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?

@SpinningBob Awesome bargains to be had on Teletext holidays. Got a last minute flight to Stoupa in the Peloponnese for an absolute song (flew out 8am next morning.) One of the loveliest holidays we've ever had 😊

It seems that teletext holidays were actually awesome then it does seem crazy to me that a lot of these things do actually seem very old, and yet I’m still so young

Silk Cut advertising in Smash Hits.

Pretending to be a tree while watching Play School

Top of the Pops was the one show you HAD to watch.

I remember watching Entertainment USA to find out the latest music from the US. Listening to Robbie Vincent on Radio 1 as he played all the soul and R&B music from the US. Had guests like Anita Baker or would play the latest 12" from a huge star, you'd never get to hear that otherwise.

I signed into Amazon the other day and they reminded me I'd been a customer for 19 years. I first shopped with them in 2001!

I am not that old but I remember ringing my friend on the landline during the Easter holidays from school. I lived in Leeds, and she lived in Ilkley, which anyone who is familiar with West Yorkshire will know is about 15 miles away. This was classed as a "long distance" call and it ended up costing my parents about £40 because it was during the day at "peak time".

Office stuff:
Gestetner machine for doing multiple copies - pink liquid to correct any typing errors.
Memos sent to no more than 6 people - not copying in whole departments/world and his dog like now.
Meeting rooms did not exist - most companies had a board room only which were rarely used.
Job seeking involved looking the Evening Standard or Times, sending in your CV and hopefully being called a week later for an interview. If you got offered the job (normally called you back within a couple of days) you could be starting there a month later at the most.
Always down the pub on Friday lunchtime at the very least.
Going to disco with office mates on Thursday and Friday lunchtimes where a girl in another department was paid to 'go-go' dance on a rock in a lit up fountain to the side of the dancefloor - was in the West End.
Men from office sometimes being cagey about where they were off to at lunchtime but us girls knew they were off to the pub where strippers were performing on certain weekdays.
Phones ringing constantly. Got to the stage where I would answer my home phone with the name of the company I worked for.
If you wanted to make a call outside of London you had to go through the switchboard.
Calls from/to abroad were a major highlight.
Postroom was somewhere you would go for a laugh and chat.

I remember an outside loo.
A rag and bone man.
An electricity meter you had to feed with coins. We were poor so often went up to bed with a candle, wee willie winky style.
I am 52.

I remember having to have an A to Z to find your way about.

Reading maps in the car or before you left.

My mother got her whole dinner service for 12 from Green Shield Stamps, including vegetable dishes and a gravy boat. Parents used to get loads of GSS with the heating oil we used and it was my job to stick them in the books. I still have the complete service (but never use it!).

My first married house, 4bedroom detached, was £19,000. And my first pay was £72 per month net !

@Miljea My copy of "The Usborne Calculator Book" has a brief explanation of reverse Polish notation (invented by a Polish mathematician). It has no = key: instead you enter the numbers, pressing "enter" after each number, then press the appropriate function key.

The Usborne books of the 1980s also referred to "micro-computer". How quaint!

I remember some old traffic lights still being on black and white poles, with the word "STOP" in the red light. Bonus points if you know what a Panda crossing was (they were short-lived, and long before my time).

With my teenage pupils, I feel old when I explain to them about old TVs which were not flat-screen and which had a high-pitched whistle which some adults couldn't hear, and the Millennium Bug; they hadn't even been born then!

When I was a child/teenager:

Rag and bone man came down our street
Mum told me to always travel in the last carriage with the guard (Northern line)
Carbon paper in typewriters
Hanging up phone after 39 minutes and redialling to avoid it showing on the itemised phone bill
Four new phone books through the door every year
A-Z permanently in my bag
Phonecard permanently in my bra
Phoning Teletext to make a comment on the 'teen chat' section and watching avidly at 6pm the next day to see if it would be published
Squidgy keys on my uncle's Spectrum computer playing Pinball
Flat hunting in Loot
Having a weird 'affair' by post with a bloke who advertised in Private Eye - we sent each other sexy photos taken in passport photo booths

@SomersetHamlyn I too remember "Backchat" on Teletext, and 'Zine on Channel 4. I often wrote in to both of them.

