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!

@Babdoc same age as you, I remember first trip to family planning clinic to get the pill, I was single and made to sit in a separate area to the married women!

I remember back in the day when I worked HSBC prev Midland Bank we used to get a days holiday to go Christmas shopping ! I now work in a call centre and get timed when going to the loo !

When I lived in London in the late 80s and 90s you could still smoke upstairs on the buses. I remember feeling quite queasy getting the bus.

I remember sending out acknowledgement cards by post in the 90s. I wrote hundreds of letters in draft, gave them to my line manager to approve, print the final copy and then get him to sign it. Then file away a copy. But in many ways I prefer the letter writing thing. There wasn't the expectation that everything would be immediate or urgent.

Remember the first time l saw someone with a mobile. We were at dinner in London with friends. We live in lreland. The dh had this big brick size phone and put it on the table. During dinner it rand and he went off chatting business to someone. I thought he was a total show off just trying to impress us with his big important business deals!! Never thought it would catch on.

I went to boarding school aged 11 in the late 90s as my parents were working in Saudi Arabia. We could only keep in touch by letter or very occasional phone call. When my dad went back to Saudi in the 2010s he and my mum would just put Skype (and then FaceTime) on in the evenings and then “hang out” with each other as if they were in the same room!

We did used to go down to the pay phone on the ground floor of our boarding school to make prank calls though (mainly to Childline as the number was on a sticker on the phone or we’d call 118118 and ask for the number for silly places.)

Talking of Saudi Arabia, when you got to the airport the staff would manually check your bags. If you had a magazine or a tape with a picture of a woman on (like the Spice Girls) they’d colour in any skin with a black felt tip pen. They’d confiscate anything Christmas related and we had to crush up our Easter eggs so they didn’t look like Easter eggs (and had probably melted by the time we got home ). If we were travelling with just my mum, my sister and I would have to go through to the arrivals lounge, get my dad and bring him back through to customs so that he could tell the staff that we were allowed into the country!

I remember the first time I saw someone with a 'mobile' phone. It was in 1992 and I'd just started working and we had some sort work night out, maybe a Christmas do.

One of the directors was carrying what looked like a lorry battery with a normal house phone with a dial attached to the top of it.

Am I right in thinking that in M&S you couldn't pay by card? Cash, cheque or store card only.... Even in the 90s?

This thread is fascinating. So many of the things I'd thought had been around for a very long time, actually haven't been here very long at all.

I’ve used Ms since the 1970s, for myself and for other women unless I know they prefer a different title. In one social services job in the 70s, I was told it was only used for single mothers!

I worked with a guy whose first job in the late 60s included keeping the office fire going. It was a press office and they delivered the roneoed press releases to the local media by taxi.

I’ve been Ms since the late 70s. I still resent having to be at people’s beck and call all the time because I have a mobile. I also resent the friend who texts me constantly and gets arsy when I don’t respond. She wouldn’t have done it when she had to write and post a letter!

My parents giving me a BT Charge card so I could phone them from the phone boxes on campus when I went to uni.

Being asked "smoking or non-smoking" area when going into restaurants.

Starting my first job in 1999 and being told to write memos and put them in internal brown envelopes to send messages to people within the building. Even at that point I though WTF, why not use email, as I'd been using email for three years already at uni.

Similarly, part of my role involved putting job adverts into local papers. I had to get the final copy from the designer (literally a piece of paper) and book a bicycle courier to take it to the newspaper office before their deadline. Always an adrenaline rush to get it there on time. I guess there would be a similar feeling of needing to meet the deadline these days, but not quite the same when the copy for job adverts can be emailed in seconds.

You could think about having sex with a man you'd been dating without reckoning that you should tell him that you don't do anal, like being choked, or want to wanked on, slapped in the face or spat on.

Those were the good old days!

I too have been Ms since the late 70s.
I remember being surprised on discovering chip and PIN on debit cards when I visited New Zealand in 2003. They weren’t current here, or not in my experience.

Cheque guarantee cards! I once paid my whole student rent in £50 cheques
Though tbf it was only £200 for the month.

@StillWeRise

NO Ms was always intended as equal to Mr, a title that did not indicate marital status. It was never intended to indicate being divorced.

I think you've made this up. I have used Ms from being an adult. I'm married. Never divorced.

And smoking in pubs and restaurants only stopped in 2007 - that’s mad! I spent my whole youth inhaling other peoples smoke.

No mobile phones - having to actually turn up on time as there were no mobile phones to be able to text or call if you were running late.

No home computers or laptops - writing essays at university by hand, writing letters by hand.

Using tipex to get rid of mistakes.

Knowing how to spell as no spell checkers.

Knowing telephone numbers.

Having a filofax - no online diaries.

Smoking at my desk at work, in the cinema, on the bus, on planes.

@Tippexy

Well to be fair, Ms was used for divorced people, and still is to this day! It’s just that it’s become a little more popular for non-divorced women now too.

Well, in the sense that some women are divorced, that is true. But it was/is equally used for unmarried and married women. It was created and intended to be used as a title for any women that didn't indicated any particular marital status, exactly the same as Mr for men.

I'm 60 now and have been using Ms since I was 18 as I felt it was the correct feminist thing to do.

In a perhaps similar vein - dial-up internet connection. If anyone was on the internet, that engaged the landline - and this was in the days before everyone had a mobile phone. You were billed for time on the internet on your phone bill. Brrrr bdeeeep brrr brrr ...

I had CompuServe dial up back when, not only were you billed for the time on the phone, the internet was also metered by the minute! I had a timer by the computer to make sure I didn't lose track of time.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

PE knickers. Without skirts over the top to do cross country in the local park.

We campaigned... and won... football shorts.
School girls campaigning for longer school wear... must be the only time in history.

(Those things were hideous though. They were bright purple too.) (The school has black leggings as pe kit now)

We had royal blue PE knickers in secondary school.

We did mixed sex classes and trampolining you weren't allowed to wear the PE skirt because it was a 'safety hazard' so the girls aged 11-14 would be in tshirt and PE knickers while the boys were in shorts and tshirts.

I’m in my late 40’s.

At 18 I worked in an office and a boss told me to ‘come and sit on my lap and watch what comes up’ Everyone laughed.

We didn’t have a landline (mobiles didn’t exist) and we would go to the nearby phone box with our change and hope no one was already in there. If they were we would wait patiently for our turn to use the phone.

Both of these seem so odd now.

So many of these resonate, especially around telephones. I used to save my 10p's to ring home from uni at 6.00pm each Sunday ( but only of course at 6.00pm if there wasn't a queue!

My most shocking though is that I had a Saturday job, with my mum at her estate agency. I was 13. I carried out the 'accompanied' viewings to empty houses! Viewers would book an appointment, turn up at the office in their car. I would merrily get in, go with them to the empty properties and they would drop me back....

I've just thought of another one - checking your pigeon hole at uni to see if you've got any post from home. The soaring highs of finding something, and the crashing disappointment if your pigeon hole is empty.

Do university campuses/accommodation still have pigeon holes?

We had pigeon holes in uni. I was in an all female hall. It was chaos on Valentines Days - tables full of flowers, and the excitement, joy or crushing disappointment of searching through the cards. I had only been seeing a boy for a month and it was a long distance thing - I was so happy with my single red rose!!! It only lasted 3 months but I will never forget how it felt, even surrounded by the huge arrangments some others were collecting.

@StillWeRise

NO Ms was always intended as equal to Mr, a title that did not indicate marital status. It was never intended to indicate being divorced.

I agree. And originally it was ONLY used when corresponding in writing. None of this wondering how on earth to pronounce it.