1983: The Strange Case Of Time Magazine And Margaret Thatcher's Teeth

Originally a sometimes windswept-looking woman with slightly wonky teeth, in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher changed. Her outfits grew smarter. Her hair grew bigger and stiffer. Her teeth grew straighter.

So, what was on earth was America's Time magazine doing ignoring Mrs T's new nicer gnashers in its cover illustration for the 20th June 1983 edition - the edition which featured an article on Mrs T's return to power via the 1983 General Election?

Let the Diary from the Daily Mirror, June 16, 1983, tell the story - tongue in cheek, of course...

How Time drew Maggie's teeth

Maggie Thatcher, with her new ring of confidence, will today give her first interview to a foreign television company since her return to power.

She is doing a programme in London with Barbara Walters for the big United States network ABC.

Miss Walters may well find that Mrs T is a little miffed with the American media at the moment.

For Time magazine, in their issue of June 20, feature her on the cover with her teeth not quite meeting.

This is one gap in Mrs Thatcher's life that has been bridged - by the marvels of cosmetic dentists last year - and she could well feel that Americans should have noticed.


Left: Untimely "Time", June 1983 - Mrs T's gappy pearlies were made perfect in 1982. Right: Mrs T shows a totally happy, absolutely non-gappy smile to the world, after she is elected for a second term in the 1983 General Election.

Introducing the first mobile phone - the DynaTAC 8000x

The first commercially available handheld cellular phone ever was unveiled in 1983 (although, according to Motorola, they weren't available to consumers until 1984). Motorola had invested fifteen years of research and $100 million in the advancement of cellular technology, and the story stretched back much further than that. The first handheld mobile was called the DynaTAC 8000X and was unveiled on March 6th. It was, of course, a brick. At a price of $3,995 it wasn't for everybody.

If the first commercially available mobile was a brick, boggle at the thought of the first working Motorola prototype ten years earlier which has been described as a boot! Motorola built several prototype models between 1973 and 1983.

And we ended up with a brick.

Rudy Krollop, one of the original Motorola designers, said recently: "In 1983, the notion of simply making wireless phone calls was revolutionary and it was an exciting time to be developing the technology at Motorola."

England's first mobile phone call was in 1985.

30 Years Of The Mobile Phone

Nice brick, mateyboots! The DynaTAC 8000x - the very first hand-held cell phone on the market. The year? 1984!

Crikey! Go back thirty-one years to 1983 and you couldn't have owned a cell phone - and had probably never even dreamt of such a thing! Weird, eh?

Motorola unveiled the first hand-held cell phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x in '83, but it wasn't commercially available until 13 March 1984! And it was a brick. Cellular technology had taken decades of research, Motorola had been involved since 1968, but it wasn't until 1973 that a test call was made on an even larger prototype phone (nicknamed "the boot"!). The "boot" was not designed for marketing.

"The first [phones] we made were a research product," recalls Rudy Krollop, Motorola designer. "The [first prototype] DynaTAC wasn't designed to be manufactured and mass produced. Plus, the FCC was giving us all kinds of problems, so to design something we could manufacture sucked up 10 years. We were very busy."

Several prototypes were made between 1973 and 1983 and then... bingo! Of course, here in England, you couldn't have got involved in the fun of wielding a brick until 1985 - the first UK cellphone call was made on 1st January that year - by comedian Ernie Wise.

Mr Yuppie proudly wields his brick in 1985.

Expensive, hefty things ("yuppie toys"!) and horribly analogue, they were still the start of a revolution. Of course, analogue was rather naff when it came to reception at times, but fear not - the 1980s had things in hand. The GSM system we currently use had been in development since 1982, and received approval in 1987. It was implemented in the 1990s.

Love 'em or hate 'em? I'm not that mad on 'em myself, although they DO have their uses.

But sometimes I wish it was 1983.

Rucked-up shoulder pads and a lovely mobile - all the rage for the yuppie set of the mid-to-late 1980s.

Roland Rat - 30 Years - 1983-2013

Time to celebrate a very special birthday! Roland Rat was born in the sewer under King's Cross Station on 12 March, and made his TV debut on 1 April 1983. He freely admits to being a licensed character, and boasts that because of this he still looks the same as he did in the 1980s. Wish I did!

Makes me feel a tad old to realise it, but 1983 is now thirty years ago. It was a year like no other. In fact all '80s years were unlike no other. But 1983 is a truly stand-out twelve months. Why? Hip Hop bringing along a wave of new-fangled break dancing to the '80s party? The world's first hand-held cell phone, the Motorola 8000x, being unveiled in America? Shergar vanishing? Bonnie Tyler giving us Total Eclipse Of The Heart? Breakfast TV starting? New Order being brilliantly innovative with Blue Monday?

It can be said that all those things were important, but they pale into insignificance beside the arrival of a fabulous new superstar.

Yeeaahhh!!!

The posey young decade had already introduced us to many new stars by 1983: Depeche Mode and Eurythmics had both formed in 1980; Boy George had made his chart debut in 1982, and, as one of my aunties said, didn't seem to know whether he was Arthur or Martha; U2 had finished tuning up and were belting out some fabby rock tunes by 1983; the New Romantics had arrived in 1980 ("To cut a long story short, I lost my mind..."); Madness were in their golden era; Simple Minds had changed direction with their New Gold Dream and were really making the '80s grade; Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five had knocked our socks off with The Message; a Flock Of Seagulls had given great synth pop and hair inspiration; the Human League and Duran Duran had both formed their classic line-ups in 1980... but the decade still lacked a style icon. A superstar. Somebody who would lead the way.

