| The 1970s 08:54 - Feb 17 with 8252 views | ThisIsMyUsername |
I've seen a number of comments in various places over the last few months saying how the UK is a country that is going back to the 1970s.
As someone who wasn't alive in the 1970s, what does this mean exactly, and is it true? |  |
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| The 1970s on 13:52 - Feb 18 with 1237 views | leitrimblue |
| The 1970s on 13:47 - Feb 18 by BigCommon |
people stopped feeding their dogs, bones.. And started feeding then all kinds of reconstituted cr8p out of tins and sachets and boxes..... |
Waaaaaaaaaiiiit a minute. Are you suggesting that if I just feed my dog on bones I could recreate genuine 1970,s dogsh1te? |  | | |
| The 1970s on 15:00 - Feb 18 with 1179 views | BigCommon |
| The 1970s on 13:52 - Feb 18 by leitrimblue |
Waaaaaaaaaiiiit a minute. Are you suggesting that if I just feed my dog on bones I could recreate genuine 1970,s dogsh1te? |
Well, I feed my Jack Russel chicken wings.. He loves them, bones an all... Sometimes he leaves me a little thank you, in the form of, what looks like, home made chalk pellets...
Picking up dog sh£t, has never felt so nostalgic... |  | | |
| The 1970s on 20:23 - Feb 18 with 1129 views | DinDjarin |
| The 1970s on 13:47 - Feb 18 by BigCommon |
people stopped feeding their dogs, bones.. And started feeding then all kinds of reconstituted cr8p out of tins and sachets and boxes..... |
White dog poo was because of an abundance of cheap filling bone meal in dog food.
Dog food has improved not got worse. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 20:48 - Feb 18 with 1104 views | Churchman |
| The 1970s on 13:34 - Feb 18 by LegendofthePhoenix |
born in '61, so started the 70s in primary school and ended working at MAFF in Lowestoft.
We were all a lot more naive then - finding anything out was hard. Where did you look - the library? or the BBC? I think you had to use your noggin more, to try and work things out for yourself.
Beer was mostly sh1te - Double Diamond, Watneys Red Barrel, and lager only became a thing in the mid to late 70s. Fortunately I discovered Adnams.
It's easy to criticise the strikes and power cuts which I remember clearly, but with the benefit of hindsight, they were pretty much the last valiant battle against the capitalist state. Society was fairer in the 70s - by which I mean the pay gap between the ordinary worker and the bosses. I don't think there were many "Super Rich" then. Maybe someone can find some data on the differential between a company boss and a worker in the 70s, but I bet it's a lot less than you see today, maybe by a factor of 50. The 2nd world war wasn't that long gone, and all the grown ups remembered the sense of community and everyone pulling together. The NHS had only been created in 1948 as a means to create a fairer society where everyone was equal when it came to healthcare.
The demolition of the unions put paid to that, and Thatcher's Britain spawned greed and self promotion with on value on society.
So looking back, the 70s were halcyon in that the distribution of wealth was more even, although many things were rubbish. The cars were great - all different, unlike today where they were all designed in a wind tunnel and look the same. Everyone had yellow teeth and hairy armpits. We just accepted violence at football, it was what happened, and it was up to you to be savvy and avoid getting your head kicked in. Taking over Carrot Rd in the Texaco Cup final was the most fun I have ever had at a football match.
If you really want to feel what it was like, visit the Isle of Man, they are about 50 years behind us. [Post edited 18 Feb 2023 13:37]
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Mostly agree. Not regarding cars though. They were rubbish. I should know as the proud owner of one or two of them and tinkered with an awful lot more.
Unreliable, rotted in no time, you name it. The Austin Allegro, Princess, Mini, 1100, Marina all pitiful. Fords were marginally better in that they had better transmissions, but they fell apart with the best of them. Beetle: laughably bad in every way.
My mums best friends husband brought a new Wolseley 1800 (1885) in metallic chocolate brown. Mmm. A few days after buying it he braked at the lights and the engine fell through the front of the car. The lads forgot to put the engine mounting bolts in. Leyland tried to get out of repairing it saying it was his fault.
Murray Walker in his book relates the tale of when he had the advertising account for Vauxhall. He went out to the Netherlands where they were trying to promote The cars. The local honcho showed Murray this new Vauxhall and said ‘this is why we can’t sell Vauxhalls’. The Luton lads had put disc brakes on one side, drums on the other. Awesome. Vauxhalls were awful. The rust….
