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.

Only having a coal fire to heat the house, having an outside toilet still (as well as an inside one), the good old phone with curly cable attached to the wall - and remembering all my friends numbers in primary school, walking to school on my own at a quite young age.

Going out for meals as a special occasion only, maybe once or twice a year
2 star and 4 star petrol (was there a 3 star?)
Green shield stamps
Challenge supermarket
shopping not being a leisure activity
the first digital watches - from the petrol station - with a little light
only 3 flavours of crisps
phone calls being cheaper after 1pm and 6pm
two post deliveries
milk being delivered - and the bluetits breaking open the lids
women leaving work when they got married
women not being ladylike if they ordered a pint
alcoholic drinks being acceptable when you went for lunch at work
Cartridges in the car instead of cassettes
children sitting in cars outside pubs so their parents could have a drink
being able to hold mercury in school chemistry lessons

I remember Prince Charles saying ruefully something about his brother being " the one with the Robert Redford looks..." Hard to believe now!

I was a post war baby - born in early '47, and have vivid memories of my early years.
The Great Smog of '52 which lasted for 5 days - you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, the sulphurous smell of the air, filling your nose with vile black snot.
The Storm of '53, which devastated Canvey island, in which more than 300 people died.
Farthings - eggs were priced at 1/9¾d for a dozen.
Our first tiny B/W TV arrived in time for the Coronation, and half the street crammed in our front room to watch it.
Booking an international phone call to Tasmania at Christmas so that my Nan could speak with her relatives there.
Coal fire in front room in winter, and toasting crumpets in front of it, no central heating in those days! Frost inside windows in winter.
Galvanised zinc bath in front of the coke boiler in our kitchenette for the weekly bath.
Horse drawn milk floats, coal carts, and rag and bone man. I loved feeding the horses with a carrot.
Pink pig bins chained to the lamp post on the corner of the street for kitchen scraps - a hangover from the war effort - likewise, white bands painted round tree trunks on the main road - to help guide the (few) drivers in a blackout. Very few private car owners back then.
Ration books (still in use until 1954). Some minor roads still had gas mantle lights, and a lamp lighter to light them.
The first soap operas - The Appleyards and the Grove family. And the terrifying Quatermass and the Pit (gave me nightmares!)
Yes, we played out all day in the summer, only coming home for tea, and happily took bus journeys on our own from a young age. Getting shopping from local shops in lunch hour for Mum, from the age of about 7.
Andy Pandy, Muffin the Mule, and Bill and Ben on Children's Hour.
And all the rest from previous posters!

Having a telex machine at my first job

NantheWiser I was born later that year and remember all those things! And the big fire guard round the coal fire, always draped with washing! Mum washed everything in the big kitchen sink, by hand. Dad would come in from work, and the meal would be on the table for him straight away, even the salt and pepper pots were placed down in front of him!

NantheWiser My Dad was in The Appleyards! He played Ron the best friend of naughty Tommy the son of the house.

Dad was the oldest child and his own dad was killed in the war leaving his mum a widow with three children one of whom was severely disabled with cerebral palsy. Dad became a child actor and the bread winner for the whole family from quite a young age. He stopped acting after doing his national service but when I was growing up in the 60s we’d quite often catch a glimpse of him on the old films showed on TV on weekend afternoons.

He remembered the Appleyards fondly as it was broadcast from London so he could go home afterwards and not stay in digs. It was shown twice a week and as the shows weren’t recorded they would have to travel back to the studios and act it all over again for the second screening so they earned more money with no extra rehearsal time.

Nan that is so wonderful, your dad sounds amazing. I can hear the Appleyards theme in my head now! I remember The Grove Family too - that grumpy old gran!

Old money
Joining the EU
Dr Who, played by someone two of whose grandsons I have seen as adults (one an actor, one a cricketer)
Going to the bank to withdraw money as there were no cash points
Manchester United FC being relegated (hope that happens again soon)
Camberwick Green
Elves Presley dying

I can't remember which pp mentioned it, but I remember the dodgy video bloke! Mine was still going in about 2000, I used to get 3 for a fiver for a week. There was a typed out catalogue that you used to choose the ones for the week after.

Does anyone remember the fish man in the pubs? Used to come round with seafood as a snack

Also remember there being a meat raffle in the local, so all the prizes were packs of meat for the freezer.

I remember having day release from school to learn typing at college. Obvs we all used to bunk off half the time and go to the pub, because we didn't have to wear uniform on those days.

