Did anyone else feel it was a bit depressing having a 1970's special TV programme last night on BBC 2 presented by a 30-something HISTORIAN? I mean it's not that that long ago, surely, that it's descended into some dark corner of history?
Mind you, it did look it for much of the programme. I found it hard to recognise much of what I'd lived through. Of course, I recall black and white television. I didn't buy a colour tv until I'd joined Nationwide in 1975. You didn't miss what you didn't have and had never known!
Some of the 'fashion' was hilarious. I'd been abroad, living in Fiji and New Zealand until 1971 – and when I returned, I can remember thinking everyone looked extraordinary! I'd left the UK in 1968 when girls and young women dressed like their mothers, in sensible dresses, skirts, coats and even hats! I'd had a beehive and wore mini-skirts – but otherwise dressed fairly classically as everyone else did. But when I came back, still wearing my classic sensible clothers, I must have looked so out of place, as if I'd arrived from another planet – as indeed it was really, for communication then was nothing like it is now and fashion took its time to travel the world. So the London look had not yet penetrated down under. But to me, coming fresh into it, everyone around looked so strange in their flares, tank tops and long, long hair.
It wasn't long before I joined them though and have happy memories of swishing around Oxford Street in long skirts, wide, wide trousers and a variety of tunic/aprony tops. On tv last night I spotted a rock star wearing a robe which was identical to the long white dress of mine below which my daughter now proudly wears when she wants the 'vintage' look. Hey ho. I suppose I have to accept the 70's are now history and I'm a part of that history.
