Some 1980s Vibes: When Corona Was Fizzy Drinks, Frankie Wanted To Arm The Unemployed And West End Girls Prowled...

'West End Girl' - a 1987 poster by Athena. The spiky-haired foxtress has obviously been surprised on the fire escape. Wonder what she's been up to? Eurythmics's Annie Lennox, in the guise of her horrid middle class housewife in the 1987 'Beethoven (I love to listen to)' video, would no doubt, have been fascinated!

So, the 1980s.

BOOM! BANG! KER-BLAM! Love Thatcher/Reagan? Hate Thatcher/Reagan? Wanna be a yuppie? Wanna join Red Wedge and tear down the whole capitalist system? Wanna eat Nouvelle Cuisine? Wanna eat bubble and squeak portions from Bejam? Love the brand new House Music sensation? Prefer the brand new indie sensation that was The Smiths? Love to power dress? Love to wear deelyboppers and jelly shoes?

The 1980s seemed full to bursting with contrasting thingies. And now it all looks like a different planet. How things have changed! Take Covid-19. Back in the 1980s if you mentioned 'Corona' in England and Wales, a range of fizzy drinks immediately sprang to the forefront of most minds - not lockdowns and social distancing.

This Corona bottle dates from 1982, as indicated by the date on the promotional blurb on the back of the label. The label features the little bubbly thingie from the early 1980s 'Every bubble's passed its fizzical' TV ad, which was then current.

Environmentally friendly? 'Course we were - 10p deposit charged on the bottle. My favourite Corona drinks were orangeade and cherryade. Every Christmas we used to order a crate of assorted Corona drinks from the milkman.

Daily Mirror, 27 February, 1985:

Frankie goes to Downing Street
Leading pop stars have signed a "celebrity petition" to be handed in at 10 Downing Street tomorrow. It opposes Government plans to axe supplementary benefit for school leavers if they do not take part in the Youth Training Scheme. Holly Johnson and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paul Weller, Madness, Smiley Culture, the Flying Pickets and Alison Moyet are among the entertainers whose names will be handed in. The Downing Street visit is part of a national rally and lobby of Parliament organised by the Youth Trade Union Rights Campaign.

The Youth Opportunities scheme had been introduced by the Callaghan Labour Government in 1978, in response to rapidly rising youth unemployment. A YOP provided work experience only, although in 1982 a training element was added. In 1983, it was replaced by the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), which, as the scheme's name suggests, was centred around training for skills.

So, what was the beef with school leavers having to go on a YTS scheme to qualify for Government money? Did they not want training? Well, looking back, the reasons I heard bandied about were that the Government was simply using the scheme to make the unemployment figures look smaller, and that minimum age school leavers had a right to expect a proper job.

This interested me as, as far back as the mid-1970s, the fact that graduates with degrees were finding it impossible to find work was being widely reported.

But in the 1980s, any initiative on the part of the Thatcher Governments was seen by many of us as a plot to do us down. Her first government's concentration on inflation rather than unemployment early in the decade had cast her out forever as far as I was concerned.

And, although I had a job and was completely unaffected, I still ranted my disapproval.

Maggie Thatcher would probably have dearly loved to give Frankie a spanky in the mid-1980s.

1989: Margaret Thatcher: 'We Have Become A Grandmother!'

It was sometimes said in the 1980s that Mrs Thatcher and the Queen did not see eye-to-eye and that Mrs T had her eye on the throne.

Outrageous! Ridiculous! Wasn't it?

Nobody knows what caused the Prime Minister to use the royal 'We' while announcing the birth of her first grandchild, but it caused a lot more talk.

There she was. Three general election wins. The Iron Lady. Had it all gone to her head?

And it turned out her first grandson was a Texan. Born In Dallas. Just like JR Ewing.

Strange days indeed...

From the Cambridge Evening News, 4/3/1989:

Thatcher Baby A Texan

Baby Michael Thatcher, the Prime Minister's first grandchild, will be an American citizen because he was born in Texas.

But he will be entitled to British citizenship by descent the Home Office confirmed.

