1981: The First London Marathon

The idea was inspired by the annual New York City Marathon. Athelete and journalist Chris Brasher, who ran in the event in 1979, was so impressed, he wondered aloud, in an article he wrote for The Observer newspaper, if a similar event could be staged in the UK?

Brasher joined forces with his old friend and fellow runner John Disley, and the two set out to find out what the possibilities were.

In early 1980, Donald Trelford, then editor of The Observer, hosted a lunch so that Brasher and Disley could meet the authorities who would be involved in organising a marathon, including the Greater London Council (GLC), the police, the Amateur Athletics Association and the London Tourist Board.

After some discussion, it was agreed that a London Marathon was possible - and that the idea was worth pursuing.

Chris Brasher revisited America to gain further marathon knowledge.

Many details needed to be ironed out. As 1980 went on, charitable status was established for the event, and the following aims were established:

* To improve the overall standard and status of British marathon running by providing a fast course and strong international competition.

* To show mankind that, on occasions, they can be united.

* To raise money for sporting and recreational facilities in London.

* To help boost London’s tourism.

* To prove that ‘Britain is best’ when it comes to organising major events.

* To have fun, and provide some happiness and sense of achievement in a troubled world.

On 29 March, 1981, the first London Marathon was run. It was a colourful occasion with some fancy dress present...

Did I dream it, or did I see a chicken on the run? There was certainly a waiter who ran the course with a tray and bottle - which weren't stuck together...

Here's a report from the Daily Mail, March 30, 1981...

IT'S A WINNER!

One million people turn out to watch Britain's biggest-ever sporting event

The most amazing sporting event Britain has ever seen turned out to have 5,300 winners yesterday. Around that number finished out of 6,700 who officially started in the first London Marathon and were cheered by a million people as they ran through the streets of the capital.

The first and last to complete the 26 miles and 385 yards symbolised in their different ways the spirit of the occasion.

At the front Dick Beardsley from the United States and Inge Simonsen from Norway linked hands to run the last few yards and stayed a dead heat for the first place.

"What does it matter who wins?" said 24-year-old Beardsley."Every runner who finishes this race is a winner."

Some four hours later, last man home was the oldest competitor 78-year-old Bob Wiseman. "I feel good. It's great to be alive," he said.

The leaders made it an event of the highest athletic quality. At 2 hours, 11 minutes, 48 seconds, the joint winners ran the fastest marathon ever in Britain - and 142 runners finished under 2 hours 30 minutes.

Among them: The first Briton, 34-year-old Trevor Wright, who was third, and the first woman, 43-year-old Joyce Smith.

Personalities in the field included disc jockey Jimmy Savile in a gold lame track suit, whose run raised £50,000 from sponsors for Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and race director Chris Brasher, who said: "It went like a dream."

He is already talking about holding the second London Marathon - on April 4, 1982.

St John Ambulance crews stationed along the route treated hundreds of runners for exhaustion, but the worst damage reported was a broken leg. "We are surprised there weren't more casualties - everyone was very fit," an ambulance spokesman said.

The drizzly conditions were ideal for marathon running - and competitors praised the camaraderie of those taking part and the encouragement given them by spectators.

This aspect was summed up by 29-year-old jogger Ron Crowley, from Liverpool. Four miles from the finish, he was on the point of quitting after stumbling to a halt.

Then, he said, he heard the crowd yelling out his number.

"No one has ever cheered like that for me before," he said. "They gave me heart to go on." 

The Daily Mail "COMMENT" section commented:

It's popular. It's freaky. It's here to stay.

The first London marathon was a blistering success. Didn't matter that some top runners chose snootily to stay away. The time was a cracking one anyway.

But, as if to point up the frolicsome gutsiness of this unprecedented happening in Britain, the Norwegian and the American, who won, deliberately crossed the line together holding hands.

And what crowds there were lining the 26-mile route that wound its way back and forth along banks of the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster.

Neither the drizzle nor the loss of an hour's sleep could keep them away.

The atmosphere was peculiarly British... a strange mixture of waiting for the royal procession to go by and egging on a competitor at a father's race in a school sports.

For, with close to 7,000 entrants, almost every family watching knew somebody taking part.

All credit to Chris Brasher for doing so much to promote this American-style folk sport here in Britain.

Catch on?

Nobody will be able to stop it now.

Slight, unassuming middle-aged women shaming thousands of would-be iron men. Balding, bespectacled bobbing chaps, doing every bit as well as athletic-looking bounders. The streets of a big city given over for a few hours at least to a challenge that is human in scale and classless in appeal.

This show will run and run.

All those who took part yesterday - whether they finished or whether they didn't - can reckon themselves pioneers in the making of a grand new British sporting tradition. In years to come, Marathon Day will eclipse Boat Race Day and could even upstage Derby Day.

The Beiderbecke Affair, The Beiderbecke Tapes, The Beiderbecke Connection, The Beiderbecke Trilogy

The Alan Plater telly series Get Lost!, starring Bridget Turner and Alun Armstrong, began on June 12th 1981. In the first episode, Judy Threadgold was (like Mrs Dale of diary fame) worried about her husband, Jim. Jim Threadgold had disappeared, leaving behind a farewell message on video.