Then HE came along, the one, the only Roland Rat, rescuing the ailing breakfast TV station TV-am in one fell swoop, and lighting up goggle boxes across the land...

Number 1 Ratfan Kevin the gerbil came scurrying down from Leeds to join his hero at the very beginning of Roland's fame in 1983, and has been there ever since. Kev loves the colour pink and is pictured here in a very 1980s pink and grey sporty outfit. He adores pink buckets, and hoards them obsessively. He was thrilled to dress up as Julie Andrews for a production of "The Sound Of Music".

Roland was the '80s celebrity to top all '80s celebrities - charismatic, justifiably egotistical, brash and gobby, er, I mean highly honest, he, like Elvis, had a hairy chest, and his presence on any TV show was likely to produce an hysterical response from viewers.

The increasingly sophisticated 1980s scene was no problem for Roland. As he rapped in Rat Rapping, "la de dah, la de dee". He took it all in his stride - truly a superstar par excellence. He said.

Roland also introduced us to his pals - including his No 1 fan, pink bucket-loving Kevin the gerbil.

He delighted '80s children (and some discerning souls like me who were slightly older!) with his TV-am and BBC shows - including Rat On The Road and Roland Rat - The Series.

 An all-rounder, Roland turned his hand to TV and music. Remember "Rat Rapping"? Remember "Love Me Tender"? Remember Kevin the gerbil's version of "Summer Holiday"? Mmmmm... glory days, when music really WAS music! This is a publicity poster for Roland's 1980s classic "Cassette Of The Album". In the pic are Roland, Kevin,  Roland's little brother, Reggie, and Errol the hamster. No sign of Glenis the adorable guinea pig. I'll have to find some pics of her to up-load!

Roland loved his rat fans. As he said, they recognised his talent and the void he filled in their lives, and he respected them for that. He still does.

And, also respecting his fans' desire to buy Roland-related merchandising, he quickly launched Roland Rat Enterprises, unleashing a tidal wave of cuddly toys, jigsaws, spaghetti shapes and other goodies, all snapped up by the adoring millions.

From his humble TV beginnings in "The Spectacular ShedVision Show", broadcast from a shed on the roof of the TV-am building in 1983, Roland quickly scaled the heights of superstardom.  Here he is with Kevin on the cover of "Look-In", the junior TV Times, embarking on a new series of "Rat On The Road". This was, in Roland's own words, a "rodent travelogue" and featured Roland and Kevin visiting various cities around the UK. The old  Ford Anglia car they travelled in, dubbed the Ratmobile,  cost £85 and Kevin chose the bright pink colour scheme. Roland thought it was rubbish.

And what has become of the mighty rodent since the 1980s? Well, there's been no descending into a decrepit old age for Roland. These days, he spends much of his time in the USA, and he and his friends all have their own Facebook pages (where we recently learned, via Kevin the gerbil, that Errol the hamster had returned some leeks to the supermarket  as they were "substandard"). 

This year, Roland made a triumphant return to England and breakfast TV.

Roland's comments and observations in more recent years have, as always, been priceless nuggets of wisdom. He told Anne Robinson, horrid person of The Weakest Link, that, being a licensed character, he still looked the same as he did in the 1980s - which was more than she did! And, after all the naff (and often highly inaccurate) TV nostalgia shows in the BBC's I Love... vein, Roland appeared on Trisha and commented that people were just desperate to feel nostalgic about "any old rubbish".

As Roland himself might say, he's a true geni-arse. 

And we love him.

See our first Roland Rat feature here.

The New £1 Coin - And Other 1980s Brass In Pocket Innovations

Since the design, production and issuing of the first new decimal coins in the 1960s, and full decimalisation in 1971, not much had changed in the world of UK coins.

And then, in the early-to-mid 1980s, several changes occurred.

In 1980, the old sixpence ceased to be legal tender.

We gained the very first twenty pence coins in 1982.

Then, in 1983, we gained the very first pound coins.

And then, in 1984, the half penny ceased to be. It had been an unpopular coin for years, many people thought it not worth the bother. But still, some mourned its passing. One tabloid newspaper even published a full history of the half penny - going back centuries into the pre-decimal era.

The £1 coin, which would prove to be the death of the £1 note, was unveiled in 1982, although it would not become legal tender until 1983, and a fascinating "Public Opinion Special" in the Daily Mirror on March 10, 1982, revealed a mixed bag of opinion regarding the new coin - and what it should be called...

From the Mirror:

When Britain's new £1 coin was unveiled on February 10, we asked readers to send us their ideas for a name for the new coin. The response ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Many reflected their dismay with the continuing drop in the value of the pound. Here is a selection of some of the many letters we received.

What's wrong with continuing to call it a pound? But if you REALLY want to know what I think about it, it's unprintable!

It's going to be a terrible nuisance. We already have to deal with bulky coins which don't fit into wallets.

I've already broken the clasps on two good ones and my husband is wearing away more trouser pockets than I care to count - Mrs O.F., Solihull, West Midlands.

The name that springs to mind is Joker. Looking like gold and calling itself a pound is a joke for a start, isn't it? - A.T., Redhill, Surrey.

A Monarch would be my choice. It has the flavour of sovereign about it but it is more original - Mrs G.R., Surrey.

We should follow the French example and call ours the Brit - R.P., Waltham Abbey, Essex.

I shall call the new quid a Thatcher. It will remind me that it was minted during the office of the worst Prime Minister this country has ever known - J.F., Northolt, Middlesex.

The new coin should be a tribute to the Princess of Wales.

