September 2023

Thoughts from Sandie

Well, what a nice little spell of weather we are having just as all the schools go back.

The Lionesses put up a good fight but were unable to win the World Cup Final against Spain.

A BBC TV series I have loved watching is ‘Back In Time For Tea’. The series focuses on the food and lifestyle of working-class Northern households, exemplified by the Ellis family, from post-World War I through to the end of the 1990s. It is not currently on i-player, if it returns, I will let you know.

All together there have been eight series of ’Back in Time For ….’ and are worth a watch if you can find them.

Thoughts from the 70’s, what a decade.

The 1970s were more than just disco music and questionable fashion choices.  For Britain, it was a time of celebration, discovery, violence, musical rebellion, and change.  It was very much a decade of contrasts as good followed bad and vice-versa.  Changes in currency, new government, and a monumental moment for the monarchy were juxtaposed with the rise of punk music, violence in Northern Ireland, and labour strikes.

• 1970 – Oil found in the North Sea, the discovery of the century that sparked a ‘black gold’ bonanza boosting the UK economy.
• 1971 – Decimalised currency started on 15th February.
• 1972 – Ireland’s Bloody Sunday left fourteen people dead. The effects were devastating. All trust in the British Army had evaporated amongst nationalists.
• 1973 – United Kingdom joins the European Community. War between Israel and Egypt emptied British petrol tanks. Motorways had their speed capped at 50mph to help preserve petrol stocks.
• 1974 – The three-day working week was enforced.
• 1975 – Sex Pistols form in London. Outspoken, outrageous, and groundbreaking band who put British punk on the map and made it a global phenomenon. Inflation peaked at 26.9 %.
• 1976 – Air travel went supersonic, with Concorde making her maiden flight on 21st January. Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister citing exhaustion, owing probably to the early onset of Alzheimers.
• 1977 – Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Silver Jubilee, with street parties across the country. Elvis Presley died aged 42.
• 1978 – Louise Brown was the world’s first birth from In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).
• 1979 – Margaret Thatcher is the first female Prime Minister.