Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

I was at a museum today and now I feel really old

155 replies

NiceSkinHereICome · 09/10/2025 19:24

Okay so I was killing time today as I was early for something and I decided to pop into the local museum/art gallery. Lots of interesting things.

However I just about choked when I got to the section that showed kitchens from various ages like the fifties etc. They had a bloody kitchen from the nineties - It looked just like the one I had in my first house (I'm in my fifties) and they had signs explaining all the new technology of the era. Bloody Nora, things from my era and in a museum!

Then they had another section with toys from yesteryear. There they had the fisher price garage my wee brother got when he was small. A rubix cube, a nokia mobile and other things that quite frankly I didn't consider really old enough to be in a museum.

It's hard to believe youngsters need this stuff in a museum because it now considered old/vintage/interesting enough.

I should have taken a photo of them both so you could have had a chuckle and I might go back and do that.

Anyone else in their fifties amused that we are now old enough to be featuring in museums.

OP posts:
AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 10/10/2025 13:37

@HelpMeGetThrough if you had anything to do with Horace Goes Skiing on the ZX then I think you may become my new hero 😆.

Original poster
NiceSkinHereICome · 10/10/2025 13:58

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 10/10/2025 13:34

@NiceSkinHereICome If it's any consolation OP, earlier this year I was selling a 90s item of mine on eBay. Item sold no problem but when I was printing the shipping label I thought the address looked a bit odd so I googled it and it turned out it was a museum. Out of curiosity I emailed them to ask why they'd bought said items and a lovely man replied and said it was to put put on display as part of their 90s exhibition.

So in short my property (and by extension myself) is now museum relic worthy. It has caused a lot of mirth in my family but I must admit I am a bit mortified!

oh well. time to face the music and admit we are relics.

Still getting a bit older does make me realise I shouldn't waste any time and make the most of things.

OP posts:
scissy · 10/10/2025 20:09

I went to the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin and you can play the original Super Mario Bros on a NES. The woman behind me watched me clear 2 levels before I handed her the controller as I felt bad...
It was so fun to play it again though!

Another2Cats · 10/10/2025 20:48

BlackeyedSusan · 10/10/2025 08:22

My kids had a teacher that wasn't born when I started teaching.

My kids learned history that I remember clearly. (Just as happened for me and mum)

"My kids learned history that I remember clearly. (Just as happened for me and mum)"

Oh that's interesting. I did history A level in 1983. Back then, history ended in 1945, so about 35 years earlier. My mum was aged five in 1945 and vaguely remembers the end of the war.

My DD did history A level in 2013 but the topics they did for A level also only went up to 1945.

I guess that 1945 when I did A level history would be equivalent to an A level history course covering up to the year 1990 presently.

That would definitely hit home to me now. I voted for the first time in the 1983 general election.

HelpMeGetThrough · 10/10/2025 23:14

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 10/10/2025 13:37

@HelpMeGetThrough if you had anything to do with Horace Goes Skiing on the ZX then I think you may become my new hero 😆.

Edited

No, that wasn’t me, that was a chap called Will Tang. Horace was great though!

lazyarse123 · 10/10/2025 23:35

I had this conversation with my son today. He said at work someone was playing a recording of a dial up modem, no idea why and one of the ladies asked what it was so they explained and she had no idea what they were on about. He's 32 he was a bit miffed. I just laughed and said welcome to my world.

BlackeyedSusan · 11/10/2025 11:07

Another2Cats · 10/10/2025 20:48

"My kids learned history that I remember clearly. (Just as happened for me and mum)"

Oh that's interesting. I did history A level in 1983. Back then, history ended in 1945, so about 35 years earlier. My mum was aged five in 1945 and vaguely remembers the end of the war.

My DD did history A level in 2013 but the topics they did for A level also only went up to 1945.

I guess that 1945 when I did A level history would be equivalent to an A level history course covering up to the year 1990 presently.

That would definitely hit home to me now. I voted for the first time in the 1983 general election.

Show quote history

Both my mum and I were older first time mothers so longer memories. (My granny was a Victorian, lost her sweetheart in the first world war, also an older mother)

ApplesCrumbleButtons · 11/10/2025 11:43

You're looking at this wrong, you're not old, you have perspective 😂

I want to go to a museum now.

ApplesCrumbleButtons · 11/10/2025 11:44

SqueakyDinosaur · 09/10/2025 20:21

I finally persuaded my mum to get a new landline phone when I sent her a photo of hers in a case at the Science Museum...

😂😂😂

ApplesCrumbleButtons · 11/10/2025 11:46

elQuintoConyo · 09/10/2025 20:43

I was in the V&A around 10 years ago and they had my childhood phone on display (a Deltaphone), along with my pink Tandy cassette player! I felt as old as the Mayflower!

I absolutely loved these phones. I think they taught you patience and a better memory for numbers 😂 I still remember my childhood phone number.

spoonbillstretford · 11/10/2025 11:47

NiceSkinHereICome · 09/10/2025 19:24

Okay so I was killing time today as I was early for something and I decided to pop into the local museum/art gallery. Lots of interesting things.

