Can anyone tell me honestly that back in the 70s they didn't know.....

[Jux]

... that hitting your head badly could result in brain damage? And that hitting your head repeatedly, badly or not, could also result in brain damage?

I was 12 in 1970; it seemed self-evident that head bang could lead to brain damage. Like a punch the lower back could injure something inside (wasn't sure what, mind, v ignorant of biology at the time!).

People knew that punches to the head could cause damage and at my school a boy sadly ended up in wheelchair with spinal damage due to a rugby accident. I don't think they had linked heading the ball to brain damage/dementia back then.

People clocked on and the time would be punched in .clocked off same .wages dept would work out wages and that gave an accurate picture

You still got a wage slip and your tax and NI was already deducted. When I was a Saturday girl in a supermarket in the late 80’s I was paid in cash

If this is about rugby, some of it is to do with the changes to the game after it turned professional in the late 90’s. Steve Thomson was talking about it in an article in the Times. Basically the players got much bigger and it became a more forward dominated game. Additionally, once it became people’s actual jobs, rather than a serious hobby as previously, the training load became much greater so these players were having a lot more “contact” and more frequent head injuries than when the game was amateur.

if that’s not what you’re talking about, apologies for going on 🤣

You got a paper payslip, which showed the hours worked and tax etc. deducted. It was a paper version of the payslips that most companies do electronically these days.

A lot of people were paid in cash (little brown pay packet at the end of the week)

Not ‘cash in hand’ in the current sense, of paying cash dishonestly so the payer gets a lower price and the payee doesn’t pay income tax. It was legitimate, tax and NI taken out at source, and you got your money with a printed slip showing how much you’d paid in tax etc.

I found an unopened paypacket at the bottom of my laundry basket one day, oh joy! I was on a low wage even by 70s standards, but after I stopped smoking I had enough to live comfortably, so I hadn’t noticed. Shows how often I went to the launderette, though.

Is kind of funny that you are so naive about the relatively recent past. You know that life existed perfectly easily before computers, right? 😀

Hours worked were recorded manually and tax was worked out according to the rules that all employers had and payslips would have been handwritten or typed

We're talking about the 1970s not the 1670s

Your cash came in special printed brown envelopes with the PAYE/ National Insurance calculations hand written in the relevant boxes. At the end of the year you got your P60 as you do now.

The NFL made helmets mandatory for (American) football players in 1943, so it seems like someone knew prior to the 70s.

I think it was more commonly called senility or senile dementia. It was definitely around and i think it was starting to become known that footballers from the 50s and 60s, when footballs were made of leather and could get very heavy and soggy when wet, could suffer brain damage from repeated heading of the ball.
Separately, widely owned credit cards were introduced (around 1972/3/4?) . ACCESS was very popular, it had no fees, and you had a credit limit which could be paid back in instalments, unlike the existing American Express and Diner's Club csrds. I got one through my bank and very quickly came to grief with it!

But it is history, to people who weren’t born then. How would they know what life was like without asking? It’s fun to read other people’s memories too.

On the top end of the wages scale, doctors etc. It seems wild that they were just carrying loads of money about on pay day.

Other thing, I remember us getting our first freezer in the 80s, also we never had a dryer. I remember going to the butchers with my Mum. People really probably were a lot more frequent in meal buying but also probably a lot more mindful about spending and waste. Day to Day Life was just very different I think? A lot of people didn't have a landline even in the 80s, now phones are imbedded in our very culture.

We're talking about the 1970s not the 1670s

Born in 80s. The things I'm asking about aren't things I would have any knowledge about, or as a child, must interest in.

High earners would have been paid by cheque and would have had a bank account and their own cheque book. It wasn't a cash only society.

Also, lots of people paid weekly, not monthly. Far more than these days.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit So most people worked cash in hand?

No - most people received their weekly wages in a special sealed brown envelope that had a corner cut off (so you could count the corners of the notes) and a window (usually holes) through which to count the coins. The wage packet also included your wage slip - literally a slip of paper showing your gross earnings, NI deductions, tax deductions etc. and net pay. This information was also on the front of the envelope, so if you were being paid £12/9s/4d you could count the money before opening the packet. Only a minority of people had their wages paid directly into a bank account. Most received cash; some received a cheque each week or each month.

Of course there were wage systems - in big companies there would be a whole department of wages clerks with manual adding machines (not electronic calculators) and big ledger books - by the mid-1970s these were becoming semi-automated but were still far from being computerised.

All shop transactions were in cash, with some shops accepting cheques for larger purchases, but as a bank card only guaranteed cheques up to £30 there was a natural limit on what you could buy. Really big purchases were made on HP - Hire Purchase contracts - which entailed paying off a proportion of the debt every month. There were no credit cards and an overdraft entailed an uncomfortable interview with a gloomy, parsimonious and haughty bank manager (like Mr Mainwaring in Dads Army).

I fancied the bank teller abd I used to take my cash wages in the little brown envelope and go to the bank with my friend every Friday to pay my wages in. Honestly, that bank teller stopped me squandering loads of money. 😁

On the top end of the wages scale, doctors etc. It seems wild that they were just carrying loads of money about on pay day.

I seem to remember my parents, who were teachers, having pay cheques rather than being paid in cash. Student grants in the late 70s on certainly were cheques. And by the mid 80s when I started work my salary was paid directly into my bank account.

Head injuries were a known problem, though I don't know if the long term effects were fully recognised. I seem to remember concern about spinal injuries to rugby players too.

As @AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair says it's only the 70s not the 1670s, but British Life has changed so much.

The cost of living crisis and the issue with possible power cuts has made me think about the difference in overall British lifestyles since then

Bangs on the head were of course known to cause serious issues, and repeated hard bangs eg in boxers were known to be a problem.

what was not known was the seriousness of a subsequent impact if the primary injury wasn’t allowed to heal properly. This is why concussions are out for weeks now, rather than being allowed back the next day.

And don’t forget if you had a bank account you also had a cheque book. I used to pay for any large purchase with a cheque. Before we had cheque-guarantee cards, I think we sometimes had to wait for the cheque to clear, or give evidence if address etc in case the cheque bounced. That was just for the rare big purchase, like my bike.

The bike, and living in one room with a shared bathroom or in flat shares, kept expenses low. I hardly ever ate out or bought sandwiches, though I often went for a drink with friends. Hardly ever went to theatre or concerts, but quite often to cinema and pub gigs. Lots of fun to be had on a low income when you’re single and childless.

People knew that multiple symptomatic concussions from hard head impacts were a bad thing. It was called chronic traumatic encephalopathy in boxers in the 1950s. The effects of repeated sub-concussive impacts are still being learned about today. CTE can only be diagnosed post mortem, so depends on those who believe they have it or their families donating their brains to researchers.

I was paid like this in 2004