Attitudes to sex in the 1980s were more liberal than is sometimes assumed. But the decade was very different from the liberated 1960s and rebellious 1970s. The AIDS pandemic and rise of political conservatism impacted how young people viewed sex. Despite a climate of fear and repression, a survey in 1986 had very surprising results….
I lived through the 1970s – aged seven in the first year of the decade and seventeen when it ended. And I’m still struggling to figure out what I think about the 1970s. Your thoughts would be very welcome. On balance, I believe it was a fascinating time full of amazing music, movies, and other…
Nearly forty years ago, an LGBT bookshop in London was raided by customs officials leading to a court case against nine directors and staff who faced over a hundred charges. This proved to be a landmark case, largely forgotten now. It advanced gay rights while also raising questions about censorship by the authorities. Key issues…
In the early 1980s, I studied and worked in Liverpool at a time when there was stratospheric levels of unemployment, dire poverty, and faced with no prospects – men and women turned to sex work. In the Toxteth district, it was a daily fact of life to see women on the streets in both daylight…
June 1985 witnessed a vicious pitched battle between riot police and what were described as ‘New Age Travellers’ in the shadow of Stonehenge. An extraordinary level of violence was used by police against people who had turned up for a free festival at the ancient site. These festivals had been going on throughout the 1970s…
Nearly forty years ago, a police officer was hacked to death during a night of violence in north London. Police Constable Keith Blakelock stumbled during a riot on the Broadwater Farm estate and never stood up again. His neck was hacked at with a machete and knives with one report suggesting he lost fingers as…
Doctor Who was a 20th century TV success story that soared but then crashed as historian Tony McMahon discovers
1985 saw two double agents exposed. KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky and US Navy officer John Walker were not what they seemed. Tony McMahon reports
Corporal punishment was a constant feature of 1970s schools reducing children to a terrorised state as TV historian Tony McMahon remembers
Night clubs in the 1980s and 1990s were often subjected to police raids for various reasons as TV historian Tony McMahon recalls