Ten shilling brown paper notes
Half crown coins
Nobody having a phone except the village doctor. You used the phone box 4d press A orB
Watching the coronation on my grandmother’s newly bought TV.
Returning to uni every term by steam train
Everything increasing in price when decimalisation came in.
Petrol 4 shillings & sixpence a gallon & every petrol station had a chap who filled your car.
Our first house, a three bed semi detached cottage cost £3, 950 & we needed a mortgage to buy it & they only took one wage into consideration ...the husband’s usually.
My first months pay as a fully qualified teacher...£54.

Having metal roller skates that you had to tie on over your shoes.
Holding up a broadsheet newspaper across the fire place to get the fire to "draw".
Having a spiral cord with a light switch on it dangling over the bed.
Electric heaters high up on the ceiling - no use whatsoever!
Having to use a pisspot if I wanted a wee in the night, when staying at my grandparents' house.

Remember watching Tomorrow's World , they were so excited about a new invention called Cling Film . The presenter covered a bowl of something and upturned it over his head - amazing !

My DDad bought home some stickers from the petrol garage, you stuck them to your car and they looked like bullet holes, my DB and I loved them !

Has anyone mentioned sticky backed price stickers on goods at the supermarket. Printed off on a little gun.

Tills where the person had to tap in each single price and work out the change.

Taking your own egg box to the poulterers and saving a halfpenny.

Hand knitted cardigans - oh how pleased I was my mother bought me cardigans. And liberty bodices

At M&S when the sweaters used to be folded on the shelves in sealed cellophane packets and the bras came in boxes. The woven St Michael label.

Getting your photos developed at the chemist and waiting a week for them to come back, with a free roll of film, and excitedly opening the little envelope with your photos in only to find that they're all dark, wonky, blurred and have a finger in the way or a head chopped off. Can anyone remember those stickers they used to put on them that essentially said your pictures were crap? They still went in the album though!

My 3 DS's 27,23,19 currently wearing clothes and trainers described as " retro"
eg Reebok trainers I wore in the '80s
Explaining what a " party line" and the regular usage of phone boxes using 2/10p when the pips went!
Black and white TV
No computers or consoles
I was thrilled when I had a Casio calculator( not even scientific) for Christmas
I'm 56!

Sticking my Mums Co-op stamps in a book on a boring Sunday afternoon... The forerunner of loyalty cards I suppose)

@Gingernaut

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

We're the Ayds diet things little chewy cubes? I think I remember those

Going to the shops with a note to buy my Mum 20 Guards. I was given 5p for sweets, my friend got 10p and shared. For 7 and a half pence we got a packet of crisp each and 20 blackjack, fruit salads and milk chews each! I'm 54.

Our first phone was a party line. You shared your line and phone number with someone else. When you lifted the reciever you very often heard them speaking and had to wait until they finished.
Also listening to Radio Caroline on my transistor under the bedcovers.

"Quality Street in really classy wrappers."

I looked up about Quality Street recently. Apparently they were set up to be mass market chocolates. Chocolate boxes had been mostly only available to the wealthy before. Quality Street wanted to use colourful wrappers to make them seem exciting and luxurious but available to ordinary people on festive occasions; they looked like jewels!

You used to have to have masses of room in offices, libraries, schools etc for storage. All that paperwork had to be filed somewhere!

Part of the reason shops didn't like people using cards for small cost items etc is because banks charge a lot for shops to process these transactions. I used to work in a big London shop and they didn't take American Express I believe because they charged a particularly high fee to retailers.

I really miss the fun of choosing and having stationery. Pens, pads, letter writing paper and envelopes in exciting colours. Sharpeners and rubbers etc. I still buy a pocket diary every year which is ludicrous because I hardly ever use it. Just like having one!