| The 1970s 08:54 - Feb 17 with 7537 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 09:06 - Feb 17 with 3498 views | giant_stow |
Born in 74', so I can't help much accept for vague memories of power cuts, a cold house and fewer cars on the street meaning a bigger football pitch.
I'll let a grown up answer now.... |  |
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| The 1970s on 09:09 - Feb 17 with 3484 views | DJR |
I spent the second 10 years of my life growing up in the 1970s and to me they were great times. It has subsequently been painted as a grim time (largely for political reasons) but that was not the case for me, and the fantastic summer of 1976 in particular brings back great memories. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 09:14 - Feb 17 with 3466 views | BloomBlue |
Platform shoes and flare trousers - more ankle injuries than any other period in history.
Global warming... bar humbug.. the extreme hot summer and winters in the 70s was much worse than now.
Pink Floyd- the SClub7, Coldplay of the 70s, the most overrated band ever - hence 70s music was bad.
We also had the feckwit unions who couldn't organise a plss up in a brewery trying to run the country. Harold Wilson became PM in the middle and for some reason (probably too busy sh@gging his secretary) decided he didn't want to be PM and he let the unions run the country.
We had piles of rubbish building up in the street. We had constant power cuts - image that no WiFi or iFollow. We had a car company who were sending out death traps, although only when the workers actually completed a car and weren't striking - although as I worked at BL for a couple of years in the 70s I have to take some responsibility for those.
So basically, shlt clothes, shlt music, shlt weather and shlt on the streets.
But importantly 'the good old days', we had communities. People did actually care about their neighbours and community. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 09:14 - Feb 17 with 3474 views | blueasfook |
I was born in 1970 so was just a kid during the 70s. Seemed to be a happy time in my innocent little world. I do seem to remember a lot of power cuts and having to use candles. Oh and a water shortage during the drought of 76. And lots of white dog poo, which you just dont see anymore. |  |
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| The 1970s on 09:17 - Feb 17 with 3441 views | giant_stow |
| The 1970s on 09:14 - Feb 17 by blueasfook |
I was born in 1970 so was just a kid during the 70s. Seemed to be a happy time in my innocent little world. I do seem to remember a lot of power cuts and having to use candles. Oh and a water shortage during the drought of 76. And lots of white dog poo, which you just dont see anymore. |
yeah what happened to white dog poo? | |
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| The 1970s on 09:17 - Feb 17 with 3433 views | blueasfook |
| The 1970s on 09:14 - Feb 17 by BloomBlue |
Platform shoes and flare trousers - more ankle injuries than any other period in history.
Global warming... bar humbug.. the extreme hot summer and winters in the 70s was much worse than now.
Pink Floyd- the SClub7, Coldplay of the 70s, the most overrated band ever - hence 70s music was bad.
We also had the feckwit unions who couldn't organise a plss up in a brewery trying to run the country. Harold Wilson became PM in the middle and for some reason (probably too busy sh@gging his secretary) decided he didn't want to be PM and he let the unions run the country.
We had piles of rubbish building up in the street. We had constant power cuts - image that no WiFi or iFollow. We had a car company who were sending out death traps, although only when the workers actually completed a car and weren't striking - although as I worked at BL for a couple of years in the 70s I have to take some responsibility for those.
So basically, shlt clothes, shlt music, shlt weather and shlt on the streets.
But importantly 'the good old days', we had communities. People did actually care about their neighbours and community. |
Pink Floyd, the S-Club7/Coldplay of the 70s? I guess you preferred the more meaningful deep music of Slade or The Bay City Rollers? | |
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| The 1970s on 09:18 - Feb 17 with 3415 views | thebooks |
"The 70s" is right-wing, tabloid shorthand for the period that Margaret Thatcher "saved" us from. It *was* marked by a high level of strikes and some power cuts (I think, I don't remember as I was born in 1972) hence the reference to it these days.
It was also a time of cheap housing, nearly full, proper employment and free university education for all. Obviously, we're not returning to that. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 09:20 - Feb 17 with 3411 views | blueasfook |
| The 1970s on 09:17 - Feb 17 by giant_stow |
yeah what happened to white dog poo? |
I dont know, it's a total mystery isnt it. A popular theory is that dog food has changed. The dog food back then was rich in beef and bone meal which gave it a high calcium content. Hence, white dog poop. I do miss it. | |
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| The 1970s on 09:23 - Feb 17 with 3383 views | clive_baker |
| The 1970s on 09:14 - Feb 17 by BloomBlue |
Platform shoes and flare trousers - more ankle injuries than any other period in history.
Global warming... bar humbug.. the extreme hot summer and winters in the 70s was much worse than now.
Pink Floyd- the SClub7, Coldplay of the 70s, the most overrated band ever - hence 70s music was bad.
