# Cut backs in the Eighties - the 70s & 80s nostalgia thread.



## dewdrop (27 Oct 2010)

It is often said these cutbacks were very severe. What were the main ones?


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## Marietta (27 Oct 2010)

I can't remember as I emigrated at a young age during the early eighties  but I think that those who stayed behind paid 60% income tax, now that is what I call severe


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## Howitzer (27 Oct 2010)

Not a cut per se, but part of your unemployment benefit was given in tokens for butter and tinned beef.


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## Marietta (27 Oct 2010)

and the CWO gave out shoe vouchers

The health services suffered drastically in that era, hospitals closed, community care and social work services were particular hit, in fact it took more than 20 years for the sector to recover from the scale of those cutbacks.


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## Complainer (27 Oct 2010)

Marietta said:


> The health services suffered drastically in that era, hospitals closed, community care and social work services were particular hit, in fact it took more than 20 years for the sector to recover from the scale of those cutbacks.


They still haven't recovered from the underinvestment of the 80s.


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## Protocol (27 Oct 2010)

I don't think total nominal Govt exp actually fell in the 86-88 period.

It was very tightly constrained.

Large cuts in cap exp, e.g. housing, railways, roads, etc.


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## Romulan (27 Oct 2010)

Anyone remember the outcry when it was proposed to turn off the lights on the M1 to the airport at certain times because the council could not afford the electricity bill?


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## zen (27 Oct 2010)

I grew upin a very disadvantaged area in the inner city.  People shoes were stolen from them.  There was zero money around.  I was only a wippersnapper at the time but remember the oul dear giving me a slip of paper to give to the cheese and milk man that came around some dark evenings. It was always dark I remember.  I never knew any better back then.  I thought thats what the world was like, you queued up for food from a man with a van.  Never asked where he got it from.  Now I'm older and wiser and will probably find myself queing at a van for milk and cheese the way things are heading.  Money is like time.  Both are just concepts.  Both are illusions! The eighters are no different just as money is now.


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## TLC (27 Oct 2010)

One of the big differences with the 80's is that I don't think people had as much personal debt then - we also didn't have such high expectations, not say that was right but it was just a fact of life, travel, nice cars etc.


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## zen (27 Oct 2010)

"One of the big differences with the 80's is that I don't think people had as much personal debt then - we also didn't have such high expectations, not say that was right but it was just a fact of life, travel, nice cars etc. "

couldn't agree more.  Keeping up with the Jones's.


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## z107 (27 Oct 2010)

Interesting thread this.

The next decade is going to make the 80s look like the 00s.


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## TLC (27 Oct 2010)

I do feel sorry for people who were "conned" in the property market - I do think that is the right word to use - the government now talk of "shared responsibility" but as our elected body what is the point of them if they cannot guide people in good times & bad.  They have let us all down & I do fear for all of us in the future.  If only they gave some credible guidance - I don't know about anyone else, but I don't & never have professed to be a financial genius, or understand all the guff about markets etc. just an ordinary Joe Soap trying to do the best I can, who relied on our government to steer us in the right direction.  The cut backs in the 80's affected all aspects of life - taxes, welfare, pay & pensions & the health services - just like now nurses left the country to take up employment overseas & I remember seeing tearful parents seeing their children off at the airports & bus stations - it really is heartbreaking to watch.  I don't know the answer to the countries problems I really don't, but I would hope that (just one example) that people who were serving apprenticeships could be paid to be employed & finish their time with either private or public employers - it would at least make more sense than paying them dole money.


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## fobs (27 Oct 2010)

TLC said:


> One of the big differences with the 80's is that I don't think people had as much personal debt then - we also didn't have such high expectations, not say that was right but it was just a fact of life, travel, nice cars etc.


 
This is true. I remember when we got our first car in the 80's and I was a teenager. We have 2 cars now and consider them essential (they are in fact not) Choice in food/clothes/tv/eating out etc... where worse in the 80's but we never missed what we never had. It is harder to have had a nice lifestyle and go backwards than it is to have never had it.


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## Marietta (27 Oct 2010)

To make matters worse there was no internet during the 80's, no social networking as there is today, apart from the pubs in Kilburn and Cricklewood and the Bronx network of Irish bars in New York.

Good things about the 80's was that the music was good and there was no such thing as Terms and Conditions attached to services.


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## Marietta (27 Oct 2010)

zen said:


> I grew upin a very disadvantaged area in the inner city. People shoes were stolen from them
> 
> 
> There was zero money around. I was only a wippersnapper at the time but remember the oul dear giving me a slip of paper to give to the cheese and milk man that came around some dark evenings. It was always dark I remember. I never knew any better back then. I thought thats what the world was like, you queued up for food from a man with a van. Never asked where he got it from. .


 

Reminds me of this song from the 70's or was it 80's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bQhRVVzAyU


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## Derry (27 Oct 2010)

The 80's were tough alright.
 I was single and taxed @48 % on the first £10,000 and then 60% on the balance. The lowest rate was 35%  In fact I have memories of doing approximately 10 hours overtime one week and all that I actually earned for it after the taxman got his whack was £5.00 extra.!!  Never again  I took time in lieu after that. Mond you Charlie Haughey as Minister for finance had a brainwave of introducing an early retirement scheme for public servants to reduce the numbers and halve the pay bill. A few of my work collegues availed of the scheme but were subsequently rehired on temporary contracts along with their pension.  I see there is talk of Brian Lenihan introducing a similar type scheme again in order to reduce public service numbers, so will it be the same old carry on again? Public servants avail of the scheme & rehired a week or so later?


