Things that make me realise I'm actually ancient (lighthearted)

[lightlypoached]

I don't consider myself 'old' but a few things popped into my insomniac mind that made me think, 'blimey I've been around a while, and probably longer than I realise' (like saying 'blimey' for starters!). Others include :

• Saturday job at WH Smith where I sold red wax sticks for sealing documents, car in paper, and typewriters. We used one of those slidey machine things with 3-layer paper receipts for the very rare credit card transactions.
• I learned how to use a slide rule at school for my maths O level
• when I carried on working after getting married at 24, was called 'a career girl' (mind you that was old fashioned even then I think)
• taking delivery of a PC at work and saying 'yes, it's very nice , but what exactly is it for?'
• having paper rail and bus tickets, and travelling on bushes with a bus conductor (who had a fascinating ticket machine and a leather pouch for all the money.

(I'm 55 with teenaged kids).

What are yours?

when I carried on working after getting married at 24, was called 'a career girl' (mind you that was old fashioned even then I think)

I think that's more the circles you mixed in than the majority view at the time, it's not something I ever came across as working after marriage was the norm. I'm older than you.

My kids don’t believe that when I started work I used to commute on slam door trains. I’m only 38.

As the youngest of 3 siblings I have to keep reminding myself I am in fact an adult, but I'm 42 and mum of 2dc. I remember the credit card sliders from my Saturday job in a pharmacy, I remember the rotary dial phones, and having to get up to turn the channel over, all 4 of them. I feel old when I don't know or like any of the songs my girls are listening to, my dad had that attitude about my music when I was a kid, so I must be old. It drives me nuts when they leave the lights on, or the door open or tap running. I think I've turned into my dad.

Agree with pp: you got married in the late 1980s and people thought you'd stop work? Weird. I'm older than you and this was certainly not my experience.

Im also finding it weird about the continuing to work comment, I’m 41 and all the females in my family always worked, even when married.

I can remember being amazed at being told a Mars Bar was 2p, now I’m amazed myself I can remember buying a can of pop, a chocolate bar AND a packet of crisps for £1.

I lived in a weird, insular town so maybe that accounts for the weird attitude -or maybe that I wanted a career, rather than just a 'job for pin money' (their expression, not mine)? Who buys pins with their wages anyway?

It wasn't quite Royston Vaysey, but not far off !

@IhateBoswell polos used to be 3p a packet and I remember gasping at a very steep 12p for a Yorkie bar, but couldn't buy one anyway as they were for burly lorry drivers only.

@Lovelydovey slam door trains, yes commuting on those until the 2000s and that was in London.

Oh yes I remember the Yorkie adverts, bloody cheek!

I'm 64 (and how did that happen without me noticing?).

I didn't use a biro until mid-secondary school. My school desk had a little ink well in the right hand corner and I used stylus pens with replaceable nibs and blotting paper. I went through twice as many nibs as anyone else because I was left-handed and the nibs kept crossing. But we were taught "double writing" from the outset and I still have very nice, neat writing.

I've gone from writing with a stylus, through fountain pens, then ball point pens to typewriters, then a word processor to a massive PC, to the hand sized smartphone (with more computing features than the PC ever had) that I'm using now - all in the space of 60 years.

I'm old enough to remember needing ten pence pieces to go and make a phone call. I can also remember when my rich friends family got a colour tv, everyone else had black and white !

55 as well.
Brought it home, watching 'It's a Sin' as worked and lived (mostly just lived) in london in that era.

I thought it was 2p in the phone box. I remember pressing button A or B lol.

And the friggin dangerous toys at the playground set into concrete!

Bus conductors with leather satchels

Cassette tapes

One landline in a central location in the house

Woolworth's sold food and I worked on a delicatessen counter as my first Saturday job.

Drinks cans from a fridge cost 5p more than cans from the shelves

A diet aid called Ayds (that went well in the 80s)

Fountain pens for handwriting classes (either a cartridge or a squidgy rubber chamber and a bottle of ink)

1/2 pennies

Green pound notes

Our Price record stores

- having paper rail and bus tickets, and travelling on bushes with a bus conductor (who had a fascinating ticket machine and a leather pouch for all the money.

Trams in Sheffield have a ticket collector with a leather money bag, until fairly recently they only took cash. The first time I travelled on one I was charmed by the quaintness.