An anagram of her name works out as Adina. It's attractive and easy to say. What could be more suitable than that! - Mrs B.S., Wilmslow, Cheshire.

Let's call it a Di! - Mrs E.K., Brackley, Northants.

Why not call it a "mite"? Judging by the size of it, you "mite" be able to find it among your small change and you just "mite" be able to buy something with it. Then again, you "mite" not! - T.C., Cleveland.

It should be called a Tory because, like the Tories, it's worthless! - B.C., Omagh, County Tyrone.

It should be called an Eliza, because you will be able to "Doolittle" with it! - W.S., Harlow, Essex.

Of course, despite all the little grey cells being exercised above, we called the new pound coin a pound. Or a quid. Just as we had the old notes.

Also in the 1980s world of loose change, we dropped the "New" from "New Pence" on the original decimal coins designed back in the 1960s.

Well, they weren't that new any more.

In 1986 the very first £2 coin was produced - to commemorate the Common Wealth Games, held that year in Edinburgh. This was purely a commemorative coin - not produced for mass circulation, as was the second £2 coin, struck in 1989, to celebrate the tercentenary of the English Bill Of Rights. Scotland had its own 1989 £2 coin to celebrate the tercentenary of its Claim Of Right.

1983: Starting A New Year At Greenham Common...

As 1982, that famous/infamous year which brought us the Falklands War, ZX Spectrum, Channel 4 and deelyboppers ate its final bag of cheese and onion crisps and hitched up its leg warmers for the last time, the Greenham Common Women were making plans, which they put into action in the early hours of New Year's Day 1983...

Here's how the Sunday Mirror, January 2, 1983, reported the events of 1 January:

Women peace campaigners staged a daring commando-style raid at the Greenham Common Cruise missile base at dawn yesterday.

At least fifty women, some of whom had slept in the undergrowth in the Berkshire countryside, went into action at 7 a.m.

They propped six ladders against the 12ft high perimeter fence, which stretches for nine miles round the missile base. Then, laying old carpets across the barbed wire, they streamed over into the top secret Ministry of Defence property.

They were not spotted by special MOD police and American Air Force guards patrolling the fence.

By the time civilian police intervened, 44 demonstrators had got into the base where 96 American nuclear Cruise missiles are due to be sited in December.

The women, whooping and cheering, climbed on top of the 50ft silos which will house the missiles and sang peace songs.

One of the women left outside the fence, 29-year-0ld Deborah Law, said: "This is a symbol of hope for the New Year."

After 40 minutes, the demonstrators were carried down from the silos by police and taken by bus to Newbury police station, two miles away.

They were all charged with behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace, and will appear in court tomorrow.

Embarrassed base officials have launched a probe into the incident.

The Government has always maintained that there is no risk of missiles being hijacked by terrorists.

The origins of the Greenham Common Peace Camp stretched back to August 1981, when a group of women began a march from Cardiff, Wales, to Berkshire, England.

Their destination was the Greenham Common Airbase. The women were greatly concerned by the 1980 decision to site 96 Cruise missiles at the base.

The women arrived at the airbase on 5 September, 1981.

The march of the "Women For Life On Earth" led to the establishment of the Greenham Common Peace Camp.

In December 1982, 30,000 women held hands to "embrace the base".

Also in 1982, a decision was taken that men should not be allowed to join the Peace Camp.

The Greenham Common Peace Women were the subject of much controversy. In fact, perhaps I shouldn't call them "WoMEN" at all...

The title "wimmin" was apparently preferred by many of them. Misandry, of course. But then that was Feminism right from the get-go.

In his excellent book 20th Century Words (Oxford, 1999), John Ayto traces the word "wimmin" to 1983:

wimmin n (1983) A semi-phonetic spelling of women, adopted by some feminists as one not containing the ending -men.

20th Century Words notes that the word "wimmin" had been used in the past "for suggesting a particular sort (or class) of accent" - (a character in a book might pronounce "women" as "wimmin") - "but the polemical purpose marks out a new usage."

Mr Ayto traces two early uses of the word "wimmin" in feminist circles actually to Greenham Common:

1983 Sunday Times: Return to Greenham Common, view the wool webs, the papier maché masks, the eccentric re-spelling of words like 'wimmin', the improbable cosiness of the little tents in a landscape of wire fencing and policemen.

1983 Listener: Meanwhile, what of the Peace Women ('wimmin' in feminist placards) camped outside Greenham Common?

The first of the 96 Cruise missiles arrived at the base in November 1983. Thanks, Mrs Thatcher. Oh wait, wasn't she a wimmin? And she took us to war in 1982. A good friend of mine, a young and troubled teenager, went to Greenham in the early 1980s - where she experienced sexual abuse from some of the 'wimmin'. Funny old times.

1983: Gender Bender Boy George Bends The Dress Code Rules...

From the Sun, November 23, 1983:

Top London hotel, Claridges, have broken their century-old "tie and jacket" tradition so that Boy George could take tea in his customary dress.

Officials bent the rules when flamboyant George arrived for tea with brilliant American comedienne Joan Rivers. Glamour boy George was dressed in a smock and headband. Told he was not wearing the correct tie and jacket, George replied cheekily: "I've got a very nice button-up smock jacket and my tie happens to be round my head."

The doorman was left speechless while George joined Joan for cream tea and cucumber sandwiches in her £155-a-night suite.

Joan's aide told me: "They got on like a house on fire. They bitched about everything from Marilyn to Barry Manilow."

Fun-loving George later took Joan to see a Wham! concert, and she invited him to appear with Joan Collins on her top-rated US chat show, "Tonight".

