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I cannot believe I used to…………

(219 Posts)
Sago Thu 01-Jul-21 10:35:28

Wear blue eyeshadow and eat margarine.

mrswoo Fri 02-Jul-21 15:51:11

If I got a hole in black tights I used to colour it in with a felt tip pen. Unfortunately as the day progressed the tights would move and the hole would need colouring in again. At the end of the day my legs would be a mass of felt-tipped dots!

katy1950 Fri 02-Jul-21 16:08:25

My wedding dress was a size 8 my hair was dark brown and I used to roll the top of my skirts up to just below my knickers omg

greenlady102 Fri 02-Jul-21 16:13:13

grandtanteJE65

I can happily believe that I wore most of these things:

skirts so short that I had to squat rather than bend down,

green mascara and eye shadow, never wore blue being brown-eyed.

3 inch high heels

platform soles

clogs in the summer of 1973 when they were all the rage

a pillar box red skirt and waistcoat ( I have never worn red since)

Travelled alone from Glasgow to Esbjerg in the west of Jutland aged 16 - my first journey anywhere alone with no idea where I was going to spend the night after the audition at the Academy of Music I was attending. Found somehere respectable and cheap to stay and next day took the train to Hamburg to visit a school-friend who happened to be studying there.

Made my way from the main station to her address in the suburbs alone and without a city plan of Hamburg - a place I had never been to before, but I did speak fairly creditable German. Understood the subtext to the question "Are you Swedish" and just said "No, I am not" repressively as Scandinavian girls had a reputation in Germany then for being easy to get into bed!

Come to think of it, I never told my mother about that incident!

I feel furious that young people are being brought up to believe that the world is a dangerous place these days. Our parents tried to do that too, but at least we had the sense to go out and see for ourselves and found the world far less scary than they said it was.

I do know there are different dangers today, but facing them is part of maturing from teenager to adult in any day or age.

There were rapists and murrderers when we were young too, but we had been taught to defend ourselves. I clearly remember kicking a man where it hurt most, screaming and then running like hell in high heels!

I don't think they are. Thousands of teenagers go backpacking in their gap year.

Sawsage2 Fri 02-Jul-21 16:24:58

Walking long way to bus stop from home, catching two buses, then long walk to meet boyfriend who was sat in his car! and he drove me home later. Madness! Wore black poncho over blue leather hotpants and I made a brown fur handbag - people on bus thought it was a cat confused

PipandFinn Fri 02-Jul-21 16:48:50

Wore a belt thingy that held a sanitary pad in place.......

Marmight Fri 02-Jul-21 17:07:42

Dance en pointe. Now I’m 4 sizes bigger and can’t stand on one foot without falling over

Plaster my face with Mary Quant panstick & pale pink lipstick

Travel ‘home’ on the last Paris Metro, alone, at 3am , followed by dubious characters. Now I don’t even like to walk through my village in the dark

Sleep under sheets & blankets so tight that I could hardly move. Floppy duvet with plenty of movement now!

Quizzer Fri 02-Jul-21 17:13:53

I think I’ve done all the above except that I washed my hair with lemons instead of using it on my face. I am tall and was never size 10 as an adult, but I did weigh 3st less than I do now!

Lilyflower Fri 02-Jul-21 17:21:01

Used to be so poor as a teenager I had one set of underwear and had to wash it in the basin and dry the items on the tank overnight to wear in the morning. I also attended more schools than there are school years. We moved a lot.

LovelyLady Fri 02-Jul-21 17:25:53

I used to wear fully fashioned stockings and the suspenders would press into my leg. Most uncomfortable.

Dryginger Fri 02-Jul-21 17:28:10

Elderlyperson I remember those chocolate bars I loved the lime one. Loved my Mary Quant make up box and my Biba make up.
Looķing at photos of my mum and dads the wall paper was beige with big orange circles every thing was beige and brown in the 70s.

Curlywhirly Fri 02-Jul-21 17:28:47

Lilyflower

Used to be so poor as a teenager I had one set of underwear and had to wash it in the basin and dry the items on the tank overnight to wear in the morning. I also attended more schools than there are school years. We moved a lot.

