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!

A tiny black and white telly.

Reciting "The Daffodil" at the school concert:
"She wears her yellow sun bonnet,
She wears her greenest gown" .

Lav roll like tracing paper.

As small children, climbing in to the back of a wooden framed Morris Minor van and being driven along without seat belts or seats for "fun"!

Smoking carriages in trains.

A tiny schooner of bottled fruit juice as an "exotic" starter when dining out.

My dad bringing home some black olives, a clove of garlic, a piece of Parmesan, , a bottle of olive oil and a packet of spaghetti from the Italian deli for the first time, circa 1973!

@1forAll74 - my dad's parents were also the first on their street to buy a telly, also for Coronation - neighbours crowded around the window to see the tiny screen in the big box!

My ds is currently loving his cooking lessons, I told him my year group was the first one that taught girls AND boys! So I was subsequently the first girls to do woodwork, I loved woodwork.

My dc can't believe how little TV there was when we were young. They find cassette tapes hilarious and have no concept camera films being developed.

I’m 34...

Being off school and watching the BBC2 educational programmes all morning. The one with the pencil that drew letters. Always remember the “flick”

Lucozade Sport in foil pouches when ill (I was ill a lot as you can tell from my memories!)

Children’s TV only being on in the morning and after school until Neighbours.

Listening intently to the top 40 on Sundays from 4pm to record whatever songs you wanted and the general excitement of the number 1 spot (often the same single for 40 weeks 😂 )

Ringing into MTV to get a video played.

The joy of going to Blockbuster to pick films and renting games for the Super Nintendo and N64!

Taking the radio to a shop to be mended.

Yes!

Going to collect your holiday photos, being disappointed to see a few with the “oops” sticker on where the picture hadn’t come out well. Always a few at the end of the roll of the dog/cat/kids in front of the gas fire 😂. Taking the pictures to your aunties, friends etc and everybody sitting and having their turn looking through the stack of photos, “by the edges!” And trying not to get the order mixed up.

Also in the early days of texting, going back through a message you’d written to your best m8 and cutting out as mny vwls as pos 2keep it undr 160 charactrs.

Ahhh I’d forgotten about Sugar magazine!

@TwoZeroTwoZero

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.

Oh yes, the TV being wheeled into the hall by the Janitor, later we had an enormous Video recorder but early on we had to gather in the hall when the programme was broadcast.

Old foreign TV programmes during the holidays. White Horses, Robinson Crusoe, Belle & Sebastien "Belllllle, Bellllle"! Oh, and the creepy Singing Ringing Tree, what was that about?

socially sustained I remember the transparent orange paper which came with the Lucozade bottle as a thing of wonder; only brought out when you were ill. And being in bed (once recovered) was really boring and isolating without screens of any sort.

And I remember as a child getting "properly" ill with chicken pox and croup which required a week in bed. We lived in a freezing E Midlands city which had frequent smog, no central heating, ice on inside of the windows. I spent two or three days in bed having had five teeth out by general anaesthetic gas at the dentist , which was a horrible experience, and made me throw up.

Owing to improved medicine, education, living conditions and nutrition, I think "general" childhood illnesses are much less severe nowadays (perhaps with the exception of asthma and allergies?) and we underestimate how much things have improved:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-42324984

Condensation on the inside of my bedroom window in the morning and drawing pictures in it lol
Phone boxes
Tippex
Dial up internet
Having to wear my coat inside because the school heating had broken down.
Open coal fires. Both sets of grandparents had them and both were very reluctant to get central heating installed as they thought it was unhealthy. I don’t think my paternal Nana relented until the early 2000’s! I can still remember the wall of heat that would hit you when you entered her house on a bitterly cold day. CH really isn’t the same!

Being out all day with no money, drinks or snacks. Usually involved rivers or ponds with urban legends about children drowning.

Sitting on smelly rubber gym mats watching programmes for schools.

Progressing from black boards to overhead projects with acetate sheets at secondary school.

The Commadore 64 my dad bought (I had campaigned for a ZX Spectrum and was disappointed) to help me get a head start in coding 🤣. All I did was play games (£1.99 tapes from the market.

Being in Army quarters we never had a phone so queuing up for the phone box on Christmas Day to call family back in the UK.

Pen-pals and writing paper sets of pastel paper in very 80s shades.

Plastic pastel shades jewellery and hair accessories from the market.

A free toy in your cereal box
Paper dolls and clothes which you cut out of a book
Calling all of the friends of your parents Auntie and Uncle
Playing jacks
Big PE knickers which you wore of your pants to preserve modesty!
Taking 5p to school to buy a packet of crisps and playtime.
Having to wear berets to school
Playing cricket in the street with all neighbourhood children, as hardly any cars going by.
Neighbours bringing in your washing when it started to rain, and letting themselves in because you never locked the back door.

Why Don’t You, The Monkees and Batman on TV in the holidays.

^^ wore over your pants!

