In the high-tech Noughties we’re drowning in a sea of gadgets and gizmos. But when it comes to the stuff we really want, make no mistake, it’s got be Retro. From toys to clothes, from music to food, beloved bygones are making an impact on the present as never before. Why? Maybe it’s simply because tough times have got the older generation hankering for the comfort of childhood while young ‘uns just want to see what all the fuss was about.

Either way, ‘70s staples like Stylophones and Space Hoppers will be filling stockings this Christmas. No self-respecting indie rock band would be seen without the skinny-legged, skinny-tied ‘80s look. The pop charts are full of Amy Winehouses and Duffies re-tooling the ‘60s with spectacular success. And on supermarket shelves, breakfast cereals and brands of chocolate from our schooldays are reappearing with surprising regularity.

The latest Retro food favourite to make a welcome comeback is the Birds Eye Arctic Roll, which no one could ever accuse of being ‘uncool’. A staple on supermarket shelves for over 30 years, it disappeared in the ‘90s but now it’s back. On the eve of its return, our webchat with TV presenter Sarah Greene, fondly remembered from stints on Blue Peter and Saturday morning kids’ TV in the ‘80s, examines the fun and fabulousness of the Retro trend. Sarah will be reminiscing over past passions, as well as taking your questions about your favourite Retro goodies. Log on to the chat for a misty-eyed meander down Memory Lane.

H: Lis Speight, host
S: Sarah Greene

H: Hello and welcome to the Lifestyle Show, I’m Lis Speight. Now then, in the high-tech Noughties we're drowning in a sea of gadgets and gizmos. But when it comes to the stuff we really want, make no mistake, it's got be Retro. From toys to clothes, from music to food, beloved bygones are making an impact on contemporary times as never before. Well I’m pleased to say that joining me to talk about this, and more, is legendary TV presenter Sarah Greene – that ages you a little bit, sorry about that!  Welcome along Sarah.  She’s already got her Etch-a-Sketch out look, there’s no stopping her!

S: I know, I know, I’ve got a table full of goodies here, and I picked up this Etch-a-Sketch and I was whisked straight back in time, to just sitting for hours trying to draw – f or some reason I was obsessed with trying to draw the perfect circle, and having the right sort of, the right coordination between my hands and I used to try for hours, and it belonged to my brother

H: Oh so you were sneaky –

S: Who was quite a bit younger than me –

H: Oh –

S: And so he – we would fight over it, and one time I actually – we were pulling, pulling, pulling, and I let go thinking oh yes, watch you fall back, and this point here went right into his forehead and he ended up in hospital having stitches

H: Oh no so happy and sad memories of the Etch-a-Sketch for you

S: Yes but I think, it’s time to now lay that ghost – the sadness and the trauma of the Etch-a-Sketch, and whilst we are surfing on the tide of nostalgic retro, I am going to get him an Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas

H: For Christmas – do you know, that would be lovely on Christmas day wouldn’t it because everyone would have a go, even granny would have a go

S: You wouldn’t be able to resist it, you just couldn’t resist it

H: We all remember stuff from the ‘80s, the 70s, and remember we are live, we are Going Live today, so if you’d like to get involved, send us some of your memories, questions you’ve got about retro, what was your favourite sweet, what were your favourite games and get them into us, I’m sure that Sarah would like to have a chat with you.  All you have to do is to type your name that’s on the box on the screen, put your comments in there, where you’re from, press submit and it’ll come through to us here in the studio and we’ll try to get through as many as we can.  Now Sarah, we remember you from the ‘80s, Blue Peter, early ‘90s –

S: Well that’s when I started working in television yes, I mean I left university at the beginning of the ‘80s and I was very, very lucky I got straight on into theatre, because that was my first love, that’s where I started, that’s what I trained to do

H: Right

S: And from that, went into television, I’d been working in Rep up in Birmingham and Manchester –

H: Right

S: And I came back to London where I’d grown up, and very lucky, I remember the same day I auditioned for Elvis the Musical

H: Oh right

S: A part in Elvis the Musical –

H: See even then it was look back in time wasn’t it?  Elvis the Musical, the name  -

S: Well this is it, it doesn’t stop, and the other thing was one of those BBC classic dramas series so –

