MikeHammer 5:00 Wed Sep 27
Memories of 1980s in West End
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An odd one from me but one of my staff (only 30) just got back from a stag weekend in Poland and the discussions in the office turned to night life in the West End in the 1980s.
It seems like another world ... and clearly is 30 years ago - but as someone who worked from age 16 in 1980 in the West End who else remembers:
- The rise of kissagrams. You could be out in a respectable pub having drinks when a fit or fat bird or even granny completely strips off after singing to some bloke at his birthday / leaving-do. An odd experience!
- Wet T-Shirt competitions. You see this stuff on 18-30 holidays etc but a strange experience to go to a club in say Charing X Rd only to see normal office workers (albeit young, fit ones - usually !) going on stage and doing this! I once was out with my office when at least 5 of the girls in the office volunteered to do this! Can't imagine this happening now as it will be all over social media and HR would sack them!! I Oddly nobody said anything on Monday morning - a bit like the day after a Christmas party when the stationery cupboard was a popular place to visit.
Anyway - anyone too young to remember the 1980s - ask your dad !
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Replies - In Chronological Order ( Show Newest Messages First)
Eddie B
5:04 Wed Sep 27
Re: Memories of 1980s in West End
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I remember the Buzz Bar off of Leicester Square, but that was more the early 90s.
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Cheezey Bell-End
5:12 Wed Sep 27
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Soho was quite derelict and there were prostitutes everywhere and it wasn't yet gay.
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sanfrancis-co-uk
5:12 Wed Sep 27
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Pulled an off duty WPC in the Buzz bar,ended up in Harrow on the hill instead of Aldershot.
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ludo21
5:13 Wed Sep 27
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Yeah... mobile phones have a lot to answer for!! Can't do anything without someone filming it.
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MikeHammer
5:20 Wed Sep 27
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Cheezey : Agree ...far less sanitised. Am sure pub in Old Compton Street - probably Duncan ! - was gay by 1985 (used to meet a mate who moved office for lunch and this was half way ... until we realised there were no birds!!)
of course it was the time of Live TV and Topless darts etc so there was stuff going on (pre AIDS awareness ended much) where you saw stuff the generation didn't unless wearing a dirty mac ! Probably all very innocent now but of its time
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sanfrancis-co-uk
5:25 Wed Sep 27
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Getting shitfaced in The Intrepid Fox in the afternoons,doing a load of poppers and generally being a fucking idiot.
Good old days.
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zebthecat
5:29 Wed Sep 27
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Definitely a gay pub Old Compton St in 85.
The band I was in at the time played once a month in Gossips night club (retro psych night) round the corner and we went for our pre gig pints in that pub. Can't remember the name but it was over two floors. Our keyboard player was, pretty much, the only female in the place.
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Northern Sold
5:31 Wed Sep 27
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Early 80's ...Carnaby Street when it was half decent... the Rights of Passage as a Mod going up the spiral staircase (Birdsnest?) that was full of snarling tattooed faces Skins .... as it was the place with the best record shop...
Mid 80's ... some crappy club near Leicester sq' that would have telephones in your booth and you'd ring round other booths chatting to girls... Ha Ha Ha!!!
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MikeHammer
5:33 Wed Sep 27
Re: Memories of 1980s in West End
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Zeb - I thought it was called the Compton - but I was very uncomfortable ..... it wasn't quite so mainstream then and the friend I used to meet, whilst married, looked a little David Sylvian and may have attracted a few queens !
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zebthecat
5:37 Wed Sep 27
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The club night we use play was pretty special - Alice in Wonderland. Every Monday 8pm - 4am.
Every youth tribe under the sun: hippies, punks, goths, psychobillies all getting hammered with every drug know to mankind on hand and having a whale of a time. There was never a hint of trouble either
Trying to get through the following Tuesday at work was pretty tough going.
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cholo
5:57 Wed Sep 27
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Mr Bronson got given a kissagram on his last day of teaching at Grange Hill.
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zebthecat
6:08 Wed Sep 27
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MikeHammer 5:33 Wed Sep 27
That was probably it.
Mind you we used to go in dressed in our stage gear complete with luminous body paint so were given a pretty wide berth.
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Bouncing Ludo
6:41 Wed Sep 27
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Northern Sold wrote...
Mid 80's ... some crappy club near Leicester sq' that would have telephones in your booth and you'd ring round other booths chatting to girls... Ha Ha Ha!!!
Casper's - was a restaurant with telephones on the tables that you could ring each other on.
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Bungo
6:53 Wed Sep 27
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Bouncing Ludo 6:41 Wed Sep 27
I remember that too. I seem to remember that it was so loud in there that you ended up half under the table, with your finger jammed in your non-phone ear, trying to make out what the bird on the other end was saying (and failing).
Nice idea but poor execution.
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JohnnyL
7:28 Wed Sep 27
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God - the stripagram trend appreared to come out of nowhere and was around for a few years every week - and then gone !
As for Miss Weg T-Shirts ... bloody hell ... I too remember a club in either Charing Cross Road or Tottenham Court Road where female office workers would just lose their inhibitions and put on a t-shirt and. It much else in front of their colleagues - weird !
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JohnnyL
7:29 Wed Sep 27
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Wet ... not weg !
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icwhs
7:30 Wed Sep 27
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Went to the Empire Leicester Square every Saturday night for 2years
94 shags from 104 aint bad
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Eddie B
8:31 Wed Sep 27
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icwhs, I bet there were a few ugly fellas in that number though.
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wanstead_hammer
8:42 Wed Sep 27
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Didn't really go up the other end much.
Went on a mates stag do once. Started in stepney (got him the big blubbergram), then went up Soho way, as you do. Everyone got split up. Remember aving a row with bouncers in a bar/clip joint and as we got out, all I saw was fleeting glances of different little mobs of blokes getting chased down side roads by bouncers (where they'd been striped up with drinks bill and had done a runner). It was like del boy and rodney running thru the streets. Haha.
Funny enough, some of us ended up in the Empire (can remember the Housemartins trying to blag their way in. Bouncers asked us if we recognised em. We told em it 'was a load of bollocks, they're just scruffy northern chancers, tell em to fuck off.....etc).
They slung em out!
Remember we ended up in one of the early houses down Smithfield as it was getting light.
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JohnnyL
8:49 Wed Sep 27
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The thing I remember also from drinking out in my early 20s in the 1980s ... if we crossed over east of Holborn into City territory.... the bell went before 9pm ! This was pre Yuppies and was why so many headed to Soho etc
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