Our Big Fat ’80s Tameside Quiz: The Answers

Is your knowledge of the ’80s Tameside acceptable in the 2020s?

We’re probably running a bit late with this one: the answers to your Big Fat ’80s Tameside Quiz!

Our Big Fat ’80s Tameside Quiz: Another Past of the M60 Special

Is your knowledge of the ’80s Tameside acceptable in the 2020s?

Following the success of our previous article, we have decided to follow this up with a quiz. This will test your knowledge on all things of a Tameside nature from the 1980s.

Fifteen Things You Could Do in 1980s Tameside That You Can’t Do Today

A Past of the M60 Special on the things we used to love doing in our borough back in the ’80s

42 years. 42 years ago at this time of writing was 1980. Thanks to Xanadu and Olivia Newton-John, ELO got its first and only Number One single in the UK. The 343 was extended north of Top Mossley to Oldham, taking over the 416 route. Tameside’s top football club was Mossley AFC, when Messrs Skeete, Moore and Smith made mincemeat of opposing defences. Back then, they went to Wembley and lost 2 – 1 to Dagenham in the F.A. Trophy Final.

Do You Remember… When The School Telly Was Wheeled Into The Hall or Classroom?

The joys of watching TV at school in the 1980s and 1990s

In today’s interconnected world, the joys of watching video clips in a classroom environment seems run-of-the-mill. Today’s teachers, lecturers and trainers can turn to YouTube or other video streaming channels for educational films.

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 26. If All Cities Were Like Milton Keynes

Our second bonus door of East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar

“You and I in a little toy shop, buy a bag of balloons with the money we got…”

We have now come to our true final door of this year’s East of the M60 Advent Calendar. All being well, The Mighty Stalybridge Celtic should be playing Hyde United tomorrow afternoon which partly explains my 99 Red Balloons reference. As well as reminding me of The Voice’s dulcet tones on a match day, it was a red balloon that inspired Milton Keynes Development Corporation’s finest ever advert.

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 25. Basildon – Our Town

Our first bonus door of East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar

Before we open the first bonus door, East of the M60 would like to wish its readers old and new a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. As you couldn’t get enough of this year’s Advent Calendar, it is only fair that we go to the place where Alison Moyet, Vince Clarke and Martin Gore came from.

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 24. Stevenage is Wonderful

East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar looks at a fifty-year-old film of a Hertfordshire New Town

Before 1946, Stevenage was a small, slow-growing market town. It was on the Great North Road and a stopping point on London-bound stagecoach routes. After 1946, Stevenage became one of Britain’s first New Towns as per the Abercrombie Report.

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 23. Connecting Swindon

East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar looks at The Cable Connection – Swindon’s role in multi-channel television history

The use of cable for broadcasting TV and radio stations is a far from new idea. Though Sky Glass is being presented as a new satellite dish-free idea, cable broadcasting has been with us for near a century. Fibre optic cables have been used for nearly forty years.

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 22. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Shopping Centre

East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar looks at a groundbreaking leisure facility in Billingham

Billingham is a town long associated with the chemical industry. Since ICI based their operations in the late 20th Century, its population grew dramatically. The town’s peak was in the 1950s and 1960s when the Billingham and Wilton plants were in full swing. Its town centre was remodelled in the latter decade with a pedestrian precinct and the proud boast of heated pavements!

Selling Runcorn By The Pound: 21. Blackpool, Go For It!

East of the M60’s 2021 Advent Calendar looks at a late-1980s/early-1990s advert for Britain’s Favourite Seaside Resort

Long before Energy In Northampton and that song about Milton Keynes in our second Advent Calendar door, there is one town that has got self promotion off to a fine art. One that is a product of the railway age and over a century’s worth of cooperation between the public sector and private enterprise. We are talking a place that sees more visitors than the Algarve, whether they arrive for the day, a week or a fortnight.