My dads new Audi 80 was nice, but it ate water pumps and the suspension collapsed after a year.
The first decently engineered car I had was a 1980 Toyota Corolla. It didn’t even leak oil. [Post edited 18 Feb 2023 20:49]
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| The 1970s on 07:03 - Feb 19 with 968 views | Churchman |
Then there was Watneys Party Four. Watery beer in a large can. They never failed to offer entertainment when opening them. The trick was to make a couple of holes at the same time. Never worked. They’d go off like a depth charge every time.
Then there were two upgrades. The Party Seven, which was a limited option due to cost and portability and Ruddles County Party Four. The beer was better than the original Watneys dish water, but that isn’t saying much.
Cinemas offered smoking on one side, non smoking on the other. Bit of a waste of time really.
Ahhh, cigarettes, booze, socialising. The 70s weren’t so bad. | | | |
| The 1970s on 07:54 - Feb 19 with 958 views | azuremerlangus |
| The 1970s on 09:27 - Feb 17 by Churchman |
I went through my teens in the seventies so can offer a view.
There are no parallels in my view. But my view is probably coloured by time and what my life looked like then.
Personally, the good thing about the 70s for me was football, fashion, music, playing sport, diving into pubs well before the legal age, social stuff, cigarettes, being largely free to do as I wished. So how did the world look?
Dirty. Tired. Everything apart from football and music was pretty much rubbish. Stuff fell to bits. Food was fairly seasonal and limited in variety and quality. The tv bar a few things was rubbish, assuming you could get a picture. There were shortages though strikes on things from time to time but as a kid, I didn’t care. Power cuts? Quite exciting. Cars were rubbish, trains? I never went on one until about 1980 but when I did, dirty, unreliable, crowded, rubbish. Dog sh1t on the grass and pavements.
On the other hand, the country had structure. If you needed a doctor, there was one to see. The roads were resurfaced. You had a dustman, milkman, coal man, egg man, few shops open on Sunday, half day closing Wednesday. The leccy came from the electricity board, the gas from the gas board etc. Nobody questioned profits going abroad because these things were state owned, as they should be.
There were loads of banks and post offices. The latter were shambolic but worked. The telephone boxes didn’t. They were used for all sorts of purposes, making a call being just one of them, assuming it hadn’t been vandalised.
Overall, you kind of knew where you were in the 70s. It was a bit rubbish but I think people appreciated that it was better than most places. Not now. [Post edited 17 Feb 2023 9:31]
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Pretty much how I remember it.
I grew up in the 70’s and thought it was great; we played in the street (bikes, go-karts and noisy skates…) and in the parks in large groups until recalled by parents at dusk. Don’t see that anymore.
Also remember sitting around the fire with candles on the go during the power cuts. |  |
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| The 1970s on 08:33 - Feb 19 with 942 views | Churchman |
| The 1970s on 07:54 - Feb 19 by azuremerlangus |
Pretty much how I remember it.
I grew up in the 70’s and thought it was great; we played in the street (bikes, go-karts and noisy skates…) and in the parks in large groups until recalled by parents at dusk. Don’t see that anymore.
Also remember sitting around the fire with candles on the go during the power cuts. |
It sounds very sexist now but my sister is older than me and my parents always worried about where she was, took her to things etc. For me there was none of that. There was never any questioning of where I was or what I was up to. It was expected that you’d sort of get on with it. So I did.
As you say, dusk was going home time unless you were going somewhere simply because you couldn’t see anything! Football in open spaces or the park, British bulldog, bikes, hanging around, most of what we did cost nothing because money was of course limited to non existent.
I had quite a good go-kart until my dad ran over it. It even had a brake made of a piece of woos with rubber nailed to each end. Didn’t work of course - the foot on the wheel or diving off it were the main stopping methods. | | | |
| The 1970s on 08:56 - Feb 19 with 931 views | LegendofthePhoenix |
| The 1970s on 20:48 - Feb 18 by Churchman |
Mostly agree. Not regarding cars though. They were rubbish. I should know as the proud owner of one or two of them and tinkered with an awful lot more.
Unreliable, rotted in no time, you name it. The Austin Allegro, Princess, Mini, 1100, Marina all pitiful. Fords were marginally better in that they had better transmissions, but they fell apart with the best of them. Beetle: laughably bad in every way.
