Things where you look back and think "that really was a different world"

[StealthPolarBear]

I am only in my early 40s so young and sprightly.
When I was even younger I had a job in a dentists office. Basically sending reminder letters out, printjng the letters, and addressing the envelopes. The dental records didn't have title on them so I asked what I should do. The response was i a woman's husband is also registered at the practice, she's a Mrs.
So I did that. Mrs for those respectable married women, and using my teenage innovation I decided any where I was unsure would be 'Ms'.
I got such a telling off. Apparently people complained as it looked like they were divorced.
There are times when the 90s seem only yesterday, and times like remembering that when they seem to have more in common with the victorian era than the present day!

Aroundtheworldin80moves
Anyone remember being allowed (as children) to visit the cockpit of the plane while on holiday?

Yes, and I loved it, so exciting!

Does anyone remember Quaq quao the stop motion animation using origami. There was a big duck and a little duck as main characters and everything was made of paper. It was in the late 70’s.

We were teaching dd about stop motion and making our own stop motion films with her toys. I showed her Quaq quao on YouTube and she loved it. She asked how they did it. I said they folded paper and moved them bit by bit like what we did but a lot more work. She yelled out ‘It’s blowing my mind.’

My best friends' mum bought a new Astra Estate.
We used to travel around very happily in the boot...

No one you knew travelled. Closet you got to it was Whickers World.

@KatherineJaneway

No one you knew travelled. Closet you got to it was Whickers World.

Haha funny, yes, this made me laugh

Remember my parents had a mysterious friend called Ian who was mentioned sometimes but I never met, always off travelling somewhere. Seemed like a very exotic character.

I’ve lived in Australia for 15 years and when we first moved here the phone calls were delayed and awkward. Now we have three way video calls with us and our parents, they join us for “dinner” or whatever. Amazing.
I tell my kids, my grandparents big change in their life was probably travel (they were born around 1910-15), aeroplanes and cars becoming normal. For my parents (born 1946) it was medicine - vaccines and antibiotics changed the world again, and for me, born late 70s, it has been technology. I had a totally tech free childhood but embrace it as an adult.

@exiledfromcornwall

When I started a new job in the early 80s there was an elderly female employee sitting opposite me who used to smoke like a chimney. Prior to this, while being trained for the job, three of the trainers used to share an office and they were all smokers. Every time the door of their office opened clouds of smoke would spill out into the corridor. Unthinkable these days.

Yes, I was pregnant in the early 90s and was not happy sharing an office with heavy smokers

When I was a child (early 1950s) children were taught to show respect for their "elders and betters" and learned suitable manners when they were small.

We never called an adult by their first name. All non related adults were Mr and Mrs, unless close family friends who were introduced to us as "honorary" uncles and aunts.

We were taught to say please, thank you, and excuse me if we wanted to get by. If an adult was speaking you did not interrupt, but waited your turn to speak.

Children were expected to amuse themselves when we were taken on visits, which we often were on a sunday. I remember being taken out to visit a great aunt who lived on the estate of a great lord. She has no toys for me to play with. I used to ask permission to go and play outside, but was told not to trespass on the estate. I amused myself collecting wild flowers, acorns and pine cones in the field.

Children were also expected as a matter of course to do chores in the house in echange for pocket money. We also had to keep out room tidy, run errands and help with big chores like washing and ironing. All girls were taught by their mothers to cook, sew, shop, handle money and do housework.

All this certainly taught children their place in the hierarchy and it was no bad thing.

I was at primary school in the 1950s. During the winter, the older boys (9-11 year olds) would routinely help the Caretaker stoke the boiler and fill it with coal.

@simitra My parents were born in the 50’s. But, the way they and their peers behaved in the 60’s and 70’s (many continued into the 80’s and some kept going in the 90’s) partying, drugs, drinking, sex, self-indulgence, hedonism etc seems to be the opposite of respectful, well mannered members of society. So, what happened? I actually am interested in why teenagers and young adults were so very hedonistic in the 60’s and 70’s when they were raised with such good values in the 50’s.

My grandparents were from the Great Depression era and Pa fought in WW2. Their values of everyone pitches in and helps each other without expecting recognition was in stark contrast to the values of their children’s generation (my parents generation) of focussing on the self.

I get that Oceanbliss. I was born right at the end of 1949 so I spent my childhood in the 1950s and had the same values outlined in Simitra's post indoctrinated by parents and school (except my mother didn't teach me to do anything, she didn't think I'd do it well enough).

