Scarred For Life: Volume One: The 1970s

Scarred For Life

by Stephen Brotherstone, Dave Lawrence

Scarred For Life Volume One is an affectionate look at the darker side of pop culture in the 1970s. Public information films, scary kids' TV show, bleak adult dramas, dystopian sci-fi, savage horror films, violent comics, horror-themed toys and sweets and the huge boom in paranormal paraphernalia; all this and much more is covered in depth. Prepare to relive your childhood nightmares. The things that made us... Scarred For Life!

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, History, Horror

740 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2017

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scarred For Life: Volume One is a book I had no idea I needed until I fell into my lap, but it's exactly the kind of thing I'd been searching for all my life. You see, everyone regardless of the circumstances and quality of their upbringing, has experienced their own very special and specific sort of kindertrauma. These are things which we, in our younger and formative years, find disturbing, terrifying, freaky, or surreal. And because we are children when we encounter them, we often lack the perspective necessary for placing them in their proper context. If you're of a certain generation, it's guaranteed you could go to your family photo album and flip to a picture of a child (possibly yourself) sitting on Santa's lap, or being hugged by the Easter Bunny, and having an absolute cow about it. To a two year old, being handed to a giant creature you've never met is absolutely 100% cause for filling your diaper.

As we get older, the things that scared us originally begin to lose some of their power. Often they get replaced by other, more logical fears as we learn more about how the world works and understand how unlikely it is that Dracula will crawl out from under our bed and exsanguinate us while we're asleep. But the point is, there were dozens, potentially hundreds, of things that scared us, creeped us out, and gave us nightmares. And no matter how mature we think we are, no matter how grown up we get and how many years we put between us and those nightmares, they still linger down there in the depths of our subconscious, waiting to be recalled.

Here, for example, is one of mine, something I'd not thought about in probably forty years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHS72...

Ahhh, the innocence of youth, when the Forest Service was reminding everyone that only we could prevent forest fires. But I'm stealing some of Scarred For Life's thunder here, because this is territory that best mates Stephen Brotherstone and David Lawrence have been studying and cataloging for years. Finally, after realizing that while all of their friends and co-workers had memories of these television shows, ads, comic books, novels, films, and other artifacts of popular culture, no one had yet compiled all of those terrifying memories into any sort of one-stop-shop reference. When Brotherstone informed his friends of this fact, the response was, "Well, why don't you write it then?". Lawrence chimed in that he could help out with it, and the result is this 740-page tome of British-accented nightmare fuel.

Full disclosure: I am not British, although I've been told I can pull off a fairly convincing RP accent before. There's a reason it took me five months to plow through this book, and that's because so much of it was completely new to me. Lawrence and Brotherstone are only a few years older than I am, but we're separated by an entire ocean, and much of the TV programming, commercials, public information films, comic books, and other material they grew up watching never migrated to North America, with the exception being the heaviest of the heavy hitters, like Doctor Who. Because so much of this material was stuff I'd never heard of before, it was necessary to read with the book in one hand and my phone in the other. Literally every few pages, I'd need to look something up so I could experience it for myself. Not much of a problem when the material they're writing about is a 10-second title sequence or 30-second television commercial. But the very first entry in the book is about a program called The Owl Service, and the write-up on it was so compelling that I of course sat down to watch all eight twenty-five minute episodes over the course of the next three days:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

I had to do the same with Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmDA...

And Children of the Stones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwT0w...

And the 90-second Public Information Film Dark and Lonely Water:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg6IV...

And, oh God, don't get me started on Grange Hill, Sapphire & Steel, Doomwatch. . . .

Well, you get the idea.

* * * * *

Oddly enough, I think I enjoyed this a hell of a lot more because I'm not British. If nothing else, it confirmed my suspicion that kids from the US weren't the only ones who grew up terrified, traumatized, and confused thanks to a mistake made when changing the channel on the TV accidentally exposed us to something shocking.

