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

Kids age 4 yrs+ playing out without supervision.
Kids age 12+ babysitting other kids.
Lots of active travel.
Hitch-hiking? Picking up hitch hikers.
Lots of phone calls with strangers to sell or buy things or get any information.
Waiting days / weeks to hear from your foreign penpal.

I think it's bad that those things don't happen now, btw.

Phoning the talking clock to find out what time it is.

Being able to go virtually anywhere on the train with my bike for £10 return. Letting the local slow train go in case the next one was an Intercity 125.

Hitchhiking all round the country and staying in youth hostels for about £4 a night.

Learning to drive in your dad's company car which was a 3 litre V6 Sweeney car and it was insured for everyone, even 17 year old learners.

And they were set in concrete! Boys greased the slide with candles to get a faster ride. I once went down our massive one on my front, after the boys had been greasing it. My friend stood at the bottom to catch me ( on some level we knew it was a stupid idea). I shot off the end, face hit the concrete, knocked my friend over and she sat on my head. I left a trail of blood all the way home!

Riding on the back of motorbikes without a helmet.

Makes me shudder to think of it now.

Wow. You won a flight on a Concorde? Lucky you , I bet amazing and would love to know more!

Queueing up at the phone box after 6pm for the cheap rate calls.
Admittedly, this was in Europe and they absolutely don't queue 😕

Fuzzy felts

No speed cameras

Letter writing

You still get fuzzy felts! My daughter loves hers! It’s not made by the same brand but she has a big farm scene one.

Born in mid 60’s
-No seatbelts in cars
-Dial phones and phone operators.. my husbands Mum was talking to a friend about some juicy neighbourhood gossip and the friend said “ you had better stop because Mary from the exchange will be listening” ..a lone voice popped up “No I’m not”.. you would be sacked for that now
-Going out all day in the summer and parents not having a clue where you are
-Sitting in the back of the car with all the windows wound up and my Dad driving , constantly lighting one fag off another.. lifelong non smoker and I swim and play a wind instrument but my lungs have never recovered!
-Talking with friends on phone for hours and parents yelling at you to get off
-being hit by a parents and teachers and no body batted an eyelid
-parents wanting you to be well behaved but no over-involvement with uni choices and careers- left to make up your own mind. Parents likewise being shocked when I managed a place in a highly competitive university course.
I am often shocked at the level of micromanagement from parents in adult offspring’s university or career choices.
-Getting actually paid by the government to get a quality university education

Being a bit of a plonker without anyone filming it.
Marking up the radio times with things to watch at Christmas and actually having to watch it at that time.
Memorising all the telephone numbers you need.
Dial up noises.
Bike riding for miles with a picnic as kids - we were a bit feral.

Going through the yellow pages to find a plumber sparky etc
Ditto renewing car insurance

A new Argos catalogue twice a year.
Saving 50p coins for the electric meter

The hell that was Sunday, as a teenager in a rural area. Nothing to do, tv was antiques roadshow and songs of praise. The only respite was two hours of the top 40 on radio 1 (after which the radio wavelength would go back to 'sing something simple' on radio 2), where we would sit with a blank cassette in a tape recorder, waiting to push record and play at the same time for all the best songs.

Tuning the TV in using the little wheels.
Changing the station without a remote
Three channels.

And, more than once, getting somebody else's photos back instead 😮

Hopefully discrimination against being ginger/redhead 😁

@Kucinghitam ooh yes! The excitement of being handed out a sheet reproduced by the Roneo-Gestettner and seeing the whole class immediately inhale the smell of it… Primary schools were so much fun!

Actually ringing a doorbell ( or knocking the knocker).

my kids think it’s ‘weird’ that we didn’t text from the car - I did point out that’s quite tricky without a phone like it was in the past

Haha, yes! I learned in a Triumph TR7 sports car 😄
the bonnet was so
long I couldn’t tell where the car ended and had to drive with the frog headlights up

Walking to a phone box when the car broke down because mobile phones were not yet a thing.
Booking time on a mainframe computer before PCs were a thing.

Writing a chapter of A-level coursework and finding it's too big to save on your floppy disk.

Don’t worry, you can still experience the joys of a file being too big for some organisations’ email filters!

(those organisations usually also block file sharing websites, so you can’t just send a link either)

We called it "Tights" because we used panty hose type tights knotted together, which had probably belonged to someone's big sister, as most of our mothers wore stockings.. My Mum thought his "wasn't very nice" and gave me some elastic, which I used at home but didn't take to school in case anyone thought I was being "posh", which, along with "showing off" was one of the worse crimes though not as bad as "boasting" or "lying". This was about 1965/6.

Reversing the charges in the phone box.