My mums best friends husband brought a new Wolseley 1800 (1885) in metallic chocolate brown. Mmm. A few days after buying it he braked at the lights and the engine fell through the front of the car. The lads forgot to put the engine mounting bolts in. Leyland tried to get out of repairing it saying it was his fault.
Murray Walker in his book relates the tale of when he had the advertising account for Vauxhall. He went out to the Netherlands where they were trying to promote The cars. The local honcho showed Murray this new Vauxhall and said ‘this is why we can’t sell Vauxhalls’. The Luton lads had put disc brakes on one side, drums on the other. Awesome. Vauxhalls were awful. The rust….
My dads new Audi 80 was nice, but it ate water pumps and the suspension collapsed after a year.
The first decently engineered car I had was a 1980 Toyota Corolla. It didn’t even leak oil. [Post edited 18 Feb 2023 20:49]
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Re: cars. I remember in the 60s being stranded a few times with my Dad when the old motors he drove broke down. But he was something of a car nut and we went through a series of cars that were great fun. In 1970 he bought a Datsun 2000 estate, which had an electric window! in 72 he swapped this for a brand new Ford Zephyr Estate with bench seat in the front and custom two tone blue paint. But the auto gearbox was rubbish, so he traded this in for an Audi 100LS. That car was fast, and so unusual at the time. But it was green. I mean it could top the ton, which was really something then. There were no speed cameras, and you didn't feel guilty about pollution and gas guzzling cars. That was followed by a Lancia Beta (lovely in white but a rust bucket) and then a bright yellow Ford Granada. My job during those years was to clean and polish the car on a Saturday morning so we could drive to PR in a gleaming motor. Compared to today's motors, these are slow, ponderous and unreliable. But they all looked different, they had character (another word for unreliable?) and were kinda iconic. I miss them. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 8:58]
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| The 1970s on 09:34 - Feb 19 with 899 views | Churchman |
| The 1970s on 08:56 - Feb 19 by LegendofthePhoenix |
Re: cars. I remember in the 60s being stranded a few times with my Dad when the old motors he drove broke down. But he was something of a car nut and we went through a series of cars that were great fun. In 1970 he bought a Datsun 2000 estate, which had an electric window! in 72 he swapped this for a brand new Ford Zephyr Estate with bench seat in the front and custom two tone blue paint. But the auto gearbox was rubbish, so he traded this in for an Audi 100LS. That car was fast, and so unusual at the time. But it was green. I mean it could top the ton, which was really something then. There were no speed cameras, and you didn't feel guilty about pollution and gas guzzling cars. That was followed by a Lancia Beta (lovely in white but a rust bucket) and then a bright yellow Ford Granada. My job during those years was to clean and polish the car on a Saturday morning so we could drive to PR in a gleaming motor. Compared to today's motors, these are slow, ponderous and unreliable. But they all looked different, they had character (another word for unreliable?) and were kinda iconic. I miss them. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 8:58]
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Lancia’s were great cars. I always wanted a Lancia Delta Integrale. An absolute beast of a car and very valuable now. I also liked the look of the HPE coupe. But of course, they rusted. Literally fell apart in no time, hence them no longer being sold here.
Similarly my dads brother had a white Alfa GTV. The dealer told him the rust and reliability problems had been cured. Boy was it a beautiful car. Went like stink. But shock and surprise the dealer lied. The paint came off in hand spans from even the middle of the roof. The car dissolved, basically. | | | |
| The 1970s on 10:39 - Feb 19 with 879 views | LegendofthePhoenix |
| The 1970s on 09:34 - Feb 19 by Churchman |
Lancia’s were great cars. I always wanted a Lancia Delta Integrale. An absolute beast of a car and very valuable now. I also liked the look of the HPE coupe. But of course, they rusted. Literally fell apart in no time, hence them no longer being sold here.
Similarly my dads brother had a white Alfa GTV. The dealer told him the rust and reliability problems had been cured. Boy was it a beautiful car. Went like stink. But shock and surprise the dealer lied. The paint came off in hand spans from even the middle of the roof. The car dissolved, basically. |
The Lancia Beta (I think it was 2 litre) was fairly quick, but nowhere near as quick as the Audi. It was a great looking car though. The Delta Integrale were world rally car champions IIRC. British Leyland cars were dreadful though. And don't get me started on motorbikes.