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## PaddyBloggit (27 Oct 2010)

I reckon the re-hiring part will be the part that won't be repeated.


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## dmos87 (27 Oct 2010)

PaddyBloggit said:


> I reckon the re-hiring part will be the part that won't be repeated.


 
I really hope so


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## roker (28 Oct 2010)

1980 I had trouble getting a bridging loan for my house, banks were not giving loans, possible that's what should have happened recently. But I built a 4 bedroom bungalow for IR£22,000 + £3,500 for 1/2 acre


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## becky (28 Oct 2010)

PaddyBloggit said:


> I reckon the re-hiring part will be the part that won't be repeated.



I agree, it won't be repeated.  It's the main reason they haven't gone down this road so far.  When they did this in the 80's they had to rehire the nurses they pensioned off.


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## zen (28 Oct 2010)

I look at this MTV CocaCola/XFactor generation with their mp3 players big brother reality shows with a mixed feeling of envy and growing concern. They will get the biggest wake-up call if it ever gets to not only the levels I witnessed but they will think its the end of the world if it extends to our parents level. Reality will hit them like a freight train and it wont be like no big brother show they have ever seen before.
In the eighties I had to ask for a slice of bread. We never had a breakfast. We all waited for my dad to make the dinner, we sat around and waited for it to be made, we didn't need to be called in. No food ever went into the bin. We used to wrestle each other for the heel of the bread as there was more eating in it, these days every one throws out the heel. All my clothes were hand-me-downs. My shoes always leaked and when I walked to Christian brother school they squelched in the rain. I would develop trenchfoot by the time I got there. My toes shrivelled like prunes. I always tried to get in early but didn't, it was too cold to get out of bed. At school I dry my hole ridden odd socks on the radiators that sometime worked. When they got dry they were nice and warm and hard like cardboard. As soon as I got in I could not wait for the milk and buns which we got at 11am. I was so hungry all the time. I dont think I have ever been that hungry before.
But something tells me that I'm well prepared for whatever comes as I had been privatised to be underprivileged. I witnessed tough times as I was there but nowhere near what my folks went through. My only fear is that it doesn't stoop to that level! For me, now, this is no recession. It hasn't even come close.


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## Towger (28 Oct 2010)

zen said:


> My shoes always leaked and when I walked to Christian brother school they squelched in the rain.


 
Frank McCourt, is that you? Have you risen from the grave?   Anyway, this is Ireland, it was never too cold to get out of bed.  I remember walking through the big show (1982?) in the early hours of the morning to school and waiting around outside for almost a hour for a teacher to arrive.  Who sent us home!  Ice on the inside of the windows was a regular occurrence and yes the yellow current buns and small glass milk bottles were nice. But things were never that bad, were they!


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## TLC (28 Oct 2010)

We bought our house in the 80's - interest rate 14% & bridging 19%!  Luckily we were only on that for 2 months - talk about rip-off.  My husbands take home pay was £95 a week & he got his overtime etc. every 4 weeks (the big week) that was usually around £200 including his regular pay.  Out of that we paid the mort. esb, heating etc. we didn't even have a phone! & if there was any money left we had a night out.  To be honest it wasn't the most enjoyable time of our lives & I hope it doesn't go back to working & having nothing to show for it.  It gives me the shivers to think we could be going back to those times.


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## zen (28 Oct 2010)

LOL TLC Frankie McCourt, hahaha

Unfortunately for me they were that bad.  I was brought up in inner city flats during the 70s-80s.. And boy god, I did not exagerate.  Sewers spewed with used toilet paper and faeces as there were strikes and no one would clean up.  All the residents had to clean up themselves, I remember getting involved and it was normal for me back then because thats all I knew. The place was hell on earth back then.  As I said, this is nothing.


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## Reviewing (28 Oct 2010)

I grew up and went to Primary School in the 80's. We didn't have much but were almost the middle class of the time.

- I remember the house was cold and draughty. Frost on the inside of windows - now there's a memory!
- Schoolbooks and Clothes were hand-me-downs and both could be riped or marked!
- We always had plenty of food but it was very (very) plain. We got sweets on a Friday.
- There was no holidays only a few days during the summer at cousins.
- Our car was too small for the whole family to go anywhere at the same time and it was covered in rust. 
- We had 2 channels on TV which we were only allowed watch at very set times.

There's loads more but everyone was the same so it didn't matter. 

I don't think that we are going back to these times but the general public do not appreciate how easy we have it at the moment!! Every proposed cut or rumour is greeted as if it will send us back to the caves. 

It is ridiculous. Local estates where the majority of people are unemployed (both by choice and through redundancy) are covered in satelitte dishes. Anyone with sky can do without at least €30 per month of their income.


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## Gulliver (28 Oct 2010)

At the end of the eighties, and in the early nineties, we had an extraordiny high level of debt/GDP ratio, very much higher than we have now, and even higher than we are likely to see in the next few years - and we got it down during the nineties and early noughties as the tiger woke up. We also had high unemployment, and most particularly, we had massive emigration of graduates, and we got those problems sorted through the nineties and early noughties.

I know. I was there through depressions of the fifties, sixties, the seventies, the eighties and survived them all.

