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.

Getting a wheelie bin to replace our metal dustbin (in 1989, according to the bin-lid)
shopping at the greengrocer/butcher/fishmonger/baker (etc) as we’d no local supermarket (up until I was about 2 - I remember sitting in my pushchair & being given occasional treats by shopkeepers: the grocers even gave me a toy handbag shaped like a bird once...)
smoking being allowed on the top deck of buses - my aunt used to take us on the open-top bus tours meant for tourists as a treat so we could sit on the top deck without being exposed to the smoke
those carbon machines for credit card payments
the 1987 storm & being terrified by the noise of it (am sure my parents were delighted at sharing their bed with the 2/3 of their offspring able to invade it...) then upset by the felled trees
checking cans with a magnet to see if they could be recycled
helping carry papers, glass & cans round to the bottle banks to be recycled
sitting on my Y1 teacher’s lap while she took the register
my Infant school having outside loos with what I think = izal paper (stuff like tracing paper, basically)
everyone getting their milk delivered (& a large local dairy it was distributed from) allowing for much use of milk-bottle tops in craft
always carrying 10p (later 20p) in order to be able to make an emergency phonecall (as learned at Brownies)
owning a Walkman in junior school & getting a discman aged 13/14 (plus a wee folderthing to store CDs in for when travelling etc)
having a rotary phone
getting my first mobile phone & having to buy top-up cards where you scratched off a silver panel to reveal a code: cost of 12p/text message & a limited number of characters (150, maybe? certainly not many...)
Promising to “do my duty to God” as a Brownie & having a wee silver Promise badge with the Brownie man on
the machine at Clark’s to measure feet that seemed frighteningly as if it might squish your feet

I remember when they banned smoking from the downstairs of the bus.

Travelling with by bus to school across London on our own, when we were really quite small. 7 and 5 maybe? Certainly by the time we were 8 and 6.

Bus conductors wearing machines that printed the tickets in purple ink, they had to push buttons and turn the handle round. It was purely a machine - no electrics!

Pulling the wire once to make the bus stop.

Getting in trouble with the conductor for doing it twice by mistake when the bus pulled off - that was the conductor's signal to make the bus stop quickly.

Hopping on and off the bus wherever we wanted.

Loving travelling in the boot of my Dad's estate car.

My Dad going out on cold mornings to warm the car up, then fiddling about with it, and the choke for ages, to get it started.

Recording top of the pops onto tape.

Using 2ps in phones.

Using public phones at all!

Getting occasional cross lines on a phone call and just having a chat anyway.

Going to Woolworths with £5 my Gran gave me to buy an album.

20p pocket money being enough to get a packet of crisps and a small chocolate bar.

How long were matches 10p for? They stayed the same price for what seemed like forever!

They were 10p for the late 80s and all of the 90s IIRC. Were they 10p in the early 80s / 70s? Can anyone remember?

Having friends with no phone.

Having no phone in my first flat.

Calling round to friends' places for a visit, unannounced, on the off chance they were in and fancied company. Welcoming visitors who did the same and not being at all put out that they'd just turned up.

Coming back from a night out in the early morning and seeing the milk man doing his rounds on one of those floats. I remember the noise they made.

-black and white tv
-dog licences (black and white collie so obviously cheaper)
-children not allowed in pubs
-pubs that sold chocolate in a wooden stepped rack on the counter
-tubes stations that sold chocolate in wooden vending machines (and wondering how long has this been down here??)
-choice between 4 star petrol and 2 star
-when unleaded petrol was introduced - my first car!
-50p in the meter for the electric meter at home
-toasting crumpets on the open fire
-anthracite being delivered and our cat playing in it
-milk only being bought and delivered by the milkman
-10p space invader crisps
-thruppeny bit chocolate digestives at school tuck shop
-student grant for the first 2 years of Uni but a Student Loan for the 3rd
-snow up to our knees in January and Easter - playing for hours and several clothes changes
-Trick or Treating unaccompanied up and down our little lane
-Mum making christmas puddings and mincemeat not buying it
-Renault 4
-Temporary 1 year passport (still got it somewhere)
-Junior school swimming in the outdoor pool with no heating bloody freezing and getting changed for afternoon lessons without any showers or hairdryers
-government information films played late at night long after target audience were supposed to be in bed
-Spanish Pesetas and French Centimes and Francs on school trips
-1 strap Head bag being worn over shoulder on walk to school
-Actually walking anywahere as opposed to driving and sitting all day
-Being a size 12/14 and feeling 'fat' wish I was that fat now
-Wearing 'Radio' jeans
-Chelsea Girl
-Saxone shoes
-Texas homecare
-87p for 10 B&H, 8p for matches, 12p for the Polo mints
-Cafe Hag 'enough for two Ja?'
-Watching Picturebox
-When we had a decent economy with jobs and no foodbanks
-Half day closing in a Wednesday
-Finesse Shampoo and Conditioner
-Finale - The first non-aerosol pump only hairspray
-Oil of Ulay before it became Oil of Olay
-Banning of CFC aerosols
-Shopping at jumble sales on Saturday afternoons
-Shopping at the International Stores
-Greenshield stamps and millions of them at the Co-op
-Buying my first lottery ticket
-Pacers - spearmint Chewits
-Feeding the kiddy goats next door with glass bottle & rubber teat
-liquorice pipes with hundreds and thousands on the end
-Buying rice paper for 1/2p per sheet from the penny sweets counter
-Den and Angie's divorce
-Watching The Box of Delights on TV

and Rumbelows

The discovery of fire.

