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These days most kids probably have a school bag decorated with a picture of whatever the current most popular TV show is (so for the boys it’s probably Ben 10 at the moment, and for the girls maybe still High School Musical, or perhaps Hannah Montana) and that bag is probably a rucksack.
Back when I were a lad though, it would have been more likely to be a holdall style bag (or possibly a leather (or leather effect) satchel when you first started school – I bet they’re hard to track down now). For the girls this would probably have been pink or another girly colour, possibly with a picture of a horse or pony, whilst for the boys it would have undoubtedly been a football team bag, not dissimilar in style to that shown above, which is actually a currently available retro styled bag.
Now, I was never really into football. Sure, I had the odd kick about but since my Dad wasn’t a footie fan he never passed it on to me like many father’s do to their sons. When I first started going to school though, I suddenly discovered that most boys were big football fans, so in an effort to try and fit in I thought I had better start to show an interest too.
Most of the boys at my primary school would have had a holdall with their favourite football teams name on (and perhaps a picture of a footballer, a football or the clubs emblem). Most were also colour coded to the chosen team’s football strip as well.
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Today’s post is about one of those things I distinctly remember liking as a child, yet when I try and remember the details everything is a bit hazy. I’ll start by telling you what I remember.
School trips were always fun for several reasons. First, it always seemed like a day off school. Secondly, you sometimes got to go to some interesting places. Thirdly, the coach trip often descended into what can only be described as mayhem! Fun mayhem that is!
So there you are bored senseless in double French, puzzling over just what it is that makes some objects masculine and others feminine (it always seemed so arbitrary to me) when you decide you can’t take it any more. What do you do?
Back in the eighties I remember a lot of Hollywood films mentioning a TV channel called MTV, and wondering what it was all about. It got to a point where if teenage characters in a movie was meant to be cool, they would just have to mention MTV and that was it – instant coolness.
Today schools seem to be brimming with technology, with even primary schools having several computers, TVs, video recorders and those fancy-shmanchy electronic white boards. In the eighties we thought ourselves lucky (and we were!) if we had one 
It seems the world in general has finally realised that recycling materials is a Good Idea, and in the UK town councils across the land have even started issuing us with special bins and boxes for the dustbin men to pick up recyclable materials.
Now, I’m by no means claiming that the Yo-yo was solely a toy of the 1980s. Indeed, in it’s current form as a toy it dates back until at least the 1920s, and records date it back to being a hunters weapon in the Phillipines during the 16th century, and there are even examples of Yo-yo like objects being used in ancient Greece, dating back to 500BC!