You can tell this book was quite the labor of love for the two men. A lot of work went into researching, writing, and in some cases even interviewing people for the finished product. Brotherstone and Lawrence focus as much on historical information and contextualizing as they do on the scary/creepy/weird, and most every section ends with suggestions of where to go to find the particular film, board game, comic, television show, book, or whatnot should you want a copy of it for yourself.

With such a massive undertaking, mistakes are inevitable, and the ones I noticed most commonly were placeholder page references which had not been filled in during the editing process once the text was finalized. As such, expect to see things like, "(see page xx)" after a reference, where the 'xx' should have instead been a number. This, however, didn't diminish my experience with the book or the entertainment it provided one iota. I joined the Scarred For Life Facebook group about a month ago, and I absolutely love how delighted everyone there is to see new childhood terrors shared in a healthy and light-hearted environment. Brotherstone and Lawrence also have a new weekly podcast which just started shortly before I finished reading this volume, and it's entertaining as hell if you've got time in your schedule for an hour of them (plus a guest or two) ruminating on the topic(s) of the day. You can check it out here:

https://pod.link/1706291698

In short, I absolutely loved, loved, loved this tribute to things that terrified British children five decades ago, and you better believe I've already plunged into Volume Two, which clocks in at over five hundred pages and only covers stuff that happened on television in the 1980s! All the other, non-TV-related 80s shockers will get space in the third book, which should be arriving sooner rather than later. But, honestly, with as much time as I invested into fully immersing myself in the 70s, it's probably better if that third volume doesn't show up too quickly. Volume two should see me through the winter, with any luck.

Get this book. If you are following my reviews, you need this and its companion volumes. You'll also need a metric fuckton of extra free time, because like Boromir stated in The Lord of the Rings, one does not simply sit down and read Scarred For Life. You participate. You flip between book and screen. It's interactive in exactly the way most books aren't. Brotherstone and Lawrence unlock the playground, but it's up to you explore it. Just be careful: there's a lot of rust and sharp edges lurking about in that untended play zone. Maybe you should start with the section on Public Information Films, just in case. I'm sure the UK government had something to say about the dangers of tetanus when they weren't explaining how easy it was to drown in a lake, catch rabies, or burn your house down by playing with matches.

[Christopher Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

VWORP VWORP – that’s the sound of this book taking me back in time to my childhood. It’s heady stuff, this condensed yet highly detailed tour of a decade that feels so odd to modern sensibilities. The past is indeed a foreign country, and it turns out to be a very peculiar one at that.

As in the 70s, there are a few nits to pick. The most irritating is that (at least in the edition I bought) somebody appears to have forgotten to complete the page reference numbering: there are far too many instances of the text advising me to “see page XX”, which is not particularly useful. Also, the text can be a little repetitive, although that would not be a problem were you to treat this hefty tomes as one to dip into and out of, which is what I expect many readers would do. Were you to read it from cover to cover, though, as I did, you would find yourself coming across the same phrases again and again. It gives a disconcerting sense of déjà vu – but perhaps that’s not inappropriate.

It certainly wasn’t enough to dampen my enjoyment. For much of the last few weeks my face has been plastered with the same silly grin it wore in the late 80s/early 90s when ‘Sapphire & Steel’ was released on VHS and I was able to revisit one of the best TV shows ever made. And ‘Scarred for Life’ has assured me that I am not alone in that opinion: not for nothing are theirs the first eyes gazing enigmatically from the cover.

This is a marvellous book that brought back countless memories (some that had probably been repressed with good reason), provoked several outbursts of laughter at inopportune moments, and reminded me of just how and why I fell in love with horror, SF and all things spooky. Given the combination of the sort of boy I was and the environment in which I found myself, it was inevitable.

Was I Scarred for Life by the 70s? I certainly was, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. And now I (sort of) look forward to revisiting my teenage years in ‘Scarred for Life Volume Two: The 1980s’. Assuming, of course, that nobody drops The Bomb before that comes out.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah the 1970s. What a strange decade it was. The beige hangover to the psychedelic 1960s. Or was it? In its own way the 1970s was just as “far out” as it’s predecessor and in Scarred for Life authors Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence recall what it was like growing up in that decade surrounded by pop culture that seemingly wanted to scare the pants off you at every turn.

