[Boiler]

flog off what you can to cook the books.

Not to mention putting the older unemployed/redundant onto incapacity/disability benefits to keep them off the unemployment register.

[davidjay]

Never has the phrase "History is written by the winners" been more appropriate than in studying the eighties. Those too young to live through the time will believe it to be an era of opportunity, when the post-war decline finally ended, the unions that had held the country back were defeated and the nation revelled in an era of unprecedented wealth and consumerism. Their belief is Duran Duran and Wham hanging out with supermodels on Carribbean beaches. Reality was the Specials and Ghost Town.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Teaching in an inner-city school in the 80s was often pretty grim as industry closed or went abroad and Tory councils cut spending to the bone. As was trying to bring up a family on ever-eroded wages whilst we watched our national assets (including North Sea oil revenues) pissed up the wall. A shit period.

[davidjay]

Teaching in an inner-city school in the 80s was often pretty grim as industry closed or went abroad and Tory councils cut spending to the bone. As was trying to bring up a family on ever-eroded wages whilst we watched our national assets (including North Sea oil revenues) pissed up the wall. A shit period.

The one plus point was that there was still a sense of community. Everyone seemed to have either been unemployed or knew someone who had been and they knew it could happen to anyone. If you had the money to go into a pub for a pint, get talking to someone and and mention you were on the dole chances were you'd have your next pint bought for you. Say it now and you'd get a sneer about how they were paying your benefits.