Judy joined forces with fellow teacher Neville Keaton in an attempt to track Jim down, and so began a wonderfully quirky four part series - a joy to watch.

I never missed an episode and, aged fifteen, was puzzled over the show's appeal for me. It seemed slow-moving plot wise. It wasn't the Sweeney. It wasn't even good old Coronation Street. There were no Regans and Carters "nicking" villains and making hard boiled buddy comments to each other, no Elsie Tanners using pub ashtrays concealed in handbags to clobber snide Ray Langtons. Going by my previous plot-driven TV form, Get Lost! didn't contain a great deal to command my attention.

So, why did it?

It took me ages to work out that the clever dialogue and ideas contained within the series were what was making it compulsive viewing for me.

I wasn't used to clever dialogue and ideas. In fact, "ideas" were frowned upon round my way. Anybody who "had ideas" was not to be trusted. Getting by day-to-day was usually the priority.

Get Lost! was good, but something absolutely wonderful lay just a few years ahead...

Above and below: programme details from the original "Beiderbecke Affair" press pack...

... issued by Yorkshire Television in January 1985.

From the press pack - "We are on the brink of a new era, if only..."

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, London - the writer, members of the cast and production team gather for the launch of "The Beiderbecke Affair".

Back row (left to right) actors Dudley Sutton, Dominic Jephcott, Terence Rigby and Danny Schiller.

Front row (left to right) writer Alan Plater, director David Reynolds, actress Barbara Flynn and producer Anne W Gibbons.

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"Look not upon the blondes when they are platinum..."

The first episode of The Beiderbecke Affair, a six part series, was shown on 6 January 1985. The show was similar to Get Lost! - it too was written by Alan Plater and also had two school teachers as its main characters, one of them being a jazz fan. But there were differences. The dialogue was wittier, tighter, cleverer, and the casting, whether by genius or lucky accident, was absolutely wonderful. Not that the Get Lost! cast had been bad, but this really was something else.

Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam), one of the two central characters, had well and truly "heard the music" of the jazz greats. He made frequent trips to headphone heaven.

Trevor hailed from the North East of England but had somehow ended up in Yorkshire, where he taught woodwork at a rundown-and-clobbered-by-the-cutbacks comprehensive school in the "moonstruck outer limits of Leeds".

Trevor's partner was one Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn), an English teacher.

Jill had stickers with slogans like Nuclear Power - No Thanks, stuck to her front windows.

Unlike her ex-husband, who (like so many) had protested when it was fashionable to protest and become a whizz kid when it was fashionable to become a whizz kid, Jill was a genuine idealist - out to save the planet, the whale, and anything else that needed saving. Her "let's go get 'em" attitude perfectly complemented Trevor's laidback approach and together they took us through three brilliantly idiosyncratic series - The Beiderbecke Affair, The Beiderbecke Tapes and The Beiderbecke Connection. The final series was in 1988.

Bix Beiderbecke, whose playing sounded like "bullets shot from a bell", was one of Trevor's jazz heroes, and his enthusiasm for this great man sparked off three adventures.

During them, we met other highly distinctive characters - including Big Al and Little Norm, who ran an illicit "White Economy" mail order business from a church crypt and an allotment shed; Sylvia, the oldest suffragette in town; and Detective Sergeant Hobson, who had a computer, a corrupt superior and a forward facing haircut.

And then there was the dog, Jason.

The whole thing added up to simply magical telly.

Trevor and Jill with Big Al.

The platinum blonde supplied Mr Carter with an exploding hedge trimmer...

Graduate policeman Detective Sergeant Hobson: "It is my view that the major challenge to the police force in the 1980s lies not with so-called major crime, but in the behaviour of people who, while outwardly respectable, show signs of social abnormality."

From the "TV Times", 1987.

The 1980s - Voted Most Popular Music Decade Of The Past Forty Years...

Now that's what I call music - 1980s Greats: Neil and Chris - The Pet Shop Boys, The Human League, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Culture Club, Technotonic, Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, Madonna and Duran Duran. Here at '80s Actual we also remember fondly New Order, Propaganda, Tears For Fears, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Bad Manners, Adam And The Ants, Prince, Spandau Ballet, A Guy Called Gerald, Yazoo, Alison Moyet, Soul II Soul, The Smiths, Echo And The Bunnymen, MARRS, Steve 'Silk' Hurley, Run DMC, The Cure, Cyndi Lauper, The Eurythmics, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Simple Minds, The Art Of Noise, Dead Or Alive, Nu Shooz, Bananarama, Shakespear's Sister, OMD, U2, Mel and Kim, Mister Mister, Madness, Michael Jackson, Prefab Sprout, Kylie Minogue, The Thompson Twins, The Associates, Yazz And The Plastic Population... and simply SQUILLIONS of others!