H: Oh right yes

S: By very nature, again looking back, that was to the 1930s, that was called The Swish of the Curtain –

H: Oh I see

S: About a group of children with a theatre company and I got offered parts in both of them, and I took the television role because I thought that was the best one to take, and it’s very funny because I found out that the person who then took the other Elvis job was Tracy Ulman

H: Oh my goodness

S: So I could have ended up in LA, you know married to Alan McCuin or whatever, but hey –

H: You’ve not done badly have you, let’s face it

S: I think I took the right path personally, but no, I think things have kind of unfolded, there was no great plan.  I mean I had, if there had been a plan it was to be running the National Theatre by the time I was 30, well nothing could have gone further askew than that, so life is what happens while you’re making plans

H: Yes

S: Which I think is what John Lennon said and it is true.  But along the way, I mean sitting and looking at this table full of stuff from time gone by – I mean we are spanning several decades here

H: Yes

S: It isn’t just about the ‘80s and the ‘70s, there are things that go back way further

H: But retro is so in at the moment, and it’s not one particular era is it?

S: No

H: It seems to be just everything – why do you think that is, why are we so obsessed with it?  It’s weird isn’t it?

S: no – it’s sort of – what’s the word?  It’s almost like taking little little bits and when you come to any sort of cultural development, is that what happens in fact?  Is it that you are dipping in and taking ingredients from different eras that have some kind of relevance to that subject matter, whether it’s technology, whether it’s combining fashion and technology in the watches, you know whether it’s a child’s toy, whether it’s food, whether it’s a space hopper.  I mean I think the important thing is, is to pull threads through from times gone by, that are fun, constructive, well made, well manufactured, have some legs to them, and things do have their natural cycle

H: Yes that’s right

S: And there comes a time when you do then have to put something aside and it stops being manufactured for a while

H: Yes.  And something fashionable as well, I mean you look sometimes at fashion and you think eeugh I’d never wear that, three years later, ooh, here we are, back in leggings.  I mean I’d never thought I’d wear leggings again but I do.  It’s weird

S: But you know what I’m not good at, I think French and Italian women particularly seem to be marvellous at, they know the difference between what is a classic look and what is something that is going to be retro for about two weeks and then we’re going to put it away again for another 20 years because we can’t bear to look at it, whether it’s a puffball skirt or you know, or very, very mega shoulders.  But there are classic looks aren’t there?

H: Yes absolutely

S: And when you look at various artists, people like David Bowie,

H: Oh yes

S: Bryan Ferry to a degree, they never date, they will never date

H: No they always look fantastic

S: They just seem to have got that thing where they always looked au courant as it were, they always –

H: Cool

S: Looked right, always looked cool and always will do, and I wish I had it!

H: You’re not doing too badly, let me tell you that.

S: I do my best

H: But it’s weird, I mean the ‘80s was when you were in your TV hey day as it were

S: I like to think that’s still to come actually –

H: It’s still to come, there’s still plenty to cover –

S: That’s –

H: That’s when I remember you –

S: That’s when I started, that’s when I started, yes

H: That’s when I remember – sorry, that maybe a bit rude –

S: No no

H: But that’s when I remember you as a sort of teenager, as a child, as a teenager growing up, that you were one of the faces on the telly, so the ‘80s is my era, so I find it a bit weird when people are sort of doing retro for ‘80s, I think well that’s still sort of now.  But it’s not is it?

S: Well this is it, it’s what becomes, when your yesteryear becomes a time when people do classic theme nights about it

H: Frightening!

S: You know and it, there comes a moment when that’s allowed to happen and I think that that period of time has collapsed down now, and I think that’s all to do with the pace of life

H: Yes

S: Being faster, and that say people in the 1960s and ‘70s, if they did a classic retro night of yesteryear it would probably have been set in the ‘20s or the ‘30s

H: Yes exactly

S: And they would have taken that along to become something worthy of being retro

H: Historical

S: Historical.  Nowadays everything moves faster

H: Yes

S: So literally the decade before.  You know what I’ve been a bit obsessed with today is what we’re going to call – it’s just been bought to my attention that in two years time –

H: 2010

S: We’re going on – we’ll be in the second decade, we’ll be entering the second decade – what are we going to call it?

