Population

I was discussing the population explosion fears in the 1970’s with my friend Martha Kennedy here earlier on. She had written a really interesting post about her memories in the 1960’s. I’ll post a link to her post if I can.

But talking about it I remembered doing a collage with ripped up magazine pages. The Earth is at the bottom, a ribbon comes up off the Earth and has a queue or line of people moving up away into space. I can’t remember if they were heading towards the sun or the moon. I think the collage was in landscape mode but my digital canvas is orientated in portrait mode. I’m not sure whether the population had hit 4 or 6 billion… Now it’s over 8 billion. We are like a virus taking over the world….

I tried to post a link to Martha’s blog but it didn’t work sadly.

Bad news

We got a letter off our energy company today. Our yearly bills are set to DOUBLE. I then saw a video of a comedy programme from the 1970’s on Facebook in which a man is being encouraged to save energy by using a hot water bottle, to which he responds he can’t afford to boil a kettle. Other suggestions include using a car less (he doesn’t own one), eating healthily (on his income he can’t afford to), and heating meals thoroughly (he can’t afford to have his cooker on). It was funny, but it shows things were not so different fifty years ago! Later on they showed a public information film from about the same time. This was to encourage the population to save energy by only heating one room in their home instead of heating the whole house do that the NHS and hospitals would have enough energy to stay open!

Seriously though it does make you wonder about open plan living, maybe people should rebuild internal walls?

70’s toys

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Clackers.. Two balls on a string you waved up and down, with a little ring in the middle. They were meant to bounce off each other top and bottom. Many a broken finger….

Made of hard plastic, some luminous green, other colours too. I remember them being quite heavy. The cord holding them together was made of nylon. The string was tied round the ring at the halfway point. You moved your arm up and down fast, the balls would be sent flying and bounce at the top and bottom of their arc, making the characteristic ‘clacking’ noise. Hence the name.

As with other toys from the 70’s I doubt they would have been approved by health and safety now!

Quiet, like a Sunday….

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I wrote a long piece about this, then I fell asleep, my finger hit the screen and I’ve lost it! I will try and remember what I was saying.

I was bought up in the 60’s and 70’s, when shops closed on a Sunday, people bought enough food to last and put it in the pantry (a small room lined with shelves which was stacked with tins and dry goods).

It was quiet, no one had cars so we would play in the back garden or go to the local park which was a few hundred yards away over the main road. But the road was easy to cross because it wasn’t that busy.

Back to today. I sat in the garden and was surprised to hear birds singing. I think I could recognise about three different songs. They were up a tree at the other end of the garden, normally they would have been drowned out by the road.

Even the rush hour failed to happen. Normally the cars queue on the street waiting to turn into the traffic. Today, one car every few minutes.

The only thing I saw which was wrong was three young men, full of energy, walking together laughing, making fun, striding out. We have been told not to be in groups of more than two. I just worry…

Still, it’s quiet, like an old fashioned Sunday.

Punk

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Oh yes I remember it. 1970’s and 80’s. A mad time. Music that rattled roofs, clothes that were crazy combinations of safety pins and plaid. Piercings and mohecan hair cuts.

Bands like Ultravox, Souxi and the banshees, all the other ones I can’t remember, such a long time ago. So many mad parties. Pogo dancing, singing along. Fun.

How the world has changed. X