Black and white TV being the norm.

We got a colour TV, every kid in the street turned up for the delivery and set up (yes young people on here, you decided which TV you wanted in the shop, the shop ordered it, delivered it and tuned it in for you).

Then we had to wait, because it was Saturday morning and all the sports was still in B and W.

There were only three channels and TV started in the afternoon.

I was sort of on the cusp of modern education, I had log books but by the time I took my O Levels you were allowed a calculator and that had logs on it.

I also did Computer Studies, on the one computer the school owned. It was a commodore pet - green screen, only capitals and no mouse.

Love this thread!!

I remember my Dad saying one Saturday morning that we were off to buy a magic tv that told jokes. I was was beyond myself with excitement.
What he was talking about was a TV with teletext (Indeed the joke page was updated daily) and the magic part was the remote control!

I remember the channel 4 launch (and therefore the beloved Brookside)

I also remember spending hours on dial a disc on the phone. You pressed 16 and it played a song that was in the top ten which changed every day.

We had a telex machine at home. That was deemed very 'modern' at the time. A huge thing that printed stuff out but I still don't know where the stuff that needed to be put got sent from.

My earliest recollection of the price polos was 5p. I'm 47. I seem to remember mojo sweets being 1/2 a p !

I remember growing up with one black and white TV in the house, and the excitement when my parents got a colour one. I also remember the TV repair man coming at frequent intervals to fix it. I can also remember the days before my parents had central heating and double glazing installed, and waking up with frost on the inside of the bedroom window (funnily enough I dont recall feeling cold). Then having a rotary, wall mounted telephone installed so we could call my grandparents, as no-one else we knew had a phone. My mum changing her Servis twin tub for an automatic washing machine. Working with an electric typewriter and carbon paper, then an electronic typewriter, then an Amstrad PC with floppy discs. My first (horrible) Saturday job at 16 that paid about £10 for a 10 hour day but I was made up to have some money to myself ... Im 50.

Polos were 3 1/2p when I was buying them with my pocket money.
No TV in the morning and only 3 channels. I remember when Breakfast Television launched and everyone was certain it would be the end of civilized society.
One rotary phone on the corner table in the lounge.
My mum having to start our (admittedly old in the 70s) Renault 4 with a crank handle that went into a hole in the front grill.
Going to university and using a card in the pay phone to call home, and having a great night out on 5pounds.
My mum physically having to get money from her bank during the week or you would just have no cash (only cheques! No credit cards!) for the weekend.
My dads stereo system which took up a whole wall of our lounge.
Spending hours making mix tapes with songs recorded from the radio.
I'm 50 with teen kids. Honestly don't feel that old - but seemingly I am...

The only phone in the house was static in the hallway. No privacy for calls. Time was limited if you were making a call due to cost, parents would tell you to end the call. I cannot envisage a life now without texts and WhatsApp, I was born too early. 😀

I was trying to explain the concept of penny sweets to my DD yesterday... Going along to the news agent, them counting out your sweets into a little paper bag after you had selected them. Actually costing a penny..
And all done by hand!

All of the above but my eldest is at uni and it really struck me how life has changed when I started telling her about the one phone in each hall, the queue to use it and the notes we stuck to one another’s doors to say they’d had a call!

Any personal calls had to be after 6pm as it was cheaper.

Remember being chastised over and over again on school as I didn't have neat handwriting, like it was something I could control. Thanks goodness I don't do that much anymore!

People smoking in the workplace! Someone at a desk near mine smoked and at the end of the day my clothes would smell of cigarette smoke.

I remember a lot of these. Log books for maths, crisps at 2p a bag.
Our first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which dad plugged into the TV. He told me that computers were the future and every job would need one. I didn't believe him.
Now my daughters can't believe it when I tell them that my first work computer had no mouse and no graphics. It was entirely menu driven. There was no internet and no email. If you wanted to send a message you wrote it on a memo slip and put it in the person's pigeonhole.

Old money - I can still to this day calculate pounds shillings and pence and my inner voice occasionally chimes in in the supermarket "that's fifteen shillings for that little baguette and forty bob for half a dozen eggs".

My pocket money was thruppence a day to spend at the local sweet shop. Ages spend deliberating over the choices as you could get four sweets for a penny.