The 1980s has been voted favourite music decade in a major poll by digital music broadcaster Music Choice. The biggest music survey in Europe, which polled over 11,000 people, found that nearly one in three liked '80s music best. Following up was the 1990s, then the 1970s, then the 1960s.

As a fan of 1980s music, I was pleased to see the decade come out on top. It's always nice to know you have company!

Looking back to the '80s, which saw the beginning of the Dance era, the evolvement of the American Rap scene into the fully-fledged Hip Hop scene, the creation of House music and Acid House, the golden era of synth pop, Hi-N-R-G, wondrous indie, and simply the catchiest pop tunes I have ever heard, I can feel no great surprise at the survey's result.

In 1980, we greeted the release of Ottawan's D.I.S.C.O with rapturous delight. In 1989, we were dancing to the likes of Technotronic's Pump Up The Jam, Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald, Back To Life by Soul II Soul and... er... Jive Bunny.

OK, so it wasn't all jam, but there was a lot of musical progress in the 1980s, and it is truly a decade with a musical legacy that is worth listening to.

If you haven't already, open your mind and give it a try!

Farewell To Southern Television - And Houseparty...

Changes coming - What will the IBA decide? Daily Mirror, December 19, 1980.

Chloe has written regarding my recent post on Southern Television's '80s afternoon drama series Together:

I remember Together and Southern fondly - particularly Trevor The Weather, Fred Dineage, Jack Hargreaves and Houseparty. Why did the channel end? And do you have any information about Houseparty?

Southern Television was told by the IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority) that it had lost its franchise on 28 December, 1980, Chloe. It continued to broadcast throughout 1981, and disappeared less than an hour into 1982. In its final moments, the Southern TV compass ident disappeared into space, leaving a final echoing rendition of the company's oh-so-familiar ident jingle.

TVS (Television South) took over.

Houseparty ran from the late 1960s to Southern's last full day of broadcasting on 31 December 1981. I'm a little uncertain about the starting date as a fourteen year run is stated in one of the final editions, but footage I recently discovered points to the show beginning in 1969.

I too remember it fondly - my mother was a great fan, so I often saw it when I was off school. My strongest memories are of resident cookery expert Mary Morris and the witty and lively Sylvia Marshall.

Houseparty was aimed primarily at the "fairer sex", a sort of late 1960s to early 1980s Loose Women.

Simon Bates: Our Tune

From the Radio 1 On Show magazine, summer 1980.

Simon Bates, 1980 - in his own words:

"A farmers boy was I, raised in Shropshire but when it came to secondary education at University the wanderlust took over and I took off, to the States - I think I had just discovered Bob Dylan at the time! In America I became fascinated by radio - there was so much of it and my British accent made it easy for me to get work. Wanderlust soon struck again though and I returned to farming - this time in New Zealand but I soon found that one of my other loves was still broadcasting. The other one? She was a lady journalist who worked in TV. Eventually she gave me £50 for my fare to Australia - a somewhat unsubtle hint. So I joined a TV station in Sydney where I spent two years making films that no one ever watched.

"By 1971 the old wanderlust overcame me again and I sneaked back to Britain, where I got a job in London's throbbing West End. Couldn't stand the throbbing though, met a friend who knew someone at the BBC and it wasn't long before they let me make the occasional formal announcement. Still doing it too - just a minute, 'Ladies and Gentlemen The Golden Hour'."

In 1990, the 10th anniversary of the popular BBC Radio 1 feature Our Tune was celebrated with the publication of an Arrow paperback by Simon Bates. Our Tune began in the summer of 1980, and I'll let Simon himself tell the story with some extracts from the Foreword to his book:

In the summer of 1980, I was looking through the postbag I received each day for my Radio One show. I sifted through the usual requests for records for mothers and fathers, nieces and nephews, dedications for workmates and colleagues, jokes, and snippets from local newspapers, and as I read through the pile of letters, I came across a simple request from a girl called Susan.

It was not a long or elaborate letter, but something about it caught my attention. Susan, who had recently left school to become a secretary near her home in Manchester, had just returned from a two-week holiday in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. She had been lucky. It had been one of those occasions where the weather had been beautiful for a fortnight - long hot days, warm nights.

During her holiday, she had met a man in a wine bar - Stephen, who came from just outside Twickenham, and was charming, polite, considerate, and just on the right side of good looking.

In her letter, Susan explained that she had fallen for Stephen, virtually from the moment he had introduced himself. From then on, her holiday had been filled with the sort of things she had always dreamed of… walks on the beach, sunbathing and trips to the New Forest in Stephen’s car.

For two weeks life had been absolute bliss for Susan, until that inevitable moment when she had to return home. It had broken her heart when he drove her to the railway station for the long journey home. While Susan’s friend carried on her luggage, they hugged on the platform, holding each other for so long she almost missed the train.

For weeks, they had telephoned and written to one another, promising that soon they would get together. But, sadly, it was never to be. Afraid of hurting her, Stephen hadn’t told Susan that he had been accepted as a non-commissioned officer in the Army, and was being posted to Germany. And in his final letter, he said that it would be the last time he would write.
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Susan was absolutely distraught; but instead of just moping round her parents’ house, she decided to tell me her story. She asked me to play the song to which she and Stephen had listened during that holiday: “Summer The First Time”, by Bobby Goldsboro.
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And to me it was more than just another request.

