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!

I remember needing to arrange an abortion in 1998 or 1999 and phoning the clinic and they asked for my number. As soon as I started with 0958... the lady on the other end shrieked "no, we don't call mobiles!!". I remember feeling really panicky as I didn't have a house phone and I thought I would have to go through with the unplanned pregnancy.

Telling off other people's children. It was perfectly acceptable when I was growing up. If someone told your child off, the reaction was totally apologetic and anger at the child for acting so far out of normal behaviour to prompt another adult to step in. The child was seen as having bought embarrassment on the family as their bad behaviour was an indication of how poorly they are being raised.

I live in a village. Everyone tells everyone else’s kids off here, if they are up to no good. No one gets upset by it.

@Hopeisallineed

I live in a village. Everyone tells everyone else’s kids off here, if they are up to no good. No one gets upset by it.

Here if you told someone else's child off you'd get a mouthful of abuse.

Privacy. There is absolutely none these days. Every building you walk past you're probably on camera, or a ring doorbell. Any stranger in the street could take a photo of you on their phone and you'd never know. Have a conversation in your own home and every device is listening!

Hiding from provident lady/milkman - turning lights off and lying on the floor until they left!!

Running out of electric regularly and having to beg neighbours for a token or using emergency credit on the meter .

Social work having a separate nursery/childcare for at risk children - which had bars on the windows, security staff at the door and was referral only .

Social work doing free clothing - they would literally take in black bags of second hand clothes to that nursery and I remember my mum rummaging to find stuff that fitted . They also at least once did our entire Christmas, I can’t imagine that would happen now .

Similarly - social did a scheme for at risk children over the summer - I remember the social staff in charge handing out cigarettes to those that smoked and turning a blind eye to alcohol … I was 9, I think the eldest was 16.

Sharing clothes with neighbours/friends - everything went through four others before me, neighbour had three daughters all older, then the next side had a daughter in between, then me, then my sister, then was passed onto someone else …

Similar at secondary school where a smoking bus was provided as was social spaces for smoking pupils within the school . Toilets used to be a blue haze of fags.

Having to go to post office to physically collect income support with a booklet like a cheque book, four £20 notes or something like each Tuesday - that had to buy everything .

Every minute of every day as I read this forum
At nearly eighty the world today is...…unrecognisable.

Makes me thankflul to be in what will be permanent isolation with the ongoing covid situation being so carelessly treated .

So I will go on living as simply as I do in peace from modern mayhem

Of course email and the internet is the great exception, and it helps me avoid the way the world is out there.

@PurpleSapphire

Privacy. There is absolutely none these days. Every building you walk past you're probably on camera, or a ring doorbell. Any stranger in the street could take a photo of you on their phone and you'd never know. Have a conversation in your own home and every device is listening!

Very good point

There were actually 240 pennies in a pound before we went decimal - twenty shillings made up of twelve pence each.

I remember using farthings (four to a penny) - they were legal tender until 1960.

My over-riding memory of home life as a child in the 1950s was how cold it was in winter with only one (coke) fire in the house. I couldn't believe it when I was house-hunting just a decade ago that there were still houses in Britain without some form of central heating.