What can you remember that makes you seem ancient?

[CormoranStrike]

I remember us getting our very first colour TV.

I can remember a rag and bone man coming up my granny’s street - can’t remember if it was a horse drawn trailer or not.

Granny had an Anderson shelter.

I remember not having to wear seatbelts.

When everyone used to smoke at work and in pubs.

I remember jumping on and off London buses without them fully stopping. That was until relatively recently..?

@Notsoaccidentproneanymore
House we moved into had the wall heater in bathroom with pull cord, we haven't removed it. I actually use it when very cold. Now I know what it's called, we had a small portable one growing up

Being able to make a call in a telephone box with two pence pieces. Or was it 5s. And the pips going near the end of the call.

Rag and bone man on a horse and cart.

Pop man.

Greengrocer van coming round.

No central heating.

Roaring bread on the real fire at my parents and grandparents.

Tv finishing around midnight

Twin tub washing machines

Cars using 2 star petrol

No seat belts.

Looking out for the new A reg cars on the motorway

Shower hose attachments

My parents had a portable black and white tv with a turn dial that I borrowed at uni in the 90s. They were bought it in the 80s.

I'm early 40s

Halfpenny coins and pound notes. Black and white TV that you changed the channel by turning a dial. No seatbelts in the back of the car. My first retail job involved using a manual PDQ with carbon paper.

Going to the shops with 10p and buying loads of sweets.

Floppy floppy discs (if you know, you know), the Broom Cupboard, when current fashion was fashion one rotation beforehand, smoking on trains, no seatbelts (and riding in the boot of the car sometimes), penny sweets that cost a penny and you got them out of the box with your hands, watching Hollyoaks and commenting that Tony has been in it from the start, being able to get served in pubs and clubs underage and being able to use fake ID (no scanners or uv lamps in those days).

Watching the first episode of East Enders.

When it cost 5p as a child to go on the bus in London

My mum’s Ford Anglia, I loved it. Like this but navy blue, still remember the number plate

When all the high st department stores had food halls

Encarta, milk floats, the internet dial up noise, old fashioned desks with ink wells, writing letters to people, (80s baby)

Half pences still got one
Cassette recorder
Andy Pandy
Play a way
Those clacker things
Black jacks, friut dalads, bazooka bubnle gum with the little comic inside
Oyster shells and ice cream from the van

I still have a five digit phone number! It confuses people in call centres and web forms - I often have to add a digit in the end for it to be accepted.

I remember when we got a 'continental duvet'. It was very fancy and no one else I knew had one. I loved not having to make my bed with all the sheets and wool blankets any more! And when we got central heating - we couldn't cope with being so warm and all sat around in our vests and pants for weeks until we got used to it

We used chamber pots when we stayed with our grandparents as they only had outside loos. We had an outside one too but didn't use it much as we had indoor plumbing as well. In fact my current house had an outdoor loo until a few years ago - I turned it into a tiny laundry room instead as my kitchen was built before the need for bulky things like washing machines and fridges. I have to keep my freezer in the cellar.

Also recall our school winning a Smash Hits competition. Howard Jones did a gig in our school hall - the most exciting event to ever happen in our part of town!

We also had a very large, framed, signed photo in the school entrance hall, of a classmate sitting on Jimmy Savile's knee after he'd fixed it for her (can't remember what her wish was, but that photo was really creepy even back then)

Sending photos on the negatives in a little pot with a lid to true print and waiting fark knows how long to get them back.

Shit. Films in cameras.

Camera film altogether.

Woolworths being all that was cool.

Our price.

The yellow pages

People not having a myriad of things and it not being a big deal. Such as vcr, colour tv, automatic washing machine, tumble dryer, CD player.

thenightsky "Does anyone else remember measurements as Chains, Perches, Furlongs etc?"

Yes! I do! I remember measuring the school playground, the netball court etc in rods, poles, perches and chains!

I feel I missed out: we had the metre roller thingy to measure the playground!

Inkwells set in the desks at infants school. We were allowed to use a nib pen in our third year, and everyone wanted to be the ink monitor.

Prices in clothes shop windows written in guineas.

Silver three penny bits (quite rare in mid-Sixties), silver sixpence and florins (two shilling coins)

My mother wearing tights for the first time and telling the lady in the library about it as they were a novelty.

The rag and bone man with his horse drawn cart collecting unwanted household items and clothing.

Medicine always tasting vile, and my mother holding my nose to make me take it.

I remember my dad starting the car with a starting handle! It was a 1959 Austin Cambridge in two-tone blue and green.

Mum didn't like the cold seats so got some imitation leopard skin covers! It was very cosy in the back. When we were going on a long overnight drive, eg down to Devon or Cornwall (journey took at least 8 hours from Kent; no motorways or dual carriageways then) my sisters and I used to take pillows and a blanket and snuggle down to sleep on the back seat! No seatbelts in those days, in back or front.

The entire song featured in the 'get yourself seen' advert.
Oh, and the advert where 'Jimmmmmmy'! fell off the electricity pylon.

And 'Microfiche'.

@abbsisspartacus Isn't white dog poo because of bones?

Yes I think so. My Gran used to buy boxes of mixed dog biscuits back in the day - for her dog, of course - and the white bone shaped ones contained calcium... there were other colours, other shapes, according to content, but I always favoured the black ones myself which were charcoal. Not sure quite what I was intuitively trying to fix in my normal diet...

White dog poo - I'd forgotten about that. A horrid fascination for me as a kid taking our dog for a walk with my dad.

Standing in line to get the belt from the horrible nuns at our catholic school, if you tried to pull your hands away you got double, and much nicer having a horseshoe shaped bar like Delboys, in the living room, the children would pour the drinks for the adults at parties at New Year, and listen to the older men singing old Irish songs like Danny Boy

Optimist1 oh yes the Banda machine. I was trying to describe how it worked to DGS recently. He looked very puzzled.**

My mum used to edit and print a quarterly magazine, for a gardening group - she had to type it on stencils, and then print it on a hand driven Gestetner machine. The stencils were a nightmare - if she made a typo, she had to use a special correcting fluid that mended the hole in the stencil, and whilst they were A4 portrait, the magazine was A5, folded from A4 printed landscape-wise, so mum had to type the articles on the A4 sheet, then cut it up and stick,it back together to print the magazine.

Once, she had done all of this, and she and dad were printing the magazine, when she noticed a typo right at the end of a page - apparently the members had really enjoyed their visit to a garden near to the home of the late, great Bong Crosby!

The magazine was due for dispatch, so mum and dad had to stay up all night while she restyled a whole stencil, and then they printed and assembled the ,magazine!