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!

Dog shit all over the place !
No such thing as poo bags

Paraffin heaters.
Slideshows.
Xylophones.

Snoopy
Green shield stamps
Post office accounts

Travellers cheques.

No central heating.
We had a tin bath when I was very young - I'm only 54!
No remote control for the telly
One phone in the house.
Very cold winters and ice on the INSIDE of the windows.
Washing your hair over the sink

Has anyone mentioned inkwells in school desks? Ink monitors went round filling them up from a large bottle of ink. Learning cursive writing with nibs dipped in ink and being shouted at if you dripped ink or scratched the paper.

Smoking in cinemas and having to stand for the national anthem after the film ended if you weren't quick enough to escape.

Definitely not the good old days!

Watching Bagpuss on a Sunday morning before all the religious programmes took over.
Cooking “flying saucers” on the gas which was a round toastie sandwich maker.
Learning to type on a typewriter and how to blot out your mistakes.
Singing “like a virgin” and wanting to be Madonna.
Playing tennis in the road.
Going to the phone box to make a call.
Watching Name That Tune, 3,2,1, Celebrity Squares, Blankety Blank, Dallas/Dynasty/The Colbies, The A Team, Magnum, Knightrider, Chips,
Wearing shoulder pads, fluorescent odd socks, leg warmers, deeley boppers, Sony Walkman......

@Londonmummy66 Yes to the 5 min cartoon at 5.35pm. I liked The Perishers and Willo the Wisp. Then it was the news then Nationwide.

Willo the wisp was brilliant
Also loved Rhubarb and Custard

Button A and B in phone boxes
2 TV channels
'real' money!
Marital home not being jointly owned
Able to buy oxalic acid at the ironmongers
Pure wool 10p a ball
Cross ply tyres - completely crap
Metal trays in service trays - like prison ones
Evensong on Christmas day
Gasometers - before N Sea gas
A range in the morning room

@nimbuscloud I bought my small DD a DVD of Willo the Wisp and she LOVES it! Some of the jokes about Mavis the fat fairy haven’t exactly dated well, though 🤦‍♀️

@Xiaoxiong re London phone numbers - they changed from 01 to 071 (inner London) and 081 (outer London) in the mid 80s. Then shortly after they added the 1 so 0171 and 0181. A friend’s dad worked for BT and she told me they knew in advance about having to add the 1 so goodness knows why they let businesses change their number twice!

No seatbelts in the back of either of my parents cars.
The only charity I remember were these sunny smiles photos of kids that we had to sell.

Pop and crisps in car on a Sunday when parents in pub
Taking tin Marbles to school
Skipping (with washing line)
Whip and Top with chalks
Conker fights
Harvest Festival at assembly and taking apples
Cycling Proficency Test
Manchester Tart (sponge jam and coconut)
Dripping and bread
Chicken in a basket
Long traffic jams on way to seaside

Only having an outside loo (full of spiders)
The excitement of dad bringing home a television for the first time. (two channels only).
Going to the shop to buy a comic each week.
Our family of seven all going on holiday in a loaned Morris Minor Traveller.
Having to arrange to meet people at a certain time at a certain location.
Walter's Potato Puffs (best crisps ever )
The old (pre-decimalisation) money.

Reading the back of the cereal box at breakfast for something to do... pre- phones

@cosmopolitanplease

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!

Yes to the gas - I had teeth out when I was about 11 and had nightmares whilst I was under - I wet myself. The dental nurse cleaned me up - I remember trying to keep my eyes shut whilst she did this. I had to try and avoid looking at her for the next 20 odd years I went to that dentist!

Harvest assembly singing a rousing ‘we plough the fields and scatter’
Proper assembly every day with lots of singing and if you were good at playing the recorder you got to stand up at the front and play along to the songs.
Having to take shoes off to sit on the reading carpet before break time and not being able to go outside to play until shoes were back on - tears stinging your eyes when battling with a particularly tricky buckle on your sandals while everyone else ran off to play.
Country dancing and maypole dancing.
Nit nurses and verruca socks and swimming caps with 3D rubber flowers.
Roller booting everywhere - even across fields and over stiles.
Banging your roller boots upside down on the garage floor to make sure there were no spiders inside.

I remember going to one of the first Asdas with my parents. It felt strange as we were so used to buying everything from the market or local shops.

Drinking from the garden hosepipe on a hot summers day
Ice magic
Sunburn
Several kids piled loose into the back seat of a car
Proper snow, that soaked you to the knees

Sitting or standing on the back of my dad’s pick-up when he was giving me a lift somewhere.

Getting 20 sweets for 10p from the half penny tray.
Being given a paper bag and spending ages choosing which to have.

Having my school uniform for Infant school made by the local drapers, because it was cheaper than ready made.
Walking to school on my own in the top Infants, and going home for lunch.
Primary school featured lots of singing and percussion bands and there were town wide competitions that our school used to enter.
Round pin plugs and sockets with black toggle switches.
Outside loos and no bathroom.
Department stores - I grew up in Watford and there were three, Clements, Cawdells and Trewins (which was taken over by John Lewis) and Gade House, the Co-op department store which gave you Co-op stamps if you bought furniture there.
First question after breakfast on a non school day was always 'Can I go out to play now?'

Oh god yes to the gas at the dentist. I think I was about 13 and I came to as I was being walked down the corridor to the recovery room by two nurses. I didn't faint exactly but more fell asleep again, I think, and had to be carried by the dentist, which must have been no mean feat as I was already adult height, albeit much slimmer than I am now!
I remember a new library, health centre and small shopping precinct with a Spar being opened in our village in about 1973, replacing the old dilapidated library, and the GP surgery which was part of the doctor's house.
Like annie335 I also remember going to one of the first Asdas at least one of the first ones around here. It would have been mid to late 70s, I guess, and we bought folding garden chairs. It was very exciting as it was unheard of to be able to get all your shopping including non grocery items under one roof and in the evening!

We've been reminiscing about our childhood discos today. My DD thought the Music Man song was one I had made up. We got Alexa to play it... And demonstrated all the actions.

Both DDs (8&9) think both DH&I have yet another screw loose now...