Recently, one of our number (The Other Michael) posted clip from X. It was a “skit song” based on the Madness hits “Our House and Baggy Trousers”. It was a delightful ditty reminiscing on all the good things about the 1980s. Sadly it was on Tik Tok and I have not been able to reproduce it here.
However, it did start me thinking. So, I have researched some reminiscences (using my trusty Pears Encyclopaedia), both for the Country and the World and also things that I personally recollect of those years. I also have to hand a small leaflet hoarded from 1985 entitled “The British Economy in Figures” from which I shall draw some of the items that seem to be of particular interest and relevance.
In 1980 I was working for an agricultural machinery company. It supplied and installed dairy milking parlours, grain stores, slurry stores and irrigation systems in addition to tractors, ploughs, drills, combine harvesters etc. It also provided servicing and spares for the equipment we sold. I had worked there since 1975. It was conveniently placed so that I could walk to work. The only disagreeable job that I ever had to undertake there was the annual stock take of spare parts.
Every employee took part. Counting lamb castration rings is incredibly boring, believe me. There were always hundreds of them.
When I began work there, I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about the farming business, but it was a steady job and suited my situation. My ignorance was rapidly brought home to me when one day I announced that I should rather like to have a house cow and to have my own milk on tap. I was then asked what I would do with the calf it had produced. I brightly chirped up that I wouldn’t allow it to have a calf as I wouldn’t have the space! Cue uproarious laughter! In my ignorance, I had failed to make the (obvious really) connection between human and animal process of lactation. It was doubly embarrassing because I had two children of my own by then!
You may guess at the level of embarrassment suffered, by the fact that the incident still has the power to make me cringe upon the remembrance up to this day.
Some notable events of the1980s are:-
1980
5/5/80 The SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy.
18/5/80 Mount St Helen erupted
15/10/80 James Callaghan resigned as Labour Leader after Mrs Thatcher won in 1979
4/11/80 Ronald Reagan became USA President
1981
30/3/81 Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Hilton in Washington
11/4/81 The Brixton Riots
3/7/81 The Southall Riots
4/7/81 The Toxteth Riots
29/7/81 Charles and Diana married
The Brixton Riots were clashes between mainly black youths and the Metropolitan Police over the contentious issue of Stop and Search and perceived police brutality that was claimed to be racial profiling.
the Southall Riots were the result of racial tensions that began after the murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar (an engineering student) who was stabbed to death on a quiet night out with friends. This led to the formation of SYM (Southall Youth Movement) to challenge racism and attacks from the National Front. The riots of 1981 took place between Asian youths and members of Peoples Unite after a skinhead gig at Hambrough Tavern in Southall.
The Toxteth Riots were a civil disturbance between police and the black community over perceived racial discrimination because of Stop and Search and inner-city deprivation.
It seems incredible that 43 years ago violent incidents were already happening in Britain, where the population had not yet exploded to the numbers living here today. The fact that the police, who appear to have been motivated at that time by especially targeting black and Asian residents, have done a complete volte face and now discriminate openly against “whites” is hard to dismiss.
1982
18/3/82 Argentina invaded South Georgia and put up the Argentine flag.
2/4/82 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
25/4/82 British troops re-captured South Georgia.
2/5/82 The Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by British fire.
14/6/82 Falkland Islands ceasefire.
11/10/82 The Mary Rose was raised
31/10/82 The Thames Barrier was inaugurated
I remember 1982 particularly from a personal viewpoint. It was the year after my divorce from my first husband and the year I took my two children (13 and 5) on a camping holiday at the South of France. Family and friends threw up their hands in horror that I was planning to embark on the journey alone and at the start of the Falklands conflict. But I figured it was too far away to be of the least problem to me. So we went.
It took 20 hours on a coach, but the camp site was already pitched and equipment provided. There were excellent facilities on the site and apart from the mosquitos there was nothing to complain about. I had paid for three excellent day trips in advance. So we went to St Tropez, The Iles D’Hyere and a place that looked rather like Venice that I do not recall the name of at present. Every morning the staff rounded up the children after breakfast and took them off for activities according to their ages. My son won third prize in the fancy dress competition arrayed as King Neptune and the two of them won the sandcastle building competition. There was evening entertainment for those that wished it. I hired bicycles on one day and we rode to the next small town for an explore. We came back with shopping hanging from the handlebars in carrier bags. We had a full 14 days at the resort and apart from the long journey each way, it was thoroughly enjoyed by us all.
1983
21/4/83 The new UK £1 coin was released
2/10/83 Neil Kinnock became Labour leader
26/11/83 Heathrow £26m bullion robbery
28/11/83 European Space Laboratory launched
Looking back at Neil Kinnock and comparing him (impossibly inept as he was) with our current Labour Leader, I find myself marvelling that at this distance Kinnock actually seems very moderate compared to Starmer!
I wonder how much that bullion heist would be valued at today now that gold has once again become the most desirable hedge against economic adversity.
1983 Was special to me because it was the year I bought my first house entirely on my own. I had a very helpful and encouraging bank manager who helped me enormously over the first two years of my holding a mortgage. He allowed me a two-year overdraft, saw me once every quarter and audited my accounts to make sure that I was still able to stick to the plan that had been set out.
You won’t get service like that today!
1984
17/4/84 WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan Embassy during the 10-day siege.
20/6/84 The new GCSE exams were announced to replace the “old style” GCE
25/7/84 The Soviet Union had the first woman cosmonaut (Svetlana Savitskaya) to fly in space twice and to walk in space on her second mission.
31/8/84 TUC backed the pit strike
6/11/84 Ronald Reagan was elected for a second term as President of the USA
I believe that the change from GCE to GCSE was a huge milestone on the mission to dumb down examinations in particular and education in general.