We also had the feckwit unions who couldn't organise a plss up in a brewery trying to run the country. Harold Wilson became PM in the middle and for some reason (probably too busy sh@gging his secretary) decided he didn't want to be PM and he let the unions run the country.
We had piles of rubbish building up in the street. We had constant power cuts - image that no WiFi or iFollow. We had a car company who were sending out death traps, although only when the workers actually completed a car and weren't striking - although as I worked at BL for a couple of years in the 70s I have to take some responsibility for those.
So basically, shlt clothes, shlt music, shlt weather and shlt on the streets.
But importantly 'the good old days', we had communities. People did actually care about their neighbours and community. |
Issue is all we'll get now is the sh1t bits, none of those things that made life better in the 70's will return as a result of economic hardship. We'll have the inflationary pressures, famine, high interest rates and unemployment. Difference is those interest rates will be payable on properties that are now a ridiculous multiple of average earnings.
We won't get the Vinyls, kids playing in the park with their stretch Armstrongs and space hoppers or ITFC FA Cup wins. |  |
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| The 1970s on 09:27 - Feb 17 with 3372 views | 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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| The 1970s on 09:28 - Feb 17 with 3370 views | blueislander |
| The 1970s on 09:23 - Feb 17 by clive_baker |
Issue is all we'll get now is the sh1t bits, none of those things that made life better in the 70's will return as a result of economic hardship. We'll have the inflationary pressures, famine, high interest rates and unemployment. Difference is those interest rates will be payable on properties that are now a ridiculous multiple of average earnings.
We won't get the Vinyls, kids playing in the park with their stretch Armstrongs and space hoppers or ITFC FA Cup wins. |
Inflation of over 20% in some years, which meant interest rates through the roof , and annual wage increases also above 20%. This saw the start of the big boom in house prices. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 09:41 - Feb 17 with 3294 views | Ftnfwest |
when i grew up, there was no heating v eating debate as we didn't have central heating (until 1986 when my mum and dad moved house - while i was at uni). We did have an open fire and coal delivered in bulk every now and then. |  | | |
| The 1970s on 09:53 - Feb 17 with 3244 views | Guthrum |
The bits they're referring to came in the later 1970s, as a government struggling with fading popularity and a massive economic crisis faced widespread industrial action prompted, in part, by high inflation. At the same time the openly racist National Front were on the rise and there was the pervasive fear of a nuclear war launched by Moscow.
Standards of living - in terms of the comfort, entertainment and communications toys we all enjoy today - were considerably lower. Not every home had a telephone or TV. Car ownership was considerably more limited, often only one per household (motorbikes and scooters were the entry point for the young). Computers as we understand them now were 20 years in the future.
As Churchman said, everything looked a bit grey and tired, with a deep cynicism about the UK's future. |  |
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| The 1970s on 09:55 - Feb 17 with 3237 views | BrentwoodBlagger2 |
It was a time where if you wanted to find out what was happening you had to watch the news on one of three tv channels either at 6pm, 9pm or 10pm. No social media or mobile phones and was an age where kids were kids and didn't carry knives to kill each other. Crime was very different then and people respected each other. Life was oh so different..... | | | |
| The 1970s on 09:56 - Feb 17 with 3229 views | ThisIsMyUsername |
| The 1970s on 09:23 - Feb 17 by clive_baker |
Issue is all we'll get now is the sh1t bits, none of those things that made life better in the 70's will return as a result of economic hardship. We'll have the inflationary pressures, famine, high interest rates and unemployment. Difference is those interest rates will be payable on properties that are now a ridiculous multiple of average earnings.
We won't get the Vinyls, kids playing in the park with their stretch Armstrongs and space hoppers or ITFC FA Cup wins. |
You think there will be famine in the UK?
'An extreme scarcity of food'.
Isn't that a completely different thing to what we are currently seeing i.e. some people needing to go to food banks, for example? (Which is obviously a bad thing).
Surely food will continue to be available in the required quantities. | |
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| The 1970s on 09:58 - Feb 17 with 3225 views | ThisIsMyUsername |
So there was some OK stuff but also a lot of bad stuff.
Overall from reading the replies I don't want to go back to the 1970s. | |
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| The 1970s on 09:58 - Feb 17 with 3216 views | giant_stow |
| The 1970s on 09:53 - Feb 17 by Guthrum |
The bits they're referring to came in the later 1970s, as a government struggling with fading popularity and a massive economic crisis faced widespread industrial action prompted, in part, by high inflation. At the same time the openly racist National Front were on the rise and there was the pervasive fear of a nuclear war launched by Moscow.
