50 years ago...

looksee · 02-08-2020 1:36pm #1

What do you recall from 1970 - fifty years ago? Personal or political memories, does anything stand out from half a century ago?

It was quite a busy year for me, the year my first child was born, leaving Zambia where I had been working and bringing my husband to meet my family for the first time. I was 7 months pregnant when we flew back to the UK, just about the last day I could fly.

The journey was uneventful, we thought, but we were a bit puzzled that we were not allowed off the plane at Cairo, the plane was surrounded by armed soldiers which was a bit unusual, though not alarming.

When we got to London we discovered that we had been travelling through a day of hijacking of four planes by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, at least one of the planes ended up in the desert, full of hostages. We knew nothing of this, but my parents waiting for us at the airport in London, in those pre-internet days, had picked up odd bits of information but had no idea to what extent we had been caught up in it.

Garlinge · 04-08-2020 10:30pm

50 yrs ago I was an overworked hotel worker in a foreign land. I remember trying to explain ( and understand myself) what was going on in N Ireland.

Oscar Bravo · 04-08-2020 10:31pm

Edison lighthouse were top of the charts with Love grows where my Rosemary goes

3d4life · 05-08-2020 6:43pm

looksee wrote: »

... leaving Zambia where I had been working and bringing my husband to meet my family for the first time. I was 7 months pregnant when we flew back to the UK,......

Talking of Zambia, yesterday was 4th August.

I finished off reading a book on the life and times of the man the Zambians called Chipembele. He died on 4th August ( 1967 ).
To borrow a word from Dame Edna : 'Spooky'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Gore-Browne

Graces7 · 27-08-2020 1:37pm

Fifty years ago I was struggling with a serious illness. Still am. But at peace and easier to have no regrets at this way past "three score years and ten" age. The things I loved then are what I still enjoy and that feed and support. There is constancy in that.

looksee · 27-08-2020 2:07pm

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Edison lighthouse were top of the charts with Love grows where my Rosemary goes

So that's my earworm for the day

Beasty · 05-02-2021 8:53pm

50 years ago on 14 February - decimalisation (both Ireland and the UK)

Was fascinated by money in those days (and still am!) - I actually did a (primary!) school project on the topic.

spurious · 06-02-2021 10:30am

I can still convert 17/6 to decimal. It's kind of scary the junk the brain carries around in it.

Beasty · 06-02-2021 11:17am

I've a maths degree and am constantly converting miles to km, inches to mm, kgs to lbs and vice versa in my head just for the hell of it.

I can still remember my first credit card number from 1979 (only 13 digits in those days though - expired March 1982, and limit of £100!)

Pounds shilling and pence was a great system for understanding basic arithmetic. Decimalisation made calculations easy. Then they invented calculators. My mental arithmetic skills have stood me well throughout my life though. At school I never did any homework at home. I would just finish my maths lesson in 15 mins or so and use the remaining 45 mins to do any homework

looksee · 06-02-2021 11:41am

I don't have a numbers head at all and can remember struggling to learn my times tables as a child, though they stood me in good stead all my life.

I am good at working out sizes and dimensions of something I am making, in my own peculiar way. This can involve using a mixture of metric and imperial which ever number appeals to me looking at the tape measure! I seem to use numbers visually, can't quite explain it. I have made some pretty tidy stuff over the years though so I must be doing something right.

However I still have clear memories of standing in class in junior school doing mental arithmetic. Horrors. Multiplying pounds, shillings and pence! 8 dresses at £1 13s 8p each. Multiplying the numbers and dividing by 12 and 20 is not so difficult, remembering the resulting numbers while you do the next bit is the killer!

Wyldwood · 07-02-2021 10:05pm

50 years ago, almost to the day, got married. Big anniversary coming up that we can't celebrate with family and friends, sadly.

Jellybaby_1 · 08-02-2021 8:46pm

Like Looksee, I'm also not good with numbers. Happier in English lessons than Maths. Why did the Americans reduce maths to math? Do they only use single numbers????? !!!!!! (joke, really!)

Jellybaby_1 · 09-02-2021 1:42am

Fifty years ago I was 19 years old and had just started dating the old guy I live with now! We were both wearing bell-bottoms, long hair, and grooving to 'Maggie May' sung by Rod Stewart.

Beasty · 09-02-2021 11:52am

Jellybaby_1 wrote: »

and grooving to 'Maggie May' sung by Rod Stewart.