A spokesman for Claridges said later: "Guests are always required to wear a tie and jacket in the public rooms.

"But as he was in a private suite, we relaxed the rules."

The New Man

The Eighties Man: Day Two of a fascinating Sun series.

FELLAS DON'T FEEL A NINNY IN A PINNY!

They'll chip in on the chores.

The Sun, January, 1983.

Today's man does not mind a bit if he is left holding the baby - in fact he quite enjoys it.

He sees nothing odd in pushing a trolley around the supermarket, running around with the vacuum cleaner, or cooking the supper.

He believes - and his wife agrees - that looking after the children and doing the household chores should be shared equally between men and women.

When it comes to getting up to feed the baby 65 per cent of men and 71 per cent of women think that, where possible, they should take turns.

Almost as many men - 62 per cent - think shopping for groceries is a task that should be shared. And more than half - 58 per cent - say that the burden of housework should be split.

Yet a decade ago a real man would not have been caught dead with a dirty nappy and would never be seen with his hands in the sink, let alone flitting around with a duster.

What has caused this major shift of attitudes?

Partly the fact that more and more women have jobs outside the home.

In our survey almost half the women - 43 per cent - worked and four per cent were the main wage earners.

Housework HAS to be shared if it is to get done at all.

But Women's Lib was, in some ways, People's Lib. Men who felt they were missing something by leaving child-care to their wives were encouraged to lend a hand.

Yet there is still some way to go before everyone rejects the old idea that a man's place is at work and a woman's place is in the home.

And the men and women who do not believe that housework and childcare should be shared equally stick to the old patterns.

Of these, 46 per cent believe that cooking the meals is woman's work.

Forty-one per cent think the same about housework and one in three say women should do the food shopping.

But 48 per cent of all men say that painting and decorating are their work and 40 per cent feel the same about gardening.

The American "Eighties Man"/"New Man" - was a similar concept, which rose into the public consciousness c. 1982, although with more emphasis on men being allowed to develop and display emotional sensitivity then is illustrated in the article above.

20th Century Words by John Ayto (Oxford, 1999), traces the "New Man" to 1982 -

"a man who aims to be sensitive, caring, and non-aggressive and to take a substantial role in his household's domestic routine..."

Apparently, as the decade went on, the New Man began to be regarded as a bit of a wimp in some quarters:

1985, Chicago Tribune:

Does the New Woman really want the New Man?... The answer, as you might guess, is a frustrated no.

Sadly, the 1990s regressed, giving us the "New Lad".

I thought the 1980s were great from a male viewpoint. In my neighbourhood, back in the 70s/early 80s, boys who liked soap operas were considered... well... strange. But in the 80s, with the arrival of trendy soaps like Brookside and teenage soaps like Home and Away, it was OK for us to join in.

And to get emotional.

As a kid in the '70s, I always felt as though I was in an emotional straitjacket.

Also, grooming. No man in my family ever owned a hairdryer before the 1980s. It would have been unthinkable. In 1984, I became the first!

The "old Man" was often not very keen on the "New Man", as this comic strip from the Sun newspaper's women's section, September 15 1988, shows!

Election '83

Election '83... Maggie, Lord Such, Tony and Cherie Blair - and Kenny Everett and Elsie Tanner?!!

With a General Election in the offing, I thought it might be fun to slip back to 1983, to see how things were being done then.

Well, you could vote Maggie, of course, or how about Lord Sutch? Mind you, Maggie had a lot of support - apparently including comedian Kenny Everett, who waved his big hands about and said things like "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away!" and "Let's bomb Russia!" to an audience of Young Conservatives.

Margaret Thatcher was riding high on The Falklands Factor, but there were some out there, newcomers to the world of politics, who would know future fame - or infamy if you prefer - like Tony Blair, standing as Labour candidate for Sedgefield, Durham.

Tony's wife, Cherie, was standing as Labour candidate for North Thanet.

Cherie's father, Anthony Booth of Till Death Us Do Part fame, shared his life with Pat Phoenix of Coronation Street fame. Pat was a great supporter of Old Labour.

Just as I was.

But, back at the top, Maggie - who had had her teeth straightened in 1982 - was oh-so-confident about winning a second term...

From the Sunday People, 12/6/1983:

It was two days BEFORE the actual voting, on a Gatwick-bound jet high over Lancashire, that Margaret Thatcher first celebrated her landslide election victory, and her elation is captured here in this superb picture.

Ecstatic over the findings of a secret, £20,000 Tory opinion poll that showed her to be totally unbeatable, she stepped into the Press corps' compartment for a champagne-all-round party.

Accompanied by members of her personal team she passed around the bottles as she joked with the writers and photographers.

When the pilot announced the plane was due to land she shouted: "Oh dear, can't we go round again?

"It's just like Air Canada - none of us wants to get off."

And she roared with laughter as the chief stewardess announced: "We are now landing in Miami where the local time is 5pm and the temperature is 32 deg. Centigrade."

Wednesday was like the end of term.

By the time she had reached the Isle of Wight she felt secure enough to indulge in two of the most Over The Top gestures ever made by a British Prime Minister.

She went ashore in a hovercraft, poised in the prow like an all-conquering Queen.

Then she posed, arms aloft, in front of Britain's biggest Union Jack - an entire hangar door.

It was all over by then. She knew it. And she didn't mind who else knew it either.

But although the victory may have been a foregone conclusion, nothing had been left to chance.

She had driven herself tirelessly and those around her to distraction as she sought to avoid the pitfalls of electioneering.

