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Thatcher Day, 1979

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    Thatcher Day, 1979

    For the 4th May it was.

    Were you brought hope?

    #2
    Well, I admire your pluck...

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      #3
      Can't see it knocking the 8th of April of its perch, to be honest.

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        #4
        Self-portrait with T-shirt.

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          #5
          I always associate Thatcher's start as PM with the general election day (Thurs 3rd May) rather than the following day, when she actually became PM. I don't have any particular memories of 4th May 1979, but I do have memories of the election day - helping the Labour team at a polling station in our Leeds NW constituency (Tory in those days), then cycling home in absolutely biting chilly wind - the same sort of god awful spring weather that we're having now. The weather seemed to match the chill that was about to descend on good things in the life of the UK.

          Also, 3rd May was the birthday of both my late Mum and my late sister Ginny, so it's always been a very easy date for me to remember.

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            #6
            I remember the weather too on May 3rd. - looking out our living room window at a sudden, furious snowstorm (or maybe it was a hailstorm), a bit like the one they had in Manchester last night. Almost too full of portent to be true - I was 13 and my parents were in the midst of their spring of extreme discontent, so it was like the end of childhood, the 70s and democratic socialism in one short, cold blow. Not that I knew it at the time. I was probably just thinking, "Blimey, snow in May. Wonder what's on telly tonight."

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              #7
              I don't think she was expected to last more than one term at that point, especially when the economy tanked in her first two years. The opposition splitting, plus her using council houses as bribes, gave her the opening, but none of that was clearly foreseeable on 4.5.79.

              Personally aged 12, my focus was the forthcoming FA Cup Final, Barnsley getting promoted and the cricket World Cup, and of course just surviving at school until the 6 week holidays. The charts were probably good that week but always contained some shite.

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                #8
                Originally posted by imp View Post
                I remember the weather too on May 3rd. - looking out our living room window at a sudden, furious snowstorm (or maybe it was a hailstorm), a bit like the one they had in Manchester last night. Almost too full of portent to be true - I was 13 and my parents were in the midst of their spring of extreme discontent, so it was like the end of childhood, the 70s and democratic socialism in one short, cold blow. Not that I knew it at the time. I was probably just thinking, "Blimey, snow in May. Wonder what's on telly tonight."
                Oddly, I remember it as warm, I know that me and my brother played Election Football in the garden where he was the Tories, as they were the same colour as Ipswich, and I was Labour because I liked red. The Tories won that one too, but in fairness he was two years older than me.

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                  #9
                  Election Day 1979 was warm where I was, too. I can remember the Tory candidate being paraded around our estate on the roof of a car and the older kids - I was eleven - giving him wanker's-wrist and calling him names.

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                    #10
                    Yeah, well, it was colder up north, which is what has traditionally made us so hard, and people from Bristol and Ipswich as soft as a baby's bum.

                    I tried to google it and found message boards where people talk about nothing but what the weather was like on certain days a long time ago. A bit like we're doing here, but that seems to be all they talk about.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                      The charts were probably good that week but always contained some shite.

                      Bright Eyes was No.1.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by imp View Post
                        Yeah, well, it was colder up north, which is what has traditionally made us so hard, and people from Bristol and Ipswich as soft as a baby's bum.
                        It might be colder up north, but you lot wouldn't notice it, seeing as you never leave the house, preferring to stay in huddled around the fireplace, eating buns named after a village, mashing tea and going, "In't it just grand?" every five minutes.

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                          #13
                          My first GE vote in 1979. For Labour, of course, and I had my boyfriend (too young to vote, at 17) skipping alongside saying “MAGGIE!!”, possibly should have dumped him then.

                          And the election/s this week will see my first non-Labour vote - tell a lie, I voted for one animal welfare rep in a previous multi-choice council election.

                          Thatcher was loathsome but better than any of the current bunch at the top of the Tory Party. That’s a low bar, before anyone calls me a Thatcher-lover.

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                            #14
                            Thatcher was an ideologue with principles. The current clowncar-crashers use the pretext of ideology to exhibit their total lack of principles.

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                              #15
                              Personally aged 12, my focus was the forthcoming FA Cup Final,.......
                              Personally, aged 15, my focus was the next occurrence of the three-weekly "Macky 'Art" (= Immaculate Heart) church hall Saturday night disco, the rare and treasured late 1970s rendezvous for teenagers from all the Leeds single sex Catholic secondary schools, due on Sat 5 May, and my chances of getting off with one of the Notre Dame girls that evening.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                It might be colder up north, but you lot wouldn't notice it, seeing as you never leave the house, preferring to stay in huddled around the fireplace, eating buns named after a village, mashing tea and going, "In't it just grand?" every five minutes.
                                Right, that's it, bring your fucking Altonaer 93 sixth division crew and meet me in a wood somewhere between Hamburg and Frankfurt and we can sort this out in a fact-settling physical fashion (though you're not allowed to hit me cos I'm on blood thinners).

