Period Television

[Flyfisher]

Did anyone watch 'The 70s' on BBC2 yesterday evening? It's part of a series but it's the first one I've watched.

Talk about deja vu. Easy credit fuelling mass consumerism, fuel shortages & record prices, industrial unrest, power cuts, coalition government, economic woes, environmental despondency . . .

Funny thing is, I grew up in the 70s (well, the teenage years anyway) but I don't really recall any of this making a big impression on me at the time. I can remember such things of course, but I don't remember being particularly bothered about them - though I did have some Friends Of The Earth posters on my bedroom walls. Teenage nonchalance I suppose.

I wonder what we learned from it all?


I'm not a big telly fan but I think I'll have to watch the rest of this series now.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

One party messes up the money and the other comes in to sort it out?

:wink:

 

[JoceAndChris]

It sounds very good - will try to catch up with that.

Oh, but I'm so nostalgic for the 70s. Marmite sandwiches for lunch every day, an Arctic roll slice to follow if you were lucky, cycling off unsupervised, making dens in the woods, pound notes that felt like riches, special birthdays at the Berni Inn, never having to eat any foreign muck, camping in RAF tents, dancing to Abba, not a screen in sight. A lot less sophisticated than today's children but such fun.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I think we were a lot more sophisticated Joce than today's bunch. We were allowed to do things, and had to make our own imaginative fun - we didn't need/wait to be "entertained" all the time.

Oh - and Berni Inns were great! Prawn Cocktail or Whitebait, followed by a rump Surf'n'Turf and with a slice of Black Forest Gateau with plastic cherry and real cream for dessert. If it wasn't there, it was a real pub with a glass bottle of cherryade or limeade and chicken and chips in a plastic basket - sitting outside on wooden benches.

Kids today just don't know they are born.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Yes yes yes! You're so right FW. Black forest gateau! I haven't had it since then!

I would say though, the kids know more these days. They soak it up like sponges from all the information they're drowning in. And it's a global, multi-cultural knowledge the like of which couldn't be imagined when we were 5.

But to my list must be added the beautiful, clear, modulated and precise way people spoke ( on television at least). When I got to my nice gals' boarding school in '84 the first thing they did was to refine my Lincolnshire accent. Chewsday was out, it was T -yoos -day, thenk you, and most of my teachers used "ash", which phonetically is a and e mixed together, it's a very ancient sound and does wonders for the word "cet" and " blenket". The old '70s broadcasts show the striking reduction in our language so markedly!

 

[skier-hughes]

I'm afraid I remember the power cuts only too well, not for the nicest of reasons, but being told my 5 year old sister had died, by candle light in the kitchen.

 

[Moo]

I remember a conversation with an avuncular estate agent, when I was describing the sort of (first) house I was looking for.
His advice was that, as the price of the average semi was going up at the rate of £100 a week, I should stop being so picky and just get on the ladder as soon as possible.
He was right, of course, and we were very lucky to find an interesting house quite quickly.

 

[Lime]

Easy credit fuelling mass consumerism, fuel shortages & record prices, industrial unrest, power cuts, coalition government, economic woes, environmental despondency . . .

The easy credit was started by the Conservative government of the late 50s, prompting Macmillan to claim "You've never had it so good" in the 60s.
Fuel shortages were caused directly by the war in the Middle East.
Industrial unrest was a symptom caused by decades of neglect to invest in British industry from the 1920s onwards.
Power cuts were the result of Conservative policy towards the power industries throughout the 60s.
Coalition government was a ruse to hang on to power, as it is now.
This country has had economic woes since before the first world war.
Evironmental despondency? In those days we were being sold dire warnings of an imminent ice age.

The real problem for the Labour governemt in the 70's was that "the City" was determined to bring them down.
Why do you think Blair worked so hard to woo the square mile?

It is all a matter of perspective determined from where you stand.

In those days I was very right-wing and despised everything about Wilson and his government .... but I wasn't stupid nor blind to the UK's fundamental faults either.

 

[LadyArowana]

I'm afraid I remember the power cuts only too well, not for the nicest of reasons, but being told my 5 year old sister had died, by candle light in the kitchen.

Oh, how very sad, your poor parents too.

 

[Feltwell]

Indeed - not a nice memory to have. I remember the power cuts, but where we lived they were often caused not by industrial unrest but by the cows in the field next door leaning against the (wooden) transmission poles and pushing them over! Who says Norfolk is backward eh?

I also distinctly remember going with our American neighbours onto one of the air bases, to a pizza restaurant. The pizza was served on a big foil dish in the middle of the table, and we looked on in horror as our American friends leaned over and grabbed a slice of pizza with their hands - we were sat there being all terribly British waiting for plates and cutlery to arrive. How times change!

 

[angrybird]

I think we were a lot more sophisticated Joce than today's bunch. We were allowed to do things, and had to make our own imaginative fun - we didn't need/wait to be "entertained" all the time.

Oh - and Berni Inns were great! Prawn Cocktail or Whitebait, followed by a rump Surf'n'Turf and with a slice of Black Forest Gateau with plastic cherry and real cream for dessert. If it wasn't there, it was a real pub with a glass bottle of cherryade or limeade and chicken and chips in a plastic basket - sitting outside on wooden benches.

Kids today just don't know they are born.

REAL CREAM :O are you sure it wasn't squirty cream ? :lol:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I'm afraid I remember the power cuts only too well, not for the nicest of reasons, but being told my 5 year old sister had died, by candle light in the kitchen.

Gosh. How sad.

 

[philpjuk100]

Indeed - not a nice memory to have. I remember the power cuts, but where we lived they were often caused not by industrial unrest but by the cows in the field next door leaning against the (wooden) transmission poles and pushing them over! Who says Norfolk is backward eh?

I also distinctly remember going with our American neighbours onto one of the air bases, to a pizza restaurant. The pizza was served on a big foil dish in the middle of the table, and we looked on in horror as our American friends leaned over and grabbed a slice of pizza with their hands - we were sat there being all terribly British waiting for plates and cutlery to arrive. How times change!

Took my dad in his late 80s for his first(and last) visit to Macdonalds,asked him if he would like a "big mac" he looked at one and said "no thats too big,Ill just have a small mac!" and when I put the food on the table he asked where the cutlery was!

 

[Lime]

Going to Macdonalds is like being at a fast food chimpanzee tea party.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Going to Macdonalds is like being at a fast food chimpanzee tea party.

Only less civilised, with more of your fellow diners flinging poo at the moon.

 

[Lime]

Going to Macdonalds is like being at a fast food chimpanzee tea party.

Only less civilised, with more of your fellow diners flinging poo at the moon.

I suppose that is better than eating it.

 

[AMc]

Going to Macdonalds ...

1 - WHY! :shock:
2 - It is spelt McDonalds :lol:

 

[Lime]

Going to Macdonalds ...

1 - WHY! :shock:
2 - It is spelt McDonalds :lol:

I'm guessing you have a Scottish name?
I have a Scottish name and have long since given up getting people to spell it correctly.
Even Scots get it wrong.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

WHY!

"WHY?" surely?

:wink:

 

[AMc]

I'm guessing you have a Scottish name?
I have a Scottish name and have long since given up getting people to spell it correctly.
Even Scots get it wrong.

It's not hard to work out - take a look at my user name - I do have a Scottish name and it's spelt Mc not Mac.
I find it very hard to believe people who tell me that all Mc's are Irish and all Mac's are Scots.

WHY!

"WHY?" surely?

Perhaps, but If I posed it as a question I'd be wanting an answer which I really really don't need