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.

The big bulky computer I took to Uni had less memory than my current phone.

Smoking on public transport seems outrageously anachronistic these days.

Ditto corporal punishment in schools. Although that was before my time, my df used to recall being caned and slippered.

A woman on my estate used to sell single cigarettes to any primary school aged kids who came knocking. Usually their parents had sent them but occasionally not.

I mentioned an album I loved I had on a cd and they didn’t know what I was talking about, they hade never heard of one.

not even a cassette a bloody CD

they we’re like so you had music on a metal disc with a hole in the middle but you couldn’t touch anything except the edges of it it because that was enough to make it not play and it only had a few songs on it so if you want to listen to other songs by that band you had to put on a different one.

Eating jelly and ice cream at birthday parties...my kids thought that sounded like the most disgusting, weird thing ever!

Not being able to change plans. So you’d arrange at school on Friday to meet your friend outside Woolworths at 11 on the Saturday and you had to be there. Now plans always seem to chance

And at Xmas I used to hope that I'd get a licorice smoking set... amongst which was a licorice "pipe" with red hundreds and thousands in the bowl part to emulate hit tobacco...

There are still kids doing paper rounds in my village. It's a very sought after job!

Being able to buy (from cigarette machines) a pack of five cigarettes. Think the name began with an "A", and a pic of riders in red coats on horseback.

Also when saving to get married. I added to my "bottom drawer" gifts from "Green Shield Stamps"...

When hair straighteners were invented, I remember begging my mum to help blow dry my hair as a teen because it’s so thick, wild and wavy.

I got my hair highlighted and straightened it and got asked on my first date a few days later.

It didn’t go well as he had multiple pet spiders and a spider tattoo! But still…

An usherette coming round with a tray full of sweets, ice creams and cigarettes during the advert break halfway through a film in the cinema.
My grandkids thought I was kidding that there was an advert break in the film and that you could smoke in there.

You could smoke on the top deck of double decker buses and on one of the carriages on the London underground tube.

Only having one massive BBC computer on a trolley that would serve the whole primary school. Ditto for TV and you know your teacher had recorded a random Open University programme at 2am for you all to watch.

Either of those trolleys coming out was a good day though.

And taking board games into school on the last week of term.

Pub curfews. If you weren't there on time, the door was locked, you wouldn't get in and you either had to go to a nightclub or go home. Not the same as a lock in but I may have had a few of those back in the day too.

Memorising a date of birth a couple of years older than you were to get into any of the pubs or nightclubs that wanted to check your age. I didn't have actual ID until many years later, I started going out at 16 and I was finally 21 before I was asked for photo ID (and that was the only time until I was in my 30s and supermarkets started to crack down).

Travelling to the US in the mid 90s as a teenager without a passport as my name was on my parents' ones and that was seen as enough.

Rag-and-bone man used to come by with a horse-drawn cart regularly. And this was in central London in the 70s

My 1st job was a runner at a newspaper. Basically running from each department with bits of paper and getting photos from the archives.

I had a vast, vast collection of the little song cards all lovingly filed - I was very proud of it 😂

And I'd walk home from school through the giant Biba department store in Kensington. It had food etc in the basement, and cleaning products like packets of soap flakes in black and gold packets.

Dial a Disk

Snake game on Nokia being the pinnacle of phone games.

Disploable battery operated devices as opposed to rechargeable devices.

No social media / nobody ranting on Facebook.

No "influencers" just people asking/copying their friends and family for opinions.

The agonising pain of internet dial-up and the fact you couldn't just browse the net when your mum was on the house phone.

Visiting a library for any and all research, using the card catalogue system to find materials, checking a dictionary or encyclopedia instead of just searching online!

I suppose some young people do still visit the library for research, but it must not be nearly so common nowadays when you can access so much digitally.

Having to work out a hard level in a computer game by ourselves or MAYBE going to a shop to buy a walkthrough guide book if we were really stuck.

Nowadays my kids watch YouTubers play entire games before they play them themselves.

I have alot of these moments with my DSD (13)

• Craig David is not a new artist to the scene in the last 5 years 🤣
• found an old iTouch a few years back and she was all confused that it wasn't even a phone, see also - iPods. Just for music? Weird.
• old tobacco tins at school to hold your flash cards and plasticine blobs etc.
• that I'm old enough to remember Christiano Ronaldo's debut at Man U and furthermore had his poster inside my locker at school 🙈
• taping the charts on a Sunday used to be a thing. Couldn't just ask Alexa to play whatever you wanted.
• I bought my first ever single in record format and later rushed to Woolies to buy singles in their first week at £1.99 before they went up to £3.99 the following week and it was game over.
• tried to do an impression of a dial up modem (DH helped) and explain that as a household we couldn't be on the phone and on the internet at the same time 😱

Glad I've got a teen around to remind me how old I am 😂

I loved going to the video shop on a Friday night as a child! Don;t recall ever disliking a film we picked, but then we didn't have all the options we have now. It takes me longer to pick a film on Netflix with so many choices and reviews to sift through😂

The Corona lorry coming round.

And the absolute highlight of Christmas TV was Disney Time, where they showed clips and songs from Disney films, because you just couldn't see them any other time. This was before tape players, our first Dvd player had a remote on a long wire 😂

Putting the telly on ten minutes before the programme you wanted to see so that it would warm up.

Only having two channels to watch.