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.

Ooh yes Blockbuster! I once sat in the DeLorean from Back to the Future when it was visiting my local blockbuster in the 90s.

Slipper baths - bath houses where people who didn't have a bath could pay to use a bath. The taps were outside the cubicle so you would hear 'More hot in number 4 please' and the attendant turned on the tap until number 4 was happy with the temperature.
Must have been hard for my parents as they had grown up in 3 bed semis with proper bathrooms and when they got married all they could afford to buy was a terrace with an outside loo.
My sister and I were often bathed in a hip bath in front of the fire, and on a Saturday we all got the bus to my grandparents ' house, had a bath then after Dixon of Dock Green got the bus home again.
I was nine before they had a bathroom built.

Pasteurised and sterilised milk. One came in a short, fat bottle and was sweeter so was used for making puddings etc, and the other in a taller, thinner bottle and tasted sour, and was put in the cups of tea, I think?
Also news flashes on the TV, when John Lennon, the Pope, Ronald Reagan etc were shot - there seemed to be a lot of shootings within quite a short period. Also for plane or train crashes, resignations of important politicians, IRA bombs etc.
The whole family sitting down together to watch TV - Saturdays were Jim’ll Fix It, Doctor Who, the Generation Game etc.
Space Shuttle landings were broadcast live.
Having to go to the phone box on the corner and put in 2p or 10p, then hearing the pips to tell you you’d have a few more seconds before being cut off.
Coloured bathrooms being the in thing - pink, turquoise, bright yellow.
No uniform at primary school. A few boys getting the slipper - actually a pump. The cane was allegedly kept in the headteacher’s office but I never heard of anyone getting it.
We had no playing field so in the summer would be marched to the park down the road in our green t shirts and navy shorts for sports day.
Typewriters when I started work, and fax machines and pagers.
I’m 50. I feel ancient writing this!

I used to ask my history students the question, and when they asked me I always said I remembered the dinosaurs roaming the earth! Sadly some of them took me literally😂😂

I now do a lot of reminiscence work and the memories I hear about are all fascinating.

One of my own favourite memories is of Saturdays and walking into the next town to my gran's. This involved walking over a station bridge over a railway line. We often had to wait as a steam train went through. The steam filled and covered the bridge and seemed to the small me to hide it. Walking through the steam as it dispersed had a smell all of its own. If I ever smell it these days I am transported back to going to gran's.

Using the cap as a contraceptivs method. Boyfriend had usually fallen asleep by the time I'd sorted myself out in the bathroom

"The whole family sitting down together to watch TV" yea that's pretty much gone now in this house for sure. Even if dd and I watch the same show we watch at different times/pace (she works shifts) so can't even talk about them without checking which episode the other is up to, to avoid spoiling.

School playing fields - every school I went to (army brat had 3 primaries and 3 high schools) had extensive playing fields - one even had a swimming pool! And these were ordinary state schools in not posh areas. I recently checked with old school friends still living in the areas and they're much reduced if not gone altogether!

I remember Decimalisation and the strikes of the 70's, three day week and riots.

Playing out all day in the holidays, only going home when hungry or dark.

People being able to go through the day without endless bottles of water, without dehydrating.

@mineofuselessinformation
I remember the Challenger disaster. Didn't the news anchor say something daft like "Er, was that supposed to happen?"
Such a tragedy.
On a happier note I can remember some of the Voyager missions too - an in depth documentary about Uranus and it's moons and later Neptune. I found the whole thing rather baffling at the time.

When Penguin biscuits came in a foil wrapper

I haven't bought Penguins for years. What are they wrapped in now???

Silver Jubilee milk bottle tops. And an entire decade in brown and orange: the 1970s 😁

My mum walked me to school on my first day aged 5, the next day an older girl walked me to school. The consensus was that I could now do the walk on my own. It was probably about a 15 minute walk. This was the late 50s.

Little bottles of milk at school. In the winter the teacher would put the crate by the radiator to take the chill off - warm milk, ugh!

JFK being assassinated.

Playing outside until it got dark, playing in the streets, woods and fields, skipping rope, ball games.

Putting 50p in the gas and electric meters

Putting shillings in the gas meter...

When I was very small, the milkman came with a horse!
My dds still find this hilarious.
The baker also called then, and the Corona man - but we were hardly ever allowed to have any.
I remember the coal man, covered with coal dust, heaving heavy sacks on his back to our coal bunker.

Dogs roaming the streets in packs (were chucked out of the house in the morning and went back at night). There was a lot of dog mess about, but hardly any fights and I don't know of anyone who was bitten.

The "cruelty man" coming to a family in the next street. School inspectors sitting in the back of the classroom every now and then.

Outside toilets - at home and at school. You had to break the ice to have a wee in winter.

The cane/tawse being used in schools.

Ragman coming round with his horse and cart - took anything and if it was impressive enough would give a goldfish in exchange

Taking pop bottles back to the shop to redeem them for a penny

Milk being delivered to the door (also - free orange juice from the government and delicious Haliborange tables!)

Free milk in schools

Ice on the inside of the bedroom windows during the winter

Only one room in the house being heated (coal fire, though - lovely! You could make Real Toast on it!)