Standards of living - in terms of the comfort, entertainment and communications toys we all enjoy today - were considerably lower. Not every home had a telephone or TV. Car ownership was considerably more limited, often only one per household (motorbikes and scooters were the entry point for the young). Computers as we understand them now were 20 years in the future.
As Churchman said, everything looked a bit grey and tired, with a deep cynicism about the UK's future. |
Re computers, my mum was reminiscing about having to get her books typed up, having written then by hand, until she splashed out on an early Amstrad. We'd laugh at it's little green screen now, but it was revolutionary at the time.
In a further outing of my elderly self, I also remember mocking my friend in the pub for being the first one with a mobile phone - must have been some years after uni, so either side of the millennium maybe? | |
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| The 1970s on 10:00 - Feb 17 with 3203 views | clive_baker |
| The 1970s on 09:56 - Feb 17 by ThisIsMyUsername |
You think there will be famine in the UK?
'An extreme scarcity of food'.
Isn't that a completely different thing to what we are currently seeing i.e. some people needing to go to food banks, for example? (Which is obviously a bad thing).
Surely food will continue to be available in the required quantities. |
Fair point. Scarcity of food is highly unlikely. Just a scarcity of money for a lot of people to purchase said food. | |
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| The 1970s on 10:03 - Feb 17 with 3185 views | Guthrum |
| The 1970s on 09:58 - Feb 17 by ThisIsMyUsername |
So there was some OK stuff but also a lot of bad stuff.
Overall from reading the replies I don't want to go back to the 1970s. |
The idea that the past was better than now has existed throughout human history.
It's centered around a selective nostaligia for the good bits (or supposed good bits, which may not actually have existed quite like that), while editing out the nastiness. Also the idea from older people (who tend to oversee popular culture and the media) that the youth of today is not up to the exploits of their forbears.
Things were said in the 1920s and '30s about the young being too soft to face a world war like their parents had been through. But they did. | |
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| The 1970s on 10:06 - Feb 17 with 3154 views | Guthrum |
| The 1970s on 09:58 - Feb 17 by giant_stow |
Re computers, my mum was reminiscing about having to get her books typed up, having written then by hand, until she splashed out on an early Amstrad. We'd laugh at it's little green screen now, but it was revolutionary at the time.
In a further outing of my elderly self, I also remember mocking my friend in the pub for being the first one with a mobile phone - must have been some years after uni, so either side of the millennium maybe? |
I got my first mobile (in connection with work) in the mid-to-late 1990s, on Phones4You. | |
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| The 1970s on 10:08 - Feb 17 with 3143 views | GlasgowBlue |
| The 1970s on 09:06 - Feb 17 by giant_stow |
Born in 74', so I can't help much accept for vague memories of power cuts, a cold house and fewer cars on the street meaning a bigger football pitch.
I'll let a grown up answer now.... |
You must have been a very advanced baby if you have vague memories of power cuts. The cuts took place over the winter of 1973 going into 74. |  |
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| The 1970s on 10:09 - Feb 17 with 3137 views | blueasfook |
| The 1970s on 10:00 - Feb 17 by clive_baker |
Fair point. Scarcity of food is highly unlikely. Just a scarcity of money for a lot of people to purchase said food. |
If we see the worst predictions of climate change come true then food scarcity is a very real possibility. | |
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| The 1970s on 10:13 - Feb 17 with 3121 views | ThisIsMyUsername |
| The 1970s on 10:03 - Feb 17 by Guthrum |
The idea that the past was better than now has existed throughout human history.
It's centered around a selective nostaligia for the good bits (or supposed good bits, which may not actually have existed quite like that), while editing out the nastiness. Also the idea from older people (who tend to oversee popular culture and the media) that the youth of today is not up to the exploits of their forbears.
Things were said in the 1920s and '30s about the young being too soft to face a world war like their parents had been through. But they did. |
So, if like you said, they are referring to a declining economy, a decrease in the standard of living and of services, a general 'tiredness' etc, is this what the short to mid-term future in the UK is likely going to bring?
If so, to what extent is this attributable to the effects of Brexit, or are there other key factors? Was it already happening before 2016?
How much are the Tories responsible in other ways, and would a Labour government be able to do anything to prevent it?
Or is this inevitable for the country now?
I read one comment in a recent article saying that the UK is in the 'late Sunday afternoon of its life, comfy-slippered and softly snoozing', which doesn't sound very exciting or promising. | |
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| The 1970s on 10:14 - Feb 17 with 3111 views | Sharkey |
Footballers all looked about 35. (Except for George Burley, obviously. ) |  | | |
| The 1970s on 10:15 - Feb 17 with 3103 views | giant_stow |
| The 1970s on 10:06 - Feb 17 by Guthrum |
I got my first mobile (in connection with work) in the mid-to-late 1990s, on Phones4You. |
Look at you with you fancy phone! | |
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