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!

At the beginning of the lesson we had to stand for the teacher.
If the Headteacher came in we had to stand up until he told us to sit.
I loved quiet libraries. I haven't been to my local library since it became noisier than the local Co op. I can't choose a book unless it is quiet.

Teletext holidays!
Hiring videos

Having to phone each car insurance company for a quote. Seems odd now to think how much time that took as opposed to typing it once on a comparison site!

Ha, ha - haven't RTFT but page 1 has at least two references to "only 3 TV channels". Well, there were only 2 TV channels when I was little - BBC2 came quite late on. (Also, we did not have a TV at all - my dad wouldn't have one in the house).

I can remember having to wear fancy gloves to Sunday school/church/formal occasions, winter and summer and a hat. I was one of the last children to be forced to wear a "liberty bodice" by my mum - in the end she desisted as my older siblings said it was unfair as I'd be laughed at in PT. We did not have central heating (it was a luxury that not everyone had) so ice inside the bedroom windows in the cold months. Electric blankets were a wonderful invention when I was a little older - we had hot water bottles until then. I remember the coalman (men) coming in their lorry and unloading sacks of coals (both at home and at my primary school) - always very fascinating to watch and the smell was a bit like bacon, I think we all liked it. The poor men were black with coaldust. Ice skates were quite different - no ankle support in them but you could hire supports (that were just like calipers) to wear with your skating boots that helped. Health and safety was not a phrase so probably childhood was a bit more fun then. You were allowed to take risks, which possibly taught us a lot of useful lessons. Yes, to Sundays being extremely quiet - my parents did not let us put the radio on unless for a Sunday service.

Lots of stray dogs. The rag and bone man (with horse-drawn cart and later just a van). The French onion sellers on their bikes. Very slow roads - my dad bought our first car (great luxury) when I was 3 and the first motorway opened about two years later. We went from London to Pembrokeshire for a holiday and it took about two days with an overnight stop, sleeping in the car.

@mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork, I can remember (when I was very little) the milk arriving by horse and cart - the milkman used to put socks over the horses hooves to help with grip when it was icy on the road.
More recently (but a few years back), when I lived in a small village the local paper was also brought by a bloke with a horse and cart, but foot and mouth put a stop to it.

I remember the milkman and his horse. Old ladies used to run out to pick up the droppings to put on their roses.
The old lady next door but one to us had gas lighting and sometimes I would be asked to change the mantle.

Goodness, horse drawn milk floats! No, I think those were before my time though I do remember that our milkman had a reputation as a casanova with the housewives and my mum was very disapproving (we didn't live on Craggy Island).

10p mix ups with 10 items!

Texan bars, why they haven’t brought them back is a bloody mystery, they’d make a killing!

Playing out all day and parents not worrying.

Hiding behind the TV because the Cybermen on Doctor Who were too scary.

Body shop musk, dewberry, strawberry sickly perfume, passion fruit face wash (bring it back, please)