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The 80's Recession V's this one?
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Bannasidhe wrote: »The 80s were good to me.
I was the youngest of three and by 1979 my sister was married and living in Dublin and my brother had a good job in Switzerland.
My parent's separated in 1982 so then it was just me, my mother, my grandmother and a fat corgi. The house had central heating (installed in 1974), we had a Fergusson video star VCR and a colour TV (my uncle owned a chain of TV rental shops and he sold them to us for 'cost'), a tower stereo - with 2 tape recorders!, 2 telephones (my grandfather had worked for the P& T so they had a phone since 1960 - my sister's husband was a telephone engineer so he installed an extension in 1976), a Mini Cooper, and even...gasp...a soda stream.
The only reason we lived in such abundance was due to my grandmother who had lived through the Great Depression, raised her 5 children during the rationing of the Emergency and who managed to get a good job in Raidió Éireann (who remembers Corkabout?) when her husband left her a young widow in 1963. She still paid her mortgage, never got a penny rent from my father in the 24 years he lived in her home, and she invested all she could spare in her home - hence the 'luxuries'.
She could also make a dinner out of nothing and we had 'afters' every day. That woman was amazing with money and made a £1 have the spending power of £1.50. Years later I bought her a 10 Bob note and framed it. She used to get a great kick out of the fact that she had that. 'Look at that' - she used to say - 'a whole 10 Bob just lying there behind glass and I don't need it.'
If my grandmother hadn't been there, if it had been just my parents, we would have been in real trouble. Not that my father didn't work. He always had a job, worked bloody hard, and a few lucrative 'sidelines'. But that was his money to do with as he liked - brandy, poker, horses and his girlfriends. He was, still is truth be known, a bit of a Cork 'character' with a reputation to maintain. Many Cork people still laugh when they learn who my father is - then rub my arm in sympathy - I bloody hate that!
If my mother got £20 for the housekeeping she was doing well. Yet, she waited on him hand and foot, fed him t-bone steak every Saturday, washed his hair in the bath, laid out his clothes for his not very secret date with his latest girlfriend, made sammiches for when he eventually fell in the door, kept swallowing the Roche 5, ended up in a 'psychiatric unit' twice after 'nervous breakdowns' and bided her time. She kicked him out the day after my 18th birthday. I wish she had done it on my 8th. Women had to put up with a lot of **** in the 80s in Ireland. :mad:
I even went to collage in 1980 aged 17. Art college granted but it says a lot that I was allowed to do that rather then get a job in the bank/solicitors office/insurance company/civil service or go to UCC to train to be a teacher - which were the only choices given to my female peers.
But, I was refused any form of grant for college as we lived in a 'posh' area even when my mother's only income became 'Deserted Wives' - bizarrely this payment was actually made to my father and he would 'drop it out' when and if he felt like it.
He had paid my college fees the first year, but refused after that. My brother paid the rest. I was, as I said, denied a grant as my address was in the wrong demographic.
My allowance was £10 a week for transport, lunches and pints of Carling at 70p. When I was skint it was a 10p glass of razza in the Long Valley. We had a thriving music scene in Cork - Micro Disney, Five go Down to the Sea - great live bands. We got to see The Cure, The Specials and - far too many times for our tastes - The Virgin Prunes little brothers band U2 in D'Arc.
In 1983 I got the hell out of Ireland - the abortion referendum was the final straw for me - and moved (on Slattery's coach) to London. There, yeah I had to live in a squat for a while and I 'survived' on £7 a week (I still can't face chips in pitta bread which was my only meal every day) but in 1984 I was lucky to get a council flat and a damn good job.
I also remember having to get in touch with my father - we were not on speaking terms - so he could sign my passport renewal form. I was 20. Living in London. But Ireland required I get my Daddy's permission to renew my passport. :rolleyes:
The 80s for me was all about Queer London - chatting to the drag queens and rent boys in some awful burger joint at 3 am down King's Cross, Julian Clary (aka Joan Collins Fan Club) down the Hackney Empire, The Tube on Channel 4, AIDS, Clause 28, Thatcher, I loved the freedom of it all after Ireland. So many interesting people doing interesting things - often while wearing interesting frocks:p. It was a revelation, and not a welly boot or itchy jumper in sight. I wore doc marten boots, a leather jacket, nice shirts and, for special occasions, a silver brocade waistcoat and not once did I hear 'are you a boy or a girl!?!?!'. I did get called a ****** once - but that was a case of mistaken gender identity. The heckler was Irish....:rolleyes:
It was hard to be Irish in the UK at times as the IRA and their allies engaged in bombings.. Yet, only twice did I encounter anti-Irish sentiment - once aimed not at me but at a family of travellers by an English council housing worker - he was sacked. The other was more part of some in-fighting where I worked and came from a West Indian. She was sacked.
