the tapes I bought, that will be a little harder because I’ve lost them – they’re probably still in the loft of a house somewhere. I’ll have to wrack my brains to see if I can remember which ones I bought.
So, Join Me
I’d love to connect with those of you who share a love for the 1980s. You could be like me, a time-served veteran of the period, or you might just be curious about the era.
Please, share with me, your stories and memories or anecdotes your parents told you as we explore the 1980s together.
Final Reflections
If I could, I’m going to leave you with these thoughts from what was my little corner of Shropshire. The Eighties were a change of rapid and irrevocable change.
From TV aerials to satellite dishes,
From vinyl records to CDs,
From state-owned monopolies delivering patchy services to privately owned monopolies, still delivering patchy services,
From a ten-year-old boy who did as he was told to a young man of twenty years old who would barely say boo to a goose.
Cheers,
Simon ?