Things from your childhood that feel like ancient history now

[Echobelly]

• 3 TV channels
• Everything shut on Sunday (and local shops often shut Wednesday afternoons for some reason?)
• 1/2 pennies
• Only asking 'What does your dad do?'
• A lot of people having black and white tellies
• Holiday brochures

These are some of the things that I think will seem inexplicable to my kids!

Ah. Someone of my generation!

Not being allowed to do O level woodwork because I was a girl.
Wearing a vest my granny knitted and awful dresses she made, all to the same A line, sleeveless pattern.
No central heating
Standing outside in cold playgrounds in unsuitable clothing (anoraks weren't warm enough), particularly when worn with short dress and knee length socks.

Bus conductors.
Wearing a hat to church
Having a bath once a week
Wearing my brothers hand me downs!
Getting a bus to school with my sister when we were 8 and 6 (not a school bus)

The national anthem playing before BBC1 shut down for the night. Open University programming during the night on BBC2.

-Yes to 4 TV channels, then a 5th one - that was like a dawning of a new era.
-Ceefax
-Doing schoolwork and homework from textbooks only. Physically going to the library to look stuff up.
-Taping songs off the radio
-Using a biro to wind back cassettes if a bit of the tape popped out.
-Sony discman
-Blockbuster video!
-Waiting to see who was at Number 1 every week
-Landlines and telephone boxes

Life has changed so unbelievably, I'm not even 40...

Renting videos from Blockbusters, having to rewind them before taking them back

Not being able to use the internet because your mum was on the phone

Schools installed metal bars in playgrounds for children to swing on, over concrete.

We used to be given gas to render us unconscious in the dentist surgery. The gas caused terrifying dreams and apparently I could be heard shouting from the waiting room!

Going to the shop aged 7 or thereabouts to by cigarettes for my mother

Being hit in school by teachers and nobody batted an eyelid

Going off for the day and nobody thought twice about it - just assumed you'd be home for dinner

Myself and my sister, aged 10ish, cycling out to my gran's, 7 miles out in the countryside - no helmet, no phones, racing down hills at 30mph (we had speedometers on our bikes!) - no idea how we survided!

One double socket in the living room. That's all that was needed. The TV was plugged in, and other things occasionally - iron, hoover, etc. No need for more than two sockets. (We have about 20 in the sitting room, and it's not enough!!)

Lots more I'm sure!

Being told to get off the phone by your parents .
Changing channels manually .
Chilblains in winter due to no central heating
Cheese crisps
Ice on the inside of windows in winter
All the above

Encyclopedias! My mum had whole series of encyclopedia Britanica.

Dial up internet

Sinclair spectrum

Having “fairy bread” sandwiches for lunch: white bread with butter and sprinkles
Being smacked at school
No computers or internet
Dresses made by my granny
Ice on the inside of the window in the morning

@nimbuscloud my dd wears her brothers hand me downs. Why not?!

Vcrs
Public phone boxes
Are phone operators still a thing? Directory enquiries?

Using the Encyclopaedia Britannica to find out information for homework.

Cameras with film in them that you had to take to a shop or send off for developing.

Computer games that loaded through a cassette player. Spectrum zx?

Floppy discs.

Dial up internet

Faxes

Dot Matrix printers

Kirby vacuum cleaners

Oh yes, all of these! Except internet problems, I predate that.

As a student Sundays were so boring I just stayed in bed most of the day.

Watching an educational programme (dusty bin? I can't remember) at school on a massive TV with a tiny screen in a wooden box on wheels.

@DuesToTheDirt

Oh yes, all of these! Except internet problems, I predate that.

As a student Sundays were so boring I just stayed in bed most of the day.

We didn't have a phone at home.😊 You had to walk two streets to a phone box! I definitely pre date the Internet.

I had left home before my parents got a Betamax video recorder. Now that is ancient history.😁

Only being allowed to use the phone after 6pm or at weekends.

3 TV channels on rented black and white televisions.

Being expected to spend playtime outside at primary school, even when it was raining or snowing. We all crowded into 'the shed' which was basically just an area of the playgrounds with a roof.

Being expected to eat everything we were given - both at home and school. No choice. If you didn't like it, bad luck.

School dinners being served on proper china plates with water in glasses - even when we were 4.

Power cuts during the miners' strike in the 1970s.

Girls' clothes and toys that looked the same as boys' clothes and toys. I was looking at some photos the other day of my sisters and I in the 1960s (primary age). We were all wearing reds blues and greens. No pink or purple in sight.

No school uniform at primary school.

God the chilblains. Every single year 🥶

Making toast by holding bread in front of the gas fire. We did this to save money by not using the oven grill.

Eating mucky fat sandwiches.

Constant use of a frying pan. Most meals has at least one deep fried item.

Sharing bath water. Also using Fairy Liquid instead of bubble bath; matey bubble bath was a Christmas gift and a luxury.

Brentford nylons bedding AND nightie. The static held you in place in the bed and caused little blue flashes and crackles if you managed to pull yourself free. I thought it was amazing.

It's a wonder I'm still alive.

Shops shut midweek because there were lots more small businesses back then. They needed to open on Saturday so swapped that for a midweek day off or half day. We had a family business and never had a weekend away to visit friends or family as out weekend was only one day long.

Cycling off with my primary school friends to play in the brook all day.
Unsupervised children + Water + Rats! It's unthinkable now but so much fun but fun.

Those scary public health adverts with kids being blinded and killed. I've never touched a pylon though...

Fizzy blackcurrant & scampi fries after swimming every Saturday.

Being excited if I found a cartoon on TV outside if the allotted 2 hours of Number 73 on a Saturday morning

Going to play while the ZX spectrum squealed & crackled to itself while your game (dizzy, booty, paperboy) loaded. And buying game cassettes from the petrol station?!

Dropping in uninvited on family or friends on sunday afternoon. Thank goodness that's no longer a thing.

Catalogues. Freemans, Kays, Gratton etc. There was an autumn/winter one with loads of toys in, and a spring/summer one.
Sundays were deadly dull. I could have screamed with boredom and frustration. Roast beef lunch, packed off to Sunday School, salmon sandwiches for tea with one or both nans visiting, awful TV like Bullseye, a bath, and having to get ready for school the next day. No shops open, and seeing friends was discouraged, certainly when I was a child, a bit more relaxed when I was a teenager. About the only thing to look forward to was the new top 40 on Radio One.

The excitement at being chosen by the teacher for a turn on the school BBC computer when it was wheeled into your classroom once in a blue moon. Always had to go on it with one or two other children because there was no way everyone would have had a turn each year otherwise!

Oh yes! When the teacher used to wheel in a really high up, big backed tv so we could watch an educational documentary.