Well there it is I am finally at the end of one and a half years research on the eighties for my forthcoming book. Whilst I have been working on the plot for the past two years it has been a decade that I had to research with as much depth and knowledge as I possibly could.
Now of course I was alive in the 80’s and ended the decade as a teenager but if I am honest it seemed like a century ago. I had to remember the fashions, the political map, ground-breaking events and of course my most enjoyable part, reliving the era through music. Though I was into music at the time I did not really appreciate the sound of ska and new romance, alas back then I was into Stock Aitkin and Waterman.
But reviewing this decade has made me compare it the times we live in and if I am honest I think the world was better off than it is now. The decade saw a vast political upheaval across the world, the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Cold War and the start of problems of the Middle East. Yet whilst the decade was dominated by military issues there was also a major boom in technological development with the introduction of computers in the home for the very first time, video players and cable TV. In this day and age where we take the technological advancements for granted back then they were something of a luxury and I really did take what we had for granted.
Times have changed, the world is a far different place than it was thirty years ago but what has made me want to write a book about this time is to capture the decade, that for me, changed the world more than any in my lifetime. A decade where the world awoke to break of the shackles of the past and move forward into an era of unknown certainty.
It really was the decade that changed the world.