So there is hope for us. We need a "can do" approach. We need to maintain some trust and optimism. We need younger people with attitude at the helm - in politics, in civil service, in industry, in banks


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## mariette (28 Oct 2010)

zen said:


> My only fear is that it doesn't stoop to that level! For me, now, this is no recession. It hasn't even come close.



Zen - I doubt you will ever go back to those days and you truely did have a dreadful time.  Although there is huge personal debt this time round there is no real poverty such as what you have described.  I wasn't here during those awful years but watching 'reeling back the years' is enough to say that the 80's was not a nice period for an awful lot of people.  I remember young lads going over on the boat from Rosslare and they used to swipe the plate, knife and fork they were using from the canteen so they would have them for their rooms in London.


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## truthseeker (28 Oct 2010)

I went from small child to teenager in the 80s.

I can well remember some of our family dinners:
Friday - egg, beans and chips - couldnt afford meat everyday (or fish on a friday).
Tuesday - an 'organ' dinner - kidney, liver etc - again it was cost related.
Saturday - a stew of some description that usually had a few leftovers from earlier dinners thrown in.

Hand me downs were normal - I only had an older sibling of the opposite sex so I was a bit unfortunate that way!!

We had relations in america that used to send us kids presents at xmas - god the fascination with these amazing 'american' toys that were WAY fancier than anything you could get in Ireland.

We had no central heating and there was only a coal fire in the sitting room so the kitchen would be warm from cooking, the sitting room would be warm from the fire and the rest of the house was baltic, bedtime was long PJs, a hat, a hot water bottle and a pile of blankets so heavy you couldnt turn over in your sleep.

We had no phone - and it wasnt a bit unusual.


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## shnaek (28 Oct 2010)

truthseeker said:


> We had no central heating and there was only a coal fire in the sitting room so the kitchen would be warm from cooking, the sitting room would be warm from the fire and the rest of the house was baltic, bedtime was long PJs, a hat, a hot water bottle and a pile of blankets so heavy you couldnt turn over in your sleep.
> We had no phone - and it wasnt a bit unusual.


Same as! And an auld banger with no radio so road trips always involved lengthy decades of the rosary. We got a colour TV towards the end of the eighties though. That was a thrill!


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## truthseeker (28 Oct 2010)

shnaek said:


> And an auld banger with no radio so road trips always involved lengthy decades of the rosary.


 
Our time passer in the auld banger was 'count the number of cars of a particular colour'. 

Or we'd bring the amazing american gifts and play with them in the car  

I remember my father doing some favour for a friend of his (might have been helping him build a shed or something) and as payment yer man (who worked for Tayto or somewhere equally fantastic) gave my father a potato sack of bags of crisps near their sell by date. Ye gods such riches!!!! Myself and my brother poured them all out on the sitting room floor (along with a good chunk of potato dust) and divided them amongst ourselves and had treats for *weeks* on end.


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## Thrifty (28 Oct 2010)

Our old banger had rusted holes on each side of the back seat floor. Cardboard covered them up most of the time except when you went through a puddle and the water sprayed in pushing the cardboard out of the way and drenched our legs.


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## Towger (28 Oct 2010)

I loved watching the road through the rust holes in the floor.


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## Berni (28 Oct 2010)

Thrifty said:


> Our old banger had rusted holes on each side of the back seat floor. Cardboard covered them up most of the time except when you went through a puddle and the water sprayed in pushing the cardboard out of the way and drenched our legs.


Did ye buy it from the Flintstones?


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## Derry (28 Oct 2010)

Although things were bad my kids used to take over my sitting room every sunday afternoon and watch MT USA hosted by the Late Vincent Hanley.  Some really nice tunes were played and it saved me from bringing them for Sunday drives cos petrol was too dear.  Any time I hear desert Moon by Denis de Young it brings me back.......

Gosh how times fly & funny how things come full circle.


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## dmos87 (28 Oct 2010)

Towger said:


> I loved watching the road through the rust holes in the floor.


 
You must be somewhat related to me  I remember the first car my parents ever bought... it was the early nineties (I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time) and it was a tiny little blue thing... God, the pride on their faces!! I can still remember the hole in the floor of the passenger seat!! we used to fight over who would get to sit in the front to watch the road, but it was great fun for us, we thought it was dead cool at the time!


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## Galwaygirl (28 Oct 2010)

this (in a perverse way) is one of the most uplifting threads I have seen lately!! to add a few of my early eighties memories!!
-mum buying a big bar of cadburys on Friday night, 3 squares each our treat for the night!
-recycling my mums 50s and 60s clothes for my own 'style' at local discos
-MT USA (will never forget when they showed all 12 mins of Michael Jackons thriller)
-yellow pack food(in fairness yellow pack were bad!!)
-boarders at school stealing day pupils sandwiches
-helping on the bog and getting paid 10 and then getting a £10 red plastic radio in the pound shop in dublin and being thrilled with it!! 

Thank you OP for starting this thread, in dark times it serves as a reminder that we have come through tough times and will again.


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## becky (29 Oct 2010)

Thursdays was my favorite day as our parents went for the big shop which included, the farmers journal, Connaught tribune and the best of it Kit Kats.  

We had to share, so I shared with my sister and our Dad use to ask us' did we want a biscuit or a bar' (we always said a bar).  We ate our treat while watching All creatures great and small.

Funny thing is I don't like kit kats anymore but if I ever see ACGAM I'll watch it.  I had a major crush on Christian.

I do like this thread, it reminds me of my parents telling me how hard they had it, whereas we didn't know we were born, what with the kits kats and everything.  Always said I wouldn't do the 'we walked to school across the fields in our bare feet' but here I am.