This is a volume focussed mainly on British pop culture, with only a few incursions from across the pond, but it does reveal what a very odd place Britain was during the era of power cuts, three day weeks, Glam, Punk and paranoia.

Their scope is exhaustive. We start with an in depth dissection of all those creepy TV shows that traumatised a generation. From The Owl Service to The Changes, from The Feathered Serpent to Grange Hill and Worzel Gummidge, kids TV was far more challenging and downright scary than the sanitised fair of today. This was mainstream, prime time stuff for the most part and when you throw in Doctor Who, Sky and Children of The Stones you can see why we became quivering wrecks hiding behind the family sofa!

70s TV takes up nearly half the book, such is the rich vein of brilliance to be mined. Because it wasn’t only kid’s TV that put the willies up the nation, adults were treated to such downbeat fare as Callan, Play For Today, Gangsters and all those peculiarly British dystopias such as Doomwatch, Survivors and Quatermass. No wonder it was a troubled decade. We were basically being told the future was rubbish! But in amongst all this there was some gloriously low budget, but highly imaginative, prime time Sci-Fi to be had as well. UFO, Space 1999 and Blake’s 7 to name but a few. Plus there’s a whole section devoted to Doctor Who (of course!)

There was a strong Gothic element to British TV output as well, with annual Ghost stories for Christmas (usually an MR James adaptation) and such downright strange shows as Dead of Night, The Stone Tape and Sapphire and Steel. All of this is recalled in loving detail by the authors along with recommendations of what to watch and how to watch (either DVD or YouTube. Thank god for YouTube!).

But there was a darker side to TV output as well, with shows that today would cause riots in the street and questions in Parliament: The Black and White Minstrel Show; Love Thy Neighbour; On The Buses.... All dissected and picked apart by Brotherstone and Lawrence.

The police drama, a staple of British TV since time immemorial (or at least the 1950s anyway), got a bruising make over in the 70s, with tougher shows like The Sweeney showing cops as humans who’ll do whatever to “get the job done”. Dixon of Dock Green they weren’t!

The rest of the book covers other aspects of pop culture that fed the minds of the nation and put the fear of god (or whatever monster) up them. From Public Information films (“Sensible children! I have no power over them!”); Toys and games; Movies, where we get essays about such things as English Folk Horror, those big American horror films that they were too young to watch (The Exorcist and it’s ilk); dystopian science fiction and dark, downbeat pop movies like Stardust and Slade in Flame.

Then there were comics. Oh yes, there were comics. From Action! To 2000AD and all points inbetween, the authors lovingly recall their favourites and how much they were scared by them. There’s also a very good section on girl’s comics, which if anything were far more strange and disturbing than boys stuff (Misty anyone?). They then move on to books and the cornucopia of goodness that fed the imagination of those kids who were into horror (The Pan Book of Horror Stories); lurid pulp fiction; Dracula (you think vampires are big news now - Dracula was huge in the 70s); even down to the somewhat deranged art in kids comics by the likes of Ken Reid. Oh and also the trippier side of Marvel Comics who, under the editorship of Roy Thomas, produced some very strange stories indeed.

Finally there’s a discussion of the 1970s fascination with the paranormal. Everything from Ancient Aliens and UFOs (take a bow Erich Von Daniken) to Uri Geller, Nessie, The Bermuda Triangle, hauntings and how this was all taken far too seriously by the media. I told you it was a strange decade.

The book isn’t without flaws. There’s no index for a start. The proof reader sometimes goes missing and we get a see page xx and to be honest certain sections are a bit of a slog. The Public Infomation section is exhaustive, reviewing EVERY SINGLE one, when in all honestly and overview and cherry picking the most disturbing would have done the job. And the part on Sweets and Food....really?

It’s a book to dip into rather than plough through in one sitting, which is why it’s taken me about 18 months to finish. But it was well worth it. Minor gripes aside this is a brilliant, irreverently written trip down a slightly creepy memory lane. For anyone who grew up in 1970s Britain this will bring back things with a Proustian rush. For those that weren’t this book will show you what we had to survive!