He's worn a bit better than some of his contemporaries (Rod at the 3Arena in 2019)

Certainly compared to one of the other "Faces" around that time (Ronnie Wood picture was taken a few weeks later in Birmingham)

looksee · 09-02-2021 12:53pm

Sometimes these guys should just retire - I heard Paul McCartney a few years ago on some celebration show on tv - and I would be a McCartney fan - and his voice was very feeble, as in, old age feeble. My voice is a bit more feeble than it was, but I don't go on stage singing. Thank god. I'd rather remember them as they were.

Beasty · 09-02-2021 4:22pm

Ronnie Wood was brilliant. Rod sold out to disco 40+ years ago. TBH I'm enjoying (or was before Covid) the return of many "stars" from the 60s and 70s. I suspect all the new technology helps, but most of them still show a lot of talent

Here's one of my favourite pictures I've taken of a "star" from the 70s making another comeback in 2019

Good 'ol Vince Furnier as was...

Jellybaby_1 · 09-02-2021 5:47pm

We're led to believe that Alice Cooper is really a pussycat! Actually there are few around as good as they were. Don McClean might be an exception though as the last time I saw him sing a few years ago he could still hit the notes, also Mick from Simply Red.

Beasty · 10-02-2021 12:58am

Jellybaby_1 wrote: »

also Mick from Simply Red.

This fella

Took that one shortly before lockdown last year

Now I'm going to get into trouble from looksee for taking this thread even further off-topic...

Boardnashea · 10-02-2021 6:16pm

spurious wrote: »

I can still convert 17/6 to decimal. It's kind of scary the junk the brain carries around in it.

I worked with a wonderful lady who could calculate VAT at 3.75% on any amount in Pounds, shillings and pence in seconds (or whatever the % was at the time)! She probably learnt off the whole ready reckoner book!

piwyudo0fhn57b · 10-02-2021 6:31pm

Interesting stories to read

Exiled1 · 10-02-2021 6:40pm

1970 - first time I saw a colour tv. in boarding school and we were allowed to watch the World Cup game between Brazil and England along with about 100 other students. I was near the back and the combination of distance from a 21" tv and a snowy reception, it is fair to say the game itself did little for me.... but to see tv in colour..... wow.

Jellybaby_1 · 10-02-2021 9:36pm

(Almost) fifty years ago, I also saw my first television set (B&W) in my friend's house. I was amazed, couldn't wait to run home and tell mammy what television was like: "just like the wireless only you can see the people, mammy!!" So I figures if I can see them, then they can see me! Happy days.

Fann Linn · 10-02-2021 10:04pm

Vague memory of two defectors from either Soviet Russia or Cuba landing in Ireland and claiming asylum and then a month or so later wishing to go back from where they came from as things were so bad here.

looksee · 11-02-2021 12:19am

Neighbours had a tv - a cabinet tv with a small screen, which was carefully kept covered when not in use - and a group of the local kids were allowed in on a Sunday to watch The Lone Ranger - sitting on the floor on our best behaviour! That would have been about 1955 so a bit over the 50 years

Jellybaby_1 · 11-02-2021 12:35am

We had ornaments sitting on top of our television!

Beasty · 11-02-2021 1:12am

14 inch B&W was all we had until the early 1970s - then colour TVs became available. I think a lot of people (in England anyway) would rent their TVs by that time

In 1969 the Bilsdale TV mast (in the North Yorks Moors) came online - that meant we moved from 1 channel (BBC 1) to 3 (with BBC 2 and Tyne Tees added to the schedules)

looksee · 11-02-2021 10:43am

I recall an aunt and uncle of mine had a colour tv in what must have been the early or mid 60s. It was dreadful, dizzying splodges of over-bright colour that was very difficult to watch, I preferred the b&w.

Jellybaby_1 · 11-02-2021 8:30pm

When we got our first colour television in the 80's it gave me headaches. Took a while to get used to.

JuliusCaesar · 11-02-2021 10:22pm

Suddenly I feel so young! 1970 was the year I started secondary school!:o

bluenose1956 · 11-02-2021 11:00pm

Beasty wrote: »

50 years ago on 14 February - decimalisation (both Ireland and the UK)

Was fascinated by money in those days (and still am!) - I actually did a (primary!) school project on the topic.

14 February 1971, “D-Day”. Living in Birmingham, we were moving to a newly built house. I was volunteered to go and wait for the MEB (Midlands Electricity Board) to come and connect us and read the meter. A day off school for me but it was freezing while I waited.

It was also the day we had our first fridge delivered, we’d had a “cold shelf”before then for milk, butter, cheese and things which are nowadays kept refrigerated without question.

Happy days, I had just turned 15.

Jellybaby_1 · 12-02-2021 9:01pm

This forum must be like gold dust to any students of social history!

50 years ago...

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