1981

Top Selling Singles

1. Human League – Don’t You Want Me
2. Soft Cell – Tainted Love
3. Adam & The Ants – Stand & Deliver
4. Adam & The Ants – Prince Charming
5. Shakin’ Stevens – This Ole House
6. Ultravox – Vienna
7. Michael Jackson – One Day In Your Life
8. Bucks Fizz – Making Your Mind Up
9. Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddup You Face
10. Tweets – Birdie Song

Christmas No.1: The Human League – Don’t You Want Me?

Top Selling Albums

1. Adam and the Ants – Kings of the Wild Frontier
2. Queen – Greatest Hits
3. The Human League – Dare
4. Phil Collins – Face Value
5. Shakin’ Stevens – Shaky
6. The Police – Ghost in the Machine
7. Cliff Richard – Love Songs
8. Various Artists -Chart Hits ’81
9. Adam and the Ants – Prince Charming
10. John Lennon and Yoko Ono – Double Fantasy

At the Box Office

1. For Your Eyes Only
2. Superman II
3. Arthur
4. Flash Gordon
5. Private Benjamin
6. 9 to 5
7. Tess
8. The Jazz Singer
9. Raiders of the Lost Ark
10. Chariots of Fire

Cost of Living

Average house price	£24,000
Average salary
Average car price
Petrol	35p/litre
Pint of beer	51p
Packet of 20 Cigarettes	78p
Pint of milk	18½p

In the News

• Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher
• Ronald Reagan was US President
• Peter Sutcliffe, a 34-year-old lorry driver from Bradford arrested on 2 January in Sheffield, is charged with being the notorious serial killer known as the “Yorkshire Ripper”
• The first Sunday games of the Football League take place.
• The engagement of 32-year-old Charles, Prince of Wales, and 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer is officially announced
• Homebase opens its first DIY and garden centre superstore, at Croydon
• Barbados police rescue Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs after his kidnapping in Brazil
• The first London Marathon is held
• The 1981 UK Census is conducted.
• 23-year-old Steve Davis wins the World Snooker Championship for the first time
• The first performance of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats takes place
• Unemployment reaches 2.6million (one in nine of the workforce), and Margaret Thatcher is warned that a further rise is likely.
• The twelfth James Bond film – For Your Eyes Only – is released in UK cinemas. It is the fifth of seven films to star Roger Moore as James Bond
• It was a summer of rioting – Margaret Thatcher announces that police will be able to use rubber bullets, water cannons and armoured vehicles
• Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for killing John Lennon
• Filling stations start selling petrol by the litre
• British Telecom announces that the telegram will be discontinued after 139 years in use.
• The first case of AIDS in the UK is diagnosed

On the Telly

• Tom Baker makes his final appearance as the Fourth Doctor
• Moira Stuart, aged 29, is appointed the BBC’s first black newsreader.
• First episode of Only Fools and Horses
• Debut of Danger Mouse, with the lead character voiced by David Jason;
• First episode of the gameshow Bullseye.
• Noele Gordon, eight times winner of the TVTimes award for best actress, leaves Crossroads after playing Meg Richardson since the series began in 1964, having been sacked from the programme.
• Still watching:
• Solo, Sorry!, The Chinese Detective, The Day of the Triffids, Fanny by Gaslight, Bergerac, Tenko, The Kenny Everett Television Show, Magnum, P.I.

In Music

• The UK wins the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Making Your Mind Up”, sung by Bucks Fizz.

Top Selling Christmas Toys

• Star Wars AT-AT
• He-Man Castle Grayskull
• Lite Brite

Gadgets

• BBC Micro Model B

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