I was touched by the simplicity of the request. The story was honest, straightforward, and full of emotion. And once I began reading, I found I just couldn’t stop. It was unlike most letters I had been receiving. I enjoy playing requests for people, but Susan asked me to read out exactly what she had felt. I read it out, just before eleven o’clock, and suggested afterwards that if anyone else had any summer-romance stories, they should send them in.

It was the start of a phenomenon.

Within days, I received more than 2000 letters from listeners with stories to tell. They came from all over Britain. They were happy, sad and, in some cases, completely off the wall.

Some of them were almost unbelievable. One woman had gone on holiday with a friend, fallen for a man she met in her hotel in Tenerife, only to walk into a restaurant and find her boyfriend from home sitting at a table with another girl. They had a furious row, a tearful reunion, and ended up getting married…

Whilst the stories themselves were remarkable, it was the response that was so overwhelming. And it was the listeners who decided on the name “Our Tune” - simply because that’s how so many of them described their records. I had more than enough material to run the slot for six weeks; but pretty soon, it became apparent that people really enjoyed it.

The letters became more wide ranging, dealing not only with romances, but also with problems that had cropped up on holiday. I started reading these out as well, and I received more and more letters.

At the end of our six week run, I told the listeners that “Our Tune” would be ending - or so I thought!

The switchboard immediately jammed, and within a week the postbag almost doubled. People told me how they stopped work in office and factories, just to listen to “Our Tune”. I had to keep it going…

Our Tune is now firmly associated with a certain piece of music, but it wasn’t so in the early days. Back to Simon Bates:

At first I read out the recording with any sentimental music I could find. Then, one day, I picked the love theme from the soundtrack of Franco Zefferelli’s “Romeo and Juliet”. It seemed to fit the mood of “Our Tune” so brilliantly that I have kept it going ever since…

Radio listings as they were on 17 July 1980 - around the time that "Our Tune" was coming into being

Looking back on ten years of Our Tune in the 1990 10th anniversary book, Simon Bates makes a few fascinating observations on some of the changing trends, attitudes, issues and fortunes of the 1980s:

During the past decade, the emphasis of “Our Tune” has changed dramatically. During the early part of the decade, I was reading out a lot of letters to do with marriage break-ups. With the economy struggling to turn around, many of them centred on financial problems, and quite a few people who just simply couldn’t cope with life. They told me how they had, perhaps, contemplated suicide - but at the last minute had decided to battle on.

Then, with a widening of people’s attitudes on all sorts of issues, the range of “Our Tune” letters has grown. For example, I started getting letters from the homosexual community - from people who couldn’t cope with their gay feelings; and, over the last few years, the AIDS issue has become more and more prevalent.

People blubbed over tragic tales on Our Tune many times, but there were also lots of stories with happy endings.

Here is a favourite of mine from the book (which is out of print, but still crops up on eBay at times). Cue music:

Patsy and Graham

Simon Bates: “Patsy and Graham’s story, from Solihull in the West Midlands, was one of the most stirring love stories I have ever read out. It also brought dozens of letters of support from other listeners.”

(Broadcast: May 1987)

I can see a new horizon

Underneath a blazing sky

I’ll be where the eagles are flying

Higher and higher

"St Elmo’s Fire" - John Parr

This is honestly a love story which I should never really be writing. When I first set eyes on Graham, there seemed no chance at all that we would ever be together.

But, after three years, we are not only the happiest couple alive, but we are planning to marry in the next six months. Hopefully, we will be starting a family to complete everything I ever dreamed of.

It all started so differently though, Simon. When I first saw Graham, it was an instant attraction - me to him. He was tall, very handsome, quite dark skinned, and one of the most well-dressed men I had ever seen. His suits were always well cut, his shirt neatly ironed and his shoes were always well shined.

In short, he was the sort of man most girls would give a fortune to be seen with. And I was one of them. The trouble is, when he came to work as the boss of the used-car department of the garage where I worked, there was no way I was of any interest to him whatsoever.

To put it mildly, I was a bit of a mess at that time. I had broken up with my only boyfriend two years before, and I hadn’t gone out with anyone else. I had let myself go to pot a little. When I had broken up with Jeff, I had taken refuge in eating. I would eat anything and everything I could get my hands on to cheer myself up.

They weren’t big meals, just snacks. But I would have lots and lots of them. Bars of chocolate, bags of crisps, sandwiches - you name it, I would eat it.

I paid absolutely no interest to my clothes, and I never went anywhere, apart from the local wine bar. It was a fairly ordinary existence, but I honestly had no encouragement to break out of it.

I had always been reasonably intelligent, doing well at school, but even though people said how pretty I had been, it is very hard to feel pretty when you have ballooned up to thirteen and a half stones, and have trouble squeezing into a size sixteen.

