Take A Chill Pill

The Letter C finds us jumping back in time to these...

Kids of today would not understand the relationship between these two items - The Pencil and The Cassette Tape. 

When your favourite MixTape got eaten up by your Sony Walkman, you opened it up, pulled out the cassette and the miles of tape that the Walkman "ate", you had to insert the pencil between the cogs in the holes and wind the tape back into the cassette manually. 

If you didn't have a pencil or a pen, you used your finger and tore all the skin of your Peter Pointer while doing it.  We often had to do this with our favourite Mix Tapes, because we played them over and over again and the tapes would get stretched.  It was your worst nightmare if you snapped the tape on your favourite U2 cassette.

Sometimes, we even used cellotape to rescue the poor thing.  It always left a muted section on your tape, but it was either that, or chuck the entire tape in the bin?!

Remember Cabbage Patch Kids with their very own Birth Certificate?

Care Bears.  Everyone had a favourite and we used to watched the TV Show every Saturday morning

 

The Cure are today's Retro band.  I used to love Robert Smith, but was always a wee bit put off my his messy hair and smudged red lipstick.  Good toonz though...

The Swagalicious 80's

I was 9 years old when I came from Scotland to South Africa in 1981 with my mum, dad and older skin-'n blister.  It was completely daunting for my sister and I.  We didn't really know what to expect.  I thought I'd see tigers roaming the street and people with bones through their noses. 

Mum and dad pretty much sold up everything to come to Johannesburg and start a new life here.  It was a bold, brave move.  I clearly remember sitting in our empty front room on deck chairs watching the royal wedding (Prince and Princess of Wales aka Charles and Diana) on a teeny wee portable black and white telly.

The one thing my mum and dad did not sell was our toys and books.  They were boxed up and shipped and it took 8 weeks for them to reach South Africa.

When the boxes finally arrived at our wee hoosie, it was soopa exciting for my sister and I.  We couldn't wait to see our old things. It was like Christmas all over again.  We were so happy to see all our familiar stuff.  A wee piece of home.

Do you remember any of these 1980's toys?

Chopper Bike

Do you remember the 1980's toys?

Ker Plonk as we called it



Simon Says

20 cents to play.  I had to play until I got Top Score.  A proud moment at our local Spar Supermarket.

Gyro Wheels

Cabbage Patch Kids

My Favourite and it had a wee lift that worked and a wee doggie bush kennel for Spot the Dog

Archie Comics.  Jughead was my favourite.



Beano Annual



Viewmaster

Ballerina Barbie

What cool stuff do you remember from the 80's?