How To Be A Wally

I'm not sure when the term came about, but in the early-to-mid 1980s it was decidedly "in" to call somebody who was behaving in a thick witted manner, a "wally". So popular was this gentle term of insult, that it became the subject of a book, How To Be A Wally, by Paul Manning, published in 1983.

The How To Be A Wally back cover synopsis:


CONGRATULATIONS!

You have just become a bit of a wally SIMPLY BY PICKING UP THIS BOOK!

Now see if you can take it a stage further. Buy it. Then buy a copy for a friend.

And you can both find out

HOW TO BE A WALLY

in the comfort of your own home! Yes, with the help of easy, step-by-step diagrams, you can learn to:

Stand outside DER showrooms in the rain watching 'Game For A Laugh'

Feed prawn-cocktail flavour crisps to the lions in safari parks

Get the best out of your Colonel Bogey car horn

Destroy a Spanish football stadium

plus much more besides!

HOW TO BE A WALLY

The complete, no holds-barred guide to the wally lifestyle - AT A PRICE YOU CAN AFFORD!
 
An ad which appeared in the TV Times and several other publications in 1983.

Sunday People TV critic Nina Myskow was happy to announce a "Wally Of The Week" each and every week. The honour conferred above dates from 22/8/1982.

Marilyn wins the sought after "Wally Of The Year" title in the Sun, December 23 1983. Lucky bloke! Runners-up include Boy George, Terry Wogan and Max Bygraves.

Marilyn

It's been a fascinating experience to relive the 1980s through the newspapers of the decade - brilliant to escape from the BBC and Wikipedia's "We Glorify The '70s" nonsense, and to see the '80s as they really were again. Brash. Noisy. Violent. Glamorous. Technological. Outrageous. "Stylish" (note the speechmarks). Contrasting. Money loving. Caring. Fast moving...

But sometimes the newspapers rose above the roar and clatter of the decade and contained unquestionably wonderful things like the photograph of the two monkeys above, featured in the Daily Mirror in February 1984...

Hugging each other and clinging on to life, these monkeys are a real handful.

Since they were born three weeks ago, they've left their best friend Molly Badham with scarcely any spare time. Molly, who named the inseparable pair Peter and Pop, has bottle-fed them every three hours at her zoo in Twycross, Leics, because their mother rejected them.

Happily, Peter and Pop are doing fine.

I was, for some reason, deeply moved by the photograph... those adorable little faces, those intelligent eyes, the way they were hugging each other for comfort. Just like humans...

I felt tears pricking into my eyes and began to ponder the mysteries of life...

Then my eyes moved briefly to the right:

Marilyn has his handbag pinched

Only in the '80s!

My reflective mood trailed off into a very un-high minded explosion of raucous laughter...

Pop star Marilyn had his handbag, containing £500 in cash, snatched last night as he sat in a London restaurant.

And the singer, who wears outrageous clothes and make-up on and off the stage, is offering a reward for its return.

"It's awful," he said. "It had my address and my diary in as well as my wallet and all my keys.

"It had every appointment for the next six months in. I just don't know what I'm going to do.

Two men lifted the black rubber bag with grey trimmings from a seat as Marilyn sat with a woman friend in a restaurant near Oxford Circus.

"The fact that someone can actually do that is beyond me," he said. "I know the money's gone but I'm desperate to get the address book and diary back."

Poor Marilyn. Did he get his things back? If you know, drop me a line...

From the Daily Star, October 2, 1984:

Breakfast TV beauty Selina Scott was faced with her spitting image when she ran into chart-topper Marilyn yesterday.

The look-alike couple were among the celebrities at the Variety Club banquet in honour of Radio One.

And even guests who could tell one from the other were stumped when it came to deciding who looked prettier.

However everyone agreed they made an incredible double act.

The 1980s: Fashion Freedom For The Working Class Male (And Men In General!)

'80s fashion revolution for men...

Sunday Mirror, January 15 1984:

Boy George may be the High Priest of High Camp, but the 1984 fashion revolution extends far beyond Gorgeous George and the pop world.

You'd be amazed at the extraordinary extravagances very masculine young men are indulging in all over Britain.

And what the girls in their lives think about it...

I have few fond memories of my childhood in the 1970s. I hated that decade and I hated the way that I, as a male, was expected to dress, speak and even move in certain ways.

The dress was boring - flares, which had been around since the late 1960s - and some gawd awful acrylic tank top or jumper - if you didn't dress like everybody else, you got picked on; you had to speak macho round my way, and boys didn't cry; you even had to move in a rigidly masculine way.