Graham was completely out of range, as far as any sort of relationship was concerned. I told my only true friend, Karen - the only person I could really confide in - what a fantastic guy had started to work at the garage.

She told me that if I thought he was that fantastic, why didn’t I try to make some sort of contact with him? I told her not to be stupid - why would he be interested in someone like me? Karen asked me if he had a regular girlfriend. As far as I knew he hadn’t, but I couldn’t see why he would be on the shelf.

But, she did plant the seed of an idea in my mind. Over the course of the next few weeks, work brought Graham and I into a reasonable amount of contact. We got on well. He had a sense of humour that I enjoyed, and I think he knew I wasn’t an idiot.

On several occasions, we had to organise promotions - like cheese and wine parties - for the garage, and had to stay behind when it was all over. I found out that he was single, and, although he dated a few girls, there was no one serious in his life.

The night I found all this out, I made a decision that was going to change my life. I never really believed that people’s appearances were more important than their characters, but if ever I was going to appeal to a man like Graham, then I would have to put some pride back into my life.

From that point on, I became a different person. I can honestly say that from that moment on, I never touched another bar of chocolate, or a sandwich outside meal times.

I began swimming virtually every day. The first few weeks were really painful. I felt like a whale squeezing into a swimsuit at the local baths. But I did it. When I came out of the changing rooms I sometimes felt the whole place was staring at me, especially the little children.

I managed to get through a few lengths for the first visits, but slowly and surely, my fitness and my strength built up and I was doing more and more distance. It exhausted me to start with but, gradually, I could cope more and more comfortably.

At the time, I put myself on a diet. I cut out all the junk food I had been eating and I stuck to salads and vegetables.

You know, the hardest part about trying to change yourself is finding a motive, and, to be honest, Graham was my motive. At first I lived in fear that I would turn up at work and find out he had got married, or engaged. But, after a while, that didn’t become the thing that was driving me. I got on the scales at home, and would see the needle moving slowly down. All of a sudden, that became my aim.

I couldn’t believe the change coming over me. I started to take an interest in my clothes again. I didn’t earn a lot of money, so I picked things that were really smart. And, as my sizes went down - a twelve at first - I felt better and better about myself.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was the night I went to the baths and plucked up the courage to wear a bikini for the first time. I thought everyone would still laugh and point, but nobody did.

At work, I had energy. I felt confident and happy, and a whole change was coming over me. I went away for two weeks to Tenerife. When I got back, everyone said how well I looked. Perhaps it was the fact that I had been away - and people saw me in a new light - but everyone seemed to be paying me compliments.

But, of course, there was one I really wanted. And that wasn’t long coming. Graham came over to me as soon as I walked through the door of the showroom, and paid me the greatest compliment!

Well, Simon, it didn’t take long for that compliment to be an invitation to dinner. And then it didn’t take long until we were going out together virtually every night of the week.

As I said, I know physical attraction isn’t everything, but if you don’t have pride and confidence in yourself, how can you expect other people to have any either?

I put all that back in myself, hoping to win over one man. It worked for me, and I can’t begin to tell you how much inspiration it has given me. Please play “St Elmo’s Fire” for me. It is a song I used to listen to all the way to the swimming baths and back. It really used to drive me on, and it still means an awful lot to me today.

1986 - a rare "Our Tune" compact disc (most surviving copies of this compilation are on vinyl - compact discs were still an expensive novelty in 1986, having only arrived in 1983). Featured tracks included ABC - "The Look of Love" and the Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin". And the most requested "our tune" up to that point? The dreamy "I'm Not In Love" by 10CC.
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From its humble beginnings in 1980, Our Tune grew to become a daily "must listen" for millions. Including me. When I was on morning duty at the home for the elderly where I worked in the mid-to-late '80s, I always contrived to arrange my tasks so that my tea break could coincide with Our Tune. Soppy devil? What a dated concept. I was, quite simply, every inch an 80s man!

A Couple Of 1980s Ads - Featuring The Cube And The Hairpiece...

Years ago, William Rushton took a trawl through the archives of a famous television ads series which began back in the 1960s. When he came to the 1980s, he discovered several delights, including these two, featuring the Rubik's Cube and a hairpiece...

Moon Boots...

Moon Boots 1985... my little sister (right) sports her height-of-fashion pink Moon Boots with leg warmers and ra ra skirt. She'll kill me if she discovers that I've put this photograph on-line!

Ros writes to ask about the 1980s fashion for Moon Boots in the UK...

I remember having a pair when I was a little girl circa 1984. What was it all about?

Well, Ros, I don't KNOW what it was all about it! Apparently, the original Moon Boot was designed by a company called Tecnica in Italy a couple of years after the 1969 moon landing, and looked like something an astronaut might actually wear - although perhaps not in the jazzy colours produced through the years! They seemed to be a pretty serious piece of kit, and were all emblazioned with the words "Moon Boot".

I never saw any (or even heard of them) until a version arrived in the UK around 1984. These were available in children's sizes, and I remember them as being very much a little girls' fashion as the only colour I remember seeing was bright pink - which was a popular '80s colour. It is highly possible that other colours were available, but I don't recall ever seeing a boy wearing them!

