Child Of The 1980’s

The thing I always looked forward to most when Bonfire Night was approaching was the fireworks, but as we all know fireworks aren’t the safest things in the world, and so the Firework Code was produced to warn people of the dangers and how to safely enjoy fireworks.  The core Firework Code that I remember stated the following.

1. Always keep fireworks in a tightly closed, metal tin.
2. Never return to a firework once lit.
3. Always light fireworks at arms length.
4. Keep pets indoors.
5. Stand well back.
6. Never fool with fireworks.

That last one always made me laugh as it sounded too comical to be an official rule, but it does cover all the possibilities of stupid things people could do such as throwing them or tying things to them.  Anyway, it seems things have moved on a bit since then, as the fire brigade’s mascot Welephant shows on his web page about fireworks.

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Last week I wrote about how the customs of Halloween and Trick or Treating seemingly began to invade UK shores during the 1980’s.  I feel it was also during this period that one of the UK’s older traditions started to die out, this being the concept of Penny for the Guy.

In the UK November 5th is known as Bonfire Night and one of the most important tasks in the run up to this festivity was the construction of an effigy of Guy Fawkes, who is the man most commonly associated with the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  This effigy eventually ended up being burnt as part of the celebration, but more on this particularly aspect later this week.

Building the Guy Fawkes effigy was a lot of fun.  Dad’s wardrobe usually ended up being ransacked for an old pair of trousers and a shirt, which were then stuffed with scrunched up newspaper.  The arms and feet were tied with string and the two items of clothing attached together at the waist.  A paper bag, again stuffed with newspaper, was often used for a head, with a picture of Guy Fawkes face drawn on to it.  If some old gloves or shoes were available then those two could be added for extra bit of finesse.

Once the Guy was built you would then take him round the streets in an old pushchair or a “borrowed” shopping trolley, greeting anyone you met on your travels with the phrase “Penny for the Guy”.  Basically this was a way of generating some money to later spend on some fireworks for Bonfire Night.  At least that was the idea, though I suspect most of the money collected probably got spent on sweets or something.

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Did you ever celebrate Halloween?  Did you go Trick or Treating?  Indeed, did you go out last night and knock on doors for sweets?  Let us know by voting below!

First of all, I couldn’t resist using a picture of my namesake from the Mario games as an image to accompany this post.  I give you Big Boo!

Anyway, I’ve nothing to go on here except for my memory, but I reckon it was sometime during the 1980’s when the concept of Trick or Treat at Halloween (or more correctly Hallowe’en) made it’s way over to the UK.  Halloween was never really celebrated much in old blighty before then, other than perhaps having a scary movie on TV and parents telling children scary stories about witches and monsters being out at night.

I certainly never went Trick or Treating as a child and I don’t remember any other kids knocking on the front door either during my younger years.  However, I do also remember this changing one year when I must have been around ten.  At school we had been allowed to make Halloween costumes out of black plastic bin liners, and I remember desperately wanting to go out and knock on doors for sweets.  My parents wouldn’t let me though, and I remember my Dad telling me to go out into the back garden and wave my magic wand a bit to frighten off any ghosts or ghouls that might be about.  I did this, but soon gave up when the blackness of the garden and the strange sounds of night sent be back indoors with a tingle down my spine (what a coward!).

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Aardman Animations may be better known now for Wallace and Gromit, but back in the 1980’s their most famous work was the little orangey brown plasticene man called Morph.  Morph first appeared as a little bit of light relief on childhood hero Tony Hart’s art show Take Hart, but before long was graced with his own short show, naratted by and starring Mr. Hart.

Morph lived in a little wooden box on Tony’s desk, which had a hook fastener on the front that Tony could lock shut when Morph started misbehaving, which happened quite frequently.  Morph was a bit full of himself you see, and it got him into trouble at times.

The Amazing Adventures of Morph started in 1980 and the series introduced us to Morph’s extended family, each of whom seem to speak in a similar way to Morph, that being a series of strange squeaky sounds.  The characters were beautifully animated however, and whilst you might not have been able to understand a word they were saying (thankfully Tony translated most of what they said) but you could get the general idea from the way they moved their arms about, or the expressions on their faces.

