Council Estate Slang of the 1980’s

Cotton Eye

This was more of a descriptive effort. If a person was very ugly or just didn’t quite fit in. People would just say “cotton eye” randomly. You could use this saying in front of the person and they would have no idea what was going on.

Mega

Probably used way more back in the 1980’s than in todays society. But mega was used to describe a really good day out. Maybe you just watched a great film and it was ‘Mega’.

Cheesy

A word used frequently to describe something that smelled really bad. Like “Your feet smell really cheesy”. It was never easy being cheesy back in those days. Especially when you were only allowed to have one bath per week. This was always on a Sunday because school was the next day.

Gipper or Gipping

If someone had decided to wear the same clothes all week without changing. Or maybe That person had stood in something that wasn’t particularly pleasant to the smell or sight. Then this individual would be called a Gipper. Or, “That’s just gipping man”

Old Crew

The old crew were the group of lads older than your crew. You always looked up them. Now and again in the months of the summer holidays they would let you play a game of Run-Out with them.

Run-Out was a classic game of chase but with a slight difference. One team chased the other until all were caught. You had to make boundary’s and rules to compete against each other. It was like war for the young. The old crew looked after you and made the long nights of 11:00pm worth living for.

Tagging

After ‘teffing’ a big marker pen from the local Woolworths in the photo-booth. You was ready to start spreading your tag name across any surface possible. A tag name was like your nick name but only ’sounder’. The styling of your letters also had to look ‘fresh’ with a sprinkle of funkiness about them. If you had a great tag name like: chequers, spoof, ghost or stealth then you was seen as ’safe’ round the local estate.

Related articles.

The Forgotten Council Estate Games of the Late 20th Century.