Mrs Thatcher's son, Mark, and his American wife, Diane, became parents in Dallas on Tuesday.

Of course, despite her use of the royal 'We', Mrs Thatcher did not become Queen.

But I was feeling quite tired and jaded as this colourful, contrasting and often completely OTT decade roared towards its close and wouldn't have been a bit surprised if she had!

1988: The End Of The Reagan Era...

On 9th November 1988, American Vice President George Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis to become President of the United States. Over here, Channel Four marked the end of the Reagan era by showing four of his films - Bedtime For Bonzo, Desperate Journey and Dark Victory.

Click on the TV Times listing above for more details.

From the Sun, November 18, 1988:

Ronald Reagan danced the last waltz with Mrs Thatcher at an emotional farewell at the Whitehouse.

The world leaders brought down the curtain on their eight-year partnership by sweeping around the ballroom to the sounds of "Hello Dolly".

Husband Denis followed with First Lady Nancy Reagan, applauded by a galaxy of political, literary and showbiz stars.

Mrs Thatcher was visibly moved as President Reagan paid her yet another tribute in the after-dinner toasts.

"We love her," he said.

Nancy confessed: "I was feeling very sentimental and nostalgic and got a little teary during Mrs Thatcher's toast to my husband."

Mrs Thatcher said afterwards: "It was a very emotional moment."

The President yesterday backed incoming President George Bush, who takes over in January, and urged America to give him time to slash the nation's £150 billion budget deficit.

BANG! How The 1980s Began... Tabloid Snippets From The First Two Years...

1980 - Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please... The anthem of that summer. LOVE IT!!!! Listen to it whilst you're reading through this article - it'll help bring that early 1980s vibe flooding back...

"TWO PINTS OF LAGER AND A PACKET OF CRISPS PLEASE!" we all squawked in the summer of 1980. This was thanks to Splodgenessabounds, of course. 

June 24, 1980:

Britain's most outrageous punk group have rocked into the charts with their first single.

The band, Splodgenessabounds, pour out four letter words, show their bare bottoms and break wind on stage.

Their recording of Simon Templar has reached No. 7 only four weeks after its release.

But it is the B-side - a song called Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Please - which has caught on with the fans.

The group's founder, lead singer Max Splodge, 21, said in London last night: "Before I take my trousers down and moon, I always take a special powder so that I can break wind effectively."

The only person in the eight-strong band without a bare bottom role is girl singer Baby Greensleeves, 22.

Baby, who sometimes takes her dog Two Pints to the group's concerts, said: "I'd moon as well, but it would take too much time because of the gear I wear."

And what was the song about? Some desperate young lad trying to get served in a packed-out pub. Been there so many times. Mind you, if I'd been a barmaid/bloke, I probably wouldn't have served me either.

Max Splodge, Two Pints... writer and singer, spilled the beans about the song years later:

"One night I rushed into The Crown in Chislehurst waving a pound note, trying to buy two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. The bell rang and the bloke wouldn't serve me. The guys in the band were out of their heads on magic mushrooms and thought this was hysterical. The next day I put down a drum track and bass line and just shouted, 'two pints of lager and a packet of crisps...' Mike Reid played it on Radio 1 and it started selling 17,000 copies a day. No one could believe it. It sold a quarter of a million copies and got to No 7."

Cor, the '80s were starting out dead posh, weren't they? 

 Splodgenessabounds' wonderful 1980 anthem on glorious vinyl, tucked away on the B-side with Michael Smith's Talking Bum.

 1981 - England's burning...

Well, of course, we all remember the Style Decade! The glitzy 1980s! Yuppies! Docklands developments! Big Bang! The Credit Boom! Big hair and shoulder pads!

Ho, ho, weren't they up themselves, mateyboots?

Well, actually, one of the things that fascinates me the most about the 1980s is what a turbulent and contrasting decade it was, and nothing speaks louder about that than the good old tabloid newspapers of the era, those we propped up against the Daddy's Sauce bottle as we read and gronffed down our egg and chips early in the decade, or against the bottle of fancy salad dressing as we read and gronffed down our beautifully prepared Nouvelle Cuisine later on.