Manual filing in my first job from school as an office junior.
Getting paid cash in those little brown envelopes with a window, and there being a £50 note in it.

I could go on all night. I'm only 48!

When we did typing at college, they used to put little covers on the keys so we could learn to type without looking. Kids these days are born knowing how to type, aren't they?

I loved learning how to type without looking... especially when we got the fancy plug in typewriters!

I used to work in the cash office of a supermarket. Thursdays we used to get all that weeks pay packets sent down from head office. They were preprinted with all deductions etc on the outside of a self adhesive envelope. We had to fill them with the correct amounts of take home pay in an appropriate mix of large and small notes and coins.

We were given a total of how much cash to remove from the safe (say £9423.37 ) and when we had filled every envelope (and there were over 100) we should have no money left over. If it was even a penny out we’d have to go through every packet again and doublecheck the amount it contained until everything balanced. Then and only then could we seal the packets. If it took too long we’d have a queue of angry staff hammering on the security hatch to collect their money.

This wasn’t that long ago, early 1980s and it seems odd now that even quite senior people with proper jobs and mortgages were paid cash weekly. Only the store manager and thebassistant manager were paid monthly direct to their bank account.

Does anyone remember the fish man in the pubs? Used to come round with seafood as a snack

Oooh! Yes - I loved a prawn cocktail (height of sophistication, along with my snowball )

I remember he meat draws in the pubs too - they still have hem in Working Mens' Clubs in the North East.

Also- there was always a chair in the shops, so that old/disabled people could have a seat while they waited.

And the doctor's surgery was usually in his back room (almost always a male doctor) - the waiting room was the front room, furnished with about thirty old dining chairs. People went in, took a seat, and as patients went in to see the doctor, everybody shuffled along a chair.

No appointments - you went in and were seen hat day, though you sometimes had to wait for a couple of hours, because people weren't in a 10-minute slot - consultations took as long as they took.

I remember the fish men too. Little polystyrene cups of winkles...which I couldn’t stand unless I was tanked up on Pernod & Black and hungry.

"Does anyone remember the fish man in the pubs? Used to come round with seafood as a snack" I do, been veggie 30 years but I miss fish & shellfish I used to love little pots of prawns or muscles etc

"When we did typing at college, they used to put little covers on the keys so we could learn to type without looking. Kids these days are born knowing how to type, aren't they?" Nah! They're rubbish! I'm far faster at typing and learning new tech than dd 17 - and it's her job! I'm more accurate too! Don't even get me started on how her and her friends automatically believe the first answer if they Google something!

the test card, telly free times

The dustman coming along the side passage of the house into the back garden, hoisting the bin on his shoulder, carrying it back to the road and chucking the rubbish into the bin lorry. And the ultra-modern bin lorry that came to school. The whole back of it tilted up to move the garbage to the far end so it could carry more.

When channel 4 came along. When snaps (crisps) cost 6p. When you could buy a bag of chips for 20p and they were wrapped in actual newspapers. Teachers who were allowed to hit kids. My swimming 'Teachers lobbing me in the deep end to teach me to swim. Never gonna work! Life before soft play, just playing out on bikes and skates in fields and woods. - V grateful for those memories...
ooh ans soda stream, although I never had one!

When chips went from 3d to 4d. And to sixpence eventually!

Getting a postal order for a pound at Christmas. I was rich !

Smoking on planes
The first huge cellphones

@IdblowJohnSnow - did you go to a school starting with J?

Long party dresses in man-made fibres and silver sandals, of course, for school Christmas parties.
Crisps being 1 or 2 days a week treat, ditto Ski yogurts and Libby's orange juice.
Lots of sweets, though, with resultant fillings!
Nit nurse with her rough fingers pulling up your hair.
Once a week baths until a teen in the early 80s.
Loving my stationery: furry pencil cases, jeans style ones, pop a point pencils, long packs of felt tips and crayola crayons. First calculator and digital watches late 70s.

Lots of the above...

Girl and clown test card
Collecting half pennies at school when they were going out of circulation and the arrival of the pound coin
Milk floats
Metal dustbins and the noise they used to make on bin day
Smoking on public transport and in schools
Not having to wear seatbelts in the back of the car and lying across the seats
Renting a TV
Next-door neighbour coming to use our phone and leaving 50p
Writing to a company for info for a school project and waiting excitedly for their letter back!
Waiting 28 days for a catalogue order
Having an 01 phone number in London
Live Aid

Love reminiscing!