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.

It all comes full circle though, as times will change again and they will look back onto today and not understand what we do today.

However. Having to remind the video tape before you took it back to the shop.
Having a 2p in your pocket at brownies/guides in case you needed to make an emergency call from the phone box.
Phoning the doctors and getting straight through without being held in a long queue.

People had more manners and respect and people weren't covered in ink.

From about seven, I was walking the mile to and from primary school, including crossing roads at zebra crossings, on my own. My class teacher used to send me to the local hairdresser's to make appointments for her, and buy styling lotion, for which she'd give me the cash. I wasn't any older than eight or nine, as we moved house in the August before I turned ten. I think it was about being given responsibility to do errands etc.

Similarly, at this time, my mum used to send me to the corner shop to fetch a few groceries, either giving me cash, or telling me to ask the shop keeper to "put it on the tab" aka she would pay it later.

This was in the seventies. Can't really imagine it happening now. 🤷‍♀️

I remember feeling bored quite often. But I also read a lot of books. I’d walk to the library (half an hour) for something to do in the holidays.
Now my kids get bored, even while seemingly never looking away from a screen, and I say “read a book” and they think I’m joking…
What weirds me out is that my experiences growing up weren’t that different to that if my parents- physical post, books, landlines, no internet, travel agents, smoking everywhere etc
Whereas my kids (older teens) just can’t really comprehend how different it was. My son actually told me a few times he wishes he’d been around in the 90s - no social media, no endless photos of each other- and it makes me feel sad.

Oh no that's so sad. We had school milk in the 70s too.

"Having to remind the video tape"

Love this auto carrot! 😅 Like reminding a cassette not to get stuck in the player and spew the tape out everywhere. 🤬

Oh, how horribly sad for you all 😭It might have been that the milk was infected with listeria. T B from milk was also a thing back in the 40s.

Thought of another thing. When I was 18 in 1994ish and various friends went off to live in different places ( work, uni) we wrote each other letters. I still have them all. I love that.
When email came in we would use that, but still in letter form really, so proper long informative, funny and responsive communications.

I am probably older than many of you and remember ice on the inside of the bedroom windows in winter.
when DGS complains of slow internet I think of my my DC loading there games up on their acorn computer and it taking 20 minutes and invariably it crashed soon after.

Iknowit should be their not there!

A computer being introduced into school, the year after I left (86).
Having to share a computer in my first job with 3 other people.

I think it's mean to be things which sound 'nuts' to younger people because it's just so far from their life experience.

It's making me feel very old as a lot of posters' old memories of things which their children can't believe seem to be fairly modern to me - eg things from the late 90s/2000s.

Boys (mostly) in school gun club bringing their guns to school ON THE SCHOOL BUS each gun club day. No one thought this was odd or dangerous; boys were instructed on how to carry their weapon for safety!
Australia has quite strict gun laws and all gun owners need training, licences and a valid reason to own a gun.

calling a special landline number to tell you the correct time

I did ring my parents from the pay phone, when I was in hall; but the pay phone was in the entrance hall; so literally everyone going in and out could hear the conversation. If we had a personal problem to discuss, letters were more private.

My parents and DH’s parents only had a phone installed at home, when we went to university - and they were probably a bit better off by then anyway!

Explaining how genius Ghostwatch was and how it couldn’t work today.

we couldn’t rewind live tv unless using a vhs but then you’d lose anything during the time you were viewing it

No twitter to check what everyone else was thinking about the show or spoilers/plotholes

very unlikely even to be able to call a friend during the broadcast

this blows DDs mind

There was actually no such thing as a 'landline'. Since there were no mobile phones, all phones were landlines and that word was never used. We just had phones.

I think about those awful things whenever I see someone's thong poking out of their trousers when they bend over!

My elders used to excitedly peruse the coupon catalogue! choosing what treasures they could be rewarded with.

Also for me, the excitement in the 80s of buying the Xmas TV times and Radio times and circle what you planned to watch, or later in the 80s, record on VHS. My Dad went as far as to write it all down on a pad of paper so he wouldn't miss anything.

In the 60s, my Dad was a latchkey kid as my Grandma had been widowed in 1957 aged 24 with 2 kids 3 and under, and she had to work. So once he and his brother were old enough to not have to go to a neighbour for tea after school (they were still in primary school), my Grandma tied a front door key to the letterbox with string and they'd pull it through from the outside. If it was winter, they had to go in, give the coal fire a poke and put more coal on as everyone kept their fires going full-time throughout the winter.

They did experiment with my Dads elder brother going to school with the key on a string around his neck but he lost it so they reverted to the letterbox method.

Spookily posted at 11.11 on Halloween! 👻

I remember, and I also remember before it was "the time, sponsored by Accurist...".

Thongs poking out of trousers is one of those things that needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. I doubt that's a trend we will ever look back on fondly!

Using a Word processor.
Saving my dissertation on a floppy disk.
Dial up internet.
Going to the library to get information.
Making plans and sticking to them.
Only using the phone after 6.
Not being able to get through on the phone if the other person was on the Internet.
Having lessons in college on how to do an Internet search.
Renting a video.
Recording songs on to a tape off the radio.
When I first started work, we sent faxes as a way to communicate. I was a community nurse, we'd go back to the office at lunchtime, have a message on the answer phone from a patient with a blocked catheter and we'd go out to see them. Now we have a central number and we are contacted via phone and email straight away. If I wanted to refer a patient, it was a form then faxed. I don't know how we managed like that for so long.

Writing letters to my friends in the school holidays

Notes in school (I have kept a bunch of them as they were so funny)

Coke and other soft drinks sold at primary school as a treat for kids every Tuesday

Allowed to go out on bikes for hours from a young age- parents had no interest in what we were doing

Cycling to school in traffic from a young age in primary

No mobile phones, no internet, instead - videos and cassettes!

I have really happy memories of going to Blockbuster on a Friday or Saturday night. Ditto really happy memories of visiting the local library.

It might have been that the milk was infected with listeria. T B from milk was also a thing back in the 40s.

Yes, I recall my Dad saying it had been a form of TB, he said he had never told my mother of how ill their son had been in hospital when he had seen him alone.

Why? The still.have milk at school., just it's a carton with a straw not a bottle

I'm only 46 and remember ice on the inside of windows in the winter in the early 90s before the council put central heating in!

We had a gas fire in the lounge and a portable calor gas fire with the big gas cylinder in the back on the upstairs landing to try and keep the house warm but it wasn't enough to stop ice on the inside of windows on really cold days.

I imagine ice on the inside of the windows in winter is still quite common for people who can't afford to put the heating on enough.