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Good old Cola Cubes, or Kola Kubes if you wanted to be completely correct!  These surely are kings amongst boiled sweets.  Chunks of cola flavoured boiled sweet that have been covered in an outer sugary layer for good measure, they last ages if you suck them, and taste delicious, although couldn’t really be considered that great for your teeth I suppose.

Kola Kubes were one of those sweets that were generally bought from jars stacked on shelves behind the counter in your local sweetie shop.  Normally sold by the quarter pound (EU rules on metric had yet to be introduced in the 1980’s, which was good as asking for 113.398 grams of Kola Kubes sounds a bit stupid) you simply asked the shop assistant for the sweet of your choice and they would tip them out of the jar into some scales, then tip the sweets into a little white paper bag.

There was one problem with Kola Kubes though.  They were just sooooo tasty that one was never enough.  Once you had finished one cubic chunk of sweetie heaven another invariably popped its way into your mouth.  Why was this a problem?  Well, after 4 or 5 sweets the top of your mouth could easily become quite sore thanks to a combination of the acidic nature of the sweets, and the fact the edges of the cubes could become quite sharp once you had sucked the sugary layer off.  The corners could also inflict nasty damage to your upper palette if you sucked them too hard!

The sweets were not only available in cola flavoured varieties.  I have fond memories of a pineapple variety which were just as nice.  You may not realise however that there were actually two different types of Kola Kube.  The cheaper type was just solid boiled sweet throughout, but the original Kola Kube manufactured by Pascalls (now part of Trebor Basset) had a chewy centre in the middle which was absolutely brilliant at sticking little bits of boiled sweet to your teeth in many hard to reach places.  You can relive this joy by visiting A Quarter Of, where you can get an entire 3kg jar of these tasty sweets!

The image accompanying this post gave me quite a surprise, as believe it or not, it’s a modern watch available to buy today!  It looks stunningly like an old watch that I had during the 1980’s, right down to the positioning of the little alarm icons and AM/PM indicator.  I guess if the design ain’t broke, why fix it?

Digital Watches were very much a fashion item of the 1980’s, but the first instances of them actually appeared in the 1970’s.  I remember my Uncle had one of these early watches which used light emitting diodes (LEDs) to display the time.  LEDs consumed so much power though that the watch display was kept black most of the time, and to see what the time was you had to press a button to make it appear in all its glowing red glory.

By the mid 1970’s Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) had replaced LEDs in watches.  LCD displays were far less battery hungry, and allowed a battery life measured in years rather than months.  I don’t pretend to understand the physics of such displays entirely, but it has something to do with polarised light filters and the alignment of liquid crystals when an electric current is applied to them.  When current is applied the crystals rotate to align in a direction at right angles to the polarised light filters, and light cannot pass through, making that area of the display appear black.  If you want a more accurate description, take a look here!

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Mouse Trap is by no means a product of the 1980’s, indeed it was first conceived in the 1960’s.  The game was based on a drawing by US cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who drew images of weird and wacky inventions which were generally built out of everyday objects and completely over engineered.  If you’ve ever seen a Roadrunner cartoon think of the kind of outlandish designs concocted by Wile E. Coyote.

The game itself would however be fairly run of the mill if it wasn’t for the plastic contraption in the middle of the board.  This weird device was meant to be a mouse trap, but rather than a piece of wood with a sprung loaded trap and a piece of cheese this mouse trap consisted of a weird obstacle course that would give the mouse plenty of time to escape!

Turning a handle attached to some cogs wound back an arm which then flicked a boot that kicked over a bucket containing a ball bearing.  The ball bearing rolled down a set of steps and then a chute where it hit a long pole with a hand on the top.  Jogging this caused a ball in a bathtub to start rolling, which then fell through a hole onto a see saw, propelling a little figure of a man into a wooden tub.  This finally caused a cage to start to descend down a pole to catch the poor unsuspecting mouse!

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