Hats of to Brotherstone and Lawrence. This is a true labour of love. Oh and they’re working on Volume 2: the 1980s! Highly Recommended.

[Eliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome. Flashbacks to a twisted 1970's world. Horror, Science Fiction, violence and darkness. The 1970's made me. 2000ad, Dirty Harry, Alien, Tales Of The Unexpected, Armchair Thriller, Fangs and Bones snacks, public information films and spooky kids TV. Encyclopaedic.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating reading for someone not a fan of horror, blood, guts and gore. Never interested in being scared to death.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a tome but very interesting stuff from the 1970s. My favourite was Action comic which I was banned from reading by my mum!!

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely SUPERB! It's another impulse purchase from Twitter and I am unbelievably delighted with this. If you have any interest whatsoever in the subject matter I heartily recommend this book.

The basic premise, is that the authors, being children in the 1970's realised one day just how fucked up culture and media, in particular media aimed at children and young adults was in the 1970's, and how indeed, much of the media truly did 'scar for life' a generation. This book takes a nostalgic look at the 1970's with a modern lens and asks, 'what the fuck was going on', whilst also recognising how utterly brilliant it was too.

The book balances a very fine line (remarkably successfully) of appreciating the creativity of the era, recognising the cultural touch points of the decades and the attitudes and mores of the time. At the same time, it doesn't let some of the uglier elements of the decade get a free pass either by pretending 'that's just how it was' whilst at the same time, not tut-tutting through a modern lens. The decades 'good, bad and ugly' get a fair, respectful, yet critical review that it thoughtful, forthright, yet never dictatorial. It's one of the strengths of the book that I never felt the book was taking the piss out of the past, but rather acknowledges it well.

One of the things about the 70's was that it was absolutely a decade of boundary pushing. I've reflected on this in terms of cinema before - some of the most challenging, uncomfortable, and downright nasty films in history were made in the era. It's an era of relaxed censorship in media, of changing social attitudes to marginalised people, of social issues pushed to the forefront of popular culture. It's a decade of freedom for creative people, and yet they are experiencing a hangover of the peace and love era. In Britain at least the spectre of World War II is still remembered, and it is a decade of political and economical turmoil. What I think this led to was continual boundary pushing, and the impact of that was, that a lot of wonderful creative media was produced and aired - however, much of that would never get past a savvy media executive today. We live in an era of focus groups, of targeted advertising, of sensitivity. Parents today are hyper-sensitive to the media their children consume compared to in the past (not saying that is a good or bad thing).

The scope of this book is massive. Honestly, it's over 700 pages, the print is quite small and it takes a long time to get through. It's definitely one to dip in and out of. It is a credit to the authors that they decided a scope and just went for it. This would be a brilliant (and lengthy) book just covering the TV of the era, but the book also covers Public Information Films, games, comics, books, films, the obsession with the paranormal and even sweets and crisps with horror or adult themes.

There is part of me that when thinking about reviewing this book could easily just list all the contents and say 'get on with it'. I also think I could talk about almost everything in the book. I suppose it's important to note that the authors are a little bit older than me, but much of what they cover was still doing the rounds in the early 80's when I was a little boy. What this means in practice for me as a reader is a lovely combination of nostalgic 'oh my gosh, I remember that' to 'I have GOT to see this'. Indeed, so much of my time reading this book was interrupted by going on youtube to watch old tv and trying to buy cheap paperbacks and comics from the 70's (no chance!!).

