To all of us that are older than they care to say!!! (40+)

Haha, I agree with these words of wisdom on so many levels! Today's generation have it way too easy.

 

So many point well made so far, what with the dates in a box and the old style sweets - BRING BACK FRUIT SPANGLES - I LOVED THEM!!!

Did anyone else do what me and my buddies did, ie "Swap Bags"? Back in the day when we didn't get stupid amounts of pocket money, me and my buds used to get all the toys and stuff we never used and stuck 'em in a non-biodegradable carrier bag. Next up we'd meet up in the back garden and trade one toy for another, regardless of their value or original purchase price. This was the true meaning or recycling and meant that there was always something new to play with - perfect! Spectrum computer games were a top favourite for swapping back in the day.... In fact my £3 pocket money used to buy me one game a week @ £2.74, with enough change for 2 packets of stickers (He-man, Mask, Mexico 86 etc etc)

I love this thread - I could go on for ages ;0)

Born in '77 and wouldn't trade it for the world!

 

Shit I was born in 1980 and I remember colleting Cresta pop bottles for the 1p return value, back when pop used to be sold in glass bottles!

 

I was born in 1982 at Hvidovre hospital, but I was raised in Vesterbro Copenhagen, and all you have said with that large type is true, with a few exceptions of course do to time difference. I did a lot of the same stuff, untill I moved to this shitty ghetto town I will NOT call "MY TOWN" under any circumstances !!! I lived in Copenhagen untill I was 7 years old. And it was the best time of my life, after that it went fucking downhill moving to this crime infested shithole where it IS safer for your kids to be indoors and playing computers and the likes. Because of fucking crime so what you have said is God damn true mate

 

Ah, but it's your generation who are telling the kids now to stay in and keep safe in case they get a booboo, and also moan when they're too busy getting fat from sitting down all day playing video games

That whole thing made me think of my parents talking about "the good ol' days"

 

opethfan: I don´t have kids, since I think in some ways with the world we have now, it is a sign of sadism getting a child. But then again I do want to have kids. But have you been deaf and blind the last 2 years of all the shite my father I have been personally through ? such as deaththreats people watching my father and I and other stuff. And I still live in fear, because of it . opethfan, you have no motherfucking idea how it is.

 

Woah cowboy! I wasn't pointing at anyone or any comment. Just joking at the original post. I really do appreciate how dangerous the world is and how it effects people. I spent the first 10 or so years of my life in a small community just outside London, and there were 2 kids that made everyones life a misery. At the age of 7-8, I had a brick (full size, house brick) thrown at my back, knocked me the fuck out. Fingers broken by thrown logs and so many punches I couldn't count. I really do know how much safer it is to be inside. If I wasn't a fan of video games before all this, I would have been afterwards.

And btw, I have been blind to what's happened to you in the last 2 or so years, I wasn't there. I do find it hard to believe that the world is less safe nowadays, and whenever someone mentions that the world was safer 30 years ago, I take a pinch of salt. Not that numbers count, but every piece of infomation I've seen has shown that crime is going down.

I've found this town to be much much better. The only real trouble we've had is kids getting shitfaced at the Lacrosse box. Noisy, but nothing near what I was getting when I was growing up.

 

opethfan: sorry for the blind and deaf part, I was just upset. Since I have posted the stories what has happened on different posts, some time after it happened. But still, even when my father was a kid (he is born in 1945 right after WW2). there were bullies too after him and his family in the village they lived in. But all in all, the world (in Denmark) back then was a safer place, whether it sounds strange, then it is the truth. with a pinch of salt or three.

 

That is one thing I really miss. Glass bottled soda just tastes so much better then those bottled in cans or plastic. Especially when made with real sugar and not that high fructose corn syrup garbage. Every now and then I treat myself to some of the good glass bottle Coke still made in Mexico.

 

Yeah, I can't stand plastic bottled soda. I like the Dublin Dr. Pepper cans that still use cane sugar, and jones. I haven't drank soda for awhile though.

 

Well in Texas most of the soda can be bought in a glass bottle,also they have 3 litters of just about any soda.

 

Yeah, in Scotland you still get soda (we just call it 'Ginger' (even if it's Red Cola or American Cream soda)) in glass bottles. Not bought any for years as I'm not a huge fan. My cousins had a Soda Stream maker in the late 70's or early 80's and one summer we drank so much of the stuff we sickened ourselves!

No weight was added however, as like the thread states - we were never at home. We only came home for two reasons A) because we had too and B) food was stored there. Other than that the local area (about 5miles radius) was our playground.

 

Ahh SodaStream! now that brings back memories! oddly enough i saw a mint boxed one in a charity shop a few weeks ago, including some spare gas canisters, sadly as OE said before, they had gone the route of 'Retro' for it and put a silly expensive ebay pricesticker on it

The thing i miss the most from growing up was the local community, i grew up on a blue collar council estate, we were not the most well off family, but got by, but i loved that you could talk to your neighbors over the garden hedge, knew the names of all of your neighbors, and could pop round at anytime of the day to borrow some 50ps for the electric meter, where you knew the name of your postman, milkman, the corner shop was run by a friendly old chap, and would serve you cigarettes and booze as it was for your dad when you were 8yrs old!