H: I’ve no idea

S: The Teenies?  Because these have been the –

H: The Noughties

S: The nineties and then the Noughties, what are those going to be called?

H: No one really calls it the Noughties, but I suppose we will do in years to come won’t we?

S: And when will the Noughties become the retro classic look

H: Yes

S: And what will they focus on?  What will they –

H: Well that’s it, what will they remember

S: What will be the things they pick out?  Will it be something that was bought back from a time that –

H: Well that’s it –

S: Before

H: It’s so retro already, there’s sort of nothing that stands out.  But coming up to Christmas now, just thinking about Christmas past

S: Yes, yes

H: Can you think of anything from your sort of Christmas past that you still do that’s become a sort of tradition that you remember from your childhood?

S: Well I’m trying to think if there are any that we still do.  I mean probably the ones that everybody –

H: Everybody does, yes

S: I mean I suppose for me there are certain magical Christmas moments which I almost know cannot ever be repeated –

H: Yes

S: Because they’re so tied up with childhood

H: Yes

S: And with the magic of belief in childhood and the certain things that happened, and I remember, there was one Christmas that I’ll never forget, I’m the eldest of three and it was still when I was an only child, so I could only have been about four years old, and I remember waking up on Christmas morning and it actually was snowing outside

H: Wow, and you remember that because it’s special

S: And I remember it because of course it was the one and only time.  And I also remember hearing my father making something, building something and Father Christmas that year had bought me a doll’s house which my father had made

H: Wow

S: And this was a long time ago and you didn’t get doll’s houses with little electric lights in, but because he is incredibly clever like that, he had made me this little doll’s house with proper electric lights in it.  But it was snowing, and we lived right next door to a park with a very big hill in it

H: Yes

S: And so he was upstairs in his little loft making me a sledge

H: Oh how lovely

S: And with proper copper runners on it

H: He’s clever isn’t he?  Goodness

S: Oh he’s very clever – and – he is still very clever – and he, and I remember pulling my sled up through the snow and he painted it my favourite colour which was a sort of pale purple / lilac colour

H: Yes

S: And the paint coming off, still going –

H: Oh because it was still wet

S: And it’s those things because –

H: That’s a bit special isn’t it?

S: I was so keen to use it, and he’d just come up with that for me that morning, and I suppose that for me encapsulated something so magical and special and I feel very lucky to have those sorts of memories really

H: Yes that’s lovely isn’t it?  But Christmas is tied up with a lot of food as well isn’t it?

S: Oh yes

H: And we all talk about the turkey and Christmas pudding but there’s been this new survey done that shows that 40% of people don’t even like Christmas pudding, but we still stick it on the table don’t we?

S: Yes yes I know, and how many times have you served Christmas pudding and nobody’s eaten it

H: Nobody eats it yes

S: Because they’re so full up for start, because they’ve all been stuffing themselves waiting for that turkey to be ready with

H: With all those nuts

S: All those little bits and pieces and the crisps and the nuts and whatever else you might serve first of all

H: But food’s getting quite retro now

S: Yes

H: I mean friends of mine always used –

S: Yes

H: I remember at Christmas they always used to have Arctic Roll on Christmas day and I used to think you lucky things, I’ve got rubbishy old Christmas pudding and you’ve got Arctic roll

S: Yes

H: And that went off the shelves for a little bit

S: And now you can do it again

H: And now it’s coming back, Bird’s Eye are bringing Arctic Roll back – how special is that?

S: And not only, not only the classic as I like to call it, the classic Arctic Roll with the vanilla ice cream with the raspberry going through it, which is lovely –

H: Special treat to have that

S: Lovely raspberries this time, lovely raspberries, but now there’s the chocolate arctic roll

H: You can’t get any better than that

S: Triple chocolate – chocolate ice cream, chocolate fudge, chocolate sponge.  Now I think Christmas actually that –

H: That’s really nice

S: Would be gorgeous

H: It would be nice to have it in the freezer, because you can get all those frozen things in, stick them in the freezer  -

S: It won’t last though, you just know that don’t you

H: No it would disappear

S: It would disappear, as soon as people know that, because that – this combination, I think they’ve hit on something –

H: The chocolate

S: Very, very special, I think that it ticks too many boxes for it to last in the freezer for very long

H: Half of that would be on my plate I think.  Ha ha.  Anyway let’s move on to some of your questions.  We’ve got one in from Dave – comments, a lot of you have sent in comments actually, so Dave says “I don’t throw clothes away anymore, I put them in the loft because I know that one day they’ll be back in fashion.”  How true is that?