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## truthseeker (29 Oct 2010)

Derry said:


> Although things were bad my kids used to take over my sitting room every sunday afternoon and watch MT USA hosted by the Late Vincent Hanley.


 
God I remember the jingle from it "Music Television USA - Music Never Looked Better"!!

I used to count my savings in the sitting room on a sunday while watching it. I had a metal tin moneybox that I saved 50 and 10 pence pieces in and a glass jar for 5, 2 and 1 pence pieces (clearly I got the savings bug early ).

Anyone remember the garages used to do loyalty gifts like casio digital watches? Our dad drove a taxi for a while so we were the lucky ones who only had to wait weeks for the watch - not months.


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## Towger (29 Oct 2010)

dmos87 said:


> You must be somewhat related to me  I remember the first car my parents ever bought... it was the early nineties


 
It was a bit before the 90's !. It was my mums first car (two car family, Posh!). It was a 'x' hand Fiat 850?, the engine was in the back and was air cooled. It did not like hills and required a good spray on the sparks/distributor to start in the winter.

I remember the Texaco radio watch, it took about two years of stamps to get it! A Radio on a Watch!!!, high tech...


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## suemoo1 (29 Oct 2010)

does anyone remember the green shields stamps?? that you saved up and bought things out of the shop in Mary Street in Dublin..


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## Towger (29 Oct 2010)

I remember them, my grandparents had hundreds, more of the 70's than the 80's?

Found this links ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps


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## callybags (29 Oct 2010)

Stuck to the back of our Cortina

I'm up for Dublin
We're all up for Burmah


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## truthseeker (29 Oct 2010)

callybags said:


> Stuck to the back of our Cortina


 
Summers day trip to Portmarnock beach - legs in shorts glued to the plastic car seats in the back of the Ford Cortina - bag of chips dripping vinegar on the way home.


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## spreadsheet (29 Oct 2010)

Reviewing said:


> It is ridiculous. Local estates where the majority of people are unemployed (both by choice and through redundancy) are covered in satelitte dishes. Anyone with sky can do without at least €30 per month of their income.



They don't necessarily have Sky. After 12 months you can cancel the contract and keep the dish, then use a Free To Air receiver.


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## Towger (29 Oct 2010)

Boiling hot plastic seats and shorts, now that brings back memories. 
I remember going (walking, also a thing of the past!) to Cubs meetings in the breezing cold winter nights, shorts, gray socks, elastic garters with green ribbons things, hat (50's public school boy style), woggle and scarf!


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## spreadsheet (29 Oct 2010)

Due to education cutbacks I had to do a couple of years of double classes in primary school. One teacher would have to teach 2nd class and 3rd class in the same classroom. There must have been 50 of us in the same room!

Also remember a ten penny bag of sweets once a week and later in the eighties, a video rental once a week was a highlight!


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## Shawady (29 Oct 2010)

Spreadsheet, you just reminded me 5th and 6th were taught in the same class in my primary school also.
Thankfully it did not do me too much harm!


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## PaddyW (29 Oct 2010)

Same in my school, often 40, 50+ in a class!!

I remember some darker days in the 80's, namely when my dad was out of work. I remember the SVdeP calling to the door, my parents had literally no money at all. Thankfully those days are well behind us.


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## suemoo1 (29 Oct 2010)

Towger said:


> I remember them, my grandparents had hundreds, more of the 70's than the 80's?
> 
> Found this links ;
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps


Thats them, thanks that brill.. brings it all back


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## Towger (29 Oct 2010)

I think that splitting/combining classes were the norm. 
In my NS; Jr & Sr Infants, 2nd Class and half of 3rd Class,
Half of 3rd class and 4th Class were combined.


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## micmclo (29 Oct 2010)

I shared a maths book with my sister, we had to exchange it when needed. Sometimes classes clashed so I had no book. Teacher didn't mind, I was far from the only one sharing books.
And my books were covered in wallpaper, the rich people have clear plastic coverings, I was mad jealous.
You wore hand me downs from your siblings

Your holiday was a day out to Leisure Land in Salthill or maybe Lahinch.
I never left Ireland on a holiday or stayed in a hotel until I was 19

You had two TV channels. 
A VCR could cost over IR£400, a huge sum of money at the time. 
Xtravision threatened to fine you 25p if you didn't rewind the tape for the next person  Hard times indeed

We didn't have a house phone and if you ordered one it could take months to get installed. Eircom deserve a lot of criticism but at least that doesn't happen these days

We had one car and the farm jeep. Only rich folks had two cars. And me and my brothers and sisters jammed into a Ford Cortina. The gardaí would pull you off the road and fine you for that nowadays.

We didn't have Starburst or Snickers, no we had Opal Fruits and Marathon. Taytos cost 12p, last bag of crisps I bought were 90c, now that's inflation!

Finally, I saw the founder of Ballygowan on the Late Late Show and laughed my ass off at him. Honestly, Irish people paying for bottles of water????
Boy was I shown to be foolish


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## Mpsox (29 Oct 2010)

I grew up in rural Ireland in the 80s. No central heating, and only 2 TV channels until someone started rebeaming the English channels illegally, still remember the first English soccer match I saw on telly, Arsenal V Liverpool. 

