The other morning I read and went totally bananas for this marvelous combo piece from two very lovely ladies, my good friend
and new friend , about growing up in the 1970’s and some real free range parenting. Immediately I hit the heart button and restacked; moments later my friend from across the pond popped up in my comments section and we took another one of our walks down memory lane.Please read the totally awesome article that inspired this collaboration here, and thanks again ladies for giving us your blessings to share our own fond childhood memories about growing up in the 1980’s! This was all Trudi’s doing and I love it! Although we’ve never met, Trudi and I have so much in common as women and mothers who grew up in the same era. Truly this is what connection means to me and it’s the main reason I’m here writing on Substack.
It doesn’t hurt that I am a self-professed Anglophile and hail from one of the original thirteen colonies, born and raised in the town formerly known as Princetown,—coming of age back when Princess Diana was merely a shy and beautiful school teacher about to marry a real life prince!
Without further ado I present Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Also if I were ever to somehow become reincarnated as a princess, I hope I come back as Princess Margaret and get to smoke like a chimney and party like it was 1999.
Anyway, ladies first so here’s Trudi 😜
Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Growing up in eighties Britain
Music
When I think back to the eighties and what it was like to live through that era as an impressionable teen, the first thing that comes to mind is the music. What a soundtrack to grow up to! I remember listening to The Human League’s ‘Don’t you want me’ on repeat in my bedroom, hunched over a tiny tape recorder and repeatedly pressing rewind so I could learn the lyrics. Madness, Adam and the Ants and Bucks Fizz were other bands I listened to and loved in the early part of the decade.
I had something similar to this to play cassettes on. I also used it to record the Top 40 each week. You had to be really quick with pause to cut the DJ off from talking over the end of the songs!
When Wham! Arrived on the pop scene, everything changed for me. My first love major crush was on George Michael. (I know! But we didn’t know, then!) I was an absolute maniac Whamette and followed the band avidly, buying every Smash Hits magazine they featured in and plastering their faces all over my bedroom wall. When Mum bought me the ‘Make It Big’ album for Christmas, I felt my life was complete. Things really were that simple, back then. To be fair, all it takes now are the opening bars of ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ to get me dancing embarrassing myself on the dancefloor, eighties style.
Live Aid
I will always remember the huge international event that was Live Aid. 13th July 1985 and I was 13 years old. I’d asked Mum if I could watch the whole concert, which was a mammoth 16 hours long. I ensured I had enough blank cassettes to record the music from the radio and set up an empty bottle for donations (to send to the fundraisers) from Mum’s friends who popped in and out all day to drink wine watch. My only commitment that day was a paper round (delivering the evening newspaper). Of course, Wham! played live whilst I was out pushing papers through letterboxes. Gutted does not describe how I felt. But, I still got to see Queen, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, all favourites still.
Fashion
I loved the bright colours of eighties clothes and always opted for the cerise pink or day glo accessories, usually bought from the market. I had a pair of white stiletto heeled shoes that I looked a bugger in loved and a pale pink string vest that hung over my white t-shirt. Plastic jewellery shaped like smarties in luminous tones complemented every outfit. I desperately wanted a rara skirt (my sister had a green and white dotted one) but I never got the chance. One summer, I suggested having a hair dye stall at our school fundraiser and we sprayed the front of everyone’s hair with bright colours and glitter for 20p a go. We didn’t know about the ozone then; hairspray was a must along with our Avon perfume and frosted pink lipstick. Cringe. When Princess Di had her famous flicked hairstyle, I wanted one too. It looked shit didn’t quite work on my poker straight hair. I never felt I was in fashion in the eighties but, looking back, I don’t think anyone was!