Let's continue to trawl through some early 1980s tabloid snippets... no yuppies. No mobile phones. Three TV channels and Top of The Pops on Thursday nights...

In my street, none of the school leavers stayed on to sixth form or had the remotest desire to attend university. Oh no, we wanted out of school, and that was the way it had been for us, the lower working classes, the great unwashed, forever. During the 1980s, this would begin to change, but when I left school it certainly wasn't the case. Unemployment had been a problem for years, and with Thatcher focusing on inflation, the number of jobless folk was accelerating through the roof in the early 1980s. But we poor sods had no thought of "staying on" - and it would not have been financially viable for parents round my district anyway.

No yuppies in the early 1980s, no credit boom... riots, royals, CB radio, New Romantics, Space Invaders, and Rubik's Cube were the new trends popping one by one onto the scene.

One writer referred to "The Swinging Sixties And Savage Seventies". As the 1980s got underway, I wondered if they would be remembered as "The Aggro Eighties"? Actually, there was a lot of aggro THROUGHOUT the 1980s, so perhaps it's a worthy title, but so much else happened in that ten years that there are many others!

Anyway, sit back and continue (hopefully) to enjoy this visit to 1980 and 1981, via the Daily Mirror...

1981 - "There's Going To Be A Rumble Tonight"...The riots... in 1980, there was some trouble, centred around racial tensions, a youth leader commented he'd seen it coming for fifteen years or so. In 1981, inner cities burned and shops were plundered as trouble makers, opportunists, political activists and bored youths joined in.

July 9, 1981:

Hours before the latest explosion of mob violence in North London, the word was passed around: "There's going to be a rumble tonight!"

The news spread rapidly through local pubs, youth clubs and even school playgrounds.

It resulted in a crowd of around 400 youths converging on Wood Green and turning it into a battlefield of looting and rioting.

Yesterday police, community leaders and shopkeepers - who were robbed of thousands of punds' worth of goods - were in no doubt that the mob was well organised.

More than six hours before the eruption, the Daily Mirror was warned that trouble was about to break out.

A man, who refused to give his name, phoned the Mirror to say: "There will be trouble in Wood Green High Road tonight."

The caller explained that he had overheard a group of youths in a North London pub boasting that they were going to "take on the police".

At about the same time, police themselves heard about the impending violence.

This was revealed yesterday to local police Commander Jim Dickenson.

He said: "It was obviously organised by somebody.

"You don't get hundreds of people massing in one place by coincidence."

Haringey Council leader Robin Young also got a tip-off hours before.

He said: "Undoubtedly it was all pre-arranged. The word went round that there was going to be a rumpus."

Youths in orgy of plunder

Moss Side

Shopkeepers were last night counting the cost of mob violence which exploded in Moss Side, Manchester, early yesterday.

Mobs of youths threw petrol bombs, smashed windows and looted shops, leaving a trail of damage estimated at £300,000.

They stoned fireman who were forced to retreat and watch helplessly as two shops were gutted...

In Liverpool, 25 people - the youngest aged eleven - appeared in court following the Toxteth riots.

They were charged with offences ranging from assaults on police to criminal damage. Most of the adults charged were remanded in custody.

Meanwhile, the BBC was apparently giving instructions on Radio 2 on how to make a Molotov cocktail. Good grief!

Wednesday, July 8, 1981: 

A bomb boob on JY show

The BBC blundered yesterday by broadcasting how to make a petrol bomb.

BBC community relations correspondent John Clare, who has been covering the Liverpool riots, described the ingredients of a Molotov cocktail on Jimmy Young's Radio 2 show.

The BBC received a number of complaints and Jimmy made an apology later in his show.

On the same day, a letter published in the Mirror's Public Opinion section asked an interesting question...

As I lived in Toxteth until about two years ago, the riots there are less of a surprise to me than most. It was obvious that the levels of social deprivation I witnessed could not continue without some reaction sooner or later.

