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.

Working in a golf club bar in 1986. A pint was 68p and single measure of spirits 55p. Having to empty and wash the ashtrays at the end of the night. Going home with my clothes stinking of smoke and my eyes stinging.

Thank you OP and PPs for this wonderful nostalgia thread. Fun spotting who's pretty much exactly as old as me :)

Sitting up watching telly when ill - the Open University, public information horror films, the brown '2' ident on BBC2 appearing and disappearing. The stretchy BBC1 globe. (And when a bit older, being very amused and fascinated at the new posh globe with gold lettering underneath). On a similar theme, being completely terrified of the ATV ident ('In Colour') with the noisy fanfare.

Charles and Diana's wedding - a hazy memory of a street party and getting a blue plastic commemoration cup from playgroup, with gold lettering which wore off long before the cup itself went out of service.

Bagpuss, Bod, Bric-a-Brac, You and Me. Later on, schools TV - sitting on one of the two big steps of the TV room. Watch, How We Used To Live, various science programmes. And watching it when off ill. Stop Look Listen. Near and Far (scary vertiginous intro zooming out into space). The countdown.

Grange Hill, Dramarama, later on Press Gang (loved that). Being a preteen and faithfully watching Neighbours and Home and Away.

Hushed tales of 'the slipper' in primary school, though I think it had been phased out then. Being terrified of the headmaster in a way I doubt today's children are.

Being made to take a Haliborange tablet daily, although by then I doubt there was a real need - plenty of good fresh food available.

Orange juice as a starter.

Being aware of being very cutting-edge because my parents had fitted five-point orange seatbelts (with 'PRESS' on the red release button) in the back of the car. Seeing 'Don't drink and drive' PIFs and thinking it meant drinking any liquids.

Ice Magic coming out.

Brown cardboard library cards and stamps.

Having a BBC computer and loading games via external cassette player. Writing simple programs and getting 'Syntax error'. Using our old ITT television as a monitor. Banda-ed worksheets at school. Pages and pages of photocopied, but handwritten notes by the teacher for A-level. Being a very early email adopter at university.

Huge (national) information campaigns about the change from 01 to 071 and 081 for London dialling codes.

The Mary Rose and the Falklands being big things and discussed in (early) primary school. In junior school having to design and write a newspaper front page about the Challenger disaster.

Smoking still being allowed on long-distance express trains when I first went to Germany aged 18 or so. Unthinkable now.

Visiting my great-great-aunt in her two-up-two-down with never-used front room, coal fire in the back room/kitchen, and outdoor loo complete with Izal paper.

When reg plates started having the letter signifying the year (?) at the beginning rather than at the end.

Prawn Cocktail beng the height of starter sophistication.

Having to WAIT for stuff! Want a phone installed? Write to the GPO and they'll turn up to fit it, when they're ready, and without warning..... saw something you liked in a magazine? Send off for it with a postal order. And wait. And wait.... things were far slower in the 70s and 80s!

Look left look right look left again. Green cross code. Why green and why ‘code’ I’ve no idea.
Horsehair mattresses.
Cardboard train and bus tickets clipped by the ‘clippy’ (conductor/guard)
One sandwich shop - one - on the whole of Fleet Street. It was really a cafe but they did a few takeaway items from front. No takeaway coffee anywhere.

I think the 'ancient' feeling can be more acute in Germany/Berlin. When I first came here it was post-reunification but there was still evidence of the past everywhere. Younger people coming to shiny reconnected booming Berlin can't imagine it.

My first flat there had a tiled coal stove instead of central heating. We used to get the coal from the cellar.

DD lived in Berlin when the Infobox was still there, and Potsdamer Platz was just wasteland.

The looped sanitary belt thing has reminded me - i remember being given a pack when we had the Period Talk in Y6 ('fourth year' back then) at school. As well as a hot pink plastic tampon holder, there was a leaflet which described 'looped towels' (= with belt) and 'press-on towels' as two equally valid choices. I didn't start my periods until a good four years later, but I assume that even then girls weren't 'choosing' belts! 'Press on' towels were like cut-down versions of maternity pads - thick and bulky. I remember wings being advertised as a huge innovation when they came out.

My secondary school RE teacher (at a secular school) telling us we should pity gay people

I remember the Infobox going up

Our local community centre (60s building, attached to the primary school) had a sanitary incinerator in the loos! I remember aged 7 or 8 figuring out what 'incinerator' meant and being terrified of it.

I remember the minimum amount you could put in payphones going up to 10p

Any info on what the info box was ? Agog at German memories.

I have only seen pictures but it looked like a giant mobile classroom on a stand. Anditstillsaid can correct me if I am wrong.
DD lived in Friedrichshain.

I could google but actually loving real living memories/knowledge here ! Mind further boggling at ‘classroon’ Image.

Friedrichshain was very cutting-edge back then :) Hopelessly gentrified now, most of it.

Infobox: www.potsdamer-platz.net/fotos-potsdamer-platz-1995/

It was there to tell people about the history of Potsdamer Platz and the planned development, IIRC.

On a different note, I remember having the polio vaccine on a sugar cube and the rubella vaccine aged 10, pre-MMR days. And the dreaded BCG. Older kids at secondary terrified us about it years in advance. It wasn't that bad in the end (although mine got infected for months...) And the little circle of needles on your arm that served as an immunity test.
When I first went to Germany I had to have that test again and a chest X-ray

I remember channel 5 coming out (uk) and a man coming round to put it on our tv (I was quite young so forgive my vagueness)

Anditstillsaid we stayed there about three years ago and it still had a hippy vibe. There were quite a few stoned people outside the station.

Running I remember that too....except the Ch5 rep called just a few hours after we'd arrived home from hospital with our first son!
Now I feel very ancient!

Oh gosh yes, vaccines on a sugar cube, I'd forgotten those!
And yes, being really worried after hearing all the exaggerated horror stories about the BCG needles

LMH, yes,. there are still some 'alternative' pockets in Friedrichshain. Suspect the stoned people were tourists, though...
Berlin's gone rather mad. Pre-children dh and I lived in an area considered the worst of the worst (Neukölln - only redeemed slightly by its proximity to Kreuzberg). Now it's achingly fashionable and you can't get a flat there for love or (normal amounts of) money.

I remember 50p electric meters. (For youngsters reading, you could get an electric meter that you actually had to pay in 50p pieces, to make it go).

That seems like a very old fashioned thing now, doesn't it?!

BBC2 during the day being devoted to school programmes. And at night your dad would record the gcse bitesize revision programmes onto vhs.

At the end of the days broadcasting on the BBC the national anthem would play aswell followed by some short public information films.

Watching Open University as a tot.

It did me the world of good!

Buying log tables to use at school.

Who asked about a telex? It was a big metal box in the corner of an office, you sat up to it and typed, no corrections, if you made a mistake you had to type, sorry that should be x.

It printed out on paper and it printed out at the other end.

www.paulnoll.com/Books/5000-Words/8000-pic-telex.jpg