I think we can remember those days so fondly because we were ignorant of so many of concerns today. Climate change was unheard of, no one worried about mental health, about the rights of different communities. Music was changing, - Led Zepp, Deep Purple and no one worried too much about the lyrics which are unacceptable today. I was very lucky that my Dad's business was booming, but nonetheless the average household was much better off than ever before. | |
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| The 1970s on 11:23 - Feb 19 with 835 views | GlasgowBlue |
Three month wait for a telephone to be fitted in your house by the GPO. |  |
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| The 1970s on 11:33 - Feb 19 with 831 views | Churchman |
| The 1970s on 10:39 - Feb 19 by LegendofthePhoenix |
The Lancia Beta (I think it was 2 litre) was fairly quick, but nowhere near as quick as the Audi. It was a great looking car though. The Delta Integrale were world rally car champions IIRC. British Leyland cars were dreadful though. And don't get me started on motorbikes.
I think we can remember those days so fondly because we were ignorant of so many of concerns today. Climate change was unheard of, no one worried about mental health, about the rights of different communities. Music was changing, - Led Zepp, Deep Purple and no one worried too much about the lyrics which are unacceptable today. I was very lucky that my Dad's business was booming, but nonetheless the average household was much better off than ever before. |
My dads Audi was a 1973 80lS - one of the first in the country. It was in ‘Tibet orange’ (orangy yellow) and looked spectacular. I just looked up the performance - 99mph max, 0-60 in 12 seconds, economy 32 to the gallon. Not Audi 100 standard but nippy enough for 1973.
I was never into motorbikes. A mate of mine was and I had many a terrified ride on the back of his various beasts, once he progressed from his Honda 50.
Deep Purple - loved them and Led Zepp: Stormbringer has just about the best album cover ever. Nobody bothered about lyrics. Playing it as loud as possible without people complaining was the chief worry. Climate change? No such thing then. Just the odd hot summer. Apologising for the empire? Nope. Just hoping we did well in Je Sans Frontier. | | | |
| The 1970s on 11:40 - Feb 19 with 827 views | DJR |
| The 1970s on 11:23 - Feb 19 by GlasgowBlue |
Three month wait for a telephone to be fitted in your house by the GPO. |
It seems to me that much of what you post (with the honourable exception of your excellent anti-racist and football posts) are smears or half-truths from the right wing press.
Have you ever considered applying for a job at the Daily Express?
Actually, thing were even worse back in those days, as we waited over 15 years from the date of my birth to get a landline for the first time in 1975, the same year in which we first acquired (probably through Radio Rentals) a colour TV.
EDIT: That's not strictly true. My parents emigrated to Canada in the 50s where everyone had all mod cons (fridges, freezers, colour TVs, cars, telephones etc), so the wait began only when they returned to the UK about a year after I was born. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 13:06]
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| The 1970s on 11:53 - Feb 19 with 819 views | Churchman |
| The 1970s on 11:23 - Feb 19 by GlasgowBlue |
Three month wait for a telephone to be fitted in your house by the GPO. |
We had a ‘party line’. In other words, shared with the neighbour so you could pick up the phone and invariably the woman next door would be gabbling away. | | | |
| The 1970s on 16:34 - Feb 19 with 718 views | Meadowlark |
Great days!
Super music, Ipswich Town getting better year on year, the Government paying us to go to University and no need to get a hair cut!
Cheap house prices.
The only bad thing was the lack of cask ale, especially in Suffolk.
Oh yeah. And Thatcher.
Everything deteriorated after the 70s and it was all her fault.
EVERYTHING WAS HER FAULT
If you learn anything from the 70s it is that Thatcher started the destruction of the country that continues to this day. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 16:49 - Feb 19 with 706 views | GlasgowBlue |
| The 1970s on 11:40 - Feb 19 by DJR |
It seems to me that much of what you post (with the honourable exception of your excellent anti-racist and football posts) are smears or half-truths from the right wing press.
Have you ever considered applying for a job at the Daily Express?
Actually, thing were even worse back in those days, as we waited over 15 years from the date of my birth to get a landline for the first time in 1975, the same year in which we first acquired (probably through Radio Rentals) a colour TV.
