Emily's Interview

      Mark was born in England, and was 7-16 years old in 1970-1979. When he was older, his favorite type of music was Punk, he liked to listen to the Clash, Yes, and Genesis, and his favorite song was Supers Ready by Genesis. For entertainment he liked to watch his favorite movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and he liked to read Good Bye Mr. Chips. When he was little, Mark remembers spending most of his free time in the park, riding bicycles, pretending and making up games with his friends. When Monopoly came out in 1975, Mark remembered his dad always playing it, although Mark never understood it, he was always intrigued by the brilliant game board, and the objective of the game. T.V never really appealed to him, T.V’s at the time only had three channels, and at 12 at night every channel would play the national Anthem, and then the T.V station would shut down. Doc. Martens were very popular in the 70’s, if you didn’t have a pair you weren’t considered cool. Doc Martens are a type of boot, and are still extremely popular today in England. People wore the boots everywhere, especially discos. Mark remembers discos not being very fun, because he wasn’t the best dancer in the world. He also told me, “The disc jockeys would always play cheesy music, and the girls would dance in a big circle while the guys were standing against walls waiting for the night to end. If you were lucky you would get a girl to dance with you by the end of the night.” Prices for common grocery items, clothes, cars, and houses, haven’t changed much, but Mark said that everything was cheaper in the beginning of the 70’s, and became more and more expensive towards the end. Mark was never a big recycler, he wasn’t much of a hippie. He did remember putting empty milk bottles out for the milk man so that he could refill them. In 1976 there was an enormous drought. That was a shock to everybody, because England is a rainy country, and always has lots of water. All Mark could say about the drought that really summarized it was, “It was a shock turning the faucet and not having any water come out. It really scared everybody.” Then in 1977 the queen of England (Queen Elizabeth) celebrated her 25 year as being Queen; this was called the Silver Jubilee. On that night there were street parties, “I never saw so many British Flags in my entire life,” said Mark when he was explaining the street party to me. The 70’s in England weren’t any different from the 70’s in America, the decade was just in another country.

“The 70’s was like an anti-hippie fad, people dressed as punks, wore black, and put safety pins in their eyebrows. Everybody was just so fed up with the 60’s hippies.” Mark

British Slang

Bobby- Sleeping police man

Chuft- happy, blown away

Goats- parents

Fuzz- The police

Cool- If something was good

Crash- If someone had something good, like a candy bar, and you wanted them to share.

Taps- If someone was rude