There were rows, sometimes bitter arguments, that went on late into the night. She was not going to fail by anything she had left undone.

The tensions even led at one stage to her shouting at Denis on the campaign bus.

Those around her had groaned and sometimes grumbled.

One or two of them got drunk as skunks but such was their loyalty they were always there next morning, ready to be driven into the ground all over again.

The blackest day came a week before polling, Thursday June 2 - the date her advisers had said would be the most crucial of the campaign.

That was the day the last batch of opinion polls was researched and her final three major speeches and four election articles published.

From then on no more damage could be done TO the Tories - all they could inflict on themselves were "own goals" in the five major TV appearances Mrs Thatcher had still to make.

As the tension crackled the tour went wrong again and in Central Office, according to one aide: "Everyone was fighting everyone else because there was no opposition to fight.

"It was awful - like a panic because there was nothing to panic about."

On the Sunday came the findings of the Tories' own £20,000 poll that indicated her invincibility. An amazing 14-point lead over Labour in the Black Country clinched it.

Despite not having seen the script before that evening she read the script of the final Election Broadcast off autocue four times in a row, each time with a different inflection in her voice, without fluffing her lines once.

"There is hardly an actress or a newscaster alive who could read for a total of 23 minutes without a hitch of any sort," said one technician.

"We all applauded, it was so good."

From then on Mrs Thatcher did not stop bubbling.

Cabbage Patch Kids

Who could forget the Cabbage Patch Kids? They were dolls which came with their own "adoption papers" and were the subject of a ferocious craze in 1983 and 1984.

The dolls from which the Cabbage Patch Kids evolved were all cloth and called "Little People" - the creation of one Xavier Roberts in the USA in 1978, and originally sold at local craft fairs. In 1982 came mass production, vinyl heads and the "Cabbage Patch Kids" name.

From the Sunday People, 4/12/1983:

Cabbage-Patch fever swept into London yesterday as jostling shoppers cleared out the entire stock of London's top toy shop.

It took only 90 minutes for a clamouring queue to snap up 400 of the cute Cabbage-Patch dolls which have caused near riots in America.

And five Americans paid a lot more than the £24.99 asking price - they flew in by Concorde at £2,000 each to buy a doll.

"They are like gold dust in the States," said New York accountant Garry Le Duc. "When we saw on TV that British shops still had supplies, there was only one thing to do."

They found plenty of competition for the cuddly Cabbage-Patch kids. The queue outside Hamleys started at 2am and by opening time it stretched right around the block.

Also from the Sunday People...

The Sunday People strikes again!

Evidence of rather less cynical times? I think so. Evidence of good taste? I would say not.

My local rag took a rather more down-to-earth line.

From the spring/summer 1986 Argos catalogue: The Cabbage Patch dolls have developed friends and relatives - Cabbage Patch Koosas and Cabbage Patch Preemies.

1983: "Tarzan" Felled By Greenham Common Peace "Wimmin"

In August 1981, a group of women began a march from Cardiff, Wales, to Berkshire, England. Their destination was the Greenham Common Airbase. The women were greatly concerned by the 1980 decision to site 96 Cruise missiles at the base. 

The women arrived at the airbase on 5 September, 1981. The march of the "Women For Life On Earth" led to the establishment of the Greenham Common Peace Camp. In December 1982, 30,000 women held hands to "embrace the base". Also in 1982,  no doubt fuelled by the misandry of the Feminist Movement, a decision was taken that men should not be allowed to join the Peace Camp.

A good friend of mine, a troubled teenage girl, joined the camp and was sexually abused by some older women there, revealing that not all were there simply for the noble reason stated.

  20th Century Words by John Ayto (1999, Oxford University Press), one of my favourite resources for tracing the origins of newer words, tracks "wimmin" to 1983: 

wimmin n (1983) A semi-phonetic spelling of women, adopted by some feminists as one not containing the ending -men. 

20th Century Words notes that the word "wimmin" had been used in the past "for suggesting a particular sort (or class) of accent" - (a character in a book might pronounce "women" as "wimmin") - "but the polemical purpose marks out a new usage." 

  Mr Ayto traces two early uses of the word "wimmin" in feminist circles to Greenham Common: 

1983 Sunday Times: Return to Greenham Common, view the wool webs, the papier maché masks, the eccentric re-spelling of words like 'wimmin', the improbable cosiness of the little tents in a landscape of wire fencing and policemen. 1983 Listener: Meanwhile, what of the Peace Women ('wimmin' in feminist placards) camped outside Greenham Common? 

 At a time when concerns over a possible nuclear haulocaust were running high, the Peace Women mobilised to make their views known to the UK Government... 

From the Daily Mirror, February 8, 1983: 

  TARZAN'S WAR 

Minister felled by peace women

Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine was dragged to the ground last night by a crowd of peace women from Greenham Common. Several of the women lay down in front of him as he arrived for a Tory meeting at nearby Newbury town hall, Berks. 

  A protester said that one of them planned to chain herself to the Minister, but failed and only managed to make him fall. Mr Heseltine's wife Anne was also pushed and jostled as police dragged 60 women away. 

  Police considered calling in a helicopter after the meeting to airlift the Minister - nicknamed "Tarzan" - to safety as the crowd continued to protest against nuclear missiles. Instead, local Tory MP Michael McNair Wilson created a diversion by dashing through the crowd surrounded by police as Mr Heseltine escaped through a side door. 

  Earlier, Mr Heseltine smiled as he brushed mud from his pinstripe trousers and combed his hair back into place after his fall. He said: "It was obviously rather rough and I was pulled to the ground. 

