Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
Back in November 2022, a very well-written and thought-provoking piece appeared in The Guardian. Entitled “‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today”, it was penned by one Dan Hancox and became the latest offering from the newspaper’s The Long Read series of articles, which it describes as “in-depth reporting, essays […]
Continue Reading. Us children of the 1970s may bore our kids into slumber with our tales of how great life was back in “our day”, but what was it that made our adolescence so special? There are literally hundreds of things that made that decade stand out amongst all the times in which to be growing […]
Continue ReadingEveryone who is “of a certain age” will remember the rag and bone man. The heavy clip-clopping of horses’ hooves, punctuated by an indeterminate but oft-repeated cry, announced that it was time for children and their mothers to take their old unwanted apparel out into the quiet residential street, along perhaps with a cube of […]
Continue ReadingIt cannot be denied, 1970s comedy can be a sticky subject. Society’s values have changed, and what was considered funny once may now be frowned upon as unacceptable and even downright offensive. Our perpetual quest for subtlety and nuance has also undoubtedly rendered much of it embarrassingly predictable. And yet in our desire always to […]
Continue ReadingOne of the joys of the 1970s was that life was so much less competitive back in those days. We felt the love, we shared the love. So in the spirit of those lazy, hazy far-off days let me give you my thoughts on some other websites, forums and resources which are available out there […]
Continue ReadingAlthough there have been hotter summers in terms of temperatures reached, the great summer of 1976 remains the benchmark by which other heatwaves in the United Kingdom are measured. There are many good reasons for this. During the intense and unrelenting heat of that year reservoirs dried up, roads melted, crop yields were badly hit […]
Continue ReadingAs any self-respecting sexagenarian will tell you, things were so much better in our day. Sure there was no TikTok, no Facebook, no Instagram, no video games, no PlayStations. In fact there was no internet, no mobile phones, no laptops and no desktops. For many indeed there was still not even the luxury of a […]
Continue ReadingNostalgia, defined by Merriam-Webster as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period”, is one of the most powerful emotions there is. This is why so many great songs have been written which invoke a longing for the past, typically either ruing the loss of a treasured relationship or […]
Continue ReadingThe Irish radio presenter Henry Kelly once drily remarked that “1976 was a good year because we were so much younger then.” He was right, of course. And just possibly he was pushing back at the avalanche of nostalgic sentiment that would appear to surround that year in particular, with its sporting achievements and its […]
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