I was so deeply ashamed to be Irish after Warrington.
I remember being in King's Cross the night of the fire - I was on my way into the Tube Station when I met my cousin, a firefighter, coming out. He wouldn't let me in. I couldn't understand what he was doing in King's Cross when his station was Hammersmith. He saved my life that night.
I had no debts and a good income. I bought a house in 1988 for £17,500str - my salary was £16,500 p.a. - not bad for a 24 year old single parent.
Now, my income is ok - but it is a pittance compared to the 200,000 my current house cost me.
If I had know the 80s were my decade I would have paid a lot more attention at the time.
You'd be surprised just how much we have in common;) Quite freaky in fact!!0 -
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I remember if you wanted something from Argos you had to wait until your auntie was changing to visit from England.
It was also bloody difficult to get 'hair care' products apart from brylcreem and (I think) True Gel. I used to have to bring mousses, foams, wetlook gels and who knows what else over when I visited. One suitcase used to look like I was a travelling salesman working for Boots. I did buy my 501's over here. They were half the price in Cork compared to what I would pay in London.
The other thing was the abortion train...:mad:. In the 80s it was illegal to give out any information on abortion in Ireland - even the ads in British magazines for family planning clinics who offered abortion among their services were censored. A group of Irish people in the UK got together and created a voluntary service where we would supply that information to anyone who needed it, meet them at the airport, be there to support them and bring them back to the airport. It used to break my heart to see these poor, distracted, women so terrified that I would judge them. Like my opinion mattered - it was their lives and their choice. I just believed that they had the right to choose, regardless of what Catholic Ireland said.
My favourite 'game' when home was going into chemists and pleasantly, politely, but firmly and in a normal tone of voice ask for a box of condoms please. The number of times I got asked was I married - to which I would reply 'no- I'm a lesbian. May I have a box of ribbed durex please?' I never did manage to get any condoms, but I got threatened with hell a LOT.
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The Irish Press
Went bust a long while ago
The Examiner was for the Corkonians
The Irish Independent was a respected newspaper and not the rag it currently is
Yeah, hard to believe isn't it
We had Atlantic 252!
Hollywood Hayes, Dusty Rhodes, they had all the toones :cool:
Torrents? Mp3? Hah, you got a tape recorder and recorded the songs off the radio and prayed the presenter wouldn't start yapping during the song
Story went around it was on some offshore rig in the Atlantic to escape licensing law
Truth was they were in a field in Co Meath, far less glamorous 0 -
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We had the half penny
I remember going to the sweet shop with these
http://www.irishcoinage.com/JPEGS/HP_75_S.JPG
We had Millennium 50p coins
http://www.irishcoinage.com/K00002.HTM
This interesting website shows how they made the 5p and 10p smaller and lighter
http://www.irishcoinage.com/DECCAT.HTM
Most shops would accept sterling coins nay bother.
Not the 20p but they'd accept everything else.
Sterling was worth more, they were probably happy to get it
Not strange at all for kids to be using sterling 10p and if they were rich sterling 50p to buy sweets0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 24128
therewillbe wrote: »Smithwicks Shandy!mmnnnnn:cool:
And there was Double Diamond .
And all the lads complains the pint had gone up to 95 pence.
"It it goes over the pound ya won't see me in here" 0 -
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Hardly anyone had mobile phones.
There were car phones however. You were seriously loaded if you had one of these.
I remember bricks of phones and they were 088. Eircell existed back then
I don't remember if that was eighties or nineties though
You called that person you were mad about on the housephone [if you had one!] and hoped your brothers and sisters weren't listening in
Or you went down to the local phone box
These were everywhere, Telecom Éireann had a network of them around the country, even a small village had one.
If you were in a good area there would even be a yellow pages in the phone box. Surprisingly not vandalized or stolen
Phone boxes are rare nowadays
SMS text message? What's that
Didn't exist yet0 -
Nobody had mobile phones.
There were car phones however. You were seriously loaded if you had one of these.
I remember bricks of phones and they were 088. Eircell existed back then
I don't remember if that was eighties or nineties though
You called that person you were mad about on the housephone [if you had one!] and hoped your brothers and sisters weren't listening in
Or you went down to the local phone box
These were everywhere, Telecom Éireann had a network of them around the country, even a small village had one.
Almost all gone nowadays
SMS text message? What's that
Didn't exist yet
But the Post Office managed to have 2 mail deliveries a day. If the letter you were waiting for didn't come in the morning you were on tenderhooks until the 'afternoon post' came.0 -
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