Banana clips
Heather shimmer lipstick
Anything ‘two tone’ in pink and blue
Body shop - dewberry
Rara skirts and pixi boots
leg warmers
Mods and rockers fighting on the seafront
Jack Frost making leaf patterns in ice on the windows (inside)
Library van calling at the weekend
Calling out the gp to your house when you felt too ill to go to the surgery
Collecting autographs in a book

Putting 50p in the electric and the man coming to change the meter.

Home vist from your Doctor

Single pain windows

Blankets instead of duvets

Shops being closed for Christmas

No central heating

Not having to wear a seat belt

No baby car seats

Teachers smoking in the staff room

Boys getting the slipper.

Some people are in melt down over Brexit, I remember the 3 day week and shortages (due to dockworker strikes) of stuff (coal being the big one) in the 70s. I don't remember any panic like now, some anger at the strikers.

Born in '69, and remember a lot of things mentioned above :)

I remember queuing up in the butchers with mum, sawdust on the floor, and shuffling my feet around to create pictures in the sawdust. Also mum queuing up at the greengrocers and all the produce being weighed and placed in individual brown paper bags.

Mum collecting little blue stamps from the co-op and sticking them in a booklet.

I remember big floppy computer disks that actually were flexible.

Learning to touch type at school, and being whacked on the back of the hands with a ruler if we dared look down at the keyboard.

Milkman and the sound of the milkfloat at the crack of dawn.

Long green velvet birthday party dress with white lace ruffles at the bottom. I felt so glamorous

School uniform - skirts were well below the knee and woe betide anyone caught hitching them up. Matching brown nylon knickers for modesty.

Walking everywhere as mum didn't learn to drive until later on.

Jackanory, Blue Peter, The Book Tower, The Magic Roundabout.

Ha - I said keyboard! - I meant the keys on the manual typewriter, which really hurt your fingers as you pounded them, especially your little fingers.

Four gallons of four star, £4.80

I must be much older, I recall being upset the day we got less than 3 gallons for our pounds worth! Seeing a newspaper headline 'Petrol may reach 50p a gallon'

Having to close the curtains to watch our tiny, 12 inch, TV.
Being 'posh' when we were the first in the avenue to have a fridge.
I 'remember' when my grandad had walked up to our house in the heavy snow, he licked his boot against the tree outside to remove the encrusted snow and all the snow off the tree fell on him. I say 'remember' because I must have been around 3 and our memories are often what others have told us.

2 star and 4 star petrol (was there a 3 star?)

Yes but mostly you filled up half 2 and half 4 star. Or that's what I seem to remember.

School dinners, at primary there was one dinner followed by one pudding, and the dinner ladies would not let you out to play until you had eaten it.

Secondary we got a choice of 2 meals!

I remember big floppy computer disks that actually were flexible. I was in the first class at school to have computer studies lessons, we went for a trip to a college to write our programs onto punched card.

Listen with mother on the radio
Andy Pandy
Play school
No seat belts
Queens silver jubilee

...also flares and long party dresses in the 70’s

When petrol was 7s6d (37.5p) a gallon.

Pools man.

Dad spending ages over “spot the ball”

Double Dutch and skipping in general.

British Bulldogs.

Collecting plastic toggles from loaves of bread to put on your bike.

Marbles.

That game where two girls (always girls) took a massive elastic and stood with them over their ankles while another was in the middle and jumped on it while reciting a rhyme.

Nineoutoften I loved those long dresses.😍
Making your own clothes. John Lewis had loads of fabrics to choose from. I made several long dresses for parties and I made my wedding dress, my sister's wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses for both.
Power cuts in the seventies.
Shortages of sugar in particular. And loo roll being restricted.
Paper at school being restricted (I was a teacher).
Inflation - every time you went shopping prices had gone up and my housekeeping money hadn't.

Loved the long flouncy party dresses. My mum always made matching outfits for my sister and me - we were especially fond of the red and white gingham waistcoat and skirt sets she made one summer.
Other things

• the man from the Pru coming to collect insurance premiums
• knocking on doors and asking for bits and pieces for the Brownies jumble sale
• handwritten chain letters and writing to pen pals
• my nylon nightie melting when I left it too close to the paraffin heater one winter
• playing on building sites with all the other kids on our street.

"I'm 43, we always had seatbelts as children, i loved mine as it was orange and clipped together like a pilot's (so i thought!). I used to pretend i had a seat-eject button that i'd press if my DSis was annoying me grin"

I'm 41 and remember before seat belts became compulsory in the front, around 1984. Didn't have seat belts in the back for many years after that as older cards just didn't have them.