The book starts with children's TV of the 70's and my gosh kids were in for a treat. So much of the content was really adult shows with child actors. Violence, folklore, suspense and even sexuality was hinted at for school age viewers and of course the kids loved it. I absolutely need to get hold of some of the more folkloric shows of the era like 'The Owl Service' and 'The Stone Tape' - they sound amazing. 'The Feathered Serpent' sounds more like an Aztec 'Game of Thrones', '4 Idle Hands' sounds like 'The Likely Lads' for kids and is a bridge between the 'Kitchen Sink' drama of the 60's and 'Boys From The Blackstuff' in the 80's. And of course we had the start of Grange Hill - which was a British institution and so relevant to kids of my generation growing up. Grange Hill could be brutal, and although it's most hard hitting stories were in the 80's when I could watch it, even in the 70's it took an unflinching look at racism, bullying and abuse that many kids could sadly relate to.

(As an aside I recently introduced my daughter to 1970's Worzel Gummidge and she LOVED it, but it was strange viewing the show through a modern lens. Worzel's awakening is more akin to a Fulci zombie film, Aunt Sally, the Crowman and other scarecrows are remarkably cruel and barbaric, the children are abandoned by an alcoholic largely absent father, Babs Windsor as Saucy Nancy is remarkably cheeky 70's smut, Worzel's head removing is terrifying and of course Worzel's kindly threatening of Aunt Sally plays domestic abuse for laughs - all this in a hilarious daytime TV show for kids)

Hundreds of pages are spent covering all kinds of elements of 70's TV - from gritty cop and spy dramas that led one to needing a wash afterwards, to the brilliant sci-fi of the era (I never realised how messed up Blake's 7 was), particularly the golden age of Tom Baker's Doctor Who. Dystopia's and TV horror get extensive coverage - in particular I really want to watch 'Sapphire and Steel' - I'd never heard of it before this.

Of course there is coverage of the blatant sexism and racism of the era - the attitudes to women in TV comedy largely could be categorised as 'a bit of crumpet' or 'haggard battleaxes'. Some of the stuff I used to find very funny I find hard to watch as an older man (I'm looking at you 'On The Buses'). Likewise, the racist TV programming is discussed, and thankfully, the authors acknowledge it was wrong then as it is now, whilst acknowledging that rather uncomfortably they were also very popular.

The Public Information Film section was brilliant - in the 70s TV viewers were warned about leaving old fridges lying about, balancing shopping on prams wrong (the risk of leaving your kid outside a shop was apparently okay), the dangers of friendly dogs overseas, bits of glass, fireworks, water, literally anything. Some of these were mini horror films like 'Lonely Water' or a 30 minute gorefest called Apaches advising kids to be careful on farms. The Rabies ones are interesting because in the 70's it seemed Britain was always under threat of rabies from overseas - except it was largely bollocks. It's interesting to note that these PIFs were created and broadcast because programmers couldn't always sell the advertising and also considering the ages of a lot of people complaining about 'snowflake Britain', many people grew up being nannied by the state warning them of certain death of practically anything. I spent a lot of time looking at these old PIF's (most are available online) and they are brilliant, but some, like the ones warning about paedophiles, or showing child death by electrocution or child death are pretty harrowing. They were intended to shock, but they fit the title of the book, that's for sure.

The toys and games section is an interesting curio since many survived in one form or another into the 80's and the sweets section is quite interesting too. I distinctively remember the candy cigarettes with the red tip to mirror a real cigarette. And yes, us kids did pretend to smoke them, preparing for adult hood.

The film section could have been a separate or several books really. I loved this section but some of it felt a bit out of kilter. The rest of the book works as viewed through the eyes of a child or young adult, but really most of these 'scarred for life' type films were never remotely intended for children and would have been viewed by the authors as adults in the 80's. Also, there are only about 50 pages covering the savage cinema / horror / dystopia films of the era so the book kind of scratches the surface. There are better books out there for cinema. It's a shame because the rest of the book is so comprehensive and this feels like an overview. That said, it does whet the appetite for digging deeper.

I absolutely loved the section on books and comics. I absolutely need to get my hands on the Pan Book of Horrors series - they sound totally messed up. Likewise, I've seen some 70's trash paperbacks about in my youth, but I never appreciated just how much trashy, pulpy awesomeness is out there. The book points to a community https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/ which is like a trove of digging into this wonderful world. When I was reading the section I veered from delight needing to read these books of black masses and giant crabs to being totally revulsed and desiring to torch the very worst of the human imagination. I won't, because I have too much to read, but I could spend the rest of my life searching out these paperbacks.