However I just about choked when I got to the section that showed kitchens from various ages like the fifties etc. They had a bloody kitchen from the nineties - It looked just like the one I had in my first house (I'm in my fifties) and they had signs explaining all the new technology of the era. Bloody Nora, things from my era and in a museum!

Then they had another section with toys from yesteryear. There they had the fisher price garage my wee brother got when he was small. A rubix cube, a nokia mobile and other things that quite frankly I didn't consider really old enough to be in a museum.

It's hard to believe youngsters need this stuff in a museum because it now considered old/vintage/interesting enough.

I should have taken a photo of them both so you could have had a chuckle and I might go back and do that.

Anyone else in their fifties amused that we are now old enough to be featuring in museums.

It's how our parents and grandparents felt before us. Something from the 1930s was a museum piece in the 1980s in the same way that something from the 1970s is now.

AAudreyHorne · 11/10/2025 11:54

I found our hoover on display in York museum when I was about 10. Shouted loudly to show my mum who was so embarrassed, she grabbed my hand and we left pretty quickly.

Applepe · 11/10/2025 12:22

Saw a CD Walkman and a Steps Gold CD recently in a museum. That hit hard… 🤣

bumbaloo · 11/10/2025 12:38

I think changes are more rapid now too. Everything is faster due to technology advancing at a rate far beyond the changes were in industrial machinery.

So 50 years ago is like 100 years before that if you get what mean. Things change, turn over is faster. Things become obsolete after only a few years now whereas 50 years ago things would continue to be current for years. 100 years ago things were current for even more years

Doyouthinktheyknow · 11/10/2025 12:45

I used to work on a mental health ward for older people. We had hospital beds from the dark ages, really not fit for purpose and a constant headache in trying to reduce falls!

A colleague found the same beds in the science museum😂

It took a good few years but those beds were finally replaced and I definitely think them being an exhibit in a museum helped the case!

Dontlletmedownbruce · 11/10/2025 12:56

What I think will be really fascinating is how history will be told, there is always a spin on it and we don't have control over what that is. It's rarely neutral. I can see myself being that grumpy old woman getting annoyed because it's not the version I remember.

WendyFromTransvisionWamp · 11/10/2025 13:05

Early 90’s, I was part of a crew who were commissioned to build an exhibition about domistic life through the decades. I remember wallpapering the 60’s set and thinking how ugly it all was. I was 23 at the time and the 60’s to me was ancient history.

Needlenardlenoo · 11/10/2025 13:05

When DH and I went to Warner Brothers' Studios we spent quite a bit of time geeking out over the fixtures and fittings of the Dursleys' home. Not because of HP, but because it was so similar to the Taywood home we lived in during the 1990s! The foreign friends we visited with were 😂😂😂.

ChessieFL · 11/10/2025 13:21

ApplesCrumbleButtons · 11/10/2025 11:46

I absolutely loved these phones. I think they taught you patience and a better memory for numbers 😂 I still remember my childhood phone number.

Show quote history

I agree. I can still remember several of my friends’ numbers from the 1990s. Now I don’t even know my DH’s number.

ChessieFL · 11/10/2025 13:21

ApplesCrumbleButtons · 11/10/2025 11:46

I absolutely loved these phones. I think they taught you patience and a better memory for numbers 😂 I still remember my childhood phone number.

Show quote history

I agree. I can still remember several of my friends’ numbers from the 1990s. Now I don’t even know my DH’s number.

ChessieFL · 11/10/2025 13:22

Sorry, don’t know why that posted twice!

LlynTegid · 11/10/2025 13:24

If you are ever in Ghent in Belgium and go to the museum of everyday life, you will feel positively ancient when you see gadgets from childhood.

Violinist64 · 11/10/2025 14:15

AAudreyHorne · 11/10/2025 11:54

I found our hoover on display in York museum when I was about 10. Shouted loudly to show my mum who was so embarrassed, she grabbed my hand and we left pretty quickly.

I wish we still had laughter emoji as this really made me chuckle. In Stamford, there is an independent shop that sells vacuum cleaners. His window display never varies as it is of vacuum cleaners through the generations. I would imagine your Mum's hoover is among them.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 11/10/2025 17:55

Applepe · 11/10/2025 12:22

Saw a CD Walkman and a Steps Gold CD recently in a museum. That hit hard… 🤣

A Steps CD 😳🤣

xmaswiththeinlaws · 12/10/2025 09:45

As a kid in the 80s we went to our local museum and they had a display of dentistry through the ages. The "80's" dentist was far more modern than the one we went to at the time, ours looked more like the 50s. I was shocked a few years later to see our school 60th anniversary mug (1987) in another local museum, I'm sure it was only early 2000s. I just try to remember that not everything in museums is ancient.

Swipe left for the next trending thread