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!).

This is making me feel old now - I was born in 1980 but remember being paid cash weekly in brown envelopes for various bar jobs, and I used to have to use one of the slides card machines in one job too (not in a bar!). This thread has made me realise I've probably written my last cheque - I was writing them for cubs subs until a couple of years ago, but now it's a bank transfer. I still get a cheque for my birthday from my gran but being able to scan that into the mobile app makes that much easier now!

Lots of tax still goes unpaid, nothing much changed there.
There were indeed credit cards, and freezers, and home phones in the 70s, and indeed I remember the latter 2 at home in the 60s.
The link to concussion not known so much, boxers yes, but other sports were not really considered risky to the brain (i am waiting to develop alzheimers or some other grim brain related disease as collecting concussions was not considered to be an issue, and I have had many over the years) and anyone who did get a traumatic brain injury was “unlucky”.

Apologies if it's been mentioned but I remember current events stories about the perils of headbanging at metal gigs and the like and how it could cause brain injury which could be permanent. Seems in their zeal to tell us about the evils of rock music they failed to join up the dots and realise that doing the same against a ball/fist would have a similar effect.

People were well aware that knocks on the head caused brain damage and that they had a cumulative effect.

There were only variations on x-rays available. Since then scanners have come on in leaps and bounds and you can see damage even if it is not causing any symptoms. Therefore much more research can be done in more detail.

My mum was a twin, born in the 20s the 1920s that is. Of course they didn't know it was twins and her brother was stillborn. Apparently my great grandmother said, "What a shame it was the boy who died." When I read about things MILs say on here I always think my grandmother would definitely have reckoned hers was the worst.

My mother favoured her other grandmother.

Yes of course it was known. But you need to look at the broader picture I think where risk awareness is concerned. Kids were driven around in back seats without seatbelts routinely. Safeguarding at school wasn't a consideration. Teachers smoked in our school staff room in the mid 80's.

So when it comes to sport, you can see that smacking seven bells or taking a rugby tackle hard would have been an acceptable risk of the game.

Look how far we have come!

Still always room to improve though.

I was cashing salary cheques for trades in the bank I worked in the late 80's.

I can remember a tour of head office to see the machines that would be used to use bank cards. Early 90's.

Until then it was cheques, or cash.

The first computerised system for stock ordering and payroll was invented in 1951 for the Lyons Tea Shops. It's called LEO and is the first business computer. I saw it in the National Museum of Computing, I had no idea that sort of technology existed in the 50s.

They did know. I remember watching a programme about Dr Mengele and his colleagues and their experiments in concentration camps. One was about repeatedly causing a head injury and recording the deterioration in the patient. I won't go into more details as it haunts me and I watched it 50 years ago.

Fawlty Towers. The Germans episode.

There was nineteenth century legislation to outlaw forcing workers to shop in the company store (the Truck Act). Hence you had a right to be paid weekly in cash until at least the late twentieth century. Most salaried workers were probably unaware of this and didn’t care anyway.

My Mum worked in a bank, when decimalisation happen they used to have to stay behind to "play money" to get used to the new coins.

We had ATMs in the 70s, I got my money out that way.

Thinking about it, playing hockey at school in the 80's was pretty fucking lethal. Players don't bully off anymore. You only had kit if you were the goalie. No shin pads or gum-shields, just a PE skirt (no Skort) and long socks.

People knew,we weren't stupid,of course punches or other injuries to the head are very dangerous . I suspect boxers and footballers thought it was worth the risk of glory ..

Played on icy RedGra if I remember - oh the grazes!

They knew a serious head injury could cause traumatic brain injury, but they thought you had to lose consciousness and be diagnosed with a concussion for it to be possible. They did not know about post-concussion syndrome, which is the fact that the brain damage from repeat concussions accumulates over time. They thought you’d get a concussion, a bit of brain damage and then you would heal and be ok and so a fresh slate for the next concussion. They knew boxers and certain high impact athletes had brain damage from repeat concussions, but they thought that was because the concussions were close together on time and there were many of them. So they didn’t know for example, an abused child who had concussions growing up, then hits their head in their 30s could develop PCS.

They also did not know about getting brain injury while wearing a helmet and so never having a visibly serious head injury and never getting a concussion/never losing consciousness how you can still have a brain injury. They didn’t know that while the helmet protects your skull, it doesn’t stop the brain from slamming against the inside of the skull. So that is a type of brain damage they were not aware of until MRIs with contrast were invented. Even now, over half of people in a coma from a head injury will have a normal MRI, so MRIs cannot rule out brain injury, only rule it in.

Once jammed my fingers between the sticks during bully off, it was December so my hands were red raw from the cold just to make it extra painful. A week later and I got hit in the face with a hockey ball. We had a school nurse so I got to lie down on the bed in her office for half an hour before being packed off to maths with a corking black eye.

I still tend to think of prices in terms of £sd.
My dad was paid monthly into the bank OHs paid weekly, he handed his pay packet to DHs mum unopened and she gave him pocket money.

I used to walk to school on my own or with my brother. We had a phone not many in the street did, they used the public phonebox. No central heating or double glazing.

As for the head injuries, I suspect most carry injury risk.

Yes hockey was always played in bloody winter

I had my thumb broken with a hockey stick (1990s).
I was too nervous to tell anyone so spent the day with this massive thumb that had swollen to 3 times its normal size!!

There were no rules such as not being allowed back on the rugby pitch, having an enforced ban until a doctor judged you fit etc.

We played on grass @ghostyslovesheets with no studs!

I send DS to PE today with a bag containing more safety gear than a scaffolder would have had in the 70's'

Before anyone posts, this is a good thing.

I speak as a child that slipped at swimming and smashed my adult front teeth out. My dad took me to see my uncle who'd knocked his out boxing.

Different times.

Why wouldn't people know? People would've known that as long as people have been having bad bangs on the head and just about survived.

'Ooh, Ugh has had a bad bang on the head and now he's not the best at telling one plant from another anymore.'

I suffered from concussion a couple of times in the 1970s (horse riding accidents) and I just spent a day or two in bed to recover. Nobody considered whether there would be any long-term effects once you recovered from the sickness and headache. Hockey and lacrosse at school were equally dangerous, with girls often being hit in the head 'accidentally'.

I was paid in cash in a brown payslip envelope when I worked part-time in the mid/late 1970s as a student (from age 14 onwards), but once I was in a salaried full-time job from 1979 after leaving university, I was paid by bank transfer.

Oh god! Just had a flashback that one term we played Lacrosse (grammar school natch). Hockey balls airborne. No safety gear.