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!).

Yes they knew. I can remember clearly that when dad was walloping me, mum would yell, "Not around the head!". So mum knew hitting heads was bad. But hitting the rest of me was fair enough.

Terry Sawchuck, 21 seasons as a top Ice Hockey goalkeeper - didn't make it to 41.

This is the reason we have cash machines.

A bank was running a workshop about how to improve banking and one attendee said he wanted to reach his hand into the bank and access his money. He wanted to do that at any branch etc. Soon afterwards, the idea of a cash machine was born and they arrived pretty quickly.

But soon, I'm pretty sure there won't be cash...

Dr Mengele’s research will not have been mainstream and probably no one will have wanted to use his ‘work’ in this way. I imagine the dots therefore weren’t joined up. It’s only relatively recent that repeatedly doing headers on footballs has been linked to potential brain damage. It was a recent scandal I think. Or something similar.

My first memories of credit cards are of the ad ‘Access, your flexible friend’. My parents had these cards. The ad was from 1980, just looked it up. This was around the time I first remember seeing a cash machine. I was possibly too young to bother about these things before.

When I first worked in a shop, most transactions were in cash. Credit card payments took ages as the slips were handwritten then the card imprinted on the slip before the customer signed the slip. The slip was then split with the top see through copy going to the customer and the 2 carbon copies in the till to be banked separately - a copy for the shop and a copy for the bank. I also remember when we had to start using the cheque guarantee card to pay by cheque and the introduction of high tech tills, which could print your cheque to save writing the amount. The latter, I suppose, was as important as contactless, except that not many shops had them.

When I was a child, I remember the green grocer having one of those enormous tills, where the amounts flicked up like on I the sitcom open all hours. I still use cash a fair amount. The cleaning lady prefers it and the window cleaner. I went out briefly today with 20p in my purse. That felt odd.

@saraclara

Yes I saw your post. I have explained. It was a genuine query I wasn't trying to steal a thread

And you were rude. Why couldn't you start your own thread. How could you read the OP and think that it was about general 70' s stuff. The post talks about brain damage and you derail it.

Fair enough.

People were very often paid in cash, in a wee brown envelope. My mum worked in the payroll of British Leyland car factory (we played ‘offices’ with the envelopes).
No way was anyone going into a bank every day. I was paid cash for my first job in 1980! With a slip giving me the breakdown with deductions.

Oh god, all the hockey horror stories! I remember those and playing on muddy pitches in the fog and freezing cold. I was paranoid about getting smacked in the head with a ball or a stick. I played netball when I had the choice!

Just to avoid confusion I don't think Mengele was the one doing the test on head injuries, the documentary did show him but also other doctors but I can't remember their names.

It was Nazi torture though, wasn’t it? A quick google in wiki says there were experiments and cites one on a boy, who was driven insane. I won’t link.

Some research in New South Wales, into the harmful effects of heading a football

In more recent years, there has been an increased focus in football, after the death of Jeff Astle in 2002. A former England and West Brom player, Jeff was Britain’s first professional footballer confirmed to have died from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), raising serious concerns for the game of football

CTE is a progressive, degenerative brain disease found in individuals (usually athletes) with a history of head injury. In Jeff Astle's case, it was the repeated, low-level brain trauma believed to have been caused from the repeated heading of footballs

Barbaric when you think about it, but back in the 1970's footballers and coaches thought nothing about the harm they would do themselves in later life.

Yes, same awareness of child hitting their head for example, no different. Not the same concerns about smoking or seat belts though.

The doctors were concerned with my brothers growth in 1976 - my mum had quite a few X-rays (which didn't tell them much) and then was one of the first to have a new-fangled ultrasound in the North West

I remember the first atm machines in my area. That was in 1976. You put your bank card in and a little square envelope came out with £10 in it. No PIN, no requesting an amount, just card in, money envelope with £10 out!

We didn’t know the link between repeated “minor” blows to the head and long term brain injury. It was assumed that the brain bruised and recovered just like any other body part. A major blow to the head and/ or concussion was known to potentially cause lasting damage though. But until the late 70s there was no way to see what was going on in the brain without major surgery or an autopsy.

Yet, we managed to get through the whole of our school lives without an ice-pack or a bumped head letter in sight!

Oh yes, I'm a nurse and we get many a gent through the doors with dementia who are ex boxers, rugby players etc. Very sad.

What if you wanted say £50? You just had to put your card in 5 times and get a little envelope with a tenner in it each time?

Everyone smoked. You went out, you came home smelling of smoke. People knew about lung cancer but they smoked. Rugby etc? Men played it and took the hits. No one worried about it. Like not wearing seatbelts or drink driving

i worked in a bank in the old days(70s) Every month head office posted our pay cheques to the branches. Manager had to sign and hand out the cheques. We then had to pay the cheque into our account. If post was delayed, so was pay day. Some people had barclaycard, but not many and you could pay for stuff in shops with a cheque, but had to have a cheque guarantee card. The amount of cash circulated, especially around Christmas was incredible.

I can remember very early on old boxers were known to be ‘ punch drunk’which was really brain damage

Agreed

I also remember the protests against compulsory crash helmets for motorcyclists and those who vowed to defy the new law, same when the breathalyser and seat belts came in. Substantial numbers of people felt they were an assault on individual freedoms.

At the firm my mum worked for, the shop floor would get their weekly pay in cash in little envelopes.

She did ask if it was ok. Hardly 'rude'. Big overreaction.🙄