Every time I watch the film Billy Elliot, I mourn the pathos and the destitution that the long miners’ strike caused. It seems doubly emotive now that the insanity of Net Zero makes the stifling of our coal industry utterly futile. The knowledge that the Chinese are opening new coal mines and the new Donald Trump Presidency is going to increase its own “fossil fuel” production is galling. We, in contrast are suffering from the government embargo on using our own energy sources, causing us to import from others at high cost. Thus, we endure the highest energy prices in the World and make not the smallest difference to “Climate Change”!
1985
29/1/85 Oxford refused to endow Mrs Thatcher with an honorary degree
28/9/85 Brixton Riots
6/10/85 Broadwater Farm riots - policeman killed
3/3/85 The Miners Strike ended.
Oxford refused to grant Mrs Thatcher an honorary degree because of her government’s cuts to the education budget.
The Brixton Riots broke out because police (while searching the family home for an armed robber) accidentally shot the robber’s mother (Cherry Groce).
The Broadwater Farm incident broke out because Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure during a police search of her home. There was unrest in several English cities and a breakdown of relations between the police and some of the black community. The savage attack on police officer PC Blakelock lives in infamy.
1985 is also memorable to me because after ten years with the same firm, I found another job in the financial services sector. I had been used to cycle to work but the new job was further away. I couldn’t drive and the bus service was hopeless so I went back to see my bank manager and took out a loan for a small motorbike that I could ride with L plates. Never having ridden one before I arranged to have an “induction” lesson one Saturday morning. All was going well until, while I was waiting for my turn at the next exercise, I had forgotten to take it out of gear. An unwary movement on the throttle tipped me forward and I fell off. (Fortunately, no one was in the way!) However, my confidence was severely dented, so I elected to have the bike transported home rather than try to ride it on the road myself. It took me a week to pluck up enough courage to take it out of the garage and try again. I waited until evening and it was all quiet. With great trepidation I rode it on a circuit around the town. Within a week I was riding it to work. I took a weekly cycling proficiency course and passed. The day I passed my test (first time) I was so elated and euphoric, I know I was a danger to life and limb on the road as I went back to the office and ceremoniously tore up my L plates. But I really loved that bike. It gave me so much more freedom of movement. I only stopped using it when the firm I was working for said that if I could drive I could have a company car. So I learned to drive.
1986
28/1/86 Challenger Shuttle crash on take off
26/4/86 Chernobyl nuclear accident
20/6/86 Ban on sheep movement in Cumbria and North Wales due to radiation
22/7/86 Corporal punishments banned in schools
1987
20/1/87 Archbishop of Canterbury Special Envoy Terry Waite kidnapped in Beirut
12/6/87 Princess Anne created Princess Royal
17/8/87 Rudolf Hess committed Suicide
19/8/87 Hungerford massacre.
Terry Waite was kept in captivity for five years. He was finally released on 18th November 1991.
He was knighted by King Charles III on 8th November 2023. He is a remarkable man.
Rudolf Hess flew to Britain in 1941 in an unsuccessful solo peace mission. He was cleared of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg but was convicted of crimes against peace and condemned to life In prison. He died in Spandau Prison.
The Hungerford massacre was carried out by a 27-year-old who killed 16 people including an unarmed policeman and his own Mother before he killed himself. No motive was ever decided.
The autumn of 1987 is memorable because of the Great Storm that raged through the South of England. Michael Fish, the weather forecaster, memorably decreed that it was not going to be a hurricane! The devastation caused was immense.
1988
4/12/88 Edwina Currie became famous (infamous?) for the Salmonella in eggs scandal’.
12/12/88 Clapham rail crash.
21/12/88 A PanAm Jumbo Jet was brought down over Lockerbie by a terrorist bomb.
Edwina Currie claimed that eggs were all infected with Salmonella. This resulted in a crash in the sale of eggs and angered both producers and politicians alike. She resigned after the destruction of around 400 million eggs and the slaughter of around 4 million hens. She is almost as well known for her “fling” with John Major.
The Clapham rail crash was the result of “human error” the electrician who was installing new wiring did not effectively isolate the old wiring to the signal. Thus one train crashed into another that was stopped at a signal ahead. 35 people died.
The Lockerbie bombing of the PanAm jumbo jet where 270 people died was investigated for several years before Abdelbaset-al-Megrahi was convicted and imprisoned.
1989
15/4/89 The Hillsborough football ground disaster.
2/6/89 Tiananmen Square massacre.
2/6/89 Lech Walesa and Solidarity won the Polish elections.
18/9/89 Hungary announced transition to a democracy.
9/11/89 E Germany opened its borders to the West and the Berlin Wall demolition began.
Some facts from the 1985 booklet of the British Economy in Figures:-
GDP was £276.2bn
GDP per head of population was £4,897
Population (est) 56.4M
Total working population 27.061M
Working population as a % = 48%
Actual Prices
Milk cost 22p per pint
Tea cost 53p per 125g
Quarterly season rail ticket (Woking to Waterloo) cost £226
Petroleum = 1 gallon of 4* 189p
A British Leyland Mini cost £3,298
Daily Mail newspaper cost 20p
Quality of Life
Dwellings per 1000 of population = 381
TV licences per 1000 = 330
Private car licences per 1000 = 283
Telephones per 1000 = 520
Refrigerators % of households owning = 94%
Civil Servants per 1000 of population = 11.1
Pupils per teacher = 17.8
Real disposable income per head = £3,898
Consumer expenditure per head of population
Food. = £499
Alcoholic Drink = £254
Rent and Rates = £448
Energy = £301
Durable goods = £334