View over the top of my book #7
I love large, echoing train stations, especially as where I currently live, we don’t even have a train line, so they are a novelty. I took this picture this weekend while waiting at Glasgow Central, which is one of my favourites. I always have a book on me for waiting purposes, but in a place like that I just end up sitting there, staring about me.
I’m currently reading ‘Dorian’ by Will Self, his take on ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’ which is next on my list, as I’d like to review the two together. Self’s version is set in the 1980s and his Dorian is tied to a video art installation. The book contains more 80s childhood memory prompts than I’d really like. In the early part of the 80s, due to being a child, I was quite short, and one line of the book, while unrelated, distinctly made me remember the time a drunk man in a white jacket suit jacket, caught my cheek with his cigarette. I was waiting for a bus with my cousin, it was a very hot day in south London and he came stumbling along and almost fell into me. There was no water to put on the burn so my cousin told me to spit on my hand and rub it on my cheek. I’d completely forgotten about that disturbing day, thanks, Mr Self! When I think about adults in the 80s, such as parties my parents would go to, weddings, etc, everyone was drinking, and ashtrays and ring pulls were everywhere. Summers were hot, winters were cold, and chip-pan fires were a constant, clear and present danger.
Lucy
Sarah
I was a child in the 80s too – I can vouch that cigarette smoke was everywhere you turned (white suit jackets to a lesser, but still disturbing, extent). I’m looking forward to your joint review of ‘Dorian’ and ‘The Picture of…’ š
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Hee hee! I was in my twenties in the eighties.
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Sarah’s going to come along and say something similar, it was probably you 20-somethings and teenagers doing all the careless cigarette waving and white jacket wearing! š š
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I did a lot of careless cigarette waving, enough to fill a tiny office with a dense cloud of smoke, but definitely had no white jacket, thank goodness. š
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It was a very dangerous time to be alive! I’m also slightly embarrassed to admit I craved a pair of white jeans, but was never allowed any, as my mum said they’d be filthy in ten minutes. š¦
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I think I spent the entire decade in either rollerskates or Essex stilettos. I had a white jacket at some point, but white was good, it distracted from the footballer perm.
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Yay for perms! And for people who admit to having them! My mum used to get the ‘Barbara Dickson’ perm. I bet it’s a been a while since a hairdresser was asked for that.
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What a pretty station! I was a bit too old for the 80s but nevertheless loved the music. There are plenty of things about the decade I’d like to forget, though….
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I still listen to 80s music almost daily! I’m guessing your major fashion triumphs/disasters are 70s based, that was a far more entertaining decade and I like to imagine everyone looked like Ziggy Stardust, all the time.
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Yup – I was a child of the 70s and I don’t care to acknowledge what I looked like….. š
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