To want to know something you've experienced that current/future generations won't.

[BobcatDreams]

I'm throwing in the disgusting smell of telephone boxes.
Smoking and/or drinking at work

The electronic music of the early '80s

TV’s before remote controls
Beta Max & VHS videos
Rotary telephones
cordless and mobile phones when you used to have to extend the aerial
dial up internet
Games on tape, Commodore 64
Playing out all day, only going home if you were hungry or the street lights came on.
not having security passwords
credit card taken manually in store with the machine that uses NCR paper slips
Writing a cheque
Tin bath
Tupperware
terrys Neapolitans
proper Cadbury’s

Waiting 15 minutes for a webpage to download

My mum still believes in the 6pm rule.

She is stuck in around 1995, bless her

Programming the video recorder to record neighbours every day when on holiday and it not getting the whole programme.

Singing along to adverts that had good jingles/music.

Cleaning ashtrays at work

Handwriting uni essays and using tip ex to correct them.

Buying a cassette single without having heard it so hearing it for the first time on my Walkman outside Woolworths

Armrest covers on sofas.

Putting on the immerser switch

Armrest covers on sofas.

oh yes, and antimacassars.

Going to clubs/pubs age 14/15.

I think synthetic clothing is more melty rather than flammable. I'm not testing it though

Playing elastics in the playground

I remember doing those first text based computer adventures e.g.
"Go North..A giant blocks your path...kill giant..pick up sword "
That game blew my mind

@comingintomyown Oh yes elastic !!! & conkers

@PyongyangKipperbang It wasn't foolproof but it did occasionally work which was enough for 14 year old me!
The phonecard had a strip on one side that got marked/rubbed away(?) as you used the credit. You could replace that strip with a few layers of hairspray, the tape was just to mask off the rest of the card.
Wouldn't have got away with it for so long if the internet had existed then though 😆

Calling the GP and getting a same day face to face appointment no problem

Decimal 1/2p coins

Booking flights and holidays at a travel agent's on the high street
Platform tickets at railway stations so you could see someone off and help with luggage
Bus conductors taking the money for fares after you got on, and printing off a little ticket from a machine slung round their neck
Suitcases didn't have pull out handles and wheels, you had to carry them
No ibuprofen when I was young, you took aspirin or paracetamol for OTCpain relief
Long hospital stays for things that are now treated as day surgery cases
General anaesthetics used for far more procedures, e.g. at the dentist's for nervous patients having fillings, so longer recovery/higher risk than now
No keyhole surgery, so most ops had a far longer recovery time and left a bigger scar
Long hospital stays after a straightforward birth
Far fewer vaccinations for common childhood illnesses, so children were often miserably ill at home needing Mum or Granny to nurse them, some ended up in hospital, sadly some died or were left with lifelong health problems
Almost every child had fillings - no fluoride in the water or toothpaste

Those rather sad messages on Radio 4 where they were trying to contact Dennis and Margery Allan, who were on holiday in Scotland because Margery’s mother had been taken seriously ill.

Refusing to take early mobile phones with me everywhere (or switching them off) because I liked the sense of freedom it gave when I couldn’t be contacted.

I know this can still technically happen, but when I was a child, going on holiday and looking through the books that had been abandoned in the holiday cottage and actually reading them. None of my children really read books and even I don’t do it any more as I spend too much time on my iPad.

Early computer games - buying magazines which had line by line printouts of games written in Basic and trying (invariably without success) to type them into the computer to get the game to work.

@PriOn1 All that time typing the program in only to press run and get "Syntax error"

Tiny milk bottles delivered outside the primary school classrooms and left there all day
They used to give out the leftovers at the end of the day as well with tiny straws.
Fountain pens in class , I came home smothered in black ink.
The yellow ointment they put on every little scratch or Injury
I used to come out of school looking like I'd been in a boxing ring or feeling ill from all that milk left out in the elements.
Smoking in public places , pubs , work. They even allowed it on planes ! It is unbelievable to think that was allowed really

Good for you. I didn't view it as a competition.

I do remember three channels. I also remember Bunty.

Elastics - that was French skipping? I used to practice at home with the elastic wrapped around dining chairs.

Playing clackers in the playground (I bet they’d be banned now).

You can still occasionally get invited into the cockpit with a small child - DH got carried away last time it happened (EasyJet 2019 - we had a long delay on the ground) and turned around to see a massive queue of grumpy parents and small children behind him.

So much this. The ever-present doomy downside to an otherwise good time to live.

Wasn't trying to be! Just an observation

It was your 'Ha !'

Phone locks!

Yes! And finding ways round them. I discovered how to get ours off with a hairpin. Then got a tip about tapping in the number using the little buttons the handset rested on. I don't know why I thought my mum would never find out. I'm not even that chatty tbh🤣