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

That's horrible. No-one thinks twice about it here.

I grew up long before the internet and mobile phones, and I agree with the earlier comment about false memories. Lots of these things were not common in any time in my experience.

Mum told me that to be a civil servant you had to have at least a degree. women were told not to wear bright lipstick the final decision was up to the manager if he thought it was acceptable or not.
you had to ask manager in things like banking if you could marry or not then when you did end of your career
no matter what the weather the babies were put out in a pram for an airing every afternoon.
someone said about convalesence homes we used to see one when we were on holiday patients were sat out enjoying the sunshine
holidays in a caravan with no running water or electric all day spent on the beach digging playing cricket sleeping and evenings playing cards. once a week we went for a meal as a treat. once a week being sent to the shower block on our own for shower, going to the loo block on our own regardless of who was there!

We weren’t allowed to wear trousers to school, this was in the early 2000s. As far as I know the school still doesn’t allow it.

Has anyone seen the Bill Burr sketch about angriness in the 1980s? 😁

@ForGreyKala I'm very pleased some of these things weren't experienced in our pasts.

Memory loss is a true thing, but just because you didn't see or know some of these things in your past doesn't mean it didn't for others. Seriously, I've heard much worse and not fake news.

But there's other threads for that kind of stuff.

The white dog poo is definitely true. When we were looking down, it definitely wasn't at our mobile. It was at the poo.

@PossumintheHouse
"White van men what!? Was this really a thing?"

@Sobeautiful
"Not necessarily white vans, mine had a motorbike"

Mine had a motorbike too! 🤣

My daughters just informed me it's now Vauxhall Corsa's!

Would genuinely like to know which you think are false?

I was born in the 50’s and can remember practically everything mentioned here.

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

Pretty sure I'm one of the oldest posters on this site! And I did suggest some posters are experiencing false memories, not all of them.

Anyone remember the smell of nightclubs and bars immediately after they banned smoking. The reek of body odour.. Bleuch!
I am sure that caused a massive leap forward in deodorant technology.

Which bits are considered false memory?
I'm 55 and can vouch for:

Smoking in offices (in 89 our govt office had banned smoking at desks but you could still smoke in the loos, on the stair landings and in the bar - yes we had a bar - plus 2 specific smoking rooms). Also tea lady with trolley and a bell.

Smoking everywhere in public spaces.

Seat belts - my parents never bothered until they were mandatory. And we didn't have them in the back anyway. My mum said she was considered ultra cautious as she would secure my carry cot on the backseat with bungee ties - once you were old enough to sit up tho you were on your own. Also travelling in the back of my dad's transit van on unsecured sun loungers.

Dodgy ice cream vans with pervy blokes commenting on your tits (id have been about 11 when that started). Same bloke would be going round our estate evenings/weekends and then outside the secondary school weekdays.

Children weren't allowed in pubs - so yeah we sat in the car with a bottle of Coke and a bag of crisps. This was considered a treat!

Pervy Church/ youth group leaders.

Just being left to get on with stuff during school holidays. Mooching about.

Teachers known for throwing chalk and board rubbers. One teacher stuck a kids head down the toilet. We all knew cos the school had a weird design with single toilets on the landings outside the classroom

Underage drinking. Our town had a pub that was famous for it.

Parents not batting an eyelid at older boyfriend (I was 15 - he was 26. Annoyingly he didn't have a car)

2nd, 3rd and 4th helpings of school dinners (1970s'), or as the history teacher used to put it "Gannets, anymore?"

Psycho PE teachers

Having my mouth washed out with soap, or rather, rammed down my throat.

Calling all your mum and dad’s friends Uncle or Auntie. Getting confused as a little kid because you didn’t know who was a relative or not. Having to sit on their knee and give them a kiss.
Older female relatives spitting on a hankie and wiping your face. Eeeuuchh.

I did this for English A level - one of my favourite quotes!

You didn’t need a degree to be a civil servant ever, that’s utter nonsense.
Also, proper stout is probably quite good for pregnant women and breastfeeding women (in moderation) as it’s got lots of iron and b vitamins. I remember craving ale when I was breastfeeding.
I used to sometimes go to neighbours Xmas parties or summer bbqs with my young kids, and yes, the kids would run amok, adults would get a bit pissed and we would walk home around midnight in the dark. Happy memories 😁
Some of the things mentioned were really bad ( the 70s/80s overt racism and sexism) but honestly I can’t help feeling like the 90s and 00s were a bit of a golden age. Much more enlightened wrt that shit but waaay less uptight compared to now. Fun was allowed without endless risk assessments and anxiety.

I was an apprentice hairdresser in the late 90's and clients were allowed to smoke while having their hair done - unbelievable with the amount of chemicals around their heads! I remember I hated cleaning the ashtrays, it was one of the daily jobs to wash them and I used to heave and gag, I'd rather do the toilet!

I think some of the older boyfriend being acceptable stories would have depended on your parents. It would not have been acceptable to a lot of parents in the 80s or 90s for their 14/15 year old daughter to go out with a grown man. I remember one friend who went out with a 22 year old at 15 and us other girls being shocked her mum allowed her to go to his flat.

Society turned a blind eye to it. A bit like domestic abuse.

Absolutely not true that to be a civil servant you had to have a degree unless you are going back to the start of time. I became one in the mid 80s and worked with women who had started work in the 60s aged 16 or 18. They were all computer programmers or other technical roles.
Plus there have always been admin roles.

Psycho PE teachers

God yeah, what was that about?

That one in Kes was spot on - so accurate it was like a documentary.

Omg LOL not seen that one 😂😂😂

There was another where the mum was such a scrooge she'd make her kids eat last nights leftovers for brekky, "to teach them not to waste food" -it was actually disgusting watching her slop stone cold mash and gravy into cereal bowls like "brekky time kids!" 🤢 swear you'd have SS on your door for that these days 😂😂😂

Not in my experience. Parents certainly didn't turn a blind eye.

Domestic abuse was not just accepted either.

There are people on this thread telling you of their experience of it. I experienced it myself. I knew of a 16 year old vulnerable girl with a 32 year old boyfriend. No one said a word.

Domestic abuse was barely a crime, it was considered something private that the police didn't get involved with.

P E teachers were always nasty bullies and only liked the sporty children.

@ForGreyKoala maybe not in your experience, but I was at an all girls school and parents knew that their daughters were being picked up after school by older boyfriends. Some had concerns I'm sure but others were absolutely fine with it.

Also I remember domestic violence becoming a talked about thing as from shows like Eastenders when before it had just been a sort of plot device...

It happens now. Didn't the mother of Russell Brand's 16 year old 'girlfriend', drop her off at his place?

I believe Mandy Smith's mum encouraged the relationship of her 13 year old daughter with 47 year old Bill Wyman. Smith was out clubbing down the West End at 13. He was seen as quite the jack the lad. I was going to pubs at 13.