I wonder, though, why riots have only broken out now under a Tory Government.

Ted Heath and the Left Wing Mirror were well and truly on Thatcher's case, and Lady Di caused shock amongst traditionalists as Royal Wedding fever raged...

 Thursday, July 2, 1981:

Lady Diana Spencer will NOT promise to obey Charles when they marry on July 29.

She will pledge herself only to "love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health" at the ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral.

Her decision after talks with Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, breaks with the tradition followed by Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Anne.

But it delighted women's libbers like Nell Noell of the Women's Rights Movement.

But Lady Di didn't go far enough for Nell, who said: "I hope she will avoid the humiliation of using her husband's name.

"She should stick to name she was born with and not agree to be called Princess Charles."

Flippin' 'eck! The times were changing, however, quite frankly I couldn't have cared less about the Royal Wedding - and as for Feminism - YUCK! - one-sided, cherry-picked lies aimed at vilifying one half of the human race. Men. I'm in total agreement with Karen Straughan. But what's that at the bottom of the front page? The topless Mary Poppins? Good grief! SURELY NOT?!!!

Eeeek!

Thursday, July 2, 1981:

AT LAST.. this is the moment when sugary British star Julie Andrews loses all her inhibitions and Mary Poppins finally pops out.

Julie plays a fading Mary Poppins-type actress in her new film, SOB, the story of the machinations of the Hollywood film moguls.

She is called on to go topless in a movie to save the studio from going bust.

It's quite a wrench for the poor girl, but finally she is convinced that fans will pack the box offices if she is seen in the bare flesh.

There is another eye-popping scene where she bares her bottom for a quack doctor to inject her with a muscle-relaxant drug so she can pluck up courage to peel off for the cameras.

What did Julie think of her part in the film, directed by husband Blake Edwards? "It gave me quite a kick," she said.

That nice Mary Poppins certainly wouldn't have approved.

I was so shocked, I nearly passed me fags round. 

In other news... Ronald Reagan was elected President of the USA in November 1980. He was shot in 1981, but survived.

Oh well, we'll watch Wimbledon! In 1981, Wimbledon was a bastion of tradition, a far more staid, and in fact downright posh, affair than it is today. The perfect retreat from the stresses of the highly modern early 1980s world.

Oh yeah?!!!!

"You CANNOT be serious!" John McEnroe was making waves as he dragged Wimbledon out of the highly polite "More Tea Vicar?" 1930s and into the brash, "In-Yer-Face" 1980s....

Lady Diana Spencer watched at Wimbledon yesterday as tennis superbrat John McEnroe smashed his way into the final with a volley of abuse.

Lady Diana, a keen tennis fan, was a surprise visitor to Wimbledon. She was given a standard ovation when she arrived in the Royal box.

Then the 14,000-strong crowd watched in amazement as McEnroe made thirteen loud comments to the umpire and shouted obscenities at spectators.

The behaviour on court brought a public warning and penalty point with the possibility of a £5,000 fine.

And twenty minutes after his semi-final victory, over Australia's Rod Frawley, the fiery American was still at it. 

He stormed out of a press conference after calling newsmen "liars" and "trash".

McEnroe's first-set public warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour came when he suddenly bellowed: "I hate umpires. I get screwed by them in this place."

In the final set he lost a penalty point for shouting, "You are a disgrace to mankind."  The umpire took it as an insult, but McEnroe later said he had been talking to himself.

At the press conference McEnroe's first explosion came when he was asked whether the return to New York of his girlfriend, Stacy Margolin, meant they had split up.

The 22-year-old New Yorker shouted: "People like you make me sick. It is none of your business in the first place and the answer is no."

He went on: "You guys are sh*t and trash and I want you to quote me on that."

During McEnroe's outburst Lady Diana's name was mentioned. He suddenly paused and said: "She's a terrific person."

Before sweeping out of the room McEnroe told reporters: "I don't want to waste time on low people like you."

The uproar continued after the star's exit when a fight broke out between two newsmen - a Britain and an American - which sent chairs and microphones flying.