The chimney sweep coming every year and covering the room in thick white sheets to protect everything from soot

Butchers' shops with half pigs/lambs hanging in the windows - and a bulls head centre front!

Same with the fishmonger - cod in the window that seems to be the length of the shop, but must have been about 3- 4 feet long.

Being able to buy cracked eggs cheaply

Getting our first VHS recorder from Radio Rentals.
Going to 5 different shops with mum to do the weekly grocery shop.
Getting our first microwave from Bejam which was the size of a small car 🤣
Fizzy pop from the milkman on a Saturday
Once in a blue moon treat of eating out and it HAD to be Wimpy as they served the food and drink In proper plates and cups
The first car we got with a sunroof.. soo coool lol
Market trainers
5p mix ups

having a 3 digit phone number and 4 digit code

Shared party line and telephone with proper dial

Polos being 7p

the penny / half penny sweets shelves in newsagents

The falklands war

Corporal punishment in schools distinctly remember 2 boys getting the slipper following a food fight

The 1973 oil crisis.
The

Kid’s cinema on Saturday mornings - there always seemed to be films with Keith Chegwin in.

An orange juice drink that came as a powder.

Smelly rubbers - swiss roll was my favourite.

Whimsy animals.

Party dresses with flouncy hems.

Being given Milk of Magnesia every time I was sick.

Watch Out, Humphrey’s About (he was always welcome to my warm bottle of milk)

Wanting to see who the guest star would be on The Muppets

Being excited by the BIG CHRISTMAS FILM

The Silver Jubilee

Fancying Prince Andrew like mad after he was best man for Charles

"Playing out all day in the holidays, only going home when hungry or dark" this always comes up on threads like this and it always reminds me of being blinded upon entering the house because my body kinda hadn't registered how dark it had got outside, also I'd often suddenly realise how cold it/I had got! Cos the house felt like a bloody oven! (And this was pre gch days!)

"And an entire decade in brown and orange: the 1970s" OMG yes! There's a photo floating about with me, siblings & ALL the cousins we had on mum's side - and we're ALL wearing various shades of mud brown & 70's orange and that was an "impromptu" photo! Also all the girls had bunches or pageboys and the boys had SUPPOSEDLY short haircuts but we're actually like (see pic)

My dads military crewcut looked positively severe in comparison!

Both grans LONG after most people were doing their shopping in supermarkets continued to shop in the way I remembered even mum doing in 70's/early 80's - bakers, fishmonger, butcher, greengrocer, chemists for toiletries & anything remotely "medical" very little was bought from small grocery shops as such foods as from there were "expensive and bad quality", milkman didn't just deliver milk, also butter, cheese, eggs and (to other houses - mum STILL won't allow 'spoiled milk' in her fridge!) yogurt. Potatoes and carrots were bought by sack from farm shops.

Sawdust on the butchers & fishmongers floors.

I hated the free milk. It was always full fat which I've never liked (didn't realise till I was an adult I do actually like milk just not full fat) and warm & on the point of curdling! I was relieved when it stopped but appreciate now that was disastrous for many.

Getting "a quarter" of sweets on way to school with part oh lunch money and it lasted 2 days so on mon, wed & fri and fridays sweets were added to sat sweets dad got us. Old fashioned sweets like cough candy, pineapple & cola kubes, cherry lips, rhubarb & custard, humbugs, acid drops, barley sugar, butterscotch, Everton mints etc

Pressed ‘Post’ by mistake!
Pre-electric irons with hot coals inside.
Having bright purple anti-septic called gentian violet daubed on our cuts and scrapes: so Seventies.

"Party dresses with flouncy hems" yes!

Certainly in the 70's it was still the norm to wear an ankle length dress or skirt & blouse for birthday parties and boys were in little suits!

Only one bath a week and all four children shared the water. My brother went in last as he was always the dirtiest.

Dad carrying sacks of coal home from the coal yard on his shoulder as it was cheaper than having it delivered.

We were the only family in our road to have a phone and neighbours would call round to use it. We had to stay out of the hall to give them privacy and they would leave a sixpence on the side as payment.

Buying boiling fowl (old chickens) with the innards still inside from the butchers. There was usually an egg or two inside them - free food!

Mum keeping the wrappers from butter and marge neatly folded in the fridge to grease baking trays.

A bench inside the local sweet shop where older kids would sit and drink pop from glasses chained to a rail.

Loose biscuits in barrels in every corner shop (and nearly every corner had a shop). My mum would chat to one of the owners and she often gave me a biscuit. It was the only time I ever had one because money was tight.

I was born in 61 but remember Mum kept her ration books until we moved house in the sweltering summer of 1976 as she was convinced rationing would be re-instated at any moment and she wanted to be ready.

The lady next door but one could remember seeing Queen Victoria drive down our street in a carriage.

twittowoo

PRINCE ANDREW!! What a let down he grew up to be!

A couple of years after the wedding a friend of mine joined the Wrens and was posted to HMS Culdrose where PA was stationed. We were all green with envy that she sometimes laid eyes on the royal hottie.

I know! He was pin-up material...hard to believe now!

Oh yes! Coal deliveries. We had a cellar and a coal-hole just outside the front door where the coal was tipped. The circular hole had an engraved iron lid. I used to sit at the top of the cellar stairs and watch the coal come down the hole.