Having a landline installed ( not really allowed to use it and the bill was scrutinised!)
Playing out all day til dusk with parents having no idea where we were.
Making up games to play
Having to get up and change channels on tv (and smacking the tv to get a better picture!)
The Ddog ate much the same as we did, and survived and thrived to almost 15 yrs old, no fancy dog food then!
Boys having better choices in life than girls, in school and work
The expression ‘nothing to eat’ very often meant exactly that!! Literally nothing. You tried to get asked to stay for tea at your friends.
Wearing clothes and shoes til they fell apart
‘Sunday best’ clothes
Knowing the seasons, and when the fruits and berries were at their best. Fruit only available in season, but soooo much better than today’s weak stuff.
Sheets, blankets and eiderdowns
Neighbours leaving apples, pears etc in a bag on your doorstep.

Oh you knew that you were at death's door when the cellophane wrapped bottle of Lucozade was brought out.

Then later, hope for a full recovery blossomed, when you got egg-in-a-cup for lunch!

When you were so poorly that the Doctor visited... but were told to ‘sit up nicely’ and made to change night clothes in honour of his visit!
YY to the orange cellophane Lucozade, sold in the chemists.
An aspirin was the cure-all
Calamine lotion for bites, stings and sunburnt skin.
Buying food loose, that was weighed out in front of your Mum.
Children buying cigarettes and alcohol for their parents. Nobody batted an eyelid!

Gosh I haven't thought about big PE knickers (worn over ordinary knickers) for years! Ours were green (vom emoticon).

I remember our primary school tuck shop selling "sweet cigarettes" and "confectioner's tobacco". What were they thinking?

And just imagine, once we had to watch telly at a set time!

Travelling across London by myself on the tube - to school age 7/8 (3 stops with a change at Victoria), all around London alone age 11.

£1 coins replacing £ notes
Half pennies being withdrawn from circulation
The idents for the different ITV companies (you knew Rainbow was on when you saw the St Paul’s cathedral image)
ZX Spectrum
Friends pirating albums onto tapes for me
Top 40
Smash Hits
Ice on the inside of the windows
Chill blains
Cruel and unusual forms of punishment at home (this probably not normal)
Phone boxes
Reflectors that clipped on bike spokes free in cereal boxes
Roller skates that fastened to your shoes
1 computer at school (though our school only had 2 small classes so we did get a go)
A teacher who had never used a computer so I had to set it up and load games - aged 7.
School milk
All ladies were called “Aunty”
Learning almost nothing at primary school as we spent our days doing PE, swimming once a week, drama, pottery and gardening.
Awful food
Cars that didn’t start if it was cold or damp
Everyone did all subjects at high school but being aware that this was a recent development
Phone on a special semi circular phone table in the hall
A tonne of coal delivered by truck
Europeans being described as “continental”
Racism
Sexism
Boredom
Channel 4 starting
TV was rented

Yes to learning almost nothing at Primary school!
We sat outside under the trees in sunny weather making daisy chains and bark rubbings. We also went on nature walks and played rounders.
Still had to trudge to school in the snow.. but no lessons really, as we were in a state of excitement! No proper lessons after October half term (learning the nativity play) or after May half term (practising for sports day)
I was quite surprised how much school work my Ds had when he started at the same school 25 years later!

No fridge, so food was kept cool on a stone slab in the larder, the slab was wetted in very hot weather. In summer, milk bottles were kept under terracotta pots that had been soaked in cold water.

The TV was rented, as was the radio, Radio Rentals was the market leader.

Getting Sky and feeling like millionaires! Then it upgrading to Sky Digital.
Ringing up Sky Box Office to order a film, you got a special pin to unlock the channel. The films started at set times so you didn't want to miss the start! At least with a video you could pause.
Tv and video not having remotes
Getting blank VHS tapes as a present, having your own tape that had your favourite shows on! We had loads of films taped off the TV and used to love watching the old ads on there.
If you wanted to know something you had to go the library or maybe look it up in a fact book you had at home.
Giving 2 rings when you arrived at a friend so your mum knew you were there

@Papergirl1968

Birthday parties where the girls (no boys invited usually) wore long dresses, or sometimes bridesmaids dresses. Parties were always at home, not at indoor play areas or whatever like now. It was games of pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, musical statues etc, with a birthday tea of sandwiches, crisps, and sausage rolls. No party bags but a balloon and a slice of cake in a napkin to take home.

I remember this fondly, particularly my brown floral party dress. Before party bags were a thing I remember sometimes being given either a small writing set (very tiny envelopes and coloured note paper) or a beaded purse. I think woolworths sold them in my town.

My DC are amazed that when I was a child we would ask friends if they were 'on the phone' (ie did they have a phone in their house) before swapping numbers.

I know quite a few people only one generation before me who had what now would be classed as minimum wage jobs (factory work etc) who lived with their parents for a few years after leaving school and saved enough to buy a house outright when the got married in their 20s.

At school, Health & Safety had yet to be invented.

My primary school grounds had a huge pond complete with stepping stones, it was a rite of passage to fall in!