General Chat

from an overseas perspective ....................


1971

Dad died suddenly, and a quick trip back to England for his funeral.

bought our first new car


1972

bought our first house

holidayed in Nova Scotia for the first time


1973

first holiday back in England in, 6 years after we left

Brother booking us into the Grand Hotel in Scarborough for a long weekend ................ HUGE meals!

Visiting one of OH's friends teaching at Gordonstoun ........ a lovely lovely area


1974

becoming a Canadian citizen ................. 10 days before daughter was born

had our one and only child


1975-76

went to Australia for 11 months

6 weeks in England in July/August 1975 .................. hot, hot, hot ......... and
OH's parents met their granddaughter for the first time.

To Leningrad for 10 days for an International Conference, late July 1975, leaving grandparents looking after daughter

Riding an elevator with Elizabeth Taylor, who was in Leningrad making a film, and staying in our hotel. She was wearing a white towelling robe and a white towel wrapped around her head ............... and was on the way to the Tea Cafe.

2 weeks in South Africa on the way to Australia

Touring around Australia .......... 1 month in October to cross the Nullabor to Perth and back. In a little white VW bug, on the gravelled road.

1 month to drive north to Cairns and back, in March.

Short trips from Melbourne to Sydney, and all around Victoria

Selling the VW for more than we paid for it! ........ and that was to friends who knew the car.

2 weeks in New Zealand and 10 days in Fiji in 1976, on our way home from Australia


1976-1980

making more money that we had ever thought possible ............. but still had more month left than money because things were expensive

Driving and camping holidays around Canada and the US



a great time :-D :-D :-D




sylvia

Bad haircuts and flairs
Buy a lot for a pound note
Bright colours in the bedroom up the stairs

Holidays in Spain.
But mainly on the plain
Where the water don't taste like it ought'a

Where the medallion man was the thing
The Bee gees and Bohemian Rhapsody
They were in the charts.

Though we love nostalgia for the 70’s
When disco and punk, was king.
I was there. It was ghastly!

I had a mullet and an Afro.

The speed limit was 50mph for a while.

New smoking mixture. Don't know what it was because it didn't affect me but it didn't last very long.

Release George Davis. I was in Leeds doing a delivery when they dug up the pitch at Headingly.

Pakistan hanged their president, Ali Bhuto.

hi
in 1974 i was 10 years old and playing like a child should
making up games being outside most of the time


[not like today]
lorraine

I suffered a 3 day working week, power cuts, clients not receiving their orders. Double entry book keeping written with a parker pen and black ink. The dreaded stetner copying machine (bain of my life as I used to produce all the brochures too).

Living in Germany for 18 months and was still treated badly by the middle aged due to the damn war.

In 1976 I was living in Spain and heard reports of the drought with disbelief.

Had 2 children naturally without anything other than gas and air! I decided to fly from UK to Madrid but ent to visit friends in Switzerland and the 2 extra flights cost me the grand sum of £19.00. BUT toothpaste in Geneva was £6.00 for a UK brand (I am not joking).

Had 2 ice skating lessons with a house guest who was an ex British Champion and I still couldn't stay upright. But the views at night from the open air rink in Switzerland were fantastic.

Family saving me special edition pullouts and inserts for the Royal Events.


Finally, getting married of course, but I chose to wear black...lolol

Sue

I've posted my memories earlier in the thread,

Today the 8th is our36th WA ,having married in 1976.

Sandie

OH and I married in 1970, both very young. We had our first colour telly (rented) in 1972 so we could see the Munich Olympic Games, which gained notoriety for the killings of members of the Israeli team. 1972 was also the year my mother passed away, she had just turned 55.

I remember the strikes, and also the petrol shortages...particularly as we were living in Cheshire and I had to travel each week to Scarborough where I worked.

Mother in law passed away in 1975, just after we moved to Cleethorpes

Son born in 1976, in Cleethorpes.

Trimphones.

We also had a small caravan which was used not ony for holidays but also as a sun room in winter.

Despite the sad memories, overall it was a very good decade for OH and myself.

Among other things like power cuts heatwave of 1976 I remember being pregnant 4 times (a gluton for punishment as i had already had one in 1968 lol :-D :-D

Didn't the fireman and police also go on strike in the 70's. I remember the electricity strikes as one time the electric went off and I feel downstairs and broke my wrist. Remember the hot summer of 1976 as was off work for the 3 months as had again broken my wrist. I started work in 1974. Met my husband and married him in 1977 (all within 2 months) had first child 1978 and moved South away from family and friends. Still married 35 years later. :-)

I lost my grandfather on the day of the Silver Jubilee( 1977?) from heart attack sad day :-( .Also remember pop groups glam rock!! :-)

Like BC, mixed feelings.

Got married in 1973.

First baby in 1979.
6 weeks later, my lovely Dad died.