S: Well you see I have an ongoing debate about this, I worked on quite a few fashion programs and the fashion pundits, the Carolyn Franklyns of the world, she was the last person I had this conversation with, because I said I have got some fantastic jackets that I have never thrown away were things that Karen Millen made when she just stopped being a student –

H: Ah that would be very expensive

S: She designed for me for a television program

H: Wow

S: And I – they are great and we know that shoulders are coming back, and she said oh no, it won’t be right. They’ll be the wrong type of shoulders, it won’t be the big, huge ones that you had in the early part of the ‘90s, you’ve forgotten how big they were, they’re going to – and in a way she’s right, but you know I do look at – the teenagers in my life, and I look at what they’re wearing and I think of what I was wearing as a student and I know you would not be able to put a cigarette paper between them

H: No you would not

S: And maybe – absolutely if I’d hung onto those things they would have been perfect

H: It’s horrible throwing things away that you really treasure, but you would just end up with a wardrobe –

S: I’m terrible at it, I’m such a hoarder

H: Oh well that’s good though because those Karen Millen things will be worth something

S: Yes but you’ve got to have the space though

H: But I mean look at this,

S: And I don’t have the space to keep all of this stuff

H: But all of this stuff must be worth quite a lot of money I mean some of these old phones and what have you

S: Well I don’t know if you’re an Ebayer at all

H: Well I am a little bit, yes a little bit

S: Well you’ll find I mean it’s just covered in all this stuff –

H: But I mean the internet’s –

S: Because it’s popular

H: The internet’s been good for retro things though hasn’t it?

S: For collectors it’s been extraordinary, yes

H: But I’ve got a friend – well he’s a friend of a friend really, but he runs a website that’s purely about ‘50s furniture and he goes over to Sweden and buys all this ‘50s furniture and makes an absolute mint

S: It’s worth a fortune isn’t it?

H: It really is

S: I worked on a show called “Collector’s Lot” a few years ago

H: Oh I remember that, yes

S: I did 72 programs of that and I met some very, very devout, ardent collectors, and the furniture collectors are the ones where –

H: Yes

S: You know they are very canny

H: Well it’s big money isn’t it?

S: Yes – huge.  Huge

H: But the toys we all remember don’t’ we, I mean we look at Twister and Space hoppers and it does sort of take you back doesn’t it?

S: Well Twister was always that thing, now here we go –

H: Did we like it or did we not?

S: It depends on how old you were and who else was at the party

H: Exactly.  How smelly their feet were

S: Because sometimes it would be like saving grace because you’d been longing to get close to –

H: Yes

S: That boy who you were just too shy to talk to, and suddenly you were in all sorts of interesting positions but it was kind of validated because it was a game

H: It was ok, yes

S: Yes and other times a bit later on when people thought it was terribly funny to get it out and you thought oh no

H: Oh no, not that again, yes

S: Absolutely not, my heart sinks

H: Your armpits still –

S: Now this I was terrible at, you see –

H: These are lovely

S: My younger brother was brilliant at

H: Something nice about that

S:  – could you do it?

H: Well I had all of these –

S: I was always bouncing off the flipping things

H: If my mother is watching, I had one of these, she ran over it in her car, and it went up her wheel arch and went bang

S: I was going to say that takes some doing

H: But it wasn’t as big as this, they were never blown up as much as this, because they always went down and we never had a thing to blow them up, so mine was only little and small, it was probably about that –

S: More like that little tiny one

H: That’s what happened to my Space Hopper, it was a bit traumatising

S: Ah, poor Space Hopper

H: Let’s have a few more of your questions, we’ve got one from Jane, and it’s quite a good one actually, she says “if there was one product from the past you could bring back, what would it be?  Also if you could bring back one person who would it be?”

