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?

God I used to love those Visitors passports! Handy for when going over to France!!

Oooh! Also remembering lovely boozy lunches on a Friday. From 12-3. Then Coroners put the kybosh on that as they tried to contact us (though the pathologists had their bleeps). Lovely pub lunches! Those were the days!!!!

I grew up with dial telephones, cassette tapes for music, videos you had to rewind, TV with 4 channels and no remote you had to get up to change channel, a black and white portable tv in my bedroom that you had to fiddle with the aerial to get a picture. The family car had only 4 gears...
I'm 36. My DC think I'm ancient

@CherryValanc

"Appreciate it might be a typo @lightlypoached, but what's "car in paper" (in your OP)?"

I'm guessing it was meant to be carbon paper. For those who don't know, it was a special sheet coated with blue pigment. You put it between two ordinary sheets of paper. Whatever you wrote (pencil or biro - fountain pens were no good) or typed on the top sheet would appear on the bottom sheet as the blue pigment was pressed on to it by the pressure. Hence the more general phrase 'carbon copy' for something being an identical copy.

My DDs are in their mid-20s and the first time I felt really old was when I overheard the conversation:

DD1: "Do you remember when there were only videos and no DVDs?"

DD2: "Err.... no. But you're bigger than me"

I explained the "bigger" and "older" thing but it made me realise how quickly things are moving - there's only eighteen months between them!

I now frequently see things at museums that were part of my childhood:

Barbie dolls that had accessories like cat-eye lens sun glasses and outfits with names like ""Riptide";

telephones with spiral cords that used to get twiddled up during emotional calls with your boyfriend (and, ten years before, getting your first telephone and giving everyone at school your number - pointless as very few had telephones as well and, because you were five, you weren't allowed to use it anyway);

blue-bags for the last rinse of white clothes (and also for wasp or bee stings - can't remember which);

"dollies" and washtubs that my grandmother had.

I’m slightly younger than OP.

I think the weirdest thing was that at my first school we actually used slates for a lot of lessons. My kids thought they’d disappeared in the early 20th century but I was using them in the early 70s. We used them in a similar way that the children at my school use individual white boards.

Also big bars of pink soap that were cut into smaller pieces and put by the sinks at school. We had much nicer “white “ soap at secondary though.

Three channels. Black and white TV until the late 70s and no way of recording it. If you missed it..... you missed it!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

"When I was very very young, the milkman came with a horse!😂
Who can beat that?"

I don't know about beating it but I do remember the rag and bone man with a horse and cart, and I also remember the old man who came round on a specially modified bicycle to sharpen knives, garden shears and the like.

Milk at school
Seatbelts becoming law in front seats of cars and then later for back seat passengers
One year passports
Paper driving licences ( wonder how kids now get into pubs at 17!!)
Wearing long dresses to birthday parties

[quote SisyphusDad]@CherryValanc

"Appreciate it might be a typo @lightlypoached, but what's "car in paper" (in your OP)?"

I'm guessing it was meant to be carbon paper. For those who don't know, it was a special sheet coated with blue pigment. You put it between two ordinary sheets of paper. Whatever you wrote (pencil or biro - fountain pens were no good) or typed on the top sheet would appear on the bottom sheet as the blue pigment was pressed on to it by the pressure. Hence the more general phrase 'carbon copy' for something being an identical copy.[/quote]
Spot on. Carbon paper. You could get red fancy carbon paper too. For special occasions

@SisyphusDad I remember the rag and bone man too and his distinctive call 'raaaaaggnboooooooone'

My mum once traded all of my dad's precious 78s to get a dress for my sister. He was not pleased (dad). Rag and bone man was. We used to get given a balloon by the rag and bone man if we gave him anything. I seem to remember him collection old newspapers?

The blank look from a work experience student when I explained typing on the handheld scanners was 'like texting on an old mobile' - he'd only known touch screen!

I didn't think I was particularly old (I'm 35) but not too long ago Remember The Time by Michael Jackson came on the radio and I told my nephew about the video being debuted on TOTP and how my auntie, uncles and cousins came to our house especially so we could watch it. He thought I was joking because you can watch videos on the internet
This led to a discussion about dial up internet, finding things out using encyclopaedias and renting videos from the local shop - at which point he declared me 'old, but not ancient like Nana because she had to make a coal fire and wash clothes in a funny machine (a twin tub)' 😂

I remember when one place I worked in had a word processing room, for producing leases etc. Literally a whole 3m x 3m room for a desk, keyboard, screen and printer. The printer was like a huge typewriter but without the keys and each piece of paper had to be put in it manually. There was a stash of old manual typewriters under a desk which the senior partner wouldnt let us throw away "just in case", and the older ladies in the office (who were probably in their late 50s in the early 1990s) could recall when they were fancy new high tech. Three of the partners had open coal fires in their offices too - used in place of a shredder.