My little sister got heavily into them, as the photograph above shows. She loved her pink Moon Boots dearly.

The '80s ate up fashion trends hungrily and after a few years the pink Moon Boots disappeared.

1988 and 1989: Eco-Friendliness - And Pop Scene News And Gossip...

Environmental concerns had grown stronger and stronger during the 1980s, even Mrs Thatcher was turning Green late in the decade - as this extract from a 1988 speech she gave to the Royal Society illustrates:

In the past when we have identified forms of pollution, we have shown our capacity to act effectively. The great London Smogs are now only a nightmare of the past. We have cut airborne lead by 50 per cent. We are spending £4 billion on cleansing the Mersey Basin alone; and the Thames now has the cleanest metropolitan estuary in the world. Even though this kind of action may cost a lot, I believe it to be money well and necessarily spent because the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other.

The Government espouses the concept of sustainable economic development.

Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world provided the environment is nutured and safeguarded.

Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century and one in which I am sure your advice will be repeatedly sought.

In 1989, the UK Green Party won 15% of the vote in elections for the European Parliament, but no seats because of the first-past-the-post voting system.

The Party was formerly known as "The Ecology Party" and switched to the Green name in the 1980s.

In the late 1980s, many of us were getting into buying eco-friendly products (I bought a sink cleaning fluid which left a nasty chalky deposit in its wake and I was never sure that my eco friendly bog cleaner got my bog hygenically clean, but I persevered).

In 1989, as reported by the Bizarre page in the Sun on August 29th, Sting (formerly of The Police) and Elton John had got together to stage a very expensive concert - for the planet:

Elton John and Sting are charging the highest amount ever to see them in concert... £1,000 a head.

The two superstars are to play a £500,000 charity concert to raise cash for the Rain Forest Foundation. It is being staged in the grounds of tycoon Ted Field's £4million mansion in Los Angeles. More than 500 guests will be invited to the event on November 6.

A spokesman for Sting said last night: "Ted Field is a good friend of Sting's and they share a deep concern about the destruction of the forests.

"Ted offered to stage the concert in his grounds if the guests would pay a grand to get in. Sting and Elton will also help out with extra fund-raising events, including a raffle."

Elton, 42, will play piano and Sting, 37, will be on the bass guitar - but there will be no backing band. Last night Elton - who is taking time out from his world tour for the concert - said:

"Sting has done an awful lot for the foundation and I'm happy to help him raise more. It will just be me and him on stage and will be a lot of fun.

"The environment is something I really care about."

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Bizarre page, Pat Sharp, he of the beautiful bouffant mullet, was revealing some facts of his life:

Hobbies: After work I plan more work.

Car: A £26,000 second-hand Porsche 944 Turbo and a rare old Datsun 240Z sports coupe.

TV: There's no time to watch it.

Films: I keep 350 films in the same room as my 6,000 records. My favourite is Caddy Shack.

Star Sign: Scorpio.

Most Embarrassing Moment: When I got chased by gays outside Radio Luxembourg.

Clothes: I love Poco Loco, the Norwegian designer who make great jogging pants and T-shirts.

Pet Hates: I have never smoked, drunk or taken drugs - I don't even drink tea.

Ambition: I would love to make serious TV programmes.

Dave Stewart, one half of the excellent '80s pop duo The Eurythmics, was having some fun...

Zany Dave Leaves Scribblers In Chaos

By Piers Morgan

Dave Stewart caused chaos at a Press Conference by giving bizarre answers to questions.

The oddball Eurythmics star - back in the charts at No 30 with Revival - confused dozens of foreign journalists after the band's gig in the South of France.

But Dave, 36, had the British contingent - including me - in hysterics.

Here's what he said:

Q. Dave, is it right that you are broke?

A. Absolutely. The only reason I stay in Cannes is so I can go to all my rich friends' houses and nick all their furniture.

Q. Dave, as an environmentalist, what did you think of Chrissie Hynde's outburst saying she'd like to bomb McDonald's?

A. She should have said she she wanted to firebomb Spud-U-like. They've got a much sillier name.

Q. Dave, we hear you are going to do a cover version of an old hit soon?

A. Yes, I want to do Three Blind Mice and Custer's Last Stand.

Q. Dave, what you think of your wife Siobhan having bigger hits than you with Shakespear's Sister?

A. It's great. Her contract says she has to give me 50 per cent of every penny she makes MORE than I do this year.

That told 'em, Dave!

Actually, I was startled by Siobhan Fahey's transformation from Bananarama girlie to purring Shakespear's Sister with Marcella Detroit. Startled, but pretty darned pleased.

To round off our look at this 1989 Bizarre page, hands up all those who remember the Scots band Simple Minds?

Me too. Loved them.

Somewhere in summertime...

Won't you come see about me, I'll be alone dancing you know it baby...

Little darlin' close your eyes, there'll be no compromising...

Alive and kicking - stay until your love is...