EDIT: That's not strictly true. My parents emigrated to Canada in the 50s where everyone had all mod cons (fridges, freezers, colour TVs, cars, telephones etc), so the wait began only when they returned to the UK about a year after I was born. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 13:06]
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Where was the right wing smear in my post? It was fairly common to wait several months to get a landline in your house in the1970’s.
Pretty sure you couldn’t just get a cooker from somewhere like Curry’s as well and had to go to the Electricity Board to get one, and there was a wait for that as well. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 18:19]
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| The 1970s on 16:51 - Feb 19 with 703 views | GlasgowBlue |
| The 1970s on 16:26 - Feb 19 by Churchman |
I think a lot of people had to share lines if they were lucky enough to have a phone. It was considered normal at the time.
My grandmother never had a phone and I’m not sure she’d have known how to use one. Letter writing, postcards were a primary communication method back in those days. |
My Gran didn’t have a phone and she used to go to the phone box on a Sunday night to phone my mum. She’d let it ring twice and then hang up. My mum would then phone her back in the phone box.
When my Gran did get a phone she put a lock in it so no one else could use it and run up a bill.. | |
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| The 1970s on 18:18 - Feb 19 with 650 views | jontysnut |
I went to a decent school on cheapish, regular IBC buses, played on good parks with loads of football pitches, went swimming in a choice of 3 pools, one open air, enjoyed going 'up the town', went through several music genres, glam, soul, punk, new wave, watched cheap successful football, went to speedway, lots of pubs, Tracy's, decent gigs at the Gaumont - I had a cracking time. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 18:29 - Feb 19 with 639 views | DJR |
| The 1970s on 16:49 - Feb 19 by GlasgowBlue |
Where was the right wing smear in my post? It was fairly common to wait several months to get a landline in your house in the1970’s.
Pretty sure you couldn’t just get a cooker from somewhere like Curry’s as well and had to go to the Electricity Board to get one, and there was a wait for that as well. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 18:19]
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I was never sure if it was actually true, but it has been used in the past to justify privatisation, even though BT has had its own issues with, for example, installing broadband, although presently it promises installation within 7-21 days.
But if you'd lived for 15 years without a phone (as I did), I am not sure that an additional 3 months (if that were true) mattered that much in the scheme of things anyway. [Post edited 19 Feb 2023 19:49]
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| The 1970s on 18:32 - Feb 19 with 634 views | DJR |
| The 1970s on 18:18 - Feb 19 by jontysnut |
I went to a decent school on cheapish, regular IBC buses, played on good parks with loads of football pitches, went swimming in a choice of 3 pools, one open air, enjoyed going 'up the town', went through several music genres, glam, soul, punk, new wave, watched cheap successful football, went to speedway, lots of pubs, Tracy's, decent gigs at the Gaumont - I had a cracking time. |
I couldn't have put it better. And for me, there was the additional bonus of Scotland qualifying for World Cups, and arguably being better than England who failed to qualify a couple of times. | | | |
| The 1970s on 18:45 - Feb 19 with 606 views | DJR |
| The 1970s on 16:26 - Feb 19 by Churchman |
I think a lot of people had to share lines if they were lucky enough to have a phone. It was considered normal at the time.
My grandmother never had a phone and I’m not sure she’d have known how to use one. Letter writing, postcards were a primary communication method back in those days. |
Not having a phone until I was 15 meant it took me a few years to be comfortable talking to people who I couldn't see. Perhaps that was because I tended to prefer to meet people in person anyway, so didn't get much in the way of practice.
My wife was, however, different, and, according to my father in law, fully embraced the chance to talk for hours to her friends, even after she'd met them in person for some time earlier in the day, much to his annoyance on the telephone costs' front. [Post edited 20 Feb 2023 13:29]
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| The 1970s on 21:36 - Feb 26 with 441 views | WeWereZombies |
Arggh, how do you unreport abuse when you hit the button by mistake because you have only been awake a few minutes and are using your smartphone whilst watching OM getting thumped by PSG ? |  |
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| The 1970s on 22:23 - Feb 26 with 395 views | Pique |
| The 1970s on 18:32 - Feb 19 by DJR |
I couldn't have put it better. And for me, there was the additional bonus of Scotland qualifying for World Cups, and arguably being better than England who failed to qualify a couple of times. |
Some of the players Scotland had during the 1970s were incredible - how you never managed to get beyond the group stage of a World Cup is beyond me. |  | | |
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