I used to get Look and Learn every week and either Shoot or Match, on the one day in the week we went into town to do the shopping

In school, one teacher had junior, senior and 1st class, another had 2nd, 3rd and 4th and the headmaster had 5th and 6th. Secondry school was at least 30 in the class, but no one complained as it was what you expected. It was towards the end of corporal punishment and if I complained that I got a slap at school, no one went running off to the teacher to complain, it was assumed I deserved it.

Going to play GAA matches in the back of a county council van with 10 or 12 other kids is another memory.

How did we ever survive to grow up without Health and Safety?

All joking aside, I do worry about the generation that is emigrating now, the Celtic Tiger cubs have had it far easier over the last 10 years and didn't have to work for things like we did


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## micmclo (29 Oct 2010)

Mpsox said:


> All joking aside, I do worry about the generation that is emigrating now, the Celtic Tiger cubs have had it far easier over the last 10 years and didn't have to work for things like we did



I think if we showed this thread to our parents they'd tell us we had it easy. 
They left school at 12 or maybe 15 and went working on the farm or labouring or their fathers trade.
Sure secondary school had to be paid for back then so not that many went.

Every generation thinks they had it worst if you know what I mean


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## DB74 (29 Oct 2010)

micmclo said:


> Every generation thinks they had it worst if you know what I mean


 
Indeed but I hope in 25-30 years time we don't look back at these times as the "good 'ol days"!


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## micmclo (29 Oct 2010)

In 30 years, we'll have robot servants and live a life of leisure.


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## Markjbloggs (29 Oct 2010)

One good thing about growing up / working in the 80's is that it does away with all the nostalgia, good-old-days reminiscences that most other generations have.  The time was grim and there was very little to cheer.

Just a correction on the tax rate - it was 65% top band for a while, plus another 7% PRSI.  I was on these rates when I got my first job !!


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## Vanilla (29 Oct 2010)

This thread is bringing back so many memories for me too!

The big shop on Thursday- the Farmers Journal, the Kerryman and the daily newspaper, when we'd get home from school on the Thursday there'd be a mad rush for the press to see what goodies had been bought- and genuinely the goodies were fresh fruit like oranges and bananas and a packet of cornflakes. They'd usually be all gone by Friday morning ( actually before we went to bed on Thursday! ) 

There was sock darning and elbow patches ( fashionable at the moment, handily), hand me downs, holes in our car floor too. No central heating and the high point of one year was when we actually won a Video player in the supermarket draw. Which then sat in the box for a few weeks while my father tried to figure out if this would be a good thing for our 'education' or not. One night when he was at the cows my brothers wired it up and recorded something for him on the one tape we had. It stayed there then.

For the last few years I've been watching the mountain of presents my children get and getting genuinely worried at it- it's all too much and they don't appreciate it, not like we did when we had much less. It's probably time we had a correction, like it or not.


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## micmclo (29 Oct 2010)

Bring back Supercans!

There used to be Club Shandy which contained maybe 0.003% beer.
I thought I was so hard buying and drinking beer 

Stuff was rank, no wonder they stopped selling it
Not to be confused with Club Rock Shandy which is still sold


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## enoxy (29 Oct 2010)

truthseeker said:


> God I remember the jingle from it "Music Television USA - Music Never Looked Better"!!
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> You could also tune in your 3 in 1 'hi-fi stereo' to Radio 2 during MT- USA. It was so such a novelty to hear Pat Benetar, Huey Lewis. the Pointer Sisters etc in glorious stereo and simultaneously watch the video on the TV (a Ferguson 26" by the way....)


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## MandaC (29 Oct 2010)

We had no money and I mean no money.  Did not have food every day , did not have toys at Christmas, did not have food for a few days between Christmas and new year until the dole came,  no phone, no car (they were only for posh people) often went back to school in September and no books for first 6-8 weeks.  I remember my mam losing her temper with a nun who was giving out to us over this and saying, "you asked them why they had no books, did you ask them did they have anything to eat today"  Nun was horrified and we were given books straight away.


We were not allowed open the door to anyone in case it was the Rent Man/TV Licence Man or Pools man or someone else owed money.  If things were extremely tight you would have to dodge Frawleys too.  Were brought to Court for rent arrears several times, ESB cut off a few times.  No such thing as a holiday (once in 15 years) and all clothes were bought off Frawleys Clubs.

I had a shock horror incident when I discovered almost 30 years later that my Communion Dress was not bought from the Communion Dress shop in the Village but rather the second hand shop.  A lot of our clothes came from jumble sales and I hated this.

Despite our family being like a Barrytown novel, I will not say it was all grim, I could write a book (and might someday) about some of the comedic/tragic incidents.

It will be a cold day in Hell before I have to go back to living like that!  I so appreciate everything I have now and if it all changed tomorrow, I would just go back to the drawing board, start again, whatever it takes.


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## lfcjfc (29 Oct 2010)

This thread brings back memories;
-going to the neighbour's house to use their phone to make/receive calls. Only 1 phone in the street!
-getting a pair of "Sizzlers" runners from Penneys for £3.99 and thinking I was the bees knees
- Santa bringing cheap "Eska" fold-up bikes from Quinnsworth because he couldnt stretch to Triumph 20s!
- Boxes of cool jeans and baseball t-shirts coming from cousins in Boston
- the American Uncles always seemed to be loaded
- a few pennies for the shops bought Time bars and Sailor's chews
- "pudding bowl" haircuts done by dad
- dad coming home on a Fri evening with his cash in an envelope and a ticker tape payslip. 

................and like another poster said, we would have been sort of middle class. 
It didnt do us too much harm -  We'll survive again!