Then the sixties happened. The Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan. From age fourteen onwards I was a wild child, at fifteen I started hitchhiking all over the country.

My husband was brought up the same but he was obedient .

When I eventually settled down and had a child of my own, I was determined that mine would be listened to, respected as an individual, encouraged to have opinions and allowed to go to places and do things that were forbidden to me. In fact, we took him to gigs, festivals and the like. He grew up better than me, was no trouble and never ran away from home.

Thx @Plumtree391 I think your post helps me understand a bit better. Perhaps being too strict and restrictive can result in rebellion. I do remember my mum and aunties telling me that my beloved nana was different as a parent then she was as a grandma and much more stricter with them when they were kids then she was with the grandchildren. She certainly did expect us to behave but was perhaps a bit more lenient. I looked at my grandparents through the lens of a grandchild.

I was determined that mine would be listened to, respected as an individual, encouraged to have opinions and allowed to go to places and do things that were forbidden to me. In fact, we took him to gigs, festivals and the like. He grew up better than me, was no trouble and never ran away from home.

@Plumtree391 I also like that you wrote this

Dnaltocs I think I must be the oldest poster on here, because no one else has mentioned that there weren't 140 old pennies in a pound.

I remember that armanted, and half a crown being a good 'tip' for a child from a visiting relative.

A ten shilling note enclosed in a birthday card was riches!

Eating sweets was not frowned upon .

Oceanbliss said: "My grandparents were from the Great Depression era and Pa fought in WW2. Their values of everyone pitches in and helps each other without expecting recognition was in stark contrast to the values of their children’s generation (my parents generation) of focussing on the self."

That would have been my parents' generation; I was born approximately four and a half years after the war ended but my parents were older and had been married a good few years before war started. My mother gave up work when she married and very much resented having to go to work part time; everybody had to do something, she was childless so had no choice - but she told me she hated it. My dad was in the army for five years.

I cannot begin to imagine my mother ever pitching in and helping anyone without any recognition! There never was a more inhospitable and unhelpful person, except where her own family were concerned. She was focussed on her image of being 'respectable', looked down her nose at others and was rather snobbish. I was a terrible disappointment. In fairness to her she did change as she got older, was much improved.

Mine and your parents' generation, which you say only focussed on themselves, were on the whole far more caring and generous in my opinion. Yes there was hedonism but we did care and campaign about
social issues resulting in many changes.

I can picture myself now with my long hair and duffle coat, carrying a banner.

Plumtree391 The ten bob note in the birthday card, oh yes I remember that. My uncle Wally did it for me once, just the once, but I lived in hope every year, waiting for the second post!

I’m another who had a very repressed and disciplined 50s childhood - religious too. There was very little physical contact between my parents and their children - a peck on the cheek was the limit - and I can’t remember having a meaningful conversation with anybody at all except a couple of teachers at school. Parents had problems in their marriage and their own unhappiness affected me and my brother. We all went to boarding school, but whereas theirs were quite humane, mine was a vile convent, for which I was totally unsuited. Later in life I described my childhood to a psychotherapist as floating free like a balloon, with no interaction with anyone. Unsurprisingly I went right off the rails in quite a spectacular way from 14 to 28, when I had my first child. I decided that my children would be loved and cuddled, talked to and brought up to feel they mattered and had agency (so were my brothers’ children). Happily the cumulative effects of a more liberal society, and particularly television (once they got one) changed my parents’ attitudes considerably, they became aware of the many faults in their religion (while remaining devout); they became far better grandparents than they had been parents, taking real pleasure in their grandchildren, they rediscovered their fondness for each other and for their children, and we were all much happier for it.

@Nat6999

When I started work for HMRC in 1984 there were no computers & every year being the lowest clerical grade we had to spend weeks writing by hand every change of tax code & tax return, then pack them all in envelopes. Each taxpayer had a paper file & a record card, we used to have to file away all the files that had been out to be worked & link any post up with files. Then when we got a computer system they were the old green screen type, slow as anything, it was rumoured the government had bought the system secondhand from the Midland Bank.

Sounds familiar! When I was a student in the mid 80s I used to work as a clerical assistant at the local DHSS office as they took on temporary staff (they called us casuals) to help with the annual change of benefit rates. Step counters weren't a thing then, but I must have walked miles every day, putting paper slips into the correct file in a vast bank of filing cabinets on each floor of the office. I also used to deliver internal post so was up and down the office continually. It was very dull - I used to set myself targets during the day to make it more interesting - but physically hard work and I was really fit whilst I was doing that job! All that is probably done in seconds with a click of a button now.

