Lifestyles
School /College No calculators. O levels – no GCSEs.
Until 1972 you could leave school at 15,
The school leaving age was then increased to 16 and most people left full time education and started work in the academic year they were sixteen, very few people went to university.
Marriage People just got married without thinking about it too much. The concept of what we now call ‘lifestyle choice’ did not exist. And, as soon as you got married you were expected to have children.
Living in ‘Sin’ & Same Sex Couples Were not mainstream in the 1970s and frowned upon by many people.
Money – Lots of school age people had part time jobs such as: paper rounds from age 12, Saturday jobs from about 13/14 years old.
Money went decimal in 1971, at that time a Mars cost 3p.
Working : heavily demarcated by gender
For example: If you worked on the buses, drivers were men, (clippies) -women were conductors.
Retail: Women worked on the shop floor in department stores and men were floor managers.
Men: hardware shops, butchers, greengrocers
Women: Nurseries, cleaners, telephonists
Women in some jobs had to leave their jobs when they got married.
Then they had to make money working from home.
Avon Cosmetics & Catalogues: Littlewoods/Freemans – lots of people bought things from catalogues and on hire purchase to spread the cost and many women were Avon ladies and ran catalogues
Piece work – textile industry
Beauty and health
Let’s cut to the chase: We had pubic hair. Along with… Wonky teeth, big noses, crooked noses and unpuffed lips. Our eyebrows were like caterpillars, eyelashes relied on a leaky mascara or (like my Mum) you had a block of mascara into which some people spat to moisten it before applying.
Eyeshadow =Bright Blue maybe glitter . Rouge. Hair: The Perm /The Shaggy Haircut
Condoms not sold openly except in barbers and some men’s pub toilets not in the ladies.
British Pregnancy Advisory service – the only freely available place where women could openly get help with contraception and pregnancy advice. There were no morning after or other at home treatments and it was often an overnight stay experience. Women from Ireland often travelled to the UK as it was illegal in Ireland until the end of 2018.
Clothes: Top Shop, Chelsea Girl, Dolcis shoe shop, BHS (Knickers), Baby Doll nighties (some with matching frilly knickers) to be sexy – Lily never had one of these!
Man at C & A Burton
1970s Popular Culture
Jackie Magazine - Cathy & Clare problem page & Capital radio – sex Problems Anna Raeburn
NME & Melody Maker – Music Papers
Radio 1 Road shows & Top of the Pops – Goes without saying !
Carrying cases of records to parties - singles boxes and album boxes ( weighed a ton!)
Cassette Players = Mix Tapes
Rented TV – Radio rentals 26” screen coloured – pretty fancy at the time!
Watching television = National Pastime :
Some programmes were watched by large swathes of population – they acted as a cohesive force- every watched Some mothers do ‘ave em (audience figures of 25million people all sitting and watching at the same time)
The Sweeny, , Magic Roundabout, Blue Peter
Evening news: A lot going on : Three day week, Power Cuts, Inflation, Northern Ireland Troubles
Air Anglia – Norwich to Aberdeen (very unusual to have internal flights )
There was only three tv channels and many people still had just a black & white Tv – Lil got colour in 1977