I must confess to singing "butter on it, put butter on it, put butter oh, butter oh" to the "bah da da da, bah da da da da, bah da da oh" segment of Alive and Kicking. A lot of people did. Sorry, Jim Kerr and co.

However, despite this, I genuinely loved the band - and their atmosphere-laden music now has the power to draw me back to my youthful years, in fancy if not in fact.

In the late 1980s, another Scots band had emerged into the UK pop charts - Deacon Blue. I liked them too. But the Minds remained the favourites.

The beautifully gossipy 1989 Bizarre page (could it be trusted?!!) revealed:

Jim Kerr was a proud son last night after his mum had a bust-up in the Glasgow baker's shop where she works.

Ina Kerr saw red when a woman customer came in and slated her 30-year-old son's band Simple Minds and said she much preferred Deacon Blue. Ina chased her down the road, screaming and shouting.

What it is to have parents who love us!

More from the 1980s pop scene soon...

1981: Toyah!

Sometimes, when I think about the 1980s, I get all misty eyed...

Picture 1981, for instance. The big new pop culture crazes were Rubik's Cube and CB radio. The World Wide Web would not even be invented until 1989, so the vast majority of us had never even heard of the Internet.

We watched new telly treats Dangermouse and Willo The Wisp.

Hardly anybody had a video recorder.

We played Space Invaders and that new arrival, Frogger, (not sure if Pac-Man had arrived in the UK by this point), we listened to Madness and Soft Cell and Kim Carnes. We ate deep fried sausages and burgers.

Many of us still cooked in lard.

And we loved Toyah.

Well, some of us did. I was pretty fond of her myself.

The fantastic-haired popstrel bestrode the pop scene, thrilling all before her.

So, if you get misty eyed, perhaps even downright snivelly, remembering Toyah in 1981, snivel no more because she's back, back, BACK!!

From the Sunday Mirror,

June 7, 1981:

TOYAH! TOYAH! A roar from more than 2,000 throats demands the return of pop's hottest property to the stage.

And Toyah Willcox - already dubbed The Face Of The Eighties - bounces back for yet another encore on her sell-out nationwide tour.

Teenage boys lined six deep around the stage of Newcastle City Hall reach up, a sea of hands clamouring to touch the impish Birmingham girl who is taking the music world by storm.

Toyah, with her ever-changing, vividly coloured hair styles and startling make-up, has emerged from a cult following to mass popularity in just a few months.

Her searing, soaring voice backed by a four-man band has taken her latest single, I Want To Be Free, to number six in the charts and their current LP high into the album charts.

But off stage, the girl who divides her time between acting and singing careers is counting the personal price of success.

Toyah collapsed after a concert at Sheffield on her twenty-third birthday on May 18 and had to cancel the next evening's performance at Hanley in Staffordshire (now re-scheduled for tomorrow night).

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mirror at her hotel after the Newcastle concert, Toyah said:

"I had had appendicitis and was told to take a holiday before the tour started, but it just wasn't possible.

"After I collapsed my doctor told me to cancel all my remaining engagements.

"But I couldn't, because they are sell-outs, so I took the one day off.

"I was locked in my bedroom and told to rest.

"Now the doctor has ordered me to take two weeks' holiday after this tour finishes.

"I will probably go to a villa somewhere.

"I feel I have aged ten years this year, but that is part of success."

The break will be short. Among other things, a world tour is set for later this year.

Life on the road is demanding for 4ft. 11in. tall Toyah.

She has lost a stone in weight since this eighteen-venue tour began and can shed five pounds in one performance.

She eats just one meal a day - a big steak at lunch time.

"I couldn't keep food down with all the jumping around I do on stage," she said.

"I never drink anything beforehand for the same reason.

"I can never relax. The nearest I get to it before a performance is by chatting to the band."

Her twenty-strong tour crew, travelling in two coaches with tons of equipment in two articulated trucks, includes three bodyguards.

One is her 25-year-old boy friend Tom.

But even all that tight security can be breached. In Glasgow, six youths were found breaking into Toyah's bedroom.

"I don't like having to act like a star," she said.

"I hate having to be ushered in and out of buildings and ignoring fans in case I get trapped by dozens of others.

"I was very upset about it all at the start of the tour, but we have had bomb scares at hotels and weirdos ringing up.

"You cannot remain the nice person that you want to be - you have to change.

"I try to stay as much in contact with fans as possible, but I realise now that in my private life I have to be top secret.

Toyah, who left school with one O level - in music - was an actress before she was a singer.

She has acted in films like Quadrophenia and The Tempest as well as television series including Shoestring and Minder.

Toyah has also presented BBC-2's Friday Night, Saturday Morning chat show and even performed with the National Theatre.

Her hair and clothes have stamped Toyah unmistakably as a fashion leader.

"People see me and think I'm thick - some silly tart who dyes her hair different colours," she said.

"But it takes guts, because I can't walk down the street without being laughed at or thought cheap.

"I want other kids to have the courage to do what THEY want to do."