  "I felt a few pushes and shoves but I wasn't hurt at all." Mr Heseltine said that the behaviour of the women - who were protesting at the stationing of cruise missiles at Greenham - convinced him he was right not to meet the CND about uniliteral disarmament. 

  "Their minds are closed to all arguments," he said. "It would be pointless trying to hold a sensible conversation with them." 

  One girl demonstrator was trampled and bruised during the scuffles. There were no arrests. Earlier 64 women were arrested when a fence was cut at Greenham Common air base and demonstrators marched on to the airfield. Twenty were still being held last night. 

  The first of the 96 Cruise missiles arrived at the base in November 1983. The decision of one of those 'wimmin' - Mrs Margaret Thatcher.

1983: TV-am and Breakfast Time - Breakfast TV Arrives...

Breakfast TV arrived in 1983: on the BBC we had Selina Scott, Frank Bough (in some lovely jumpers) and Francis the weatherman. The style was sofa-based and relaxed.

TV-am, ITV's breakfast time service, was also sofa based but a little more formal as Angela Rippon, Anna Ford, David Frost, Robert Kee and Michael Parkinson, "The Famous Five", set out with their "mission to explain". The mission never really got off the ground, and it wasn't long before "The Famous Five" had been replaced by Anne "don't call me Annie!" Diamond, former sports presenter Nick Owen, weather girl Wincey Willis and Roland Rat - "Yeeaaarrrgggh!".

Here, we take a look back at some of the highs and lows of breakfast TV in the 1980s, beginning with a couple of newspaper articles from 1982, when TV-am was in its planning stages...

Esther Rantzen joined the TV-am enterprise, but dropped out before it reached the screen. Although it was, apparently, "an absurd financial sacrifice" - Daily Mirror, 9/3/1982. TV-am's loss was That's Life's gain as the BBC show continued with its original leading lady at the helm.

From the Sunday People, 6/6/1982...

David Frost means to give us a laugh along with the snap, crackle and pop of his new breakfast TV station.

"I'd like to make the presentation humorous wherever possible," he told me. "People don't like to be hectored in the morning."

And another thing. He wants to scotch the notion that presenters Anna Ford, Angela Rippon, Michael Parkinson, Peter Jay and Frost himself will be flirting with each other on the programme, as some stories have suggested.

"I was giving a talk and saying that the chemistry between the presenters should be allowed to work so they could laugh, disagree and ad-lib with one another," he explained.

"But I never said anything about sexual chemistry.

"Anyway, sometimes it will be Anna and Angela on the show together!"

He laughs a lot old Frostie, which is hardly surprising because the emergence of his new company is certain to put money in the bank, apart from being "the most amazing venture I've ever been involved with."

Frost hopes that "Good Morning Britain", as it will be called, will start early in February.

"It's so marvellous to start something brand new," he said, "where no one says, 'Well this is how we used to do it.'

"The main thing is that it adds up to more than 21 hours of original TV a week - more than any other company. We're not buying big American series."

Apart from the news we hope to include our own items for the shopper. Arts and religion on Sunday."

And good news for parents - "We hope to perform a public service for them by allowing them to lie in while we entertain the children at the weekend.

"We also hope to do a lot of sport - particularly overnight sport from America and Australia."

There's more to read if you click on the picture of the article above. I rather enjoyed David's final comment - speaking about possible problems with early rising for the new venture, and his TV-am colleague, Michael Parkinson, he said:

"Parky says he's going to save time by going to bed dressed."

Sensible man!



From the Daily Mirror, 7/1/1983:

Rise and shine! Here's Diana Moran, the keep-fit instructor who will be putting viewers through their paces early each morning when BBC Breakfast TV starts on January 17.

Diana, who has hopped over to the Beeb from HTV, practices what she preaches. She is in her forties, but regular excercises keep her figure in splendid shape.

Her husband John, a wine merchant director in Bristol, said proudly yesterday: "She certainly doesn't look more than thirty. But the fact is, she has one son who will be 22 next week and another of 19."

An HTV spokesman said sadly: "She must be one of the most beautiful women in Britain and we are sorry to lose her.

"But obviously the BBC breakfast job was an offer she couldn't refuse."

TV-am soon came up with "Mad Lizzie" Webb, a rival for the Green Goddess.
-
BATTLE STATIONS!

From the Sunday Mirror, 9/1/1983

In eight days’ time, the BBC fire the first shot in the snap, crackle and pop battle of breakfast TV.

The commercial channel joins the fray on February 1.

The Beeb’s fight for breakfast audiences will be spearheaded by Frank Bough and Selina Scott, who has joined them from ITV.

In the BBC’s five days of broadcasting (ITV will be on the air every morning), they promise regular spots on astrology, cooking, gardening, health, reviews of the morning papers and “tasty bits of gossip”.

The attention to detail is shown best in their approach to gardening.

In Plymouth, the climate normally puts plant growth three weeks ahead of other parts of the country.

So, a special garden has been created there to give viewers time to plan their own strategy.

Jolly music, a logo of the rising sun, followed quickly by the genial face of Frank Bough announcing: “A very good morning to you,” will greet viewers at 6.30am.

But programme editor, Ron Neil, has given strict instructions that viewers must be treated gently at such a delicate hour. No boisterous rise and shine or exhortations to get up and going.

The two and a half hour programme will have no special item lasting longer than three minutes in case the bleary-eyed feel they’re getting a lecture with their cornflakes.

There will be no pinstripe suits for the men, who include David Icke on sport and Francis Wilson with the weather.

Pullovers, shirts and ties are more the order of the day.