 Phew, feel quite exhausted after this little trip back... Time to go and have a cuppa and a quick play with my ZX 80, I think. More soon...

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.

Did Margaret Thatcher Influence The Shoulder Pads Trend? Er, No, Actually...

Phil writes to say:

I've been reading on line that Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister from May 1979 to November 1990, influenced the trend for huge shoulder pads. Did she? Was she the original power dresser?

No, Phil. Piffle and bunk on-line we're afraid.

Power dressing was a trend Margaret Thatcher followed in the 1980s, but did not help to create. The jacket she wore after her first general election win in May 1979 illustrates this. It is simply a neatly tailored blue jacket, with totally non-excessive shoulders. It was a boring garment in 1979 - and would even have been boring in 1969. As the 1980s wore on, Thatcher simply adopted the fashion of that time. Compare her neatly tailored and somewhat timeless look of 1979 (top) and her whopper shoulders of 1987 (bottom) for details.

Cynthia Crawford, Thatcher's personal assistant who was responsible for seeing she was smartly dressed and groomed, stated in 2013:

'In 1987 she was going to Russia for the first time and I had seen a wonderful coat in Aquascutum's window and I went to get it. A lot of her clothes up until that time had been homemade by a lady. She made all those dresses and blouses with bows and things. Mrs Thatcher went to Russia and she looked absolutely fabulous. I said to her: "If you are going to fight an election in June, why don't we ask Aquascutum to make you up some working suits." She agreed, so we ordered these suits. It was when the power shoulders were in and it just revolutionised her. She looked fantastic. She enjoyed all the new outfits and got away from the dresses. She never wears trousers, not even today. She always likes formal clothes, even at home. She hasn't got a lot of casual clothes.'

Thatcher was a follower, not an innovator, as far as fashion was concerned. I don't recall anybody wanting to look like her. The handbag, for a start, was so naff!

The History Of The Yuppie Word

A couple of English mid-1980s yuppies in London. They had the big hair. They had the brains. They had the looks. They made lots of money.

Jeanne has written to ask me about how the yuppie word - an acronym pasted onto a model suggested by "hippie" came about.

Well, Jeanne, the term first arrived in print in a May 1980 Chicago Magazine article by Dan Rottenberg, and at that point simply referred to young urban professionals who were buying up houses and apartments in former working class areas and rather destroying the feel of these places in Chicago - with trendy shops and theatres opening to service their needs where once had been old family concerns, etc. Poorer folk who had traditionally lived in those areas were being priced out.

At that point, President Carter was still in charge at the White House, and the booming busting part of the 1980s was not in sight. So, we seem to have quite an innocent local word, not an approval word by any means, but lacking the vehement condemnation and international infamy which would later follow.

After the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 (he was elected in November 1980) this began to change. The term "yuppie" caught fire and was applied to the type of person who flocked to the stock exchange and lived a highly excessive lifestyle, taking full advantage of the new political regime.

The American 'Newsweek' magazine , in its December 31st issue, declared 1984 "The Year Of The Yuppie".  With $600  a month workouts available at the new Definitions Gym in New York (most of us lesser mortals never worked out in those days), continuing "gentrification" of quaint neighbourhoods, property values soaring, Presidential candidate Gary Hart, and the ex-flophouse in Milwaukee which became a "mecca for social drinkers" (complete with ceiling fans) what wasn't there to love?

The yuppie was still pretty dowdy in 1983, if the humorous American Yuppie Handbook and an American mug I have from the same time are anything to go by (they wanted pasta machines, Rolex watches, Sony Walkmans and a VCR), but within a few years the image had altered to that of Wall Street - "Greed Is Good".

The infamous yuppies of the mid-to-late 1980s were apparently ruthless individuals, their lives dominated by the love of money and THINGS. They quaffed champagne. They snorted cocaine. They wanted it all. And they wanted it now.