I remember the 3 day week - I was in my first job and it was really cold, so I wore lots of clothes!! In the office we had to move the drawing boards right up to the windows so we could see what we were doing, as candlelight just wasn't enough, and my fingers were so cold I could hardly hold a pencil so Grandma knitted me some fingerless gloves - had it been a decade later I'd have been REAL trendy because they became all the rage in the New Romantics era!
The boss brought in an oil heater and we would all huddle round it at lunch times drinking our flasks of soup and tea etc.
Grim days. Strikes, strikes and more strikes, I just remember that winter being grey, bleak and downright depressing :-(

However, that aside, I would say that overall the 70's was a fabulous and exciting decade...I was always off to some disco or party every Fri, Sat and Sun night, and the music was fantastic. I had left school, gone to art college and then started my first job...wow, I earned my own money whoop whoop, I could buy LP's and clothes! I learned to drive & bought a car, I went on my first package holiday, I went to my first Reading Rock Festival and lots of concerts, and in the latter part of the decade I left home and hitch hiked and worked through Europe ending up on a Kibbutz - yep, I had one heck of a fantastic time in the 70's :-D :-D

Oh, and we all managed perfectly well without mobile phones ;-) LOL

I remember the heatwave of '76 it was so hot tarmac was melting on the pavements, we used to write our initials in it.Also the water drought

Janet, Income tax for a single person was 33 and one third % for people on a low income it was devastating,

We had a labour administration from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson in 1967 he had to devalue the pound, then ted heath conservatives 1970 to1974 and the unions bringing workers out on strike to try and topple the government which let labour in again under James Callaghan from 1974 to 1979 and still old labour run the debts up that ted heath had tried to stop, and he Callaghan had to go cap in hand to borrow from the IMF, we where known as the dirty man of Europe and it took a woman to sort out the mess and what the men were to week to do,
labour had power for the vast majority of this time and it was their actions that caused the problems by bowing down to the unions,
They left us in massive debt and bankrupt (Ring any bells)

Miners striking
steel works striking,
railway workers striking,
ambulance workers striking
council workers striking the list goes on


Roy

I remember the strikes, and like Porkie pie re-interated, I remember the strikes. My husband worked in the engineering industry.Never sure from one week to another whether there would be a shut down at either his factory or another in the town. I remember the Ambulance service on strike when the Army moved in. Remember the dustmen on strike, the greedy miners always wanting more than the rest of blue collar workers. I remember when the cost of a house was rising faster than it was possible to raise a good deposit.

Money definitely coloured my life as a newly wed in the early 70's....or the lack of it. I also remember paying some income tax at 40p in the pound as the personal allowance was based on the amount of money earned as a married couple and not two single allowances as they have nowadays. I don't know how much we would have had to pay if we had had 'good jobs'. Whether people liked or disliked Thatcher, something was needed to break the chain of events and I don't think a man wanted the job, otherwise she wouldn't have stood a chance at getting elected.-jl

Lots of memories for me, I had a baby and went to Australia for two years, moving to Gloucester when we came back, with a huge mortgage of £24 a month. It was a real struggle, though it doesn't sound much now. I remember the three day week and all the shops being in the gloom with only half of the lights on. In 76 we moved again and I remember when it rained, eventually, all the neighbours coming out into the street to stand out in it, it was so refreshing! At the end of the seventies, we had baby number three and husband got a better job too. So it was quite eventful! Can't believe it was forty years ago. . .

Bittersweet memories of the 70s. (Great programme, Rose, I agree). In no particular order, I fell in love, moved home three times, my beloved father died and then joy of joys...my son was born. <3

BC XX

I got married early 70s and within a few months went to live overseas, so I remember my first plane journey. We flew through a thunderstorm and hit many air pockets, but luckily I didn't know this wasn't the norm. to suddenly drop in height during the flight.
I became a Mum and enjoyed a carefree life with our son, often going to the beach.
Returned to UK, - had another baby and went everywhere by bus or train, as OH's work took him away from home.
No TV so the children and I listened to Radio Solent alot.... I remember son's favourite was Albert's Gang.
Abroad again in 1976, just as the weather was really hotting up.

Back to England in 1978 and I think maybe end of that decade was when we first bought a TV and got a house phone installed. Previously I had walked a few roads away to phone my Mum after 6 o'clock some evenings, when it was a bit cheaper.

So.......... Lots of packing cases and moving around is my major memory, after being married and having 2 children.

Gwyn

I started teaching in the 70s, got married and had my son as well. And we got a mortgage and bought our first house. It's probably my favourite decade because it was so exciting in so many ways.

I remember the end of the war in Vietnam, a wonderful feeling. I remember Ted Heath being ousted, another wonderful feeling. Sadly Thatcher snook in at the end of my favourite decade but nothing is perfect in this life.

I loved the big stadium rock music of the 1970s and went to lots of concerts.

I also remember the strikes but there weren't that many taking the decade as a whole.

Overall I loved the 70s.

Gwynne

I loved the 70s I was a teenager through most of it.

Strikes...yes I remember those but they did'nt seem to affect me as I was still at school

Power cuts were fun...we did'nt rely on electriciy as we do now, so we did'nt have the TV (all 3 channels) for a few hours....out came the board games by candle light infront of the paraffin heater

I remember having birthday party in Feb 1972 and my parents went out....think they worried about the chance there could be a power cut, candles all around the house....luckerly there was'nt one that night.

Cannot say I remember the rubbish everywhere...probably just oblivious to it.

Started work in july 1974 and I think the 3 day week had finished by then.