Batshittery that was normal back in the day

[Pleasetakeaseat]

Smoking upstairs on buses

Smoking / non-smoking areas in restaurants

Smoking rooms in hospitals

Teachers going for boozy lunches and teaching afternoon classes pissed (my English teacher was always smashed by 1pm 🤣)

Chopper bikes with that brake thing in the middle that could easily disembowel you if you weren't careful

White van men picking up their underage girlfriends from school

White van men thinking schools were a good place to pull

Little kids being sent to the shop on their bikes for their parents booze and fags, and no law against shopkeepers serving them

The ridiculously high climbing frames over concrete slabs. The metal roundabout that would spin so fast you'd go flying off the edge and take your skin off on the ground.

Leaving home at 8am on a Saturday morning and not coming home until 9pm. Parents not worried at all about where you might be.

I'm still amazed at children's wards not allowing parents outside of visiting hours - I was in hospital for a couple of weeks, aged 10 (so late 80s), and I could only have visitors from something like 2-4pm. Of course, my parents were at work then, so were barely able to visit (thankfully my dad's boss allowed him to change the time of his lunch hour so he could call in for 20 minutes each day, and my grandparents were retired and came to see me as well).

I can't imagine leaving either of my kids in hospital on their own for any more than a few minutes; they'd be really scared. Let alone not being there when they came round from a major operation, as my parents had to do (in fact, when I was taken in to hospital I was rushed to theatre with peritonitis, and they weren't sure I would pull through - my parents were told to go home and give the ward a ring in the morning to see how I was).

A handy booklet for new mums was published by the New Zealand ministry for health in 1973 (a photo of the best bit did the rounds on Twitter some time ago). The advice given under the heading “Smoking” amounted to one short sentence: A nursing mother should not smoke while handling her baby in case ash drops into the baby’s eyes.

Telling slightly crossly to stay away from the dodgy men you told them about!

My sister fell out of the back of a van once when she was about six. We were sat in the back and she was leaning against the back doors. Luckily we had just pulled away from the traffic lights when it happened so we were only going slow 😬 no injuries but we were all shaken up!!

There were no call centres. "Answering the phone" wasn't a job but a part of one. Imagine. If you had a question for or an issue with a company you rang them up, someone who had the authority to make decisions and who had information would answer you, they'd sort it for you and then go back to their work.

If you bought a newspaper (remember them?) you didn't have to spend 20 minutes googling trying to figure out whether or not the pictures in it were fake.

When you went to the shop you didn't have to put your own shopping through. The shop gave you bags to take your stuff home in.

When you went on holiday to Europe you'd get through passport control really fast because you were an EU citizen. You could take as much shampoo in your suitcase as you wanted and you didn't have to buy a space for the suitcase.

Lunch was an hour, paid, away from your desk.

Crazy, backwards times alright.

Babies in prams left outside shops
Grubby babies
Using olive oil to get a tan
Stray dogs
Going home from school for lunch
My mother got married in an empire line dress and my grandparents rented my parents a house in a far away town to dilute the shame - 1960.

@Pleasetakeaseat thank you. It was acceptable behaviour at the time (late 80s-early 90s). Even when I told my mum about one of the drivers who was notorious for leering at and touching up female passengers including me and for commenting on their bodies, she said 'it probably makes him feel young again"

Lol yes.

"Hello, is that Mr Sillitoe? Have you got a silly toe?" Shittest prank call ever and not even funny but we thought we were Oscar fucking Wilde.

At secondary school, the girls were taught how to use a typewriter, learn shorthand and how to use a fecking iron and sew! Only boys played football. Other sexist tripe too.

Some things have improved.

I was the opposite.i wanted to do home economics because of the cooking aspect...no your a boy
Thankfully those days are long gone.70s Scottish education.

Safety was a lot more lax back then. People were less keen on seatbelts, the occasional jaunt in the back of a pick up truck wasn't frowned upon as a kid, newsagents sold fireworks (bangers) to youngsters, later got banned.

On the subject of prank calls we learned there was a sequence of numbers you could dial into a public phone box that would connect you to what i think were freephone numbers in America. You would of course then utter nonsense and other obscenities down the line. There was also copious knock a door run and getting a chase off local weirdos. You had to make your own fun in those days, Kids these days dont know they're born.

