Watch: Children in the 1980s
Find out what life was like for children in the 1980s.
Lucy: What is this?
Dad: That’s called a cassette player. I used to listen to music on it.
Nathan: Like you can on your phone today?
Dad: A bit like that, but it works a bit differently. You had to put one of these cassette tapes in it for it to work.
Lucy: What’s a cassette tape?
Dad: It has the music on it. You put it into the cassette player and press play for it to work. I used to take it everywhere with me. We used video cassettes for watching films too when I was your age.
Young Dad: You put this bigger cassette in here, and then it shows the picture on the screen.
Nathan: This TV looks a bit funny and the picture looks a bit wiggly.
Lucy: Aren’t all the TV programmes already in the TV?
Young Dad: No. We had to go to the shop and pay to borrow the films we wanted to watch. Mum used to find us deals for our holidays on the TV. Then she’d phone up and organise our holiday. We didn’t have any internet yet. We flew to Spain once a year and stayed in a big hotel for a week. Grandpa used to bring a camera with him and take lots of photographs.
Young Grandpa: Say cheese!
Lucy: Why didn’t he use his phone?
Young Dad: We didn’t have any mobile phones then.
Nathan: How did you tell people what you were doing?
Young Dad: We wrote postcards, sent them in the post. They arrived a few days later.
Dad: We sent the film roll away and had to wait two weeks before the photographs were sent back to us.
Nathan: Two weeks!
Lucy: Two what?
EVERYONE LAUGHS
What was life at home like?
During the 1980s technology continued to grow in popularity.
- Colour TV was common in every house and there were many more children’s programmes.
- Writing letters to other children, called penpals, became very popular in the 1980s.
- Children still spent most of their time outside playing traditional games and on their bikes.
- More families travelled abroad as 'package holidays' became cheaper and more popular.
What was school like?
All children now had to stay at school until the age of sixteen.
Most of the grammar schools and secondary modern schools were replaced by comprehensive schools.
A new type of examination was introduced, the GCSE.
In 1988 the government introduced the first National Curriculum telling all teachers what they had to teach.
How did children play and have fun?
- More toys and games were becoming electronic. They could make sounds or talk at the press of a button.
- The Rubik’s Cube was released and became hugely popular.
- Famous children’s films at the cinema arrived.
- Roller discos became popular.
The event of the decade
- On July 29, 1981 the then heir to the British throne, Prince Charles was married to Lady Diana Spencer.
- The wedding took place at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
- It was watched on TV by 750 million people across the world!
Did you know?
Image source, David LevensonIn 1985 Sir Clive Sinclair invented a battery powered electric car.
In 1983 people had to wear three-point seat belts for the first time when they travelled in a car. It was invented by an engineer at Volvo and it was so important for car safety that they shared their designs with all other car makers.
鶹Լ Children in Need began in 1980, with Pudsey Bear as the mascot. He is named after the town of Pudsey in Yorkshire.
Image source, David LevensonActivities
Activity 1: Children in the 1980s quiz
Activity 2: 1980s colouring sheet
Download and print this colouring sheet of Lucy, Nathan and Dad in the 1980s. Can you colour it in and label it with some of the items that were familiar to children in the 1980s?
Download the 1980s colouring sheet here.
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