In the old days…

[Timetochangegonzo]

Did people converse differently with each other. I’m watching a (modern, award winning) film set in 50s / 60s and everyone is incredibly formal with each other. Even with their family. There’s little laughing and joking and a lot of….well, words….

Now I know films aren’t real life but it’s such a common thing to see this amongst middle class families in media, I wondered whether anyone that lived in that time could confirm whether this is reality and life was much more formal? Or it’s all just bullshit.

I live alone, currently in a very small place so the work computer is often occupying the table and I eat on the sofa with a lap tray. I do hoover the sofa though.

I also drink morning coffee in bed which my parents would never do. They did tea in a pot when it was two of them and never drank tea in bed.

As a child adults were always Mr or Mrs Surname, never first name. The only adults I remember calling by their first names were very close friends of my parents. Today the supermarket delivery person kept calling me by my first name and it annoyed me.

I don’t think that day to day conversation was more formal, however we were deep in the West Country and spoke using a lot of dialect words and local accent, both of which are pretty much gone now.

I find the extended adolescence strange as well. I was working full time at 16 years old and expected to be a good worker at my job. My father started full time work at 15.

I don’t think I ever said ‘Love you’ to my parents. And yet my DD said it to my Dad every time she saw him.

I was born early 60’s. We quite often ate meals on our knees. I don’t remember much formality, Jusy addressed people by their first names in the 70’s and 80’s.

Shop assistants counted out change because they didn't have tills that worked it out for them. The total price would be rung up on the till but the shop assistant had to work out the change from the amount that they were given. The easiest way to do that was to count it out.

I echo a lot of what others have said.

As a child in the 1960s, all our meals were eaten round the table. No television or radio on
at the same time. We had to ask to leave the table and we were expected to eat everything we were given.

I never saw my grandmothers outside the house without hats and gloves on. I never saw my grandfathers without shirts and ties.

We got properly dressed as soon as we got up and never put on pyjamas until bedtime.

We spent the evenings together in one room because there was no heating upstairs.

We children were expected to entertain ourselves most of the time. We could watch children's programmes like Jackanory and Blue Peter after school, but otherwise we occupied ourselves with imaginative games or activities like playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles, painting/drawing/crafts, Lego, or reading. In the summer we would outside a lot playing ball games or on bikes and roller skates.

Our parents never told us they loved us. But we were in absolutely no doubt that they did.

Language was more formal, and we definitely addressed neighbours and parents' friends as Mrs X etc, but there was still plenty of laughter and fun.

Why all this horror about people you don't personally know calling you by your first name? My late parents, who were in their late 80s when they died, couldn't have cared less, and in my work (receptionist) if I referred to someone as Mr. X they would usually correct me and ask me to call them by their actual name.

I was born in 1959 and there wasn't any formality in my family life, and of course people laughed and joked. I had a collection of postcards from a great-aunt, sent in the late 1890s/1900s, and there were a lot of funny things written on them.

However, I don't live in the UK, we are probably less stuffy here 😊

Was this a British or US film you were watching OP? I watch a lot of old US films, actually made in those times, and don't recognise what you are talking about.

My late DM's side of the family lived in Southend, Essex,and in all the photos of of her parents and aunts and uncles on the beach,they're all dressed formally. The men in suits with a tie and hat,and the women in posh 'frocks' and hats!

I grew up in the seventies - every meal was at the table . I had manners drummed into me from an early age , please and thank you and never ever speak unless I was spoken too (strict middle class family ) . I was told never to ask for things even at relatives houses .
we once visited an elderly relative when I was 6 who offered my mum a cup of tea and biscuits and me a drink of squash … she brought everything through but forgot my drink and I sat there and said nothing until she finally realised 45 minutes later as I was too scared to ask for it !
When relatives sent me money for Christmas/birthdays , I had to write formal thank you letters , never saying money , but instead Thank you for the gift as my mother said mentioning money was uncouth 🙈
I never refered to other adults by anything other than Mr or Mrs Surname
I always had to answer the phone by saying Town and phone number .
As far as takeaways are concerned .. I didn’t know what one was … I had my first McDonald’s at 15 ..

a lot of dialect words and local accent, both of which are pretty much gone now.