Selina Scott has been “advised” to go for open neck blouses and a generally casual air.

Glamorous dresses and heavy jewellery are out.

The same goes for newsreader Debbie Rix, who will be giving news bulletins on the hour.

Viewers will also be shown how to keep fit by a lady named Diana Moran who will be dressed in green and nicknamed The Green Goddess!

All this has been noted by commercial TV-am where personalities are clearly going to be trump card. Their main star, David Frost, promises that we are all going to be riveted spell bound to our chairs, toast in hand and marmalade dripping down our cuffs, watching famous people reacting with one another like mad.

Backing him up will be Angela Rippon and Michael Parkinson.

Frost calls it “sexual chemistry”.

TV-am’s Anna Ford is complimentary about the Beeb’s approach.

“There are many things about the BBC that I admire,” she says.

“And they have the weight of the BBC machine behind their show. A lot of experience. But the trouble with experience is that it can turn into a rut if you’re not careful.

“Just look at our breakfasts compared to theirs. The guests on our show will get Bucks Fizz, kedgeree and proper ham and eggs.

“My memory of BBC breakfasts is that you’re landed with a pale half-cooked greasy sausage and thick, lukewarm tea!”

“What we’re doing is totally new,” trumpets Anna. “We’re out on our own.”

It won’t just be the breakfasts that surprise the interviewees when they arrive at TV-am’s headquarters in Camden, London. The entire place - which still resembles a building site at this late hour - has the air of a Hollywood film set.

There is a Chinese pagoda that doubles as a bar. A staircase designed after one leading to an Egyptian tomb.

Live trees will soon sprout from giant tubs in the foyer.

All this cuts no ice with Frank Bough who is more used to the BBC’s changeless corridors.

Frank’s team has a two week start on Anna’s - the BBC show goes on the air in just eight days time.

But with typical BBC meticulousness, since last Monday they have staged “real time pilots” every morning - meaning that the team have to turn up on time and go through the programme as if it were actually being transmitted.

The early hour will not deter MPs from plonking themselves in front of the camera. Ron Neil polled every MP about their willingness to appear and got a 95% response.

“Only three MPs said they would not wish to be disturbed at such an hour.”

They say that curiosity killed the cat. Both the BBC and ITV are praying that curiosity will be the making of them - that viewers who switch on to see what breakfast TV is all about will be hooked.

Meanwhile, just in case anyone at TV-am - where 70% of the staff are women and the average age is 29 - is under the illusion that Frank Bough, having achieved all he has in television, might be getting a little soft in his early middle age, here’s a warning from the man himself.

“When I first got this job,” he says, “one or two people said, ‘Frank, you’ll waltz it.’

“That’s not how I feel at all. It’s a challenge to me, a new adventure. I’ll be giving it every ounce of energy I have.

“For me, it’s like starting again.”

WHAT YOU’LL BE WATCHING

NAME OF SHOW: Breakfast Time

COMPANY: BBC

STARTING DATE: Monday, January 17 1983

RUNNING TIME: Two and a half hours (6.30am - 9 am Monday to Friday)

HIGHLIGHTS: Full news bulletins on the hour, summaries every fifteen minutes. Regional news and traffic every fifteen minutes. Guest newspaper reviewers. Resident doctor dealing with an ailment-a-day plus phone-in. Keep-fit with Diana Moran (nicknamed the Green Goddess because she will be dressed in green). Gossip column. Astrologer. Big U.S. coverage.

NAME OF SHOW: Good Morning Britain (preceded by Daybreak)

COMPANY: TV-am (commercial)

STARTING DATE: Tuesday February 1 1983

RUNNING TIME: Three and a quarter hours (6 am - 9.15 am)

HIGHLIGHTS: Four summaries of morning papers. 20 minutes of weather reports. Arts reviews and previews. Travel guide. Keep fit. Cooking with the stars. Fashion and make-up spot. Special weekend programmes - Michael Parkinson hosting sport and leisure show (Saturday), “Rub-a-dub-Tub” children’s show (Sunday). 17 commercial breaks.

This screen capture shows the scene on BBC1 before Breakfast Time went on air for the very first time on 17 January, 1983.

ITV - the scene before TV-am's first broadcast on 1 February, 1983.

Unsettled times at fledgling breakfast television station TV-am. The "Mission To Explain" was aborted, Anne Diamond and Nick Owen took over the sofa, wine flew, and Wincey Willis, "Mad Lizzie" Webb and Roland Rat turned up.

Daily Mirror, 2/6/1983...

BBC news girl Anne Diamond is joining TV-am's troubled breakfast show "Good Morning Britain".

Anne quit "Nationwide" last week claiming they hadn't given her enough to do. She will take over from TV-am's Lynda Berry - who is going on holiday - and join Nick Owen.

Editor Greg Dyke said: "She has got lots of fun and sparkle about her in addition to a good track record as a journalist."

He revealed that they have until December to prove the show is a success.

But Anne isn't worried.

"I do not think it's too much of a gamble to leave the safety of the BBC for TV-am," she said. "I'm sure we've all got a great future."

Daily Mirror, 16/6/1983

Anna Ford took her revenge on the man who sacked her from TV-am by soaking him with wine at a posh party.

She spotted her former boss Jonathan Aitken among the scores of guests, calmly walked up to him and threw her glass of white wine in his face.

"It was a good shot - I hit him four square," 39-year-old Anna said yesterday. "And if I had been a man I would have punched him on the nose."

Mr Aitken, a Tory MP, retorted: "It was a surprise attack, but being the father of three young children I am quite used to dealing with nursery tantrums."

