Discover Bucks Museum is Going Back to the 80s

21 October 2023

Get ready to pull up your leg warmers and scramble your Rubik’s Cubes and take a nostalgic trip back to 80s childhood in Discover Bucks Museum’s exciting new family-friendly exhibition, I Grew Up 80s.

From this October, visitors to Discover Bucks Museum can explore the cultural landscape of 1980s Britain through the eyes of a child – revisiting the colourful vibrancy and innovation that defined the decade; from Betamax to BMX, the Walkman to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Thompson Twins to Transformers.

Lovingly curated by collector and cultural commentator Matt Fox, I Grew Up 80s is a time capsule of over 200 treasures that showcase the youthful exuberance of this much-loved decade. There’s plenty for all ages to see, enjoy, share and remember the last decade before the digital revolution gathered pace. Matt Fox, who was aged eight in 1980, has devoted himself to exploring an 80s childhood through the iconic objects of a decade in which so much changed, says:

‘Those that grew up 30-40 years ago pre-internet, in the 1980s, can genuinely state that life was very different then. In my view, the 80s were a remarkable time to be a child. We can explore that through the objects that kids either owned or perhaps desperately wanted to! For example, you’ll see Dunlop Green Flash trainers alongside some achingly cool Adidas High Tops. Toys and electronic games that you once dreamed about on shop shelves or in the Argos catalogue. Iconic albums you played to death on vinyl and cassette. Chocolate bars and food items, like Sweet Cigarettes and Peanut Treets, that are no longer with us. Plus, some great examples of 80s design like boomboxes, swatch watches, and, ahem, purple shell suits!’

If you were a child, teenager or adult and experienced the 80s get ready to exclaim ‘I remember that!’, and like Bill and Ted in their phone booth or Marty McFly in his DeLorean, let Discover Bucks Museum take you on a most excellent adventure to revisit the greatest decade in the history of history – the 80s!

I Grew Up 80s opens on 21 October 2023 and runs until 16 March 2024. For more information, opening times and ticket prices visit discoverbucksmuseum.org.

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