1980
As soon as I could climb, that climbing frame was where I spent many of my early days. The reason that ladder-type thing looks so weird is because, back in the ’80s, people used to make-do with what they had to create new items. That ladder doubled up as a sledge in winter, don’t you know. My dad attached a plank of wood for a seat and a piece of washing line for reins and whoosh-off we went! And it did go too! 🌠 Those were the days…
But that cat jumper that my brother is wearing! 😻 I had cat jumper-envy until that jumper became mine! This picture contains so much understated nostalgia for me ~ that 2-litre ice cream tub under the climbing frame! 😄 The industrial-sized ice cream tub had many-a-use in the 1980s. When I was a bit older, my favourite use was to fill it with penny sweet rations to eat on the journey to a family holiday destination, whilst singing, ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday’. Who knows what we had filled it with that day? Oh and those hair-do’s…
1982
Loving the cagoule life! We lived in these pac-a-macs in the ’80s. They were the perfect antidote to the unpredictable wet English weather💧☂. I received riding lessons as a 6th birthday present and absolutely loved them. Though that horse looks a little on the large size for tiny me!
1983
I don’t know how to explain that outfit 😳. But that was my first holy communion dress, that’s all I know. Outside of school, where in the UK, we wear a school uniform, it was probably the only dress I wore that decade!😅 #tomboy
1986
1989
This photo was taken in my bedroom and tells a thousand words about my life at the time, in 1989. I love the composition of this photo and it’s chilled vibe, despite what looks like, a busy background of homework and music practice. I think this was a moment of calm before the teenage rollercoaster really started kicking in. That hat!!! I loved it so much! I think I both bought and lost it in Camden Town all within a few months. I never found the same ones again so it was never replaced. Sad times. Still, life moves on…I love the simple fashion sense of this outfit. Baggy, black t-shirt (unbranded), pale blue mum jeans, rolled up, two-tone Converse hi-tops, a ‘silver’ pendent on a black thread and, of course the black, almost bowler-style hat, which I have retrospectively re-discovered were a big thing in the mid-to-late ’80s. I had forgotten where the influence came from, but I have Just Seventeen magazines which pretty much prove where! (Evidence coming soon).