In the sixth form (early 70s), I helped with a project that was recording old people in the Black Country who still spoke Middle English! To think it stuck around in various pockets of England, each with their regional versions, for nearly 600 years and now, 50 years on, it's gone.

I used to understand it perfectly, as many old people spoke it when I was small, and I could speak it with errors. It had a lot of Germanic structures.

English does go through fairly sudden & radical changes - it's one of its strengths. It's kind of sad when a version dies, though.

This is a fascinating thread. I agree that a lot is class-inflected. I was born in the late 60s - my family were upwardly mobile and definitely aimed for what I think they thought of as ‘bohemian upper middle class.’ They were self-consciously informal - calling someone ‘Mrs’ or ‘auntie’ was definitely considered a bit ‘naff’ (they meant ‘common’, but it was common to say common :-)).

And the fact that parents seem to be almost proud of how they have infantalized their children. My 17 yr old cant take a bus, my 22 yr old can't walk home in the dark, my 12 yr old doesn't know how to cross a road by himself.

I'd be ashamed.

I am 47 years old I have never eaten breakfast cereal not at a table, I can only imagine the mess especially with DCs. I occasionally eat lunch at my desk, but if I am at home yes I would eat a sandwich at the kitchen table ( tbf I don't like sandwiches so more often have soup or salad). My DCs ( ages 17 &19) eat all their meals at the table as well.

If I had children I'd not impose family dinners. We got out of it as teens, partly due to luck with after school activities taking up so much time, and partly due to parents having other commitments. Most of my friends don't get their kids to do family dinners.

They really should

I'm a Gen X latchkey kid! Our mum's were first to get the contraceptive pill, burn their bras and were off out working. They were Queens!!

So growing up in the 70's we didn't have this formal conversation thing. We came home to empty houses, ate something left out, then played outside with our mates until it was dark.

You did however call all adults Mr & Mrs. I recently went back to my hometown to see some school mates and still called their parents Mr and Mrs. Felt like Perry from Harry Enfield at 57!!

But just to point out this was my experience of being a Gen X, not everyone's was the same.

Oh yeah and I NEVER laze around the house in my PJs. Always have to get dressed.

Wow @GarlicGrace, didn't know that! Wonder if the school kept the recordings.

I can't stand not getting dressed either and again dressed both my DCs before breakfast.

My parents friends were first names though.

80's child

It makes me giggle the odd time I've been called Madam in a shop (as in 'thank you Madam' or 'can I help you Madam') as I either look round for my DM or DGran or feel like a naughty 3yr old being told off by DM

In the 1960’s you would never have called your in-laws by their first names.

That's nonsense. My parents called my grandparents, aunts & uncles by their first names and nicknames.

Grew up in 70s. Definitely always dressed at home and all meals at the table, pjs for bedroom only. Never ate in front of the tv. Takeaway had to be collected, delivery appeared in the 80s. My inlaws definitely talked a bit like that very formal accent you're hearing, but also in the 40s-80s you would rarely/never hear a regional accent on film, voices are very trained.

My parents (born late 1920s) certainly dressed formally in their 20s & 30s, less so as they got older although my dad usually wore a tie.
We always ate at the table (although they stopped when elderly), & my family still do, mostly. They always got dressed, so do I, but my adult children don't necessarily.
Neighbours (1960s/70s) were all on first name terms & were auntie & uncle to me. Parents in law were addressed as if they were parents to both, ie "mother" or whatever.
I would say their lives became more informal as they got older, or rather, they moved with the times. The only people they would have called Mr & Mrs were maybe parents of neighbours, that sort of thing. My friends' parents were kind of nameless both to me & my parents unless they became friends & then were on first name terms with my parents & auntie etc to me. Boyfriends' parents were first names even in the late1970s & friends' parents who are still alive now are always first names. I don't think there's anyone I would address as Mr & Mrs now.