S: Ok product –

H: Big question

S: Product would be a perfume

H: Oh it’s so –

S: Now perfumes –

H: So evocative

S: Are really evocative, I think – there’s a game that I play, if ever I’m travelling abroad, and I’m travelling in my plane and I’m at an airport and I’ve got some time to spare, you know they always have you checking in hours before, I play this game.  I go to the perfume department and I go back through all the perfumes that I’ve ever known –

H: Oh lovely, yes

S: And ones that my mum wore when I was little, ones that my grandma wore even, you know things like Yardley and Elizabeth Arden, and then my mum’s perfumes, and then I go through ones that were bought for me, you know my dad bought me my first grown-up perfume, but there was a perfume, I don’t know if anyone remembers this, it was around the time of Charlie, do you remember Charlie?

H: Oh yes I remember Charlie, it was probably the first perfume I had actually.

S: Do you remember that people either wore Charlie as teenagers or in a yellow bottle a perfume called Kiku.

H: Oh no I don’t remember that.

S: Now Kiku, I think it was made by Avon actually, but I loved Kiku and it is the one in the list that isn’t available anymore as far as I Know and of course perfumes don’t keep.

H: There is no point keeping it in your drawer

S: I would love to bring that back.

H: Just to smell it and have that whoosh back in time.

S: Yes the smell does whisk you back to exactly that point. And now person? This is an amazing question because there are so many people, you would love to bring them back.

H: Just to talk to people.

S: Yeah, for their wisdom. On a global basis there are people who would be so wonderful to be able to bring back now. On a personal basis…oh dear…

H: My producer is saying Freddie Mercury. That’s his bid.

S: Freddie that would be interesting, that would be very interesting. My grandma, I know that might sound very corny, both my grandma’s actually, yes I think I would love her take on some of the things that I’ve done with my  life, but also to get her humour and I would love the fact that she could see the next generation in our family.

H: And what would she make of things going on today? It is incredible how things have moved on.

S: Then there is part of me who thinks I wonder if any of these people like Elvis, what would Elvis have been like? Would he have just got bigger and bigger or would he have got swept up in some kind of…

H: Retro Elvis fever, well there is already Elvis fever - would it be the same?

S: I was actually thinking the other way round and whether he would have turned himself into some svelte guru of health. I don’t know I mean that is an enormous question. I know the minute we have left here I am going to think of other people.

H: Well Elvis and your Granny that is great isn’t it.

S: I think they would have got on with each other.

H: There would have been plenty to talk about. Moving on to a few more of your questions, Johnnie G says “I was a massive fan of Gordon the Gopher. Do you think today’s kids would enjoy him as much as I did?”

S: Very much so. I think today’s children would. Sadly Gordon was run over.

H: Oh no like my Space Hopper. He is no more?

S: Yes except Gordon was run over by a tank. I don’t know if you know that but Philip told me this so it must be true.

H: Surely not Philip in the tank?

S: Well….

H: It’s shocking news.

S: What can I say you know when the puppet starts to get bigger than the……

H: The ego’s taking over.

S: I think he got a bit jealous. I don’t think it was Philip who ran him over but according to Mr Schofield that was the end of Gordon he got run over on some Army manoeuvre somewhere. He got involved he volunteered his services in the TA and got run over by a tank.

H: So that was that.

S: Yes.

H: I think kids do… they are so caught up in computer games these days aren’t they, but get them away from that and they do like the same things that we liked.

S: Put your hand inside a sock and start acting with it and believe me you have got an audience.

H: There are so many kids’ programmes that do have puppets on them now. So I am sure Gordon the Gopher would be liked. He was a little bit basic but I am sure that they would love him because they don’t know, do they?

S: Not in his world he wasn’t basic.

H: Not in the gopher world. He was a star.

S: The person to who Gordon owes most is still very much with us, a person who Gordon had a very close relationship is now very high up at the BBC, and I am not giving away too much when I say, if ever you see a spokesman dragged out to apologise for the latest fiasco or to take credit for the latest triumph and he is called Paul Smith, just think of Gordon the Gopher.

H: Ahhh!

S: That is all I am going to say, and just think - well imagine that you started your life with your hand…… there you go.

