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

Visiting the cockpit of a plane during flight and talking to the pilots

Skiing without helmets. Just wasn’t a thing for the recreational holiday skier. The wind in your hair on a warm day was glorious.

Haven’t actually been since! So never experienced helmet skiing but it seems alien to me.

The smoking carriage on a train. So much more sociable than any other carriage. It used to be 'coach B' on Virgin/Cross Country trains. Once smoking was banned on trains, coach B was redesigned as the 'Unreserved' coach, meaning no seats were reserved on it - but also a rather poignant reminder of its former friendly nature.

My mum asking me to give her "two rings" when I arrived at my friends house so she knew I was safe.

There being no gap between PG and 15 rated films at the cinema. You'd go and see any old shite rated 15 as soon as you were old enough!

Another one.

Hearing the noise of the electric milk float going up the street at 4am.

using a sheet of newspaper to get the coal fire to draw properly. Christ, that even sounds medieval to me.

Quite sad really, when you think of all that collective worry before getting those two rings.
Also some people would have a code before answering the phone
. "Ring twice then a pause then ring again and I'll know it's you and pick up"

@Bepis Yes that whirring and clanking of bottles
@dropthevipers Some of my neighbours still have open fires and one uses a sheet (as in bed linen) to draw. Terrifies me.

Driving a car with a manual gearbox.

manual gearbox is still standard, surely.
i wouldn't drive anything else.
have done, for work, various vehicles, but much prefer manual.

Thinking that I would be alone for my whole life because of my being a lesbian: I had never met or even seen two women together, not even on tv. I thought it was incredibly rare and I had no idea you could have a relationship with a same sex partner because all I ever heard about lesbian was that they had sex with other women, do nothing about love, companionship, cohabiting, etc.

• should've been "so nothing"

Being caned at school for being naughty 😂

The smell of a students’ Union bar before the smoking ban. Not one I miss.

Oh god I was trying to explain that to DS last week, and he just looked at me like I was speaking in tongues 🤣

Having friends who you know in the flesh.

Liking some of these. No phones to record everything, so no evidence of any misdemeanours/attending a party you weren't suppose to be at. Recording the charts on Sunday night and pressing the pause button before the speaking started on the number 1 record.

Carbon paper.
Typex

Repairing laddered tights with nail varnish

Knowing you were going to get a message or call because your speakers made "the sound" and then one day, it just stopped.

CD books for the car that you would flip through trying to find that one song

CD players in cars that had a removable front that you would put in your bag to stop theft.

Eagerly awaiting your friend plugging their camera into their computer and uploading awful pictures from a night out.

That little dongle that connected your computer to the internet that cost about £30

Flip phones and feeling cool flipping it

The sheer joy that was Blockbuster or Netflix when it was lovefilm and you got them through the post. I actually had a Facebook memory the other day that I had signed up for love film but no one on the other end had activated my account so I couldn't watch. Just wouldn't happen these days.

Magna Carta or asking your parents for info and being wrong for 20 years about something.

Oh and putting your school lunch money (5 whole English pounds) in one of those photograph negative tubes and giving it to the teacher.

Getting. Changed for PE in front of the whole class.

Oh god, this!

Throughout history, it was seen as something you could well experiment with or for the kink of men. Never as a serious relationship.
Either to prepare you for men or for the enjoyment of men never separate.
Boils my piss.

The other day I saw a meme about "Remember when you could go for days/weeks/months without taking a photo of anything?" and I got caught up in a train of thought about how it's not just photos, but now I set all events in my phone calendar and reminders for stuff and everyone is in my phone contacts... and wondered if it's somehow unhealthy for our brains to no longer have to just remember stuff.