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by imp View Post

                                  Right, that's it, bring your fucking Altonaer 93 sixth division crew and meet me in a wood somewhere between Hamburg and Frankfurt and we can sort this out in a fact-settling physical fashion (though you're not allowed to hit me cos I'm on blood thinners).
                                  I'd rather bring Die Norderstedter Arroganz with me, as they have a better name.

                                  I would suggest meeting in a student boozer of your choice in Goettingen (somewhere that does a cracking pasta bake, with really crispy green side salad), but that's probably too far north, and thus too cold, for you.

                                  But, ref, I know where you parked your car.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                    I'd rather bring Die Norderstedter Arroganz with me, as they have a better name.

                                    I would suggest meeting in a student boozer of your choice in Goettingen (somewhere that does a cracking pasta bake, with really crispy green side salad), but that's probably too far north, and thus too cold, for you.

                                    But, ref, I know where you parked your car.
                                    Fact - I watched the 1986 World Cup final in Goettingen. I'm not going back in case I run into the fan with the big German flag who started crying into his beer after the game and wanted me to know all about his poor broken heart.

                                    No car, just a bike. Which has certainly helped me slip away unnoticed from a couple of inhospitable grounds over the past few years.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by imp View Post

                                      Fact - I watched the 1986 World Cup final in Goettingen. I'm not going back in case I run into the fan with the big German flag who started crying into his beer after the game and wanted me to know all about his poor broken heart.

                                      No car, just a bike. Which has certainly helped me slip away unnoticed from a couple of inhospitable grounds over the past few years.
                                      Did you read that thing in 11 Freunde a few years back about "Referees Welcome"?

                                      "Schiri, wir wissen, wo dein Auto steht / Ist aufgetankt, ist aufgetankt."

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                                        #20
                                        I went on a school trip to Butlins Barry Island the week before* and got horrendously homesick. Every other kid loved it but I just wanted to be back in the familiar family environment, despite its lack of variety. I think that's when I discovered I was wired differently and would always be prone to feeling sad.

                                        *I recall the date because Terry Griffiths won the world snooker title while we were there, and it finished on Saturday April 28th.
                                        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 05-05-2021, 17:46.

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                                          #21
                                          On the afternoon of the 4th of May 1979, after a long, late night following the sad progress of Peter Snow's swingometer, we caught the bus from Stretford to Manchester city centre. This was our first experience of a hopefully short-lived experiment to pipe music on to the top deck in an effort, I suppose, to divert us from carving our initials into the seat in front. My girlfriend reached the top of the stairs, cocked an ear to a muzak cover of something from "Band On The Run" then remarked that it hadn't taken long for the country to get crappier. She was right.

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                                            #22
                                            I always remembered watching the "where there are jobs, let us bring poverty" (sic) speech live, and always wondered why I was off school, or whether I was misremembering, until I rewatched the coverage on one of those BBC Parliament full re-runs, and realised that happened late in the afternoon and they had sacked off the kids TV programmes to continue the coverage.

                                            I don't remember a great deal about the election (being 7 at the time), I remember my brother having a reel of VOTE LEWIS stickers for our local Labour candidate, and knowing they were our team, though my eldest sister reckoned she was voting Liberal because David Steel was the nicest party leader (though if she has ever voted anything other than Tory in her life I'd be surprised).

                                            Watching the re-run of the coverage there was a bit of speculation about whether Thatcher would last the full term, and the usual chat about the need for Labour to regroup, but not much anticipation of the split that was to come.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                              Did you read that thing in 11 Freunde a few years back about "Referees Welcome"?

                                              "Schiri, wir wissen, wo dein Auto steht / Ist aufgetankt, ist aufgetankt."
                                              I've a sneaking suspicion that entire story was a fabrication by the magazine. They published a reader's letter saying that the supposed referees' fan group were an irritation, and that was the last they wrote about it. It was a fleeting project of a few smart-arses at best, but my money's on there having been no one alive who would bother to set up a fan club for refs and then actually bother travelling to games to cheer them on.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by imp View Post

                                                I've a sneaking suspicion that entire story was a fabrication by the magazine. They published a reader's letter saying that the supposed referees' fan group were an irritation, and that was the last they wrote about it. It was a fleeting project of a few smart-arses at best, but my money's on there having been no one alive who would bother to set up a fan club for refs and then actually bother travelling to games to cheer them on.
                                                I thought the same, although I'm not as cynical as you*. I wanted to believe it.

                                                *Lie.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I wasn't born.

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