The word spread to England in the mid-1980s, and was applied to similar types, waving their wads about, who took advantage of the financial knock-on effects of the American Reaganite ethos and the prevailing, highly similar attitudes of the Thatcher governments. They bulled. They beared. They sported the new revamped and highly trendy Filofaxes and the brand new miracle, the handheld brick cell phone ("Yuppie toys!" we called 'em). They drank bottled water. They worked out. They were fit for business. Fit for life.

Of course, not all yuppies were champagne swilling, cocaine snorting, horribly greedy gits with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever, but "yuppie" became a buzz word for those who were all or some of these things. The yuppies of the mid-to-late 1980s were horribly grandiose, high tec, greedy, without care. That was the popular view.

And that, as far as I'm aware, is a history of the yuppie word, how it was originally applied and how its usage altered with the changing political regimes and attitudes in America and England as the 1980s progressed.

There was a point, circa 1985, 1986 and 1987 in my home city where I could almost smell the money around about me. The night clubs went neon. The pubs went posh or themed. Glittering new office blocks rose left, right and centre. The supermarkets were full of "posh" (and strange) foods that we'd think nothing of eating now. The smell of wonga hung heavy. But, unfortunately, I never had much. Ah, well, as a care worker at least I could take the moral high ground.

But I couldn't help finding yuppies fascinating.

Read more of our material on them by clicking the "yuppies" label below.

1984 - Some Things They Said... And An Act Of God At York Minster?

Ah, 1984... Ronald Reagan won his second term in office as President of the USA; Margaret Thatcher had won her second General Election with a landslide in 1983 and in 1984 she and Arthur Scargill went to war against each other as the miners' strike bit hard; the Grand Hotel bombing nearly ended Mrs T's career. And her life; Boy George was insulted by Princess Margaret; Torvill and Dean thrilled us on the ice skating rink; the Apple Mac arrived - "Hello" - as did Trivial Pursuit; bulldog clips were the latest hair craze; break dancing was the main dance craze; Band Aid had a very worthwhile chart hit; and Prince William gained a baby brother - Henry, or Harry, as he was known.

Here's a few quotes from 1984 listed in the Sunday Express 1984 - The Pictures Of The Year magazine...

"The world is swimming in coal." - Ian MacGregor, chairman of the National Coal Board.

"I've even tried to start a rumour that I'm really not that old, that they mixed up the babies in the hospital." - President Ronald Reagan.

"I have a very high success criterion. Monetary values come into it, because I like to live well and I have to earn a lot." - Mark Thatcher accused of exploiting his mother's position.

"Most psychiatrists or analysts are a waste of time." - Boy George.

"Very few overseas visitors are quite sure where Birmingham is." - Michael Montague, chairman of the English Tourist Board.

"It seems silly that more people should see me in 'Jewel In The Crown' than in all my years in theatre." - Dame Peggy Ashcroft.

"If there are to be any explosions in our country, they should take place on the floor of the House of Commons and nowhere else." - Bernard Weatherill, Speaker of the House of Commons.

"If you put things firmly they say you are headmistressy, but they never call a man headmastery." - Margaret Thatcher.

"I know I am going to be President" - Senator Gary Hart.

"No redundancy payment in the world can match the value of a job passed on to the next generation." - Arthur Scargill.

"What is proposed is a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend." - Prince Charles on the National Gallery extension

"When they address themselves to aesthetic judgements, people fall back on what I regard as very offensive language." - Peter Ahrends, architect of the proposed (and then cancelled) National Gallery extension.

"I won't be photographed with that over-made-up tart." - Princess Margaret on meeting Boy George.

"If men could have babies, they would only ever have one." - Diana, Princess of Wales.

"I just signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." - President Reagan during rehearsals for a radio broadcast.

"By all means have a bath or shower as long as you don't forget the object of the exercise is to use less water." - Water Authorities Association.

"The Labour delegates drink gin and tonic. The Conservatives drink beer. Actually the National Union of Students is best for us - they drink lots of Pernod." - Blackpool hotel manager.

"If industrial workers are taking industrial action when they are not working, one wonders what they are doing when they are working" - The Duke of Edinburgh.

