Simplyeighties.com

Simplyeighties.com was founded in January 2009 and has slowly grown to become the UK's biggest and most comprehensive nostalgia website.

Although this site is edited in Great Britain (and hosted in South Africa), the biggest percentage of visitors are from the UK and the U.S., with Canada and Australia in third and fourth place, respectively. However, there are many visitors from other countries, too, and you're all very welcome!

Above all else, I hope you enjoy your visit to our nostalgia website. Should you experience any problems (or have any suggestions) then please do not hesitate to contact me using the contact form on this page. Please note that I will only use your email address to send a reply and it will not be used for any other purpose.

Please do not use the contact form to send spam - No, we do not require Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or wish to pay for articles to be written etc. All articles on this site are written from the heart and from personal memories.

Hi everyone! My name is Mark Nobes. I am 53-years-old and the founder and owner of simplyeighties.com.

Without turning this page into a Curriculum Vitae, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

My hobbies include listening to 80s music, synthwave and electronic music (I'm a huge fan of Jean Michel Jarre and Trevor Horn). I also enjoy creating this style of music.

I'm also into ufology and playing classic computer games. However, I am not entirely stuck in the 1980s, and I do also enjoy the occasional Amazon Prime movie.

My pet hates are bullies and small-minded people who spread negative gossip, lies and hatred. Unfortunately, I have had to deal with a lot of this throughout my life. More often than not, the reason for this is simply jealousy. So I say to all those who indulge in hatred, find something positive and worthwhile to do with your own spare time, and your jealousy, spite and hatred will fade.

After leaving school in 1984, I studied computer science and programming for three years on an Open University style course in my spare time. From 1984 to 1993, I worked in my local area in a wide variety of jobs. I've worked on a farm as a forklift driver, and also in a garage as a car car delivery driver. I also spent the summer of 1987 working as a petrol forecourt attendant. All of these jobs enabled me to buy a car, at least, so I could have a decent social life with my friends.

In 1993, I found work in data entry, which soon led to an amazing job programming supercomputers, although not in the local area, sadly.

After struggling with an ongoing and debilitating illness, and also being unhappy with the painfully long and tiresome daily commute to work, I was left with no choice but to quit the dreaded rat race, and in 2009 I created my first website (this one!) to provide me with an income source.

Having excelled at English language and literature, my dream had always been to be a writer, although it was never financially possible. I sometimes regret not going into journalism rather than computing, although I enjoy both. My English teacher enjoyed my 'enthusiastic and imaginative writing style' and gave me plenty of encouragement to write, regularly publishing my work in the school magazine - well, it's a start! 

Then, just like the shopkeeper in Mr. Benn, as if by magic the internet appeared! At long last, I had the opportunity to express my views and broadcast them to the world, without the financial burden and risks involved with going into print.

Actually, I did write articles in electronic form in the 1990s, and this was long before the internet took off, of course. How was this possible? Well, I ran a home-based computer software company in my spare time selling public domain and shareware disks to Atari computer owners. This included an electronic newsletter on diskette. However, it was never going to earn me a full-time income, and the overheads ate into most of the profits. It was a fun hobby, though, and I met a lot of like-minded people at computer fairs across the country.

One subject that I have a great passion for (and a lot of people over a certain age can relate to) is the 1980s. This gave me the idea to start a nostalgia website, a place where people can visit to rediscover joyful memories and relive their childhood. 

Of course, I know there are many people who would simply like to forget about the past. However, I feel it is absolutely vital that our past history is never forgotten, no matter how bad it may have been, because we can learn from our past mistakes to create a better future for ourselves. Understanding our past also helps us to understand our present. Virtually everything you see, hear, touch and smell has been shaped by the past. Indeed, the very chair you are sitting on while reading this was created in the past!

What do I do at SimplyEighties.com?

As well as creating new pages on a regular basis, a lot of my time is also spent updating and improving existing pages, which includes replacing videos that are no longer working, adding extra photos, playlists and info and general tidying up. There is certainly no shortage of work to sort do. Plus, I have other sites and Youtube channels to maintain.

I'm also posting on social media sites including Pinterest and Tumblr. Heck, there just aren't enough hours in the day!

By the way, links to all the new pages on the site can be found on the home page, but you probably knew that already.

Sadly, there just isn't enough time to be on every social network. Therefore, I have selected the sites that I am most comfortable and happy with, and give them my 100% undivided attention - in my case this is Pinterest and Tumblr.

My other sites:

Old Ads UK - Old TV adverts

80s Heaven - 80s photo blog at Tumblr

80sFashion.Clothing - 80s T-shirts and costumes (U.S.)

80sFashion.Online - 80s fashion blog

Blow Up Costumes - Inflatable fancy dress

Pinterest Boards

Website Host: Yola.com 

If you lived in the UK, then apart from Thatcherism, yuppies, miner's strikes, recession, shoulder pads, the mullet, puffball skirts, cabbage patch dolls, the ZX81 computer, Sinclair C5 and mobile phones the size of a brick, the eighties were really rather good!

But seriously, the intention of this site is to remind ourselves of what people were really up to in this brilliant decade, using videos and photos wherever possible. Although aimed mainly at a British audience, visitors from other countries should find plenty to keep them amused, too.

Perhaps you were heavily into the music and fashion of the 80s such as the New Romantics like Duran Duran and Japan (maybe you still own a frilly shirt?), or maybe you were more into the 80s rock bands such as Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and Europe. Of course, some artists were harder to categorise. Adam Ant took new romanticism to another level, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood ruffled feathers with their controversial songs about sex, nuclear armageddon ans debauchery. 

Unlike modern times, a great many people knew virtually every song at the higher end of the pop charts. Every week, kids up and down the country would eagerly await the new Top 30 charts on Radio 1, with a blank cassette in hand ready to tape each song off the radio - of course, the tricky part was editing out the DJ's voice and joining the songs together!

Anyway, I really am going to stop writing now. No, really! So read on to discover what was hot, and what was not so hot in the amazing decade which was the 1980s.