Back to Anna: "I am glad I did it and before Jonathan Aitken criticises my behaviour he should consider his own. He has treated me monsterously and ruined my life."

Mr Aitken and his cousin Timothy fired Anna and Angela Rippon in April. Anna was dismissed for breach of contract after publicly supporting sacked Peter Jay, the breakfast station's original boss.

Her revenge attack came at a post-election party at Lady Melchett's Chelsea home.

Amongst the guests were former Premier James Callaghan, Lord Hailsham, interviewer Sir Robin Day and senior diplomats and their wives. Mr Aitken said: "I was chatting to a former American diplomat and Lady Reay. The next thing I know, a glass of wine hit me in the face.

"Everybody was surprised, to say the least."

He said Anna "scuttled away" without saying a word. "Not true," replied Anna, saying she and her husband Marc Boxer simply decided to leave.

Still the war of words went on. Mr Aitken said Anna was probably upset at the good ratings new presenter Anne Diamond is winning for TV-am.

"Nonsense," replied Anna. And she said she had received "not a penny" of her reported £60,000 golden handshake, now the subject of a legal wrangle.

Any regrets about her attack?

"It was white wine," said Anna. "Now I wish it had been red."

From humble beginnings as TV-am weather girl to the dizzy heights of Treasure Hunt (all right, I know she never actually set foot in Keith's helicopter!), we liked Wincey.

Where has she gone? And was she really called Wincey?

Lizzie ready to exercise. I loved the fashions of the 1980s, the colours worn by women AND men. With the fitness craze raging, workout gear was also trendy and of its time...

Lizzie kept smiling as she showed us the route to fitness.

There was a vogue in the mid-to-late 1980s for women to wear stockbroker/skinhead red braces with their workout gear, as demonstrated by Lizzie here.

TV-am workout woman "Mad Lizzie" Webb was flying high in 1987, with the release of two workout videos. In a late 1980s interview, she recalled how she first came to TV-am...

"I'll never forget my first morning on TV-am in May 1983: I'd never done any television before. I'd taught in stage schools, and was at the Italia Conti school when Lena Zavaroni and Bonnie Langford were there - but I had no intention at that time of being on TV myself.

"Then Greg Dyke was brought in to save TV-am from closure, and he wanted a dance teacher to combat the BBC's Green Goddess, Diana Moran. His assistant mentioned she went to a class given by 'a mad girl called Lizzie'. He started calling me Mad Lizzie before we even met.

"The assistant rang me, but I said I was already happy with what I was doing. Then she rang again and said: 'He's pleading with me so at least meet him'. I agreed - and a week later I was on the air, live.

"We'd had no rehearsals. The stage manager was waving his hands about and I hadn't a clue what the signals meant. Then Nick Owen said: 'We have Mad Lizzie, doing some excercises,' and I was on.

"I stood in front of the sofa with Nick sitting right by me - he was in camera shot and desperately trying to edge out. I shook from head to toe. I could see my fingers shaking. That was four and a half years ago and I can still remember that feeling of not knowing what I was about.

"It was a magic moment, and unforgettable because the feelings inside me were so strong, but I couldn't show them. The slot only lasted about three minutes, but to me it seemed to go on and on. Afterwards, there was a great feeling of relief - and then I just collapsed in a heap."

I remember Lizzie being relentlessly bright eyed and bushy tailed at obscene hours of the morning as I readied myself for work. But I liked her. She seemed genuinely enthusiastic, friendly and jolly.

I particularly remember her catchphrase: "shake it out!"

But at that time of the morning I preferred to slouch.

Still, Lizzie was one of a number of factors in the fitness-mad 80s that set me thinking and, finally, ambling off to the gym. I'm thankful, because although in my early 40s, I still workout a little and feel pretty darned fit!

A 1988 magazine profile of Mr Mallett.

Before 1983, there was no television early in the morning. As kids in the 1970s, we used to make our own amusement. Times was 'ard.

I remember getting stuck in my wardrobe early one morning during the summer holidays, c. 1973...

I'd been pretending that the wardrobe was a Tardis, had gone inside, made a weird, wheezing groaning noise in imitation of the materialisation sound, and, on trying to step out on to the lush and probably hostile surface of the planet Zarkoff (or some such), found that the door was stuck and I was trapped. My terrified cries finally brought my parents from their bed.

1980s children were spared such traumas, and 1980s parents could snooze peacefully. Well, they could from 1983 onwards. Children could sit, square eyed, lost in the colourful world of TV-am's children's fare.

Rub-a-Dub-Tub, Roland Rat and The Wide Awake Club were amongst the pioneering shows in this brave new world of breakfast telly, and a much-loved hero of mid-to-late 80s children was one Timmy Mallett, who presented The Wide Awake Club and, in the school holidays from October 1985 onwards, Wacaday.

Wacaday featured pop (and other) guests, the lovely Michaela Strachan as a presenter (for a while, anyway), features from around the world, games, and several odds and ends like "Drop Your Toast".

"Drop Your Toast?!" I hear you cry. "Whatever's that?!" It was all quite simple. In this slot viewers' names would be read out in the hope that the shock would make them drop their toast!

In the summer of 1986, a word association game called Mallett's Mallet was added to the proceedings. It included the large pink and yellow mallet in the photograph - contestants going off the rails would be hit with it!

In 1990, a smaller mallet called Pinky Punky made his debut. Apparently he often wanted to go to the toilet.

Yes, really.

Inspired lunacy, great entertainment for kids of all ages and no need to go anywhere near the wardrobe.

Relive it all here.