I despise this day and age where people not necessarily live in fear of there neighbors, but don't socialize with them, i've been living in my house for 4 years and still hardly know anyone in my street, as they simply don't have the time for you (or it could be im a aging rocker with long hair and a beard, living in a middleclass suburban area) the one exception to that is Bill and Maureen, my neighbors who live in the bungalow next door, ive spent many a time hanging over the fence gossiping away to them, they even buy toys and cards for out kids birthdays as they have no grandchildren of their own

Anyways, enough remanising and being nostalgic pineing for the good old days! Off to work!

 

Ah! Brit choccy! (I've never quite gotten the hang of Hershey's stuff). If it wasn't for the fact that there's a Brit shop in town, my chocolate cravings would have driven me nuts ages ago (they even sell proper, cholesterol laden, cardiac arrest inducing bangers - aka, sausages for you non-Brits!). But, I don't remember the Texan bar - was that regional, or is my memory shot (latter very likely, probably all those lead laden toys...)?

Ah, that's not fair - give us a clue, at least! Genre? :110:

 

My daughter had a sleep over not all that long ago and one of her friend, who is actually pretty intelligent and you can have a decent conversation with said whilst discussing professions - and I quote - 'What's a miner?'

My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. All this 'the good ol' days were fantastic!' but there was also another side to it all. Who remembers the Notting Hill carnival riots? No mention of the daily threat of IRA attack (my ex-gf was in Manchester the day the IRA blew the city centre apart), The miners strike, the Thatcher years of boom and massive bust?

Have we all forgotten 'The Winter of Discontent'?

Elvis Presley dying in '77 was like a member of the family passing away and I swear my Uncle & brother never quite got over it.

In the late 60's and early 70's a lot of our idols suddenly up'd and died from various drugs related (or alcohol induced) incidents. Jimi Hendrix & Jim Morrisson were a huge loss to the world and both still upset me!

And please, you cannot be nostalgic about the fashion of the 1970's - if tartan everything comes back in fashion, along with flairs, kipper ties and platform heels then I am heading for the exit!

Of all the things I loved about being a kid in the 1970's and early 80's I also think there were a few things that made it a tough place to be.

In 1984 I remember clearly being scared stiff by the BBC film 'Threads'. Look it up! It's probably as scarey as 'V' to most kids these days, but back then.... wow!

We are being nostaglic for a time when we didn't have much, but what we had we valued, however I think our parents deserve a medal (some of them at least) for having brought us up through such a harsh climate.

I think it's also a reason why when we ever saw Spielberg films when we were in our teens, we all thought 'America' is the land of plenty, when I bet there was just as many people going without as back home. E.T. changed my life and my perceptions of the world. An Atari 2600, plus BMX bikes........hard core!

 

I remember that the Beeb wouldn't show it for the longest time - I saw it first at school. Very depressing. Remember When the wind blow's? - also throughly depressing. The thought of that kind of eventuality was definitly at the back of one's mind at times...

And yeah - leaving aside the bitter politics & stuff of the time, who'd have thought in 1980 that there'd basically be no mining industry left in 20 years time?

 

...or that kids would have no idea what a miner was! Shocking!

Gartcosh steel works is about 8miles from here and is in the process of being redeveloped. The mills, the pit bings, the tracks and most evidence of the once proud industry that supplied the ship yards on the Clyde has all but disappeared.

I was watching a re-run of 'An audience with Billy Connolly' the other night (it was a free CD off the front of some newspaper) and it was amazing to watch! Talk about nostalgia! He was standing in front of an audience made up of long gone celebrities and young bucks like Jimmy Tarbuck, Elaine Page, Denis Law, Keith Chegwin & Maggie Philbin etc.

The funny thing about it was that he was talking about the same thing, how the childhood he had known was disappearing. I had to laugh as frankly the city he knew is now totally gone!

People always say how hard and tough Glasgow is as a city, the people and lifestyle, but my guess is they have read 'Dear Green Place', 'No mean city' and 'Papers of Tony Veitch', heard of The Gorbals and the Razorking and think it's like that now. Bollocks! More likely to get hurt buying a latte or moccachino down at Starbucks than anything else these days - thank god!

 

Strange really.. although i am a relative 'youngster' in all of this, ( i was born in 1980), i grew up in london and my father worked in the city, so i was always well aware of the IRA situation, the past histories of the Brixton & Nottinghill Riots etc, and even up on the Thatcher years etc.

Quite odd, i put that down to my parents really who always felt it right to keep me informed not of just current issues but of the past which led to these events etc. Other then just relying on what i might learn at school on the offchance!

 

Yeah the "We're all gonna die in in a flash of light" nuke movies of the 80's had a bit more punch back then. Ever see the movie The Day After? Also who can forget Red Dawn...

 

Defintiely all about the swaps, I remember swapping Master System games until I was blue in the face when I was like 7 (Born in 83) in primary school.

I still have all my He-man toys, I remember some of the more obscure ones, there was this one guy who`s eyes popped up on little sticks if you pressed his back and this other weird green guy that smelled like some kind of air freshener tree. MASK was the best, I remember being so jealous of my friends 'Boulder Mountain' play set, there was also this one car thats wheels turned up like the flying Delorean from Back to the Future.