(I also learnt that 'Joe Hawkins' from 'The Oppressed' song 'King of the Skins' was based on a book character and have gone out and bought those from the series in print. Suspect I will either love or hate them...Every day is a school day)

I had also forgotten how much I loved comics as a kid. Going to the dentist as a kid was great because they had all these old war comics from the 70's. I was also lucky enough to inherit a bunch of old 2000AD from my uncles which kept me going for years. My mum sold them for next to nothing (probably paid for a food shop...) Again, as much as I loved the boys comics of the age, I never realised how brutal and unforgiving the girls comics of the times were. Looking back, they had some amazing work and set out to traumatize little girls - they knew what sold, and what stories kids wanted. At it's heart this book is honest - kids love to be creeped out, scared, worried by media. They are tougher than we take them for and exposure to grown up themes isn't the worst thing in the world for them. I reflect that I am really careful with what my kids see and my attitudes are very different to what I could access at the same age.

So the book is an absolute banger - nearly PERFECT. I bought Volume 2 - which covers TV of the 80's immediately. I will be looking forward to Volume 3 which covers everything else in the decade. I think I will love them more because I will have seen more of the programmes of that era. The authors have said they won't be doing a 90's book (as they were working men by then so can't look at things from a child / teen). They should find someone younger to pick up the mantle (The Demon Headmaster? Round the Twist?).

Every section in the book is fully referenced with lots of recommended viewing or reading and ease of access. Honestly, if you have got this far by the books and have a look at their brilliant Twitter account @ScarredForLife2

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scarred for Life Volume One: The 1970’s

To be a child is to live in a state of fear most of the time. The fear of being lost, of being bullied, of making your parents angry, of being told off, of getting into trouble at school. This sense of dread can be amplified by the media/popular culture around them. There are the things that you know are meant to be scary, the things that are more scary than you thought they would be and the things that are scary that you didn’t think would be.

The 1970’s gets called the decade that taste forgot and where everything went beige, but this reviews the creepy side of the media, with TV, films, books and comics. Yes, the obvious names show up, Doctor Who, Public Information Films, Watership Down. But there are other routes that the book finds to go down.

There is casual racism of the time, when The Black and White Minstrel was on television, the casual sexism and squalor of living conditions. The board games with macabre themes. The rise of dystopian plots. The rising interest in UFO and cases of the paranormal.

While the subject matter may be grim, the writing is always entertaining. Even if you were not around at the time, there may well be things that you remember seeing on repeat or mentioned somewhere. Also you may pick up on the things that have influenced other people or programmes. It is a dense volume but you can find something interesting in every section. I’m looking forward to the follow up on the 1980’s, the decade so horrifying, they had to split it into 2 volumes.

[Steven West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written with huge affection, honesty and nostalgia (and with one of the authors an endearing, self confessed scaredy cat), this is a vivid, very personal journey through the most unnerving facets of 1970s pop culture. It covers a vast amount of ground, from genuinely disturbing "kids' shows" to inappropriately marketed sweets, comics, music and board games. There are outstanding sections on nightmarish public information films, the folk horror tinged TV dramas of the period and New English Library's outrageous (and now outrageously collectable) pulp paperbacks. The authors, while offering long overdue praise to genuinely impressive works like 'The Finishing Line', 'The Owl Service' and 'Misty', never overlook the casual racism, misogyny and xenophobia at the heart of this economically and politically miserable decade's mainstream family entertainment. If you are around the same age as its creators, this is guaranteed to spark a massive urge to revisit / repurchase at least three dozen of its subjects during the most indulgent eBay spend of your life.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two small criticisms first: I was hoping for a more richly (and in colour) illustrated book to display some of the more memorable images, whereas in fact it's 740 pages of dense text with the occasional small blurry black and white photo. However I understand that this is a small press labour of love and they probably didn't have the budget for that. The other thing is that the tone of the text is sometimes almost gratingly enthusiastic. It's great to have a passion for your topic, but every other tv show, book or comic in here is judged to be BRILLIANT and the THE BEST THING EVER.
Having said that, this is an exhaustive and thoroughly researched tome on a topic of fascination for anyone like me who grew up in 1970s Britain and who was enchanted, haunted or horrified by some of the products of its popular culture, especially the parts of it aimed at children. Diving straight into volume 2 now.