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## MandaC (29 Oct 2010)

Totally getting the sizzlers and the eska.....lol...brand awareness or what!


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## Thirsty (1 Nov 2010)

By the standards of the time, we would have been considered to be 'well-off'.  But I still recall my parents relief when the schools we attended joined the 'Free scheme' in 1967.

I wore my sister's hand-me-down uniform (which had been through two cousins already) & had leather patches on my school cardigan.  My brothers were much the same.  Confirmation clothes came from an older cousin.

We would never have been short of food or heating, but meals were plain and simple; wine or sherry was for Christmas, puddings were made from the fruit trees in the garden.  My parents never kept drink in the house.  

We wouldn't have dreamt of TVs, electronic gadgets, or family holidays abroad etc., but then again neither would we have ever been told we couldn't have money for books or piano lessons or University.

It was a question of priorities and budgeting - I think they got it right; I hope I've been able to do the same.


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## Deas (2 Nov 2010)

We had a rented TV with RTV, so if it went kaput, it was replaced fairly quickly.  It was great when the black and white one was replaced for the colour one with 6 buttons.  As time progressed though, we needed to retune button 6 if we wanted to switch between Sky and Super Channels!

We had a Ford escort that we all had to get out of once it reached the bottom of a steep hill - once up the hill we had to walk up and meet it.

Also - does anyone else think chocolate bars were much bigger in the 80's or I have I just got a big mouth now?


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## truthseeker (2 Nov 2010)

Deas said:


> Also - does anyone else think chocolate bars were much bigger in the 80's or I have I just got a big mouth now?


 
lol - some of them have definitely gotten smaller!!


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## bren1916 (2 Nov 2010)

Eternal fight with big sisters over 'The Big Match' with Brian Moore and 'MT USA' which I think came on 2-4pm?...not that I didn't wanna watch MT USA but we only had football once a week (and didn't have a video,phone or any such 'expensive items'!!
ZZ Top videos....damn!
Football every day/night with the lads off the estate until it got so dark that we had to give up...
A cone from the 'Ice Cream Man' of a Friday night whilst watching the Fonze in Happy Days.
Hadn't a bean but sure neither did anyone else!


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## oldtimer (2 Nov 2010)

I got married in 1973. Found the bill for the wedding reception last week - £245 for 105 guests. I hope the father-in-law paid it - its not marked paid.


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## Romulan (2 Nov 2010)

RTV rentals on the Sth Circular Rd for the 2nd hand TV.  Always seemed to go dodgy near Christmas and had to be left in for repair. We were the 2nd last family in our estate to get a colour TV.

Putting on the oven to heat the chips on a Friday when Dad arrived home with them.

Moving house in an orange mini - everything was moved on that roof.

Gas Central heating but it only went on Easter, Christmas and for a few of the coldest days.  But we all huddled around the fire, still love a good coal fire.

Being told straight out when we were short of money.

Great thread


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## dockingtrade (2 Nov 2010)

one car every 2nd house
marble season
conker season
wimbledon.. marked out tennis courts on the road
kerbs
In for the boot....someone throws "a penny" into  a crowd, you take your life in your hands if you went to pick it up.
1st asks on a mars bar
V
top of the pops... smash hits magazine
bulldog

like someone said above playing soccer for 10 hours straight.
putting the same 50p piece into the esb box
slack


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## Complainer (2 Nov 2010)

Mixing the coal dust with water to make slack, which went on the fire at night. You could then poke through the dried slack the next morning to find the few burning lumps of coal to get the fire going again.

Getting the first colour TV around 1973 - Telefunken - 6 channels, with very fancy touch sensitive controls for changing channel. I remember school mates talking about the daleks on Dr Who, but I didn't get to see these until we got 'piped' years later.


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## Vanilla (2 Nov 2010)

Ha'pennies!

Gathering cipins to put on the fire, saw someone in the woods last weekend doing the same thing for the first time in years.

Goody? Anyone else get that when they were sick? A horrible concoction of boiled milk, with bread and sugar. Always made me worse than I already was, but that was before finding out I was a coeliac.

Irelands Own. Irish stew and oxtail soup and 'mixemgatherem' soup, which was when my mother didn't have enough to make oxtail or mushroom but made a wierd concoction of the two.

Being made to wear a hand me down mini communion dress which reached only half way to my knees when maxis were all the fashion.

Bloody tin whistle, bodhran and accordian lessons. And the worst ever, knitting and sewing class in school while the boys got to play football.


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## aonfocaleile (2 Nov 2010)

My family were well off by comparison to most. We had a phone, which was not all that common and two TVs, one of which was rented. The hire purchase was eventually paid off and its still in the family home (and still works - they don't make 'em like that anymore!). &quot;Holidays&quot; were annual trips to see Granny who ran a B&B. If a guest came calling while we were there, everyone had to cram into a tiny bedroom til they moved on.  As the eldest, I had limited exposure to hand me downs, but all the neighbours would swop school uniforms and books in September. Thinking back and reading some of the posts on this thread, I had a gold-plated childhood.  Edit - forgot about my recorder classes! I could still play Greensleeves if required!