There was also copious knock a door run and getting a chase off local weirdos. You had to make your own fun in those days,

🤣🤣

So funny.

• What game are we playing?
• Let's do Waving At The Paedo
• Right enough

Haha it's true. Looking back we were awful and if kids did it today you'd be horrified. But back then there was so little else to do, getting a chase would be the highlight of your evening.

The chase and laughing with fear trying to outrun a nutcase

My mum left my sister in hrr pram outside the butchers in the 80s. She got her shopping ,but forgot about sister and had to go back🤣.

Stray dogs! Gosh yeh. I don't recall seeing many dogs on leads tbh. Or any owners picking up dog shit.

Olive oil to tan - used this or baby oil. My friend hired a subbed so we would drench ourselves in oil and do 20 mins under the lights.

I'm honestly surprised I'm still alive ,some of the things I got up to😂

No seatbelts! A child of the Seventies and fondly remember my Dad deliberately throwing the car around corners so my brothers and I would tumble around the back seat. We loved it!

Remember our local GP smoking fags during your appointment and welcoming a nip of whisky when doing a home visit (remember when they existed?) on a freezing Winter night!

I went to private school and our female teachers were not allowed to wear trousers. Women were also not allowed to wear trousers at several of the smart restaurants in our town.

Clearly remember my Mum carefully rubbing Ambre Solaire SPF 5 on our shoulders but then fretting we wouldn't get a nice tan (this was in Juan Le Pin in August FFS).

Kids these days will never experience that manic level of self inflicted fear. Will he set the dogs on us, will he get his shotgun, will they call the police?! Who knows, lets hurl abuse, hoof the door and run like the wind. The humble chase, batshittery of the highest order.

And yeah its true nobody picked up dog shit in those days.

Being able to hitch a lift with lorry drivers and crossing the channel to France with them for free.

Picking up dog shit would have put you firmly in the local weirdo category.

Although, there weren't as many dogs so there's probably the same amount of shit lying around, overall.

I remember babies sleeping in immaculate Silver Cross coach-built prams outside of the bakery while their Mums had a coffee inside.

Also those kids in their little pushchairs with the funny rain cover that covered the whole pushchair, but had a hole for their head to poke out and a hood included, so you just saw a little wet face in the tipping rain. (Scotland)

Then the older kids getting smacked loudly in the street and you could hear the howling getting gradually quieter as it receded into the distance.

I also remember travelling 25 miles once in the boot of the estate car, because my parents had loaded a park bench from my Grandma's house into the car. That was a lot of fun actually.

I absolutely loved my school teachers in secondary school.

I had one teacher who had severe alcohol problems and was unbelievably fierce, but a terrific teacher when we got to sixth year. He taught me so well that when I got to university I got the third top mark in my year, and it wasn't a subject I was especially good at. He had to leave his job mid-year because of the drinking and we missed him terribly.

I remember one year during school Christmas assembly, while the church minister was talking, it started snowing on the stage. At first he thought it was a planned effect, and then he looked up and realised that all the windows above the stage were broken.

I remember the desperate poverty brought about by Thatcher closing the shipyards. One of my classmates being murdered by another, and a third becoming pregnant and having to leave. Then another boy who was expelled died while stealing a car. It didn't bother me at all, oddly. I was just busy doing my school work and was entirely unaffected by it.

I remember my Mum's first car, and her saying that she didn't have enough money to buy the other wing mirror. She saved up and had it added later, I think.

Oh dear, and I remember a very kind friend who was moved by the council from a house to a flat and they insisted that her dog was put to sleep so that they could be in the flat. That was hard. I watched her try to divide 12 by 3 in class once, and after 40 minutes she gave up.

Following on, when you had a hysterectomy, it was 2 weeks in hospital, based on
a) needing time to physically recouperate from major surgery
b) not going home post-surgery and have start doing housework/physical lifting (esp small kids) and not running around after your husband

It was bloody despicable what some teachers put kids through,I was one of them and I still remember the humiliation in front of the whole class.im also 70s Scottish kid

😂😂😂😂😂
Excellent!