Everything 80's

Funny I think the idea of eating a rat put me off but I know a lot of my friends rather liked the main villainess, Jane Badler.

(10-02-2019 15:04 )GreenMachine Wrote:  Speaking of Doctor Who-the first one I remember watching would have been Jon Pertwee and then Tom Baker(fancy a jelly baby?) who was probably the best one. Some of the storylines were a little far-fetched but the action wasn't bad and of course there was liberal use of the famous BBC Quarry as a substitute for far-off planetry moons. We all feared the Daleks and right up the present they could only really roll about(now they are capable of flight) but probably the most frightening was Davros, the half human, half dalek leader. Some sexy companions helped of course and the introduction of K-9, a dog-like robot.

Another good sci-fi drama(at least I thought it was) was Blakes' Seven. This started late 70's early 80's and it was a group of mercenaries who fought for justice and against tyranny of the government led by the evil but deadly sexy Servalan(the late Jacqueline Pearce) and her minions. Gareth Thomas was very good as Roj Blake and Paul Darrow just genius as Kerr Avon with his irritating portable computer friend, Orac. The Liberator was a Star-Trek-esque ship and then later replaced by a flying door wedge, the Scorpion with a very annoying computer called Slave.

Mention Dr Who and Jelly Babies and Tom Baker springs to mind. However, it was Patrick Troughton who was the first Doctor to offer jelly babies...in the serial ‘The Three Doctors’ from 1973, Troughton’s Doctor is seen with a small brown bag as he says to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart “care for a jelly baby?”

In the days when it wasn't pc to ogle to young ladies there used to be a lot of televised beauty contests(or pageants if you're from across the pond) and Miss World was regularly shown on ITV around November time. (in the 70's I didn't see it at the time but the most famous was when feminists got into the Royal Albert Hall I think it was and lobbed a load of flour at the girls and the famous compere at that time Bob Hope-he is overheard saying "who are these bass-tards!") After that you still got the contests and girls were still willing to take part for a chance to be Miss World. Some of Britain's most famous girls went on to bigger and better things but didn't make Miss World. Debbie Greenwood won Miss Great Britain and then ended up on Breakfast Television, Sian Adey-Jones who was Miss Wales ended up on Page 3 and later became a 'background artiste' Bond girl 'A View To A Kill' and Carolyn Seaward who was in 'Octopussy'

At school we had a post-exam programme whereby you could play games in the park OR watch a film(selected by a teacher) or virtually anything after an exam took place. I remember a load of us went to watch the film FAME, now this was nothing like the series to come, if anything it was completely different. The dancing sequences are now legendary especially when Bruno's father plays his son's music loud and the students at the New Yawk School of Performing Arts call come barrelling out of the building and start dancing in the street to the chagrin of car drivers. The biggest eye-opener was a shot of Irene Cara who played Coco going to an audition but ending up going topless(on an infra-red camera shot) a character openly gay and the swearing. My teacher apologised for the language in advance but we weren't bothered. It was a great film but as I said the series would be nothing like the film. Did you see it at school or in the cinema?

At the time of being at school we used to have the school disco. Everyone male used to dread that because at one point you were expected to pluck up enough courage to ask a girl to dance, but you knew you would be rebuffed each time, so us boys just stood by the side of the hall and watched to see if anyone was brave enough. Unless the teacher suggested we dance with someone, we were quite content to sit or stand in the sidelines drinking or orange juice. The really embarrassing thing was seeing a male teacher dancing with your favourite female teacher and being insanely jealous, especially if it was a really pretty one your fancied. Our school used to organise boat discos and although I'd didn't go to one I did know a few people who did and they had a whale of a time.

Or when they used to say:-

"Get down from that tree, you'll fall and hurt yourself. Don't come running to me with a broken leg!"

I think you posted that in the wrong thread mate but thanks anyway.

Did any of you do anything for Help the Aged at school? We used to do an annual sponsored walk around our local park in primary school and it was a great day out-some of us ran, walked, or just sauntered around although there was a steep hill or two to manoeuvre. On the whole it was really good and you got a badge and certificate for completing it. I seem to remember we raised quite a lot of money and just looking to my left as I type this I can see one of the certificates still framed, hanging from my wall.

In the Eighties I was involved in collecting stamps and it took a lot of work. Firstly you needed to buy a load of sticky hinges to attach to the back of the stamps but you also had to take time to get the stamp off the envelope. We used a simple idea of a small dish of lukewarm water and then cut round the stamp and soaked it off the envelope. After that it was left to dry a bit and then attached to the hinge, then attached to the album. I had a few books on collecting stamps and later my Uncle Joe gave me his extensive collection of stamp albums. It was absolutely full of very old collections of stamps including some BBC Television ones and the 1966 World Cup stamps. The overseas stamps were fun and I learnt the different names for each country.

I also developed a good collection of badges-practically everywhere I went I got a badge like museums and some that commemorate things. Funny badges for me were the first thing I got excited about and I managed to get hold of some that no-one else would have been able to get. When my Dad travelled across the world with the BBC, he was given a load of BBC badges to swap with other broadcasters and I once had BBC and ITV Moscow 1980 badges(these ended up being sold by someone as my Dad gave them to a woman that collected rare ones) I wish I still had those. My other cherished badge is a Record Breakers badge, which were incredibly rare to get hold of. I would have loved to get a Blue Peter badge but I never got one even though I did write to them a few times.

I also caught the video bug in the 80's and I started to collect loads of Gerry Anderson shows which used to be released every month at around £7.99 or so by the then Channel 5 video company. I still have the complete run of 'Thunderbirds' which some had old commercials on them for ZOOM lollies etc. I also got some Joe 90, Stingray and The Secret Service.