H: So there is hope for me yet is that what you’re saying?

S: Well all I am saying is that although you might not see Gordon now on screen, he is still with us in his own special way. He is there in spirit.

H: I hope that is a comfort to you. Moving on, Tom says “Retro is great but I wish we had retro prices.” There we go, things were… very much in the seventies… a Mars Bar 2p?

S: Having said that of course if you have been doing any shopping recently you’ll have seen things, for all the wrong reasons I suppose, sliding back down. The prices are heading in a retro direction at the moment. Whether that is….. you know it is good in the short term, good in the long term? I don’t know. It is extraordinary when you look back at old magazines and old catalogues and you see prices and you just can’t believe it.

H: You see I don’t remember old money. My mum always would say this 3d or whatever and I don’t understand all that.

S: Thre’pence that is what you say.

H: Thre’pence?

S: Thre’pence is 3d.

H: I’ve got no idea what that is because it was the 1970’s when the coins were introduced - the new coins. So I remember getting my little thing of those at school.

S: With a little cardboard display.

H: But of course I spent them all then I had to try to put them all back in again but it was never quite the same.

S: I can remember what I spent my first 5 new pence piece on and I think it was a butter snap bar. See it was sweets, nothing changes. Arctic Roll now, sweets then.

H: You remember the sweets and the toys and the TV programmes. We haven’t talked that much about TV programmes.

S: Oh my goodness yes.

H: The thing is there a lot of this retro stuff coming back, Life on Mars, Doctor Who you know these are all sort of coming back round, bringing the series back.

S: Life on Mars isn’t quite the same in that it is about…it is actually set within the era and it plays on the whole thing. It is more the essence of it all isn’t it. Whereas the channels where they keep repeating all the programmes from yesteryear. I mean there is a fantastic game that you can play. If you ever watch ITV4 and they show back to back, particularly ad nauseum, The professionals and the Sweeney and Minder. If you know anything about London streets, if you know London and I grew up in and around London, you can go back to certain streets and you have to play “spot the London street” to know the street, and then you have to marvel as to what’s happened to that building since –

H: Yes that’s great

S: Because sometimes they were derelict then still from the war –

H: And flats and things –

S: And now they’ve either been made into flats or have been really smartened up and gentrified, and that’s quite fascinating.  And I think that also is partly the reason for all of this –

H: Yes

S: That we don’t get the chance not to see the past too much because if you are flicking around the TV channels, it’s all there

H: Yes exactly

S: Every day from Dad’s Army to Minder to the Professionals to everything else

H: Yes

S: Upstairs Downstairs

H: The charts as well, all the music seems to come back round doesn’t it?  And everyone’s doing revival tours aren’t they?

S: Yes

H: Duran Duran –

S: Yes you’re quite right, there’s so much looking back

H: There is –

S: And I don’t mind some of it for comfort, you know a slice of Arctic Roll just to feed your spirit and your soul and cheer you up, particularly at this time of year, great.  But I think, you know, it is quite interesting how it can get a bit overwhelming really

H: Yes

S: All the TV coverage

H: Well we’re nearly out of time actually Sarah, just got time for one last little comment from Claudia, she says “it’s like a cycle” – it’s what you said really – “things come and go but the good things always come back.  Well done to Bird’s Eye for bringing back the Arctic Roll classic.”  There we are

S: Couldn’t have put it better myself

H: She’s obviously been enjoying it

S: Yes, she’s been out and got it already and tucked in

H: Yes she has.  Look I would tuck into this if I had a spoon but I don’t, and I can’t pick the whole thing up can I?

S: We can – I dare you.  Pick it up and have a nibble

H: I’ve got one here look, shall I stick my finger in it?  There we go

S: Is there not a spoon?

H: No there isn’t a spoon here

S: Ok – you’ve just had one in there

H: There we go.  Isn’t that delicious?  So this Christmas, get out your Space Hopper, get out your stylophone – is that what it’s called?

S: This is disgusting doing this, look!

H: Get out your Arctic Roll, you’ll be in retro heaven

S: Yes you will, I can vouch for that

H: We’re going to enjoy that. Well thanks very much for joining us and we’ll see you next time on the Lifestyle Show.  Bye bye