Ah, Lilyflower drying your underwear (and tights) on the tank! That brought back memories. I'd forgotten all about that.

DillytheGardener Fri 02-Jul-21 17:33:43

Perm my hair, bat wing dresses, jazzacise, my meringue wedding dress the list goes on...

DillytheGardener Fri 02-Jul-21 17:35:40

Marmight were you a Parisian ballet dancer by any chance? How glamorous.

dolphindaisy Fri 02-Jul-21 18:03:03

Used Lemonade to "set"my hair in rollers, then back combed it as high as possible.

Used asprins to keep up my stockings when I'd lost the button on the suspender belts.

Worked in Woolworths on Saturdays and had to do all the adding up in my head.

Became a really fast typist on a manual typewriter.

ElderlyPerson Fri 02-Jul-21 18:13:32

Dryginger

Elderlyperson I remember those chocolate bars I loved the lime one. Loved my Mary Quant make up box and my Biba make up.
Looķing at photos of my mum and dads the wall paper was beige with big orange circles every thing was beige and brown in the 70s.

Since you mentioned the lime one I think I remember that one was shaped like half of a barrel sliced vertically and filled with green liquid and one needed to be careful else it would spill. Almost as if it were a chocolate barrel floating in a chocolate sea with one half submerged, except that there was nothing below, like those garden ornaments that one can place on a lawn so it looks like an algae covered pond with a hippopotamus in it with just the hippo's head above the surface of the water!

Dryginger Fri 02-Jul-21 18:19:43

Yes Elderlyperson the lime was barrel shaped and the strawberry was heartshaped with dots to look like strawberry pips.

Marmight Fri 02-Jul-21 18:23:53

Dillythe Gardener ?. If only! More like a baby elephant in a tutu. The ballet and Paris were unconnected.

Freedom2017 Fri 02-Jul-21 18:29:47

I used to go to the Barrowland dance hall in Glasgow at the time Bible John was going around attacking young women in the same area. Scary.

Summerfly Fri 02-Jul-21 18:34:55

Pan stick makeup, black eyes and pale lips.
Bell bottom jeans with bells sewn up each side and fringing around the bottom.
Mini skirts so short that I couldn’t bend over, for fear of showing the stocking tops and suspenders.
Fell in love with Bob Dylan and thought he’d feel the same if only we could meet!
Seeing all the top bands in the sixties on the pier in our popular seaside town.
Happy days indeed ?

Sueki44 Fri 02-Jul-21 18:44:42

Oooh…. the agony of falling over on the ice and landing on the same suspender!
Remember loons and cheesecloth shirts?

Nonnadiana Fri 02-Jul-21 18:47:43

I used to hitchhike too ,alone and with my boyfriend. Loved blue eyeshadow too

maddyone Fri 02-Jul-21 19:29:37

Was 3 stone lighter than I am now.
Wore long, white, plastic boots.
Wore mini dresses so short that if I bent over, my knickers could be seen.
Got horrendously drunk a couple of times as a student.
Drank Brandy and Babycham or White Rum.
Called my in-laws Mr F…..and Mrs F……until we were married.
Wore suspenders with stockings.

Olive53 Fri 02-Jul-21 19:43:08

Wear white shiny boots with a psychedelic mini dress. Black eyeliner and thick black eyelashes. Iron my naturally curly hair to make it straight..........until there was a spot of drizzle and it all curled up again
Trying to walk in platform shoes, not going out in the evening till after 10pm, then walking home in the early hours, getting a few hours sleep then back to work
Thinking we were sophisticated if we ate at a Berni Inn, and always seemed to have prawn cocktail, steak, Black Forest gateau followed by an Irish coffee
Happy days

Callistemon Fri 02-Jul-21 19:45:33

Wear home-made mini dresses made from crimplene!
My friend liked mine so much she asked me to make her one.

maddyone Fri 02-Jul-21 20:34:31

And use clear nail varnish to stop a ladder in my stockings or later tights.