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

Omg! You so rarely see it these days.
Someone will blame that on immigration

There used to be convalescent homes to help people recover from surgery. I don't think they exist any more.

Having to have your DHs permission (written, to boot) to be sterilised or have a hysterectomy

Yes, we often sent ladies for a couple of weeks post hysterectomy, esp if they had a big family. We knew they needed the rest!

My mum told me that recently that she had to get my dad's permission.
That was definitely wtf mum .

Yep

I was born in 1978, and the maternity ward nurses brought round a trolley of Guinness each evening, to build women up after birth. Full of iron allegedly. DM hates Guinness but they used to force them to drink at least one bottle each night.

The babies were taken off to the nursery each evening to be cared for overnight, so at least they weren’t left with the drunken mothers.

My kids can’t believe girls weren’t allowed to wear trousers at my high school or do woodwork and that we got the belt for minor infractions.
When we went on a school trip as 12 years olds the teachers went to the pub and got pissed while we roamed the streets of London.
They’ve never experienced smoking in public places so it seems unbelievable to them it ever happened.
Casual sexual abuse was rife.

80's in Northern Ireland. In the car with my dad and him pissed with a tin of beer in between his legs, being stopped by police who did nothing, they we're just interested n guns back then.
I thought we were the only one's left outside the pub in the car. Not always with food and drink in the heat too.
Half my family didn't even have licenses ever either.
Primary and half of secondary being run by nuns .
Being beaten up by teachers.
Humiliated too.
Nit nurse.
Being left outside all day. No-one gave a shit about you.

We gave cancer patients a sherry or whiskey before lunch and evening meal to stimulate their appetite. I kid you not. Bottles kept on drug trolley.
And the Brompton cocktail would be classed as a weapon of war today
But the peppermint and coedine concotion for post-op wind was amazing!

I remember having a fire evacuation from our brownie camp house during the night because the leaders had been smoking in a cupboard to hide the fact that they were smoking on the annual no smoking day. I was really chuffed with myself because I had got into my sleeping bag fully dressed and still with my wellies on, so was ready for action. I had two other brownies standing on my feet outside to get off the cold gravel.

My elderly neighbour when I was three years old was called "Mrs John Smith" (name changed obvs). In those days women apparently took their husband's first name as well as his surname.

My brother and his friends used to go "skip diving" after dark (which was the equivalent of ebay in those days). He got my first bike from a skip that way. It had solid rubber tyres and one brake.

Going back further, an elderly lady told me in the 1990s that in her youth she had worked at the telephone exchange in our small town. She said that in those days if someone called the fire brigade in our town, she had to run outside and ring the Large Bell. Then the firemen in the town would hear it and ring the exchange to find out where the fire was. But everyong in the whole town would also ring to ask, and then for ten minutes she would just be shouting the location of the fire into the phone irrespective of whether the callers wanted to know or not.

Husband and I got together in 2002 - I can remember him smoking on the plane when we went abroad.

Not as many bones in their diet. Too much calcium.

Wow I had noidea that was a thing!

I can remember Independent Taxation coming in, I worked for HMRC then, it took us ages splitting up husband & wife records.

Smoking in cars, buses, pub, I hated the smell and still do to this day
Being sexually touched up and harassed and it being what men do
Avoiding being left alone with certain uncles
Being raped and nothing done about it, cos ya know men have needs
Being leered at by the school male teachers
Laughing cos the priest in the school very obviously fancied one of the students
Drinking in the fields before the school disco
Dial up internet
Babysitting brats of kids for 2 quid at 11
Drink driving in cars
No seat belts or limits to people in cars
Being told I would be dropped off at the orphanage regularly
Being starved, neglected, living in filth
Not being loved or wanted and made feel very isolated cos of it
Parents screwing anything with a pulse
Being in the middle of parental fights
Watching my father threatening suicide on the regular
No esb in house for years
Mice everywhere in house
Teachers shagging and getting drunk during school time
Watching a give birth program after I had given birth at 16 and no one caring about me when I did, no help offered, nothing
Metal roundabout and that feckign see saw that nearly took your virginity
Knick knack and run
My mother smothering herself in olive oil and cooking to leather
Scutting on the back of the huge caterpillar trucks on building sites, the drivers making us get into the cab so we didn't get killed
Roaming from day to night no one knowing where we were
Being dropped at my boyfriends house for an entire day at 13
My sister running away from home and parents not caring

Thank god for change, I'm not sad most parts that things are better for most of us

People here still leave their ddogs tied up outside the shop - I've done it myself often. Never heard of any being stolen.

Lots of those things still happen surely.

Not every business has a call centre.

My town still has a newspaper, as do many others.

We don't have to put our shopping through ourselves, unless we want to, and some supermarkets here still pack it for you. Some shops still provide bags.

The smoking thing is extraordinary. I remember the dire warnings from the smoking lobby about how it would lead to a breakdown in society(!) and then it just happened.

As with all threads like this, some posters would have to be about 147 years old or channeling a Catherine Cookson character to have actually experienced the things they mention. False memory syndrome is a real thing.....

Several calls asking to speak to Dave.

Then a final call

’Hi, Dave here. Any calls for me’….

We could hardly stand for laughing 🙄🙄🙄

There used to be a dog that not only roamed the neighbourhood, but the school yard, scrounging bits of lunch. Getting slung out into all weathers at primary into a yard with no shade (Australia) and “no you can’t go and get a drink of water, we’re in a lesson.” The nature table, where kids brought in various creepy crawlies and assorted wildlife. The poisonous spiders had to stay in their jam jar though. One boy brought in a poor little bandicoot in a box because his dad was going to kill it for digging up his garden. The snakes that got loose...

I’m early 40s, and I remember girls in my school who were probably about 15 talking about their 19 year old boyfriends picking them up 😀
I suppose nothing wrong with it as long as it was innocent and they weren’t sleeping together, but I think majority were, so yes it was dodgy!

No false memory, some of us just old bustards and grew up before the Internet and mobile phones

No one does it in the towns where I live and work. A few years ago someone left a dog outside a supermarket and someone took it and ended its life in an awful way.