Stuff that didn’t seem weird at the time but when you tell someone younger they think it’s nuts

[MildGreenDairyLiquid]

Just that really.

The other day I explained to my 11 year old niece that when I was at junior school we used to have a small bottle of milk with a straw every morning, and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

Going to meet someone, they couldn't come last-minute or got stuck in traffic and without a mobile phone you had no idea. I once waited 2 hours for a friend as she suddenly got poorly and we were meeting halfway. It was only when I hit home and phoned on a landline I found out. You never knew if you had the right place yo meet either do you'd wander round e.g. meet at the entrance, without Internet you might not know there's 3 different entrances and you're walking around to different ones looking for each other and keep missing each other. There were so many tannoy announcements. Couldn't find my cousins at a concert and turns out they were standing once side of a pillar and we were the other. We found them at the end. Ha!

I was going to say about phone boxes, although some of them now have a defibrillator inside rather than a phone.

The main library in our city had a record lending department. You had to take your record player needle in to show to the very scary man behind the desk. He would inspect it with a magnifying glass to make sure it wouldn't damage the records and then you got a special card. You could borrow three records at a time. My adult DC find that almost unbelievable now.

I still have various things my mother got with green shield stamps. An early form of loyalty card I guess.

Did anyone else do "three rings"? If you were travelling home from family, you had to phone them when you got back and let the phone ring three times before putting the receiver down. Then your mum or whoever would do the same back to let you know they had got the message that you were back safely. All to save about a farthing on the cost of actually saying you were home.

Doing "Bob a Job" for Brownies where you knocked on complete stranger's doors and asked if you could do a house or garden task in return for a shilling. A complete safeguarding fail, but I never heard of anything actually going wrong.

Do no young women now have short or shoulder length hair? I haven't noticed that.

Watching old re-runs of Brookside, I was reminded of 90s things we hardly ever see now - French plats is grown women's hair and wearing a very baggy top with a long skirt.

Teacher smoked a pipe at his desk. Some of the women teachers had overflowing ashtrays on their desks and the most glamorous one used a cigarette holder. 1970's

I have one of those and it's in the cupboard under the stairs!

Trying to explain to the grandchildren that we didn't have a phone in the house when I was growing up, they couldn't get their heads around that at all, how we made any arrangements in person by actually talking to people!

We found a box of old videos in school a few weeks ago. And the year 4s were in complete amazement. They had no understanding how the film fit in the box and what you would play it on. Favorite comment "so are these like fossils?"

These model rockets are still sold now, there are enthusiast clubs (which tbf may include at least some people who were autistic boys in 2003 in their membership) and they hold monthly meet-ups on farmland to set them off etc.

That you could go on a night out, have a dance and a million drinks, do totally dumb things and have a massive laugh and there be basically NO photographic record of your shenanigans.

A group of my friends found some old photos recently and there was one where two of them (a girl and boy) were just standing there smiling at the camera, looking totally normal apart from the fact that they’re wearing each others shoes. I can like, vaguely recall what led to this, but not really in detail.

Loved having nights out where we could all talk about it in vague terms the next day over a Coke and a bag of Doritos without someone whipping out a load of photos!

When the rag and bone man came round on his horse and cart my Dad would be out there with a bucket and spade to collect the horse's 'droppings', Dad had lovely roses!

And then around 2010 they were associated with petty crime because you could hide your face from a camera. David Cameron wanted to 'hug a hoodie'.

Mine still has a screen saver (I could set it to turn off but it isn't as pretty) and I still have my own desk.

A few years ago we were buying fireworks in a local shop run by an Asian family, they were taking delivery of loads of batteries. I asked if they knew something we didn't and she laughed, telling us that they opened on Christmas Day from 7am until mid afternoon and sold more batteries on that one day than during the rest of the year combined. In some years there had been people waiting outside the shop when they arrived to open at 7am, usually guilty looking fathers, as she said it wasn't a special day for them so it made sense to open, almost a community service.

Kids still do paper rounds here.

A friend did this as a nurse. She's around 60 now so it would have been the 90s I think.

Brilliant.

I was reading a book with my year 7s last term that was set in the late 90s. They looked perplexed at reference to "the Internet noise" and more confused as I explained we either got the phone or the Internet.

Being whipped at school.

I didn’t know that! I wonder if they ever stocked the iconic Starsky cardi? Used to love Starsky and Hutch!

The Berlin Wall

Carrying half a crown (taped with sticking plaster) into the arch of a shoe for emergencies on a night out…

We used to have Christmas parties at work on a spare floor. We all clubbed together for a dj and drinks. I don't think anyone I work with would even consider having a glass of wine at lunch now, let alone drinking cava from a plastic cup at their desk, pre-party!

Dc were intrigued by tv programmes just stopping on the BBC, National anthem playing and then ceefax or the OU playing until morning.

I remember it being fine to let dogs out and they would return around teatime. Just dogs roaming around.

I see you've given away that you're not in the UK
Really, you shouldn't comment about things you know nothing about

Netflix posting out DVDs