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.

The Other UK Singles Chart: 2. The New Musical Express Singles Charts

A beginners’ guide to the NME Charts, the UK’s original Hit Parade

The UK’s first singles chart, like its American pioneer owes its existence to an iconic music magazine. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, it is the Billboard Singles Chart that was (and remains to this day) compiled by Billboard Magazine. In the United Kingdom, the New Musical Express magazine led the charge.

The Other UK Singles Chart: 1. Independent Local Radio Music Charts

A beginners’ guide to chart tracking on ILR stations from 1974 to 2008

If you mention the UK singles chart, the first thing that springs to mind in the Official Charts Company’s countdown. This goes out every Friday on BBC Radio One. Before then, it used to go out on Sunday afternoons and, prior to October 1987, Tuesday lunchtimes.

The Beano’s 4000th Issue: On Message as Ever and Glossy

Why, in the most darkest of days, we should never be without The Beano

In living memory, the last week has been one of the most darkest and tumultuous weeks. Within 24 hours of Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with leaders of opposition parties to prevent a Tory No Deal Brexit®, Boris Johnson (and possibly his unelected puppets) decided to prorogue parliament. The Queen gave him the nod and within days, numerous protests have taken place across the UK.

For this post, we shan’t elaborate on the PM’s contempt for representative democracy. Instead, we shall focus on a British institution which came to the fore during the Second World War. A publication that has had a great influence on the nation’s humour and spawned several imitators.

Long Forgotten Microcomputers: A Past of the M60 Not So Perfect Ten

Thought the 1980s computer age was all about ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s? Think again.

As with many hagiographies, history is always defined by the winners. In home computing, the ultimate victors were IBM compatible PCs – ultimately today’s Windows 10 PCs. Today, their role in history could be wiped out by tablets and smartphones.

A Look Back to the ’90s: The Not So Perfect Ten

Ten ‘So 1990s’ footnotes in popular culture

The Sometimes Slightly Narked Bus Hopping Nerd is seen slightly obscured from view in this image, identifiable by a two-tone blue coat. These are the classmates from my old school at the (now gone) Farmcraft camp on Mundy Farm, Mapperley, near Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Oh, and this image was snapped by Jeni Mobbs (late of the Ewing School) on the 12 March 1990.

Where has the time gone? This time 26 years ago, the creator of this blog was having his tea in front of Granada Tonight. Being a Wednesday, yours truly would be drawing in front of Coronation Street or The Ron Lucas Show.The year was 1990. I was back at the Ewing School after half term holidays. Within the first few days of 1990 I knew change was on the horizon. Secondary school was only months away.

Acceptable in the 1990s: An A to Z of the Decade’s Popular Culture

A slightly irreverent look at a decade which spawned the internet, Cones Hotline and Gladiators

In the 1980s, local and national radio stations’ Golden Hour/Solid Gold Hour/whatever type of Golden Oldies slot would have focused on the 1950s and 1960s. Which was 20 – 30 years ago. Fast forwarding to 2013, the music of 20 – 30 years ago would include early Take That, the Pet Shop Boys, Bananarama and Duran Duran. The people who were nostalgic for Manfred Mann or The Beatles in 1983 may well have been in their 20s – 30s. Today they would have children who have flown the nest. Today’s twenty to thirty somethings may well be similarly nostalgic over the Shamen, East 17, and Boyzone.

Once Seen, Seldom Ventured: 2. The National Centre for Popular Music, Sheffield

A Silver Timpani Based White Elephant

Sheffield has a proud musical heritage. From Joe Cocker to Jarvis Cocker, and Cabaret Voltaire to the Human League, it, along with Manchester and Liverpool would have been good places for a musical archive of some description. Whereas Liverpool and Manchester is world famous for its popular culture, few people outside of Northern England may be familiar with the Sheffield scene.