Things your GC will never experience...

[ClytemnestraWasMisunderstood]

...or even your children may never experience...
I was reminiscing yesterday and realised that there are many things we've experienced that younger people won't. For example, living in a shared flat and having to work out how to split the (landline) telephone bill! Trying to be honest about the length of the call. Was it a long or short-distance call? Before 6pm or after? All such things affected the cost!
Then the washing-up rota (pre-dishwasher days), cleaning of communal areas rota, etc...

TV Only broadcasting from 4pm to 11pm

Taping the top 40.
Listening into the conversation on the other landline, the other person saying put the phone down. Then the click.

The phone ringing people saying I'll go. All wondering who it was for.

Having to get up and go to the TV to change the channel.
Making arrangements to meet someone and not being able to get in touch with them to change anything because neither of you had a phone in the house.
The only way to get money out of a bank account was to go to the bank. There were no cash machines. And banks closed every day at 3 p.m and didn't open on Saturdays.

Casey Jones! Good grief.

Oh no...... you know what you've done now, don't you? I have the Casey Jones theme tune as an earworm. I can't quite believe that I actually remember it, but I do!

Well I remember the 'Protect and Survive' campaign. The potential of nuclear war was a very real and present threat at that time, so of course it was in the back of our minds all the time. We weren't all that keen on nuclear power stations either. Calder Hall, Windscale and Greenham Common were household names.

We knew all about the Iron Curtain and the threat posed by Russia to democracy.

In our cities, we had the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks, at that time from the IRA, and NI was a daily presence on the news.

There was continued conflict in the Middle East, and all that entailed, and shortly before my time there was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So sorry, but when you say that people over the age of 30 cannot relate to the level of anxiety suffered by young people and teenagers nowadays, then perhaps you might need to think again about that.

Laying a fire on coming home from school to a cold house. Rolling newspapers into long cylinders and then twisting them into zigzags, for kindling.

Being given half a crown by some generous relative and thinking, ‘That’s five Mars Bars!!’ 😋

@TentEntWenTyfOur
Our fears were different.
I heard several IRA bombs go off in London.
We knew the 4 minute warning was real
but our private lives were private

Yeah, I’ve been singing it, too 😂

In trays on your desk at work full of letters which sat there for a week or so without being looked at because the client’s file had gone missing, emails make life at work so stressful now
Sending and receiving faxes
Having a fag sitting in an ashtray on your desk while you typed, vile, i was guilty of that!

The talking clock on a dial phone. Or that type of phone for that matter!

Shops closing on Wednesday afternoons and all day Sunday.

Going to choose a video at Blockbuster or similar store
Everything shut on a Sunday
Pound notes
Top shelf magazines
Broken up concrete in playgrounds
No health and safety
Casual racism, sexism and homophobia
Working man's clubs
Handwriting reports
Tipex
Endemic sexual harassment
Perms
Unaffordable flights
Plastic Rain hats
Pubs having to close during the day and supermarket licensing law

Recording the top 40 off the radio onto a cassette. Bonus points if you managed to stop recording just before the DJ started talking.

the test card

top of the pops

Belle and Sebastian

As a child I used to feel sad and depressed when this would come on. It had a terrible effect on my mood.

Do you mean a decimal 1/2 p or a pre-decimal half-penny??
I lived with the latter, and remember the introduction of decimalisation in February 1971!

And the theatre!

Olive oil in tiny bottles from the chemist. For ear wax!!
Wasn't in the supermarket

And dial-a-disc!! Very expensive if ringing from a phone box!

This is one of the greater losses to mankind

@Cantgetbehindtheradiator , do you really think your parents had no anxiety about anything?

'..steamin' and a rollin', Casey Jones, steaming down the track...'
No need to thank me!

Love this thread - life seemed so much simpler.

Me too! £ s d. One of my DC was born just after decimalisation.