Her hair is currently Sunshine Gold - a colour fans can copy using Toyah's Crazy Colour hair colouring at £3 a bottle.

"I use the stuff myself," Toyah said.

"I'm naturally black-haired, but I have a very pale complexion and my own colour makes me look awful, like a witch."

Her clothes, too, are unmistakably Toyah.

She designs many costumes herself and loves handmade clothes with hand-painted designs.

"Morally, I'm very strict," she said. "The promiscuous side of the music business disgusts me.

"I have seen a lot of women get emotionally mixed up because of sleeping around. They cheapen themselves."

Toyah's views often earn her a "Little Miss Prim" tag in the music press.

She also believes in capital punishment and castration for rapists.

"That sounds very Fascist, but these are people who believe in hurting others.

"I have no compassion for anyone like that... people who beat up pensioners, rapists who destroy victims and their families for a long long time.

"People like Peter Sutcliffe, who should be put to sleep by an injection.

"I'm too bitter to write songs about it all.

"I'm a singer, not a politician, and I want people to escape from things like that through my songs."

Being a female star on tour has presented no problems for Toyah.

"If any bloke tries the big pull I just tell him to give up," she said.

"I don't consider myself a sexy person. Blokes must be a bit daft to fancy me."

Of her boy friend, Tom, she says: "He is my hero. He must go through hell sometimes, but he is a very patient bloke."

Gonna turn this world UPSIDE DOWN...

E-Mail Query: Were Albion Market Repeats In The '90s Edited?

Welcome to Peggy's Cafe: proprietor Peggy Sagar (Paula Jacobs) pours out a cuppa in 1985.

Mr P has written:

I recently found some old VHS tapes in my mother's store cupboard which contain hours of Sky Soap and Granada Plus UK satellite broadcasts from the 1990s.

Of course both these channels showed 1980s soap Albion Market, and I've viewed some of the episodes with great interest. But do you have any idea if the episodes were edited by Granada Plus/Sky Soap at all? One or two things don't quite flow in the satellite repeats, and I've got the idea a few "snips" may have taken place.

I'd be grateful if you have any information on this.

I do, Mr P.

Yes, Granada Plus and Sky Soap did make very small edits to the Albion Market series and, I believe, Granada Plus did the same with its showings of Coronation Street. The small "snips" were made to the episodes to accommodate the satellite channels' longer advertising and schedule promotion breaks.

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.

E-mails: EastEnders - 1980s and 2010

The way it was in 1985... Lou Beale (Anna Wing) with Michelle (Susan Tully), Pauline (Wendy Richard) and Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher). Remember Susan Tully as rebellious schoolgirl Suzanne Ross in Grange Hill in the early years of the 1980s?

Harry has written about the BBC soap opera EastEnders, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary:

It was really strange seeing the clips on Ian's time capsule video of 1985. I had the feeling that EastEnders is now a totally different programme. Don't you think it used to be more true to life in the 1980's? Now, with plots about Archie Mitchell being murdered and Lucas the murderer burying his victim under a tree in Albert Square, I can't help wondering what the residents in the 80's would have made of it all? I was surprised you enjoyed the 25th anniversary episode.

Thanks for writing, Harry. Soaps have changed a great deal. In the 1980s, a new breed of gritty, political soaps emerged. I'm talking Brookside and EastEnders, of course. Left Wing, abrasive, determinedly non-cosy. The name of the game was to portray social issues of the time, and make Thatcher look a cow. But also during the decade the soaps began to turn more towards pot-boiler story-lines, with many characters hiding secrets, waiting to be explosively revealed.

I never watch modern soaps, and I'm sorry the political edge has gone missing. I think soaps now are far more sensationalised than they were in the 1980s. I'm not criticising - it's a simple fact of life.

I watched the EastEnders 25th anniversary episode so I could write about it as part of my series of EastEnders blog posts commemorating the event. I can't say it was to my taste, but I think the cast and production team did brilliantly. This was live TV, and with the high octane emotions portrayed in many of the scenes, I was very impressed.

The show had its faults in the 1980s. I think that the grimmness was a little too unrelenting, the teenagers were far too miserable, and the Left Wing bias was a little OTT. But as a Labour supporter and Thatcher hater in those days, I applauded it. I remember a national newspaper surveying the residents of a real-life East London square around 1987, and discovering that their lives were far less turbulent and miserable!

But I howled with delight when Pete Beale stated that community spirit went out when the Tories came in (it had actually been on the way out long before that - the times I heard my elders bemoaning the lack of community spirit when I was a child!) and Lou Beale told Arthur Fowler that his unemployment was due to "That cow at No 10!" (There had been a big unemployment problem before Thatcher, but in the early 1980s it more than doubled!).

'80s EastEnders was definitely OTT grim. But still compelling viewing. I thoroughly enjoyed the show back then.

I was surprised in the 25th anniversary episode to see the Beales and the Fowlers laughing on Ian's video.

EastEnders characters laughing?!!

I don't remember that!

As for the modern show, I'm not really qualified to comment on the story-lines you mention as I don't watch.