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## Crugers (3 Nov 2010)

_Ahh, the memories!_

_Man#1 (Michael Palin) Aye! Very fussable, eh? Very fussable bit, that? eh? _
_Man#2 (Graham Chapman): Grand meal, that was, eh? _
_Others: Yes, wonderful, yes very good.. _
_Man#2: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau le Shlasseler, eh, Guissay? _
_Man#3 (Terry Jones): Oh, you're right there, Robidaier. _
_Man#4 (Eric Idle): Who'd 'ave thought, thirty year ago, we'd all be sitting here drinking Chateau de Shlasseler, eh? _
_Man#1: Aye, in them days we was glad to have the price of a cup of tea! _
_Man#2: Aye, a cup of cold tea! _
_Man#4: Without milk or sugar! _
_Man#3: Or tea! _
_Man#1: Aye, in a cracked cup and all! _
_Man#4: Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled-up newspaper! _
_Man#2: Aye, the best we could manage in those days was to suck on a piece of damp cloth! _
_Man#3: Aye, but we were happy in those days, though we were poor. _
_Man#1: Because we were poor! My old dad used to say to me: Money doesn't buy you happiness! _
_Man#4: Aye, he was right, I was happier then and I had nothing. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof. _
_Man#2: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We had to all live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing, and were all huddled together in a corner for fear of falling! _
_Man#3: You were lucky to have a room! We used to 'ave to live in a corridor! _
_Man#1: Oh, we used to DREAM of living in a corridor. It would have been a palace to us. We used to have to live in an old water tank in a rubbish pit. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House! Huh! _
_Man#4: Well, when I say house, it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us! _
_Man#2: We were evicted from our hole in the ground. We had to go and live in a lake! _
_Man#3: You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us, living in a shoebox in the middle of the road! _
_Man#1: Cardboard box? _
_Man#3: Aye! _
_Man#1: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt. _
_(slight pause) _
_Man#2: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of damp gravel, work a twenty-hour day at the mill for tuppence a month, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky! _
_Man#3: Well, of course, we 'ad it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and lick the road clean with our tongue. We 'ad two bits of cold gravel, and worked a twenty-four hour day at the mill for six or seventy-four years, and when we got home, our dad would slash it to us with a bread knife. _
_Man#4: Right. I had to get up at ten o'clock at night, half an hourbefore I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our mother and father would kill us and dance on our graves singing Halleluja. _
_Man#1: Aye, and you try telling young people of today that. And they won't believe you. _
_Man#4: Aye, they won't!_


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## micmclo (3 Nov 2010)

If a family had two cars there were seriously loaded. If you drove into town there would be people thumbing for a lift at the crossroads. Still happens but it's almost died out.
We had a Ford Cortina, sure who didn't 

You walked or cycled to school in all weathers. No child ever got a lift to the school gate in an SUV. 
We played hurling, football and soccer until dark after school most every day, no xbox back then. 
Wonder if all this is linked to childhood obesity.

Wore my older sisters hand me downs, sure every family used hand me downs

We had no house phone until I was seven. And when you contacted Posts & Telegraphs to order a new phone it took months! 

Mass being empty on the morning of a big hurling game up in Dublin, actually that still happens.

RTE1 and RTE2. People on the East coast might have gotten more, we never did. We're out Whest

My parents told me they built their house for 22,000 punts in 70's and it was a huge sum of money at the time. Was it? I've nothing to compare it to

And when my mother got married she had to resign from the civil service 
That was a policy until 1973.
Unions wouldn't stand for that nowadays


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## Towger (3 Nov 2010)

We had one of those Telefunken's for years, with the round touch sensitive buttons. Did you know that it could take a 'remote control', an option we never had. But friends of my parents had one, it consisted of box with a set of similar buttons on a wire going to the back of the TV. I was remember being amazed at the ability to change channels while sitting on the couch. RTE1, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV  I can also remember Channel 4 starting, watching the test transmissions and sitting down on the big day to watch the first program, (counddown?)

My parents said it was easer to go to collage in their day, no points race. You just did your Leaving, turned up in UCD etc on enrolment day and joined the line for the course you wanted to do....


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## Towger (3 Nov 2010)

micmclo said:


> My parents told me they built their house for 22,000 punts in 1976 and it was a huge sum of money at the time. Was it? I've nothing to compare it to


 
My parents house was 10K in 1972 (Complainer, it was 3 years gross of a single a Public Sector salary  ), and the nextdoors was almost 12k the year before (there was a 'crash'). They are 5 bed and worth 1.8-2M at the height of the boom! My house was 8K when new (from the Corpo) in 1968 and a much smaller 3 bed.


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## Complainer (3 Nov 2010)

Towger said:


> We had one of those Telefunken's for years, with the round touch sensitive buttons. Did you know that it could take a 'remote control', an option we never had. But friends of my parents had one, it consisted of box with a set of similar buttons on a wire going to the back of the TV.


Didn't know it could take a remote control, but I do remember the fun of pressing two of the touch-sensitive buttons at the same time (when no adults were looking), just to make the set crackle and jump.


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## callybags (3 Nov 2010)

We had an A-B payphone in our house. (the tight gits  ) We used to have lodgers so I suppose it was fair enough.

I eventually learnt how to "tap" the phone to get free calls.


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## Ceist Beag (3 Nov 2010)

Towger said:


> My parents house was 10K in 1972 (Complainer, it was 3 years gross of a single a Public Sector salary  ), and the nextdoors was almost 12k the year before (there was a 'crash'). They are 5 bed and worth 1.8-2M at the height of the boom! My house was 8K when new (from the Corpo) in 1968 and a much smaller 3 bed.



My parents house was built (on their own land) for 3.5K at the start of the 70s! I remember going around the payphones looking for coins left in the place where change fell down to buy some penny sweets!


