At least it wasn't puffy.
Posted on 08/02/2025 8:59:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
After WWII American men came home and built everything and the economy roared. In England, they embraced socialism, and enjoyed 2 more decades of rationing, until Thatcher came along (they still hate her for that).
Polyester clothing was punishment for a fallen race.
None of this was part of my 60’s experience.
I had an English girlfriend ten years ago and I spent a lot of time talking over the phone with her when she was back in England and I was in the States. One afternoon she freaked out and was telling me that the TV coppers were in her neighborhood and she had to go. I didn’t understand what she was talking about. She hadn’t paid her TV tax! I could not figure out how that scheme works. I guess if your TV is on, they can tell with their antenna vans. But how can they tell if someone is receiving transmissions? Transmitting, okay.
***Coin operated TV?***
I remember those in motels in the 1950s. Once while watching the TV show TOPPER the RV died and dad did not have change to start it up again.
How many remember that TV show form the 1950s?
Reads like it’s talking about a different planet. And I did grow up in the 60s. Fackin Brits.
I spent the late 60s in Scotland. As a society, they were about 20 years behind the U.S.
I was raised in South Florida in the 1960’s. No frost, but running the AC was expensive, so my family were early adopters of paddle fans.
At night they would turn off the AC, open the windows, and turn on the fans. In the summer nighttime temps would often only dip into the lower 80’s, with 90% humidity, so you would just lay there and sweat.
No one that I knew in the 50s wore a ducktail, which was considered low class.
Communication is inescapable today. Some of us see limited value in that fact. I liked it better when we were either ‘at home’, ‘at work’, ‘out somewhere’, or ‘out of town’, and we all somehow managed to get by...
Just shared this thread my mom, this morning. She said, “Everyone we knew, was alive.”
They were in airports in the 80’s. You dropped a quarter into the slot and I think you got 15 minutes.
I was always too cheap. Anything I wanted to see I had planned ahead and had it recorded on the Betamax, waiting for me when I got home.
The pirate radio era of England is fascinating. Both for how stubborn the BBC was about playing “children’s” music, or for how long they let the pirate station go.
The pirate radio era of England is fascinating.
The Who Sell Out, paid tribute to the pirate stations, complete with ads in between the songs. It’s still my favorite Who album.
I find that album a little tough to listen to. Their pirate radio mimicking takes me out of the album early, but then when I get used to it they drop it. But there is a lot of good stuff on there, it just suffers structurally. But it does show who these pirate stations got big enough to get advertising, like big deal advertising. Mostly American cause what do they care about British laws.
I’ll also recommend the movie The Boat That Rocked, very fun movie, great soundtrack.
The TV show Topper was from before we got a TV, but I do remember the Cary Grant movie, and I have the book Topper by Thorne Smith (also Topper Takes a Trip). Thorne Smith wrote a lot of very funny stuff; my favorites are The Night Life of the Gods and The Bishop’s Jaegers. I still reread them every once in a while.
I had some paisley hip huggers.
It appears that the UK was 20 years behind us in the 60’s.
Naa girl hair was starting remember the Beatles and it got a lot worse in the 70’s and 80’s.
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