Survey from 1984 in Winter 2014/2015

WOULD YOU BE SAD IF THE LOVE BOAT GOT CANCELLED?

It’s an American telly programme so I’ve never seen it but I just love everything about America sigh, I know all there is to know because I’ve read lots of teenage love stories from America, and I’ve watched Happy Days and The Flintstones. And now Charles in Charge is on telly. Scott Biao is soooooooo hunky sigh. It sounds like such a cool place, I want to hang out in a malt shop, use a juke box and, and just everything about it. But I’m stuck here in England in my parents house and I don’t think I’ll ever even get to America.

I lived in America, Florida to be precise, between the ages of 23 and 25. It was everything I hoped it would be

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CASSETTE TAPE?

I have a cassette of sixties music that I bought at a services a couple of weeks ago. It has some cool music on it, like Purple Haze and Leader of the Pack. I listen to in my bedroom all the time, singing into my hairbrush and acting out all the words - although I’m not really sure of all the words to Purple Haze! I really love Madonna too but I haven’t saved up enough money for her new tape yet. It takes me several weeks of pocket money to but one album.

HAVE YOU REPLACED ALL OF YOUR 8-TRACKS WITH CASSETTE TAPES YET?

No, I’m only thirteen so I don’t have any of those old fashioned things. My first tape ever was Duran Duran’s first album.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR VINYL?

I don’t have any yet. I’d loooooove to have records but I’d have to play them on my dad’s record player in the sitting room and then I wouldn’t be able to dance because everyone would look at me.

Next year my brother will have a girlfriend who will sell me her old Bush record player and I’ll be able to play 78’s on it!

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BOOMBOX?

Boombox? Do you mean a ghetto blaster!? I only just bought one, I just had a little tape recorder. I used it to tape off Top of the Pops every Thursday. It’s on before Tomorrow’s World and I love that too, it shows us what cool things we can do in the future.

I saved up all my money, and I did jobs like gardening and ironing and washing cars to save more money and I bought the coolest silver ghetto blaster. It cost me £53! Can you imagine having that much money in your pocket! I walked all the way to Gotch’s in town clutching my purse, terrified that I’d lose it. Now I can tape the top 40 off of radio one on Sunday nights but I have to retune it because radio one is on am but fm has better sound so they share the fm dial with radio two. I always tune in a bit early and hear the end of Sing Something Simple. It’s really cool old music and tonight they sang Sandman. That song is like sooooooooooo cool!

DO YOU EVER JUST SIT AND WATCH MUSIC VIDEOS ON MTV ALL DAY?

(sigh) no. My mum and dad won’t get satellite telly so we don’t have mtv. That’s another thing that’s so cooooool about America. No one really has satellite telly yet, but we did get channel four this year, it has some really cool programmes but my mum won’t let me watch many of them. I love their Saturday morning programme, Number 83 (or something like that), it’s so bright and fun and they have the best bands on. Bananarama were on this week and Roman Holliday sigh. I loooooooooooove Roman Holliday. 🎵 Don’t try to stop it doo doo doo doo de doo doo doo de🎶

I won’t have MTV until after I’ve left home, in the early nineties when I have my own place and get satellite telly. And I’ll fall in love with the video for REM’s Everybody Hurts.

DO YOU HAVE A VCR?

No. It’s SOOOOOOO unfair. All my friends do but not me. Mum and dad won’t get one, they don’t see the point. Everyone at school has video cards and they go and borrow videos, Like at a library but you have to pay money. But it takes two years for a film to come out on video after its been at the cinema. It’s such a looooooooooong time to wait but if you don’t have a video player then you have to wait FIVE years for it to be on telly.

My mum and dad will get one in a couple of years so that dad can watch neighbours even when they’ve been away.

WHERE DO YOU KEEP YOUR VCR?

In my dreams.

CAN YOU PROGRAM IT TO RECORD TELEVISION SHOWS?

It was soooooooooooo funny the other day ‘cause Adam next door got a video player and we were figuring out how to use it. We were flicking through the channels and this programme had sex on it! I felt my cheeks go soooooooooooo red. And it was the middle of the day! Anyway, we set the video to record and watched another channel (you can do that you know!!!!!) but when we went back to watch it Adam had forgotten to set it to the right channel so it was just cricket on BBC2! Ha ha ha ha!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT’S 1984 ALREADY?

No! My mum was telling me about this book she read when she was a teenager and how she worked out that she would be 46 when the book was set and how horrible life would be with big brother watching everything, only that’s now and life isn’t like that at all.

HAVE YOU SEEN RETURN OF THE JEDI YET?

No, I won’t see it until next year when I’m in holiday in Spain. And I’ll think it’s predictable and a bit rubbish.

DO YOU STILL HAVE A ROTARY DIALER ON YOUR PHONE OR DO YOU HAVE A NEWER ONE WITH PUSH BUTTONS?

My friend Tracey Oldfield has a trim phone!! They are soooooooooooo funky! I wish my parents would buy modern, funky stuff but they never do.

I wonder what I’ll be like when I’m old and in my forties like my mum is.

most of the writing in asterisks indicated seeing into the future, my 13 year old self could not possibly know that stuff.

Oh, and everything I have written happened in or around 1984 in my life

Last updated March 29, 2015