Some More 1980s Highs - Gritty Neighbours, Sir Alec Jeffreys, The Trap Door And More...

We've got the lovely Anita Dobson - Angie from EastEnders, Rear of the Year 1987, no less - to welcome you back to your pick of what made the 1980s so swingorilliantly wicked! Thanks so much for your comments. We start off with a return to Ramsay Street with Beth P:

I recall Neighbours being huge when I was at school and my older sister scoffing at it. She called it ‘trite’ because she preferred Brookside and EastEnders. And then when Daphne died in a car crash caused by joy riders and Des went to pieces, his mother had a breakdown and Mike nearly went to prison trying to avenge Daph’s death, my sister cried over the episodes and said it was one of the strongest, bleakest soap stories she’d ever seen. 1 up to Neighbours!

I had a bit of a fixation with Den and Angie in EastEnders but on the whole I preferred Neighbours because it had more people doing everyday things that I could identify with – like popping in for a cup of tea and a good natter. EastEnders was just determined to be miserable all the time.

Yes, quite right. Much as I loved 'Enders back then, I didn't know any neighbourhood THAT flippin' miserable - and there were some real dives round my way. I lived in one.

Farewell, sweet Daphne! It was a strong and harrowing storyline for Neighbours, with a terrible aftermath.

Continuing the Australian soaps theme, Carl says:

I couldn't stick Sons & Daughters. And when we got our first VCR I had to sit through it 5 nights a week.

Strewth mate, shush! You'll upset Beryl. Oh no! Too late!

Well, moving quickly on, Spinderella Q says:

The biggie for me from the 80’s was falling in love with Jordan from New Kids On The Block in 1989. I was 8.

Nice lad. Plenty of product in the hair to give it that distinctive 1980s "smart-but-messed-up" look and the jacket is fabulous - dressy, but not overstated. Well, not by 1989 standards, that is. The lad should go far.

Chris reminds us of a forgotten gem:

What about “DON’T YOU OPEN THAT TRAPDOOR – COS THERE’S SOMETHING DOWN THERE!”

WONDERFUL! Dear old Berk and co - and voiced by fabulous Willie Rushton. We have only one thing to say: Globits!

Returning to the soaps, an English one this time, and Laura says:

I loved it when Ken and Deirdre in Coronation Street rowed in the '80s. He was kind of plank like, and she really went over the top.

We don't know what you mean, Laura. Ooh heck...

... perhaps we do... mind you, Ken looks a bit more 'Sugar Plum Fairy' than 'plank' to us...

Some who weren't around in the 1980s wish they were - like Harry:

I love the 1980s although I wasn’t born. Things like the first commercial computer mouse, the first version of Windows, the ZX Spectrum, Pac-Man, Sir Alec Jeffreys discovering DNA fingerprinting and Sir Tim Berners-Lee inventing the World Wide Web make it all seem so exciting. And they found the Titanic. And I love all the music and fashions.

You have excellent taste, my lad. And, if you haven't already, you must check out the fabulous Thompson Twins with my fave '80s popstrel Alannah Currie on You Tube or somewhere. Simply great.

Oh, Alannah, Alannah! Be still my fluttering heart! I adored Ms Currie back in the day.

Please keep the comments coming. Who knows what the future holds? As Sir Alec Jeffreys who stumbled upon DNA fingerprinting in 1984, said in recent years: 

‘If someone had told me in 1980, “Alec, go away and figure out a way of identifying people with DNA,” I would have sat there looking very stupid and got nowhere at all.’

Keep hopeful and happy if you can! xxx

1984: Sir Alec Jeffreys And A "Eureka!" Moment - The Discovery Of DNA Fingerprinting...

Alec Jeffreys at work in his Leicester University lab in 1985.

Scientist Alec Jeffreys (now Sir Alec Jeffreys) was at work in his lab at Leicester University, England, in September 1984, when something astounding happened - he accidentally discovered what he called "DNA fingerprinting", and a whole new world was opened up.

This was a one-off, stand alone, out-of-the-blue discovery which was to have an amazing impact on the world. It was totally unexpected and unsought for.

In the late summer of 1984, Jeffreys was working on a project to study how inherited illnesses pass through families. The project failed.

But the result, although not what Jeffreys had envisaged or even imagined in his wildest dreams, was absolutely stunning.

Says Jeffreys: "I was on my own in the darkroom at 9.05 on September 10, 1984, when that pattern came up and I twigged what we had stumbled upon. Just that single bit of X-ray film threw open a door we didn't even know was there. It opened the whole science of forensic DNA.

"My first reaction was that the results were really yucky-looking and complicated. It took about thirty seconds for the penny to drop. I came rushing out of the darkroom. The first person I saw was Vicky Wilson, my technician. 'Hey, we are on to something exciting here,' I told her. We started coming on to all sorts of crazy ideas. I was running round the lab with a needle, pricking myself and spotting blood drops around, because at that point we didn't even know if DNA would survive in a forensic-type specimen.

"It was a 100 per cent accident. Science tends to be a slow, plodding discipline: two steps forward, one step back. To get a 'Eureka!' moment like that, when suddenly an entire new field opens up, is really rare. Most scientists will go their whole lives never experiencing it.

"In those early days you wouldn't have hung a dog on the quality of the DNA fingerprints we were able to produce, but within a few months we were getting much richer patterns. The most sensible thing I did was to call it 'DNA fingerprinting', if we'd given it a more technical or scientific name I'm sure it would have taken much longer for anyone to take any notice.

In recent years, Sir Alec Jeffreys has called himself 'a bit of a beardy-weirdy in the mid-80s'. But, even if it were true, he was so much more than that!

"The following year a lawyer read a piece on our research and contacted us because he thought we might be able to help with an immigration case. The son of a family living in London had gone back to Ghana and when he tried to return ten years later his British passport had expired and the authorities were convinced that another family member was trying to get in under his name.

"Through his DNA analysis we proved that he was telling the truth and to this day it is my proudest case."

Colin Pitchfork was arrested for the rape and murder of two teenage girls after the first "DNA manhunt" in 1987.

In the 21st Century, forensic DNA is an accepted and trusted tool - it has revolutionised crime scene investigations, led to the convictions of murderers and rapists, and transformed immigration disputes and paternity cases.

And just think - it all began, totally unexpectedly, in Sir Alec Jeffreys' Leicester lab on that fateful morning in 1984...

"Eureka" indeed!