Me sporting the dayglow pink hairspray c.1983 and with my Princess Di flicks c. 1985
Technology
The TV was the biggest source of entertainment in our house and Mum would worry about us going ‘goggle eyed’ if we ‘were glued’ to the screen for too long. Hart to Hart and Sapphire and Steel were my favourites. Then came computers. My Commodore 64 took an age to load crappy innovative games and my absolute favourite was a hand held Donkey Kong in an orange case. I equally rocked at Space Invaders, which you paid to play at the local swimming baths. But I never wasted invested hours of my time on tech as I had friends to see and places to go outside in the real world, all without the inconvenience of a mobile phone. If we were late home, we were grounded.
My Donkey Kong console looked like this, that is, until I stood on the screen in my aforementioned stilettos and cracked it. At least I’d rescued the princess by then.
Trips to the cinema were a highlight. I remember queuing to see E.T. and crying my heart out at the end. On an impromptu visit on the way home from the market one day, Mum took us to see Flash Gordon. We sat in the darkened auditorium munching fruit from our shopping bags. Later on, The Lost Boys became an all-time favourite.
Overall, I think the best thing about growing up in the eighties was the freedom we had. Wham! provided the theme tune and we provided the mischief adventures, in real time, with real people, face-to-face. I wish more kids could experience childhoods like that!
Thanks Trudi! By the way I think you look like a young Diana Spencer! Well here’s me in America back in 1981. I love those Dorothy Hamill haircut vibes coupled with The Walton’s, or maybe that’s a Little House on the Prairie inspired outfit? Who knows and thanks Mom. Let’s also talk about the simple Snoopy toy I appear to be absolutely thrilled with. Or the plaid couch that every house in America picked up at Sears because every living room in the country contained the very same couch!
This is one of thousands of photos from my Dearest Mommy Debbie’s personal archives. Geez Louise can someone ask my mother what the hell she was thinking cutting my hair like that? Don’t worry I love my mother very much, in fact I just got off a call with her,—begged her to find those Hands Across America ticket stubs from 1986 so I could share them with Trudi for this collaboration.
When I think of the 1980’s I always first remember the music. My parents, who have been married since 1972, are huge music fans,— dad loves The Beatles and I don’t think anyone will ever top King Elvis Presley in Debbie’s book.
I was born on New Year’s Eve 1975, moments before America began to celebrate the Bicentennial so basically I grew up with my young parents. Apparently on the night I was born the nurses were drinking champagne at the nurses station! My parents also laugh and recall the doctor who was about to perform Debbie’s c-section was a little tipsy too. Well there’s nothing funny about that anymore, I’m just grateful I survived. I did get to disappoint my Baby Boomer parents from day one by not being born a few minutes later and winning the coveted First Baby of ‘76 title.
My memory is good, but not that good. I don’t really remember the 70’s, but oh I remember my 1980’s childhood, especially all the free range parenting! Please bring back that wild and free, garden hose drinking, slipping and sliding with a third degree sunburn childhood of mine. I kind of miss riding sans seatbelt and nearly suffocating to death in the way back of Nanny Shirley’s big blue station wagon facing traffic. I took a lot of road trips with Nanny to visit her family back in Western Pennsylvania and this made me love Cori’s story even more.
Somewhere in Debbie’s crawl space are the Cabbage Patch Kids my sister and I received for Christmas in July. Debbie tried, but couldn’t get them in time for Christmas and we all survived another disappointment. We kept the faith because we went to church every Sunday and look,— here’s me again starring as the Virgin Mary in the Calvary Baptist Church annual Christmas pageant.
My parents still have the giant stereo system they bought when they got married, it’s also somewhere in their garage. Like most parents, my parents were slightly different when they stepped outside of church,—all spare the rod and spoil the child if you know what I mean. On the weekends my parents dropped me off at Nanny Shirley’s house where the rest of my first cousins had already been dumped off. While my parents were out having the time of their life, I’d watch WWF wrestling with my cousins who were all boys, and then watch as they reenacted the moves in Nanny’s paneled den. I’m not exactly sure where Nanny was. Until one day cousin Jason thought he was Superfly Jimmy Snuka and broke his wrist flying off the back of the plaid couch. At least that’s how I remember it, but conveniently my mother and her brothers don’t remember a thing about the 1980’s.