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## truthseeker (3 Nov 2010)

callybags said:


> I eventually learnt how to "tap" the phone to get free calls.


 
Id forgotten all about this!! There was a payphone at the top of my estate, my friends and I discovered how to 'tap' it to get free calls - not much use in the 80s, we were too young to be ringing anyone, but early 90s Id a boyfriend in Belfast and Id speak to him for hours for free by tapping that public phone!!


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## spreadsheet (3 Nov 2010)

I remember our phone handset was rented from P&T for years in the early days until we realised what 'equipment rental' on the bill meant!

Also it was obligatory for the man of the house to have an electric carving knife for the Sunday roast! One of those early 80's fads.


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## The_Banker (4 Nov 2010)

I remember in the 80s my parents and my Aunts and Uncles talking about how bad it was in the 50s and that the 80s were great compared to them!


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## The_Banker (4 Nov 2010)

Derry said:


> The 80's were tough alright.
> I was single and taxed @48 % on the first £10,000 and then 60% on the balance. The lowest rate was 35% In fact I have memories of doing approximately 10 hours overtime one week and all that I actually earned for it after the taxman got his whack was £5.00 extra.!! Never again I took time in lieu after that. Mond you *Charlie Haughey as Minister for finance* had a brainwave of introducing an early retirement scheme for public servants to reduce the numbers and halve the pay bill. A few of my work collegues availed of the scheme but were subsequently rehired on temporary contracts along with their pension. I see there is talk of Brian Lenihan introducing a similar type scheme again in order to reduce public service numbers, so will it be the same old carry on again? Public servants avail of the scheme & rehired a week or so later?


 
I don't think Charlie was Minister for Finance in the 80s. He became Taioseach in 79 I think?? 
He was Minister for Finance in the early 70s before being dismissed before the Arms Trial.


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## The_Banker (4 Nov 2010)

Ah the memories… 
We had a Black & White TV in 1978 but my father asked me to move it from one side of the room to another knowing that it would drop (I was only 8) so that we could get a colour TV from Maddens TV rental (everyone in Cork rented from Maddens). Just in time for the 78 World Cup! My mother complaining after the TV licence increased because monochrome was cheaper than colour!
We got the “Multi” (Cork Multi Channel) in the early 80s and the first programme I watched was Shine on Harvey Moon..
Listening to Radio ERI and Romano on South Coast Radio. Two great pirate stations. 
Watching Robin of Sherwood on TV on Saturday evening. I loved that show.
Cycling my Grifter bike.
Chandras niteclub in the Grand Parade
LP's and Singles (there cheaper now!)


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## grahamo (4 Nov 2010)

zen said:


> I look at this MTV CocaCola/XFactor generation with their mp3 players big brother reality shows with a mixed feeling of envy and growing concern. They will get the biggest wake-up call if it ever gets to not only the levels I witnessed but they will think its the end of the world if it extends to our parents level. Reality will hit them like a freight train and it wont be like no big brother show they have ever seen before.
> In the eighties I had to ask for a slice of bread. We never had a breakfast. We all waited for my dad to make the dinner, we sat around and waited for it to be made, we didn't need to be called in. No food ever went into the bin. We used to wrestle each other for the heel of the bread as there was more eating in it, these days every one throws out the heel. All my clothes were hand-me-downs. My shoes always leaked and when I walked to Christian brother school they squelched in the rain. I would develop trenchfoot by the time I got there. My toes shrivelled like prunes. I always tried to get in early but didn't, it was too cold to get out of bed. At school I dry my hole ridden odd socks on the radiators that sometime worked. When they got dry they were nice and warm and hard like cardboard. As soon as I got in I could not wait for the milk and buns which we got at 11am. I was so hungry all the time. I dont think I have ever been that hungry before.
> But something tells me that I'm well prepared for whatever comes as I had been privatised to be underprivileged. I witnessed tough times as I was there but nowhere near what my folks went through. My only fear is that it doesn't stoop to that level! For me, now, this is no recession. It hasn't even come close.


 
Some funny memories in this post. I too had shoes that squelched when I walked to school and the socks went hard like cardboard when you dried them. I agree, this so called recession is a walk in the park compared to the 70's and 80's.
I also remember all the grown ups who would park up their cars close to where I lived.(everyone had old bangers in them days) Get out, take off there overalls and working boots, throw them in the boot and leg it over to Werburgh Street to sign on.


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## ajapale (4 Nov 2010)

The_Banker said:


> Ah the memories…
> 
> Chandras niteclub in the Grand Parade



Id forgotten Chandras! Uneeda secondhand bookshops and army surplus stores. Late night cheap wine place on Washington Street. Pizzaland.

Bikes.

Hitch hiking and that queue at Newlands (pronounced Noolan's) Cross on a Friday.

Traffic jams at Naas.

Smog. Solid Fuel Backboilers.


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## computerman (4 Nov 2010)

AAHHHH I forgot about borrowing my fathers Ritmo.........

At least in the eighties we could move abroad to work, we dont even have that luxury now.


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## micmclo (4 Nov 2010)

The_Banker said:


> I remember in the 80s my parents and my Aunts and Uncles talking about how bad it was in the 50s and that the 80s were great compared to them!



I remember my granny's funeral and the priest who grew up with her in the same village was talking about the hard times in 1930's and the economic war with Britain.

In the next recession in 20 or 30 years , we can tell our youngsters how hard we had it in 2010


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