the retro hour
Stuart Barrett
Retro Hour host
Stuart has been the regular host of the Retro Hour since the early 1990s and has been on air at HWD Hospital Radio since 1986.
* HWD Hospital Radio is not responsible for the content of external sites
welcome to the retro hour
Hello and welcome to the online home of The Retro Hour! This section of our website will take you on a whistle-stop tour of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Each Saturday morning you can join us in the HWD Hospital Radio time-machine as we take you back to one particular year.
You'll find out who and what was in the news, the sporting headlines, what was big on the television, which films were showing at the local cinemas and the songs you were listening to on the radio.
Discover who was at number one with our mini-countdown of the songs you were buying this very week.
Use the links at the top of this page to find out more about our featured decades. You can also test your knowledge with our interactive quizzes - there's one for each decade.
If you've got the time, we've got the memories, Saturday mornings from 9.
each decade in a sentence
In a rush? Here's the essential elements of each of our decades.
The 1970s
Credit cards were introduced, Mr Rubik presented his cube for the first
time, the Queen had her Silver Jubilee, Virginia Wade won Wimbledon, Abba
proved that Sweden could produce music as well as cars and Margaret Thatcher
took up residence at Number Ten.
The 1980s
The decade of two royal weddings, a visit from
Halley’s comet, the fall of the Berlin wall, the
birth of Channel 4, and a nationwide miners’
strike... not to mention the fund raising
efforts of BandAid and LiveAid.
The 1990s
The time when Mickey Mouse arrived in Paris, the Queen opened the doors
of Buckingham Palace and the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, Bill Clinton
opened his oval office to Monica and girl power was an excuse for ladies
to behave badly.
The 2000s
The 9/11 terror attack on American destroyed the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center, Sven-Goran Eriksson took over as the head coach of England's
football team, Concorde made its final flight and the Tetley's tea-folk
hung up their teapots.
the things people say
So many years, so many quotations...
"It's a funny old world"
Margaret Thatcher days before resigning as Prime Minister in 1990
"Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded"
Diana, Princess of Wales, in a TV interview in 1992
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it"
Mae West, unknown
"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
Ronald Reagan, unknown
"I counted them out and I counted them back."
Brian Hanrahan, BBC News reporter, 1982