On Friday nights my dad would play records while he waited for Debbie to tease her permed hair and apply massive quantities of blue eyeshadow before they went to the bowling alley. Me? I preferred the half pink, half blue eyeshadow look that I learned not to blend from a Seventeen magazine article. In the 80’s Debbie had every magazine subscription on the planet delivered to our door, so really there was no reason to ever complain about being bored. If I did dare complain, I’d either find myself cleaning the bathroom or kicked outside until dark. Complain more and Debbie would give me something to cry about.
Dad would dance around the living room, cocktail in hand smelling like Old Spice and play everything from The Beatles, Lionel Richie, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, The Turtles or his other favorite band, The Beach Boys. To this day my dear dad will tell you that Juice Newton, Pat Benatar and Stevie Nicks can lay their boots by his bed any night. My mom didn’t mind at all since she was completely obsessed with George Michael from Wham! I always felt it was unfair Andrew Ridgeley didn’t get more attention, but no one seemed to worry about fairness or attention back then. We can fight over Last Christmas being one of the greatest holiday jams of all-time another day because I am willing to die on that hill. Truly I don’t think Debbie ever got over George Michael coming out of the closet, only because I believe she had a hall pass for one night with him. Listen my parents are tons of fun and let’s say the apple didn’t fall from the old tree here.
Back then I loved the sounds of Michael Jackson, U2, Debbie Gibson and America’s mall queen Tiffany. Please don’t even get me started on my obsession with the New Kids on the Block, we’ll be here all day. Just know that I had a NKOTB pillowcase, a nightgown too, and my walls were once plastered with centerfold pictures of mmm, the one and only Jordan Knight.
Every weekend was spent at the local mall which had a Spaceport Arcade with ashtrays, a Ticketmaster booth and a movie theater. I definitely remember catching Annie and E.T. with my parents, and every Molly Ringwald movie ever made with my cousin Jen. Of course no mall would be complete without a Sears or a JCPenney, but I loved to shop at The Limited and collect those brightly colored Firenza sweaters. It also had this carpeted play area,—my parents would leave us there and complete strangers would sit on the benches smoking cigarettes whilst watching little children play.
Can you imagine? Looking back it was so carefree, actually really great and these were much simpler and more innocent times for sure.
By 1988,—no ‘89,—I was teasing my own hair with a can of Aquanet a day. I played Appetite for Destruction on repeat so many times the cassette would snap! Relax,—don’t do it, the cassettes were cheap and besides I already had a job at a pizzeria, so I only had to walk down to the local Sam Goody and purchase a new one with the cash I knew how to actually use. Everything was cheap back then including the Boone’s Farm wine I somehow managed to obtain and go chug in a cornfield with my friends.
That’s me again on the left in the culottes, and yes those are actual Reeboks with the straps! We’re pictured there in the gardens of Hershey Park which was basically our own Wally World and we visited every summer. Here’s another shot of my parents for reference, talk about National Lampoon’s vibes!
Are you there God? It’s me Kristin. Please give me a good old American family road trip any summer. My parents and grandparents absolutely knew something about parenting in their day. Every summer I like to bond with my children by trapping them in my SUV where I force them to listen to the music of my childhood for hours and don’t stop until I feel like stopping.
Long live the Queens of the 80’s!
P.S. Thanks for sending the tickets Mom. Let’s see I turned 15 in 1990, but seem to have suddenly developed amnesia when it comes to that entire decade. 😇
I loved Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ... so add this girl to the bunch of girls who enjoyed your trek through memory-land. Are you planning to do a follow up, a part 2?
You guys are outta my age bracket. I was 41 in 1990. My daughters are closer to your ages! <sigh>
Ah, the 80s.....a blur of grief, rage, new wave, and California summers. 😎