I remember a New Year's party my parents threw in the late '70s. Then in my early teens, I was allowed downstairs to take part a bit - even have a "proper drink". There I sat, bemused by it all as my family bellowed at each other and shrieked with laughter over the din of 1950s music. I had my drink in one hand, one hand on my knee, when my step-father approached:

"Don't sit like that, son," he said. "It looks queer!"

WHAT?!!

And my mother was just as bad. She liked "boys to be boys" - they didn't cry, and they played with toy guns and got into fights.

Now, looking back from the vantage point of my current situation, happily married and unhappily mortgaged for the last fifteen years, with a large circle of friends from many different backgrounds, I find it hard to believe that things were so rigid in the 1970s.

But they were.

The 1980s were like a huge gale of fresh air.

Firstly, there was the New Man or Eighties Man - I've written more about that here but, briefly, this was a move towards a new breed of men - sensitive, not afraid of emotions, housework or childcare. They were hot news from around 1982 onwards.

And the 1980s also saw great strides forward in male fashion. Before the 1980s, it was OK for drag artists like Danny La Rue or male pop stars to wear make-up and/or take trouble with their grooming.

In the 1980s, it became OK for even working class ordinary geezers like me to do so. Early in the decade, nothing changed. If you'd dressed like Adam Ant on our council estate in 1981 you'd probably have got your head kicked in.

But when my tough, macho mate Pete started wearing white leg warmers and pixie boots, had his hair streaked and developed a very becoming Princess Diana fringe around 1983, I wondered what on earth was going on.

Particularly as in 1980 and 1981 his favourite fashion accessory was a Punk-style dog collar.

As the decade moved beyond its first few years, I was thrilled by the range of male fashions to buy - and the colours - glaring neons or "feminine" pastels.

And it was all so dressy!

Those linen jackets, with massive shoulder pads, looked tremendous with a cerise mesh vest and skin-tight yellow trousers.

Push up those jacket sleeves, or turn them back to reveal colourful contrasting material...

And then there was hair styling.

In the 1980s, I had my hair streaked blonde, bought gel and mousse, and had a variety of styles, ranging from bouffant mullet to glorious blonde tinged flat-top.

In 1984, I became the first man in my family ever to own a hairdryer.

Whilst I was happy simply being colourful and dressy, the influence of pop stars like Boy George and Marilyn prompted some men to go further...

The Sun, October 26, 1983:

Disco bosses have barred dance floor show-offs who wear too much make-up and revealing dresses... and that's just the lads!

Fashion-conscious fellas - who mimic chart-topping Boy George - have been blamed for falling attendances at the trendy over 18s club.

Now the "in-crowd" - who have been turning up in off-the-shoulder gowns, high heels and ostrich feathers - have been told: "Butch up or stay out."

Adam ____, manager of the Summerhill Club at Kingswinford, West Midlands, says their antics were putting the girls in the shade - and frightening away the regular guys.

One of the banned lads is Gary ____, 21, of Dudley, West Midlands.

"I was wearing my full make-up and all my best gear," said platinum blonde Gary.

Magazine advertisement from September 1985. "Looks even better on a girl"? I think he looks pretty darned striking myself!

So, what caused this sudden softening and colouring up of male dress sense in the 1980s?

The influence of Boy George cannot be underestimated. He was a real person, he didn't just dress for the stage. He sought to express himself through his varying looks.

It can be argued that there had been heavily individualistic people like the Boy around for a very long time, but his success on the pop scene and the tremendous interest he aroused says a lot about the 1980s.

Then there was the New/Eighties Man thing, a reply to the revival of the feminist movement which had come bursting out of the 1960s.

There was also the growing "swankiness" of the mid-1980s as money began to swirl around and style became oh so important. It was such a contrast to the early '80s, when donkey jackets had been one of the main fashion must-haves for both boys and girls.

Why the '80s male fashion revolution happened I'm not sure. I've expressed my ideas on the subject, but I'm really not sure.

But I'm very glad it did!

Two '80s popstrels, Nik Kershaw and Paul Young, on the cover of the very wonderful Smash Hits in September 1985. Nice hair! Read our hymn of praise to Black Type here.

Fashion trend leader Boy George - a sticker from the mid-1980s. Princess Margaret refused to be photographed with him at an awards ceremony in 1984, saying: "I don't know who he is, but he looks like an over made-up tart."

Marilyn had his handbag stolen in 1984.