@borntobequiet

I’m another who had a very repressed and disciplined 50s childhood - religious too. There was very little physical contact between my parents and their children - a peck on the cheek was the limit - and I can’t remember having a meaningful conversation with anybody at all except a couple of teachers at school. Parents had problems in their marriage and their own unhappiness affected me and my brother. We all went to boarding school, but whereas theirs were quite humane, mine was a vile convent, for which I was totally unsuited. Later in life I described my childhood to a psychotherapist as floating free like a balloon, with no interaction with anyone. Unsurprisingly I went right off the rails in quite a spectacular way from 14 to 28, when I had my first child. I decided that my children would be loved and cuddled, talked to and brought up to feel they mattered and had agency (so were my brothers’ children). Happily the cumulative effects of a more liberal society, and particularly television (once they got one) changed my parents’ attitudes considerably, they became aware of the many faults in their religion (while remaining devout); they became far better grandparents than they had been parents, taking real pleasure in their grandchildren, they rediscovered their fondness for each other and for their children, and we were all much happier for it.

That's a very interesting post, thank you.

I recognise a lot of what you went through and your excellent attitude to parenting; am glad there was a happy ending.

Very first place of work was a laboratory.

Outside the lab spaces, the smokers would be allowed to smoke and carry on working.

I remember the introduction of the smoking room was met with a lot of protests from the smokers.

Apparently it stigmatised smokers who had to retire to this room to light up.

I grew up in a big city in the US with divorced parents. When I was 9, I went to live with my dad, so in order to see me more, my mum would collect me from school at lunch time and we would go eat out.

I would literally just walk out of the playground, stand by the kerb and wait for her to collect me, drive off, eat lunch, return to school. Never once did she think to sign me out or let school know and nobody noticed I left either. Nobody ever reported a school child standing by the kerb and getting into a random car at lunch. This was late 80s. Different times.

I was a teenager and young woman in the 1960s and for sure we went to nighclubs, pop festivals and so on. However we did not all turn into drug taking hippies! In fact I never smoked although all my friends did.

We still showed respect for our elders in the workplace. It was still Miss, Mrs and MR in the profession where I worked, and only first names between the younger staff. I would not have dreamed of answering back or arguing with a boss who had given me a reasonable instruction to do something.

To be truthful I only began answering back after I went to uni as a mature student where I was mixing with lecturers and professors who were addressed by their first names. They expected a robust argument in a tutorial! Later I spent a year working in the USA where I really did lean to defend my corner.

That doesnt mean I forgot how to say please and thank you when requesting and recieving a favour.

@simitra fair enough. I guess people don’t really change that much from generation to generation. Speaking for myself I value please, thank you, your welcome, excuse me please and have never forgotten to use my manners. I teach my young child to use her manners and that it is about showing consideration to others. I wasn’t born in the 50’s though, I was born in the 70’s. My child born in 21st century. All of us with so much in common and so many differences.

I’ve come across some very badly behaved, abusive, selfish, I’ll mannered, rude and entitled people from across all the generations. I have come across well behaved, lovely, respectful, kind, well mannered people across all the generations too.

So, I think the world changes, cultural shifts happen, certain values either become more valued or less valued but people essentially do not change much.

When I was young I believed people from a hundred years ago would have been completely different from modern people. That people 100 years into the future would be completely different from me and other present day people.

Then I read Shakespeare. It was in my late teenage years. I was suddenly struck by how people had similar issues all the way back then over a hundred years ago to people of today. And I realised that deep down we don’t really change all that much do we?

I’ll was supposed to be ill. Silly autocorrect

@hennybeans

I grew up in a big city in the US with divorced parents. When I was 9, I went to live with my dad, so in order to see me more, my mum would collect me from school at lunch time and we would go eat out.

I would literally just walk out of the playground, stand by the kerb and wait for her to collect me, drive off, eat lunch, return to school. Never once did she think to sign me out or let school know and nobody noticed I left either. Nobody ever reported a school child standing by the kerb and getting into a random car at lunch. This was late 80s. Different times.

I was in primary school in the 70s and one day it snowed heavily and the boiler broke. So we were all sent home...the kids whose parents were at work were palmed off on other parents nearby. Nobody was called to let them know...I went home with a neighbour and played there all day until my Mum came home from work.