"I ended up like some old fag-ash Lil being carted off to the nick." - Angela Wilson, first person to be prosecuted for smoking on the tube.

"This is our last chance for change - because if this doesn't happen we are for the birds." - Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.

Some of the above statements seem sane and good, others amusing, others more than slightly bonkers. But that was the '80s!

One of the most memorable quotes listed in the magazine came from Professor David Jenkins, Bishop-elect of Durham, in May:

"I wouldn't put it past God to arrange a Virgin Birth if he wanted. But I don't think he did."

Say what?!! But surely a Bishop-elect of the Church of England must believe?!

But an event some found much odder was soon to come...

The Daily Telegraph 1984 magazine reported:

The previous week had seen the installation at York Minster of the controversial new Bishop of Durham, Professor David Jenkins, who had seemed to many to question fundamental Christian beliefs in his televised remarks about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.

Suddenly, out of a clear and calm Sunday sky in July, a bolt of lightning struck the 700-year-old cathedral, starting a spectacular fire that destroyed its 15th-century south transept. Was it an act of God? "I am not," said the Archbishop of Canterbury, "going to put myself in the position of stating where and when there has been divine intervention."

York Minster ablaze in 1984.

Margaret Thatcher

Daily Mirror, December 1980: Maggie was accused of being Scrooge by Labour MP Ian Wrigglesworth who had sent her a "dossier of despair", containing letters from families in the North East of England affected by unemployment. She replied that she wouldn't give "false hope" but was convinced that continuing to reduce inflation would restore health to the economy. She also promised a brighter 1981.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher is dead.

I was stunned and startled when my wife told me the news a couple of hours ago.

What did I think of Thatcher? What DO I think of Thatcher?

Well, my view of her has changed over the years.

For a start, when she first came to power in 1979, there was no major sea change in the air. Governments were in and out of power like fiddlers' elbows back then, and some people were wondering if a woman might be different. She was, after all, the UK's first female Prime Minister.

We didn't expect her to stay long.

But she formed two further governments, in 1983 and 1987.

By late 1980, many of us in my neck of the woods couldn't stick her. "The lady's not for turning," she said - "Bloody old bag!" we ranted.

The election of Ronald Reagan as US President in 1980 and inauguration in 1981 caused many changes and really set the 1980s on-track as being the decade we remember. Thatcher immediately declared "We Stand with you!"

Blueerrggh! I thought.

Maggie and husband Denis had been impressed by Ronald Reagan's political stance way back in the late 1960s. In 1981, she backed him fully at his inauguration as President of the USA.

Maggie had stated that she would concentrate on inflation rather than jobs creation, she was determined. She seemed hard and uncaring as far as I could see. She would be 'out' at the next General Election, I confidently predicted.

But 1982 had other ideas.

Maggie's stance over the Falklands War did, I'm sure, win her many more fans then detractors, and so she called an early General Election in 1983 - and got in with a landslide majority.

Maggie had her teeth straightened in 1982, but the American TIME magazine used a pre-straightened photo as the basis for their cover painting covering her second General Election victory in 1983.

 

1983: It was in the bag... Number 10 was going to be Maggie's den for a second term...

 Her second term in office was the most dramatic - Maggie was nearly blown up by the IRA at Brighton, the confrontation with Arthur Scargill and the miners is something none of us who were around back then will ever forget, and there was also the "yuppie" thing filtering over from America, Big Bang on the Stock Exchange, and so on. Things were changing rapidly. Maggie was at her height. 

Did you love Maggie? Or chuck an egg at her? 1984 saw the PM with egg on her face - literally.

Was she trying to take over from the Queen, some wondered? Rumours abounded that her Maj was not too keen on her Mag, but I wasn't impressed by either of them so was not terribly interested. 

In those days, you could go into a pub and spend the entire evening talking or arguing over politics. I miss that.

 The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book - puppet Maggie gets to grips with the jobless.

And so on to 1987 - and Mrs T won a third term. A THIRD term! How had that happened? I remember wondering. Just about everybody I knew denied voting for her. But then just about everybody I knew denied watching Crossroads. However, I suspected some of them did anyway.

