Lesson 1A: The Good Old Days

1 Albert, 72: Those were the days! People were full of hope and optimism. To a young person such as myself, everything seemed shiny and brand new. Music defined the decade, and it defined us as well. I would spend hours listening to the Beatles and later the Rolling Stones on my pocket transistor radio. Did you know that, back then, we used to listen to pirate radio stations? They played music from ships in international waters to challenge BBC radio, which was dominant at the time. They would play pop music all day long, while the conservative BBC played it only for a couple of hours a week. We were rather rebellious, and we dressed that way, too. We wore clothes that went against the strict rules of the time. Miniskirts became the big thing back then, and almost all the girls wore them. As for the boys, we loved wearing patterned shirts. You’d probably laugh at them now, but they were a huge hit back then!

2 Melanie, 40: I have extremely fond memories of this decade. I grew up playing Game Boy, which was a sort of video-game console, and listening to pop music on the stereo. Britpop, a type of rock music that first started in the UK, was very popular. However, I didn’t really listen to it: I had a serious ‘girl power’ phase. The Spice Girls were the biggest British pop success since the Beatles. I would spend hours in front of the mirror pretending I was one of them, and I cried for days when they split up. Imagine that! Hmm, what else happened? Oh, yeah, the Channel Tunnel opened and got us closer to the rest of Europe. Every spring, Dad would take us on a day trip to Paris, because it was just a two-hour ride away. Another very important thing at the time was the Internet. Going online wasn’t as easy as it is today, but it was very exciting!

3 Harriet, 75: I was a child then, so I don’t remember much about the decade, but what I do remember is how foggy it was when I woke up one December morning. It soon became clear that the thick fog that covered the whole city was something quite unusual. My dad used to work at a car factory. That morning, the bus didn’t come, so he had to go to work on foot. When he returned, he was having trouble breathing. Outside, the smog was so thick that you couldn’t see what was in front of you. Everything stopped: the entire city was shut down for five days. Why did it happen? Well, back then, we used to burn coal to heat our homes. With no wind, the smoke from the chimneys got trapped over the city, creating terrible atmospheric pollution. Thousands of people died from respiratory problems, and thousands fell very ill. We have problems with air pollution today as well, so I feel like we haven’t learnt anything from the past.