A man coming the door each week to collect the pools money
Sharing a party line telephone with Hilda from two doors up
Putting 50p in the box attached to the back of the television
I'm 52

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.

This was still normal when I was growing up (I'm 28) and still - or until very recently - was happening on busses, trams and trains in Sheffield!

I had fountain pen handwriting classes at school. No biros were permitted but we were allowed to choose between a cartridge refill as opposed to an ink well.

A hour or two a week purely to learn to write beautifully. This was a normal state middle school in the early 1970's.

My mum and dad used to rent a tv from rumbelows. It was so exciting when the 'new' tv would arrive.

Answering the phone by saying the number

I was in school when decimalization came in. Prior to that we had to be prepared and spent hours upon hours learning to convert old money to new. We were stressed out because we were told if we didn't learn, we wouldn't be able to buy anything because we wouldn't know what anything cost. The day came, I ran to the shop bought a loaf and sweets with old money and was handed change in new money. An old woman asked "How much is that in proper money" I knew, I had spent weeks on this. The shopkeeper just pointed to a conversion chart on the wall. My jaw dropped, all that work for nothing! The day after, not one child mentioned old money again, it was gone forgotten immediately.

I remember the milk collection man picking up our full churns from the milk stand every day, loading them into a flatbed Leyland truck with a chain looped around to stop them falling off. I can remember his name too.
I remember the green shield stamps and the taste of them as we stuck them into the books. My mum still has things she ‘bought’ with them.
I remember taking a ha’penny to school to buy a jammie dodger biscuit at break time from the tin our teacher kept in the cupboard (if I was really lucky I had a penny which would buy three biscuits!).
I remember the pink train tickets we had every day for our journey to school. They had different coloured stripes down the said each day so the inspector knew if you were using an old one.
I remember steam trains going past my grandparents’ field and waving to the driver (years earlier my dad had done the same and the driver used to stop and pick him up and take him to the end of the journey on the footplate and drop him off on the way back!).
We used to disappear for hours around the countryside with neighbours kids. It felt like complete freedom, but I know my parents knew exactly where we were. My dinner would always by a dried offering from the bottom of the oven several hours after everyone else had eaten theirs.
Saturday teatime in winter was crumpets toasted over the coal fire and Horlicks while watching Follyfoot, Black Beauty, Whacko!, Basil Brush, Catweasel...
To the pp mentioning Watch With Mother, there was Camberwick Green, Trumpton and later, Chigley. The Herbs, The Woodentops, Hector’s House (with Zsa Zsa and Kiki),Mary Mungo and Midge, Pogles Wood, Andy Pandy, Tales of the Riverbank.. then later in the afternoon, Play School and the Magic Roundabout etc.
I remember typing lessons at school and hating them. My friends and I used to throw our paper all over the playground and spend the lesson chasing it around to avoid going to the lessons.
I remember Winfield brands at Woolworths- my first pair of American Tan tights came from there in a white and red box. I had some blue cream eyeshadow from there too. I can picture the little container, but can’t remember the name anymore.
I feel ancient now (I’m 57, but still feel 20 years younger) because my children’s friends are getting engaged and married and it feels like minutes since I was doing the same!
Time moves much faster than I do!

@GETTING LIKE MY MOTHER.

I too remember the horse pulled bread van, the baker had a nosebag filled with food for the horse when he stopped.
One TV channel that didn't start until late afternoon.

Walking to school on my own from the age of 6, can you imagine the outrage if that happened now, but we all did it.
Saturday morning pictures, 6d old money and a penny each way for the bus fare.

78 rpm records, my first being Elvis.
Bomb sites everywhere, perfect playgrounds for kids.
No phone, used to have to walk to the nearest phone box.
Freezing cold bedrooms, getting dressed under the bedclothes.

I remember green shield stamps. I had the job of sticking them neatly into the book.

I remember when it was quite proper to leave a baby in the pram (big silvercross type cartridges) outside the supermarket for fresh air.

@LaMarschallin my DD when she was younger said something about 'those fat DVDs' she was referring to videos!

I also remember the Corona Man (I’m not sure he’d be so welcome now!) coming down the lane on Saturdays, his wares looking like jewels on the back of his van. I always chose Dandelion and Burdock or Cream Soda. We used to get money back for the empty bottles too which we were allowed to keep.
We also used to have bread delivered and my sister and I would fight for the crust with honey when we got home from school. It was soft in the middle but so crusty and crunchy. Delicious!
Thinking about these now, they do seem forever ago!

@lightlypoached the modern version of the rag and bone man has just gone past my house, every Thursday her comes past with a tannoy asking people to bring out their shit

[quote lightlypoached]@Lovelydovey slam door trains, yes commuting on those until the 2000s and that was in London. [/quote]
and small 6 seater compartments with the door from outside straight into them.