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.

But preferred that than having to do lines. Do kids still do lines? What an absolute waste of time!!

No they don't, teachers have to accept whatever foul behaviour the scrotes dish out because any attempt to instil discipline will damage their 'self esteem' or whatever this week's trendy garbage is, their mummsy will be up at school, often for the first time, to 'sort that teacher out', adjectives omitted.

When was this? Was this just your family or the norm for the time, or where you lived?

Because my dad worked evenings my parents were the first on the street to get a colour TV. The idea being that as my mum's evening were basically watching TV with children in bed.

My brother and I invited all the local kids to come and see it.

In those days an engineer came out with the TV to set it up and tune it in. It was a Saturday morning and he had to wait until a cartoon came on to check the colour because all the sport was still B and W.

I was amazed that my mum knew Tom was grey and Jerry was brown before seeing it in colour.

Re short hair.

For many of us it was the hair style your parents decided you would have and in my case my mother wielded the scissors.

I think cost comes in to it too. I live in quite a deprived area, the boys all seem to have buzz cuts and the girls long hair because those are the cheapest.

School trips and telephone tree for picking up after trip .About mid to late 90s early 00before mobiles widely available.

The last time I saw ( or heard “ Ra’boh!”) a horse drawn rag and bone man was about 2012, but I am up north. All gone now I think, too many impatient drivers.
I remember ordering Netflix DVDs too. It was all films and it seemed like you could get anything- all kinds of interesting stuff.

I genuinely hadn’t noticed that the majority of young females have long hair nowadays!

Getting your pay weekly in a brown envelope with a handwritten payslip. Then getting your holiday pay upfront.

Who are you talking to here?

I remember being smacked by a teacher at school.....

Going to the shop at 6 years old to buy cigarettes for my sister with a little note saying it was OK and a £1 note

When Netflix was Lovefilm and they would send you out DVD's. If you put down for a series they never sent them in the right order 😄

I miss Blockbusters

We had a TV with remote - which was attached to the TV by a wire

Neighbours was on at lunchtime - and then repeated at tea time

All the neighbours were 'aunties' or 'uncles' and your parents would leave you with anyone

When you went to a friends house and you had to phone the landline at home, let it ring twice, and hang up so they knew you got there OK

Fountain pens - do kids these days even know what they are

Yes and I was going to mention in my childhood always hearing stories of DIY dentistry. I never saw or experienced it myself, but in the 80s people were apparently still tying a string to a tooth and slamming the door shut quickly. Either that or they were stories from an earlier time.

I babysat at 13yo. I had no experience with children whatsoever but the neighbours knew I was generally polite 🤣

😂

Sugar ones rather than chocolate, but yes i remember this

They still have the sugar cigarettes in France!

A much younger colleague practically fell off her chair when I told her that not only were car-seats for children not a thing when I was a kid, but also that cars didn't even have rear seat belts. And that one of the selling points of estate cars at the time - even depicted in the brochure for my dad's Cortina Estate - was that a couple of kids could travel sitting in the boot space.

As long as you're not English

I remember a vile teacher at my private convent school hitting a girl so hard across the face she fell off her chair. The girl had answered a question wrong. That was her crime. We were all terrified of this teacher. The next day the girls mother marched in, slapped the teacher square across the face, asked her how she liked it, grabbed her child and walked out. I can only imagine what would have happened these days (to both parties) but this was the 70's. Terrorising and assaulting children in private schools was the norm. At the time, my Mum said she'd have done the same if I'd been hit.

They were a godsend for many before central heating was invented though . Your kitchen could be warm all day!

When I was ill at school once, the elderly dinner ladies got out the paperwork for contacting my parents, read my mum's details, and said "it says, 'with great difficulty'" (my mum was a secondary school teacher). Even I knew that my dad was much easier to contact during the day, and I tried to tell them this, but they refused point blank, saying they didn't want to disturb him at work. I had to wait until the end of the school day.

I remember when I was little, if you were ill at school, you had to practically beg to be allowed to go home (or even to leave class and sit by the secretary’s office, which was where they sent ill children). If you did reach the hallowed corridor by the office, you would still have to make a very strong case before they’d call your parents.

Then one day - it must have been the late 80s - it suddenly seemed to completely change. You only had to say you felt poorly and you were straight out of the classroom and they were on the phone right away. I wonder now if there had been an incident at our school, or if it was just a more general change in guidance and someone at the LEA had realised it might not to be ideal to keep sick children in a classroom as long as humanly possible!

There were children’s programmes on BBC and ITV between 4 and 5.45 pm. And religious programmes on Sundays between 5-6.30 pm. And long periods of time when there was nothing except a testcard with a picture of a little girl with a creepy looking clown doll and music playing.

I remember the films on TV that started at 8:30 or 9:00 and there was then the News at Ten followed by the last half hour of the film, we often never saw the end.

Amazon only sold books. Our recent intake of staff (26-y-olds (ish)). Gaped at me when I told them this...

Early 80s - Roaming the local area with my parents having no clue of where we were.
4th and 5th years getting picked up from school by 21 year old boyfriends .

Late 80s - Queueing up to use the phone in the main foyer in my hall of residence. My landing had its own phone but it was for incoming calls only. My mum sending me letters every week. My hall having a TV room because most people didn't have their own TV. Going to the computer room to do an essay. Using the pigeon holes to send messages about clubs etc because of no mobile phones.
Getting up to stuff with no record of it on social media.

Some of us are old enough to remember paper round robins, where you got a 12 page letter, 11 pages written by others, you took the bottom page off (the one that you last wrote), wrote your next thoughtful missive, and stapled it to the top, and sent the whole thing to the bottom person on the list

Embassy coupons which you got in a packet of embassy cigarettes and saved up to exchange for material goods.

There was a catalogue so you could see how many coupons you needed for a teasmade or whatever you wanted.

The more you smoked the more coupons you earned to exchange.