[Michael John Paul McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hats off to Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence for producing and writing such a great book. Scarred for Life brought back so many childhood memories for me. Some that I had forgotten about, children's tv series like Escape into Night, Shadows etc and comics and books that over the years have sadly vanished. Reading this book prompted me to buy three dvds from Network.com, two programmes mentioned earlier and the series called Sky. I still await Sky and Shadows to arrive. I could recall parts of Escape into Night from when I first watched it and enjoyed watching the series again. I've also been prompted to look for more books and shows mentioned in this massive 740 page book.
Glad to hear that Scarred For Life volume 2 (the 80's) is the authors next project. I for one will be buying it.👍
10 out of 10 👍👍

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb overview of 70's pop culture from the perspective of two writers who were schoolboys through most of it. Written not only with enthusiasm but in depth research and perspective. Great value for money too, it's more like two or three books in one.
As they say at the start, it's not a reference book, more a collection of conversational essays on television, film, books and games, not to mention public information films that made up the landscape for two boys with an interest in horror, fantasy and SF. But it's not bloke-ish, nor does it ignore significant girl comics and books of the decade.
Sometimes very funny in their descriptions, more often its just very assured and informed. As essential book in the library of any one interested in 20th century pop culture,

[Chris Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't actually finished reading this, but I reckon I'll give it full marks anyway. It's an excellent book to delve into at random, and for anyone brought up in the 1970s, a reminder of all the startling and exciting things we were subjected to during that strange, somewhat nihilistic decade. From terrifying public information films, to bizarre children's television, you'll rediscover all the things your mind may have blocked out.
Great stuff! And more than worth every penny.
When I bought this, I think it was a print-on-demand book that I purchased from the creators themselves. That may still be the case.

[Michael Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is indispensible, not only to those of us who were blessed enough to live through British TV, comics and books as they happened in the 70s, but also for those who are interested in discovering a goldmine of dark, disturbing material that will give you the shivers for sure, much of which would definitely not be approved today.

Thankfully, a surprising amount of this material is still available and I have bust my wallet buying DVDs and books since reading this 740 page, tiny print masterwork.

No arguments. This is essential.

[Brendan James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant- just brilliant. If you grew up in the 70s, this is your entire childhood laid out, analysed, reviewed and played back. Fascinating commentaries, thoroughly entertaining. Beautifully written, comprehensive and so well researched. I laughed out loud, remembered so much I’d forgotten and basically loved every page. As I said - just brilliant, and hats off to the authors.

[Akapaoloverdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether, like me, you were born at the right time to grow up in the seventies, or are simply interested in seeing just how things have changed culturally in the past fifty years this is a great book.
More than just a nostalgia-fest, it is well researched, warm, and funny.

Now for Volume 2, the eighties!

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

highly informative and entertaining! while i enjoyed some sections more than others, i think i'll definitely end up revisiting the parts i skim read out of terror when i'm feeling a bit less fragile. only issue is the continual sight of (see page xx), so i could hardly ever actually cross reference

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched. Thank you. Hours of entertainment here.

[Anthony Hegarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book about all the fun and scary things we enjoyed back in the 1970s

[Steve Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly brilliant work about TV (and more) of the 70's. Just don't try and read it all in one go, probably best to dip into and read bits.

[Mark waite · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating in depth study of the dark side of 70s media
So much learnt and so much to track down

[CHAD HADEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dead brilliant

[Jennie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. So many great childhood memories!

[Egghead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seventies Britain-
persistent childhood terror
a whole lot of fun

[Richard Archer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing achievement. These guys deserve medals for writing these.