The thing is, I saw - or at least thought I saw - how she'd made it in 1979 and 1983. 

'79's success was down to the Winter of Discontent and perhaps the thought of giving a woman a chance. Maggie had stated on TV that she was a woman - a housewife. Had that swayed people? She was rather more windswept and everyday looking in those days as well. 

Maggie's '83 success was down to the "Falklands Factor". For me, that was it - pure and simple. 

But by 1987, things had changed. Since Ronald Reagan had come to power in the USA, and the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR, the whole world seemed to be transforming. And things did feel far more comfortable for me as far as my living standards were concerned than they had in the 1970s and early years of the 1980s. I voted against the Tories in 1987, but I wasn't really that surprised when she got in again.  And I didn't seek reasons for her success.

By 1987, years like 1980 and 1982 seemed almost like a different planet to me. There were enough people around in 1987 who were either so much better off than they had been, or who thought that the medicine was worth enduring, to ensure that Thatcher got her third  Downing Street tenancy.

Maggie used the Royal "We" in 1989 - "We are a grandmother." Barking, I thought.

And so, Maggie's third and final term began in 1987, and 1987 sent a stock market crash and also a huge gale across southern England. 1988 saw the PM speaking up about Green issues, controversy over Clause 28 and the rise of acid house - and also, it seems, increasing disquiet amongst Maggie's ministers that she was doing it all herself. It seemed that she did what she wanted - regardless of them. If they didn't agree, there could always be a reshuffle.

Maggie also learned that Ronald Reagan, her close and highly powerful ally since 1981, was on the way out in '88. 

By January 1989 protest groups were already mobilising, united against the coming community charge - or "Poll Tax".

Like Ronnie in '88 (he left the White House in 1989), Maggie was on the way out too. In November 1990 we saw her depart from No 10.

So, how does all this leave me feeling now?

Well, I was vehemently opposed to everything Thatcher did as the 1980s took hold and continued.

But I feel I've seen so much worse since and I can't believe everybody still blames her!

For a start, she was part of something much bigger, the arrival of Ronald Reagan in America and the general feeling of being sick of being dirt poor was what prompted much of the so-called "Greed Is Good" ethos of the mid-to-late 1980s,  but it was a tremendously polarised decade, when Left fought Right fiercely. That has all gone. I have been sickened by the actions of New Labour - and I speak from first-hand experience as a former care worker in England (devolution? Don't get me started on that subject!). The care and support services I worked for were decimated by New Labour, and it all happened under the public radar. We all had comforting "whistle blowing" clauses sewn into our contracts to stop us speaking out.

From being an ardent supporter of Old Labour, I now no longer vote.

And to pretend that everything that has happened since Thatcher left Office is a direct consequence of her actions is simply a cop-out in my opinion.

People can still get steamed up over the 1980s political scene. But now? Are they raising petrol prices? No? Oh, well. Don't bother. That's how it seems to me.

People seem lazy and hypocritical and all the punch and verve of the 1980s has long since died.

But weren't the 1980s dreadful?

Oh, yes, darling. Let's have a rant about them, because they're history and require no action on our part. Now, where's my ipod? 

And then there's the "I was a political activist in the '80s" types - "vote Labour, vote Labour, vote Labour!" Oh PURLEASE! Stuff that. Stop bigging yourselves up and living in a time warp. It's time for something new.

In retrospect, I can say that I respect Margaret Thatcher's honesty. And bravery. And certain things have come out that suggest she was not as unfeeling as I thought "back in the day".

I 'm so much LESS steamed up about her than I was. But then I strongly believe that modern day politicians, of whatever hue, are often a million times worse. So much more self serving and duplicitous. 

I think  Maggie genuinely believed she was doing her best for the UK.

I disagreed and still do.

But at least I knew where I stood with her.

RIP, Mrs T - I'll never forget you.

Click on our "Thatcher" label below for lots more on the only UK Prime Minister the 1980s ever had...