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.

My dad worked in the ME when I was a teen. I can still remember his 13 digit telephone number 40 years later!

Not having news on demand is something my kids don't understand.

think this has gone slightly off track from what @OP was originally asking. The example of guy fawkes was a really good example of things you just don't think are weird because it's your culture. I find it strange that people in UK like being described as 'skinny' but find the word 'fat' offensive, both are extremes. When i visit the home country i have to quickly recalibrate and remember its the other way round. You compliment people by saying, 'You're looking nice and round, these days', and the person responds, Thank you!

Mother's day is a strange concept too, just 1 day in the yr where you celebrate your mother by making her breakfast, maybe take her out to lunch.

I know ! 'Smoking or non smoking?' was a question waiters asked when finding you a table !

@Diaryfear @EagerExpert I do but I get paranoid that maybe they haven't automatically świtched like they're supposed to, and if they manual ones then maybe I haven't done them right . It sounds crazy I know but I tend towards obsessive compulsive behaviours and I also struggle a bit with dyscaluclia.

@hobbitum I was on a ferry on the way back from France the day Princess Diana died. I found out because there was a flurry of activity around the newspaper stand (I assume these were speedboated out to the ferry?) and asked someone what was going on.

My mum then sent me off to borrow a newspaper from someone so we could read the details - obviously all the papers had sold out in a flash.

Not from me directly, but I've been doing some family history and pointed out to 15 year old DS that his great grandfathers left school at 12 or 14 to start work. The idea that DS would be earning enough to make a meaningful contribution to the family is terrifying

Until the second half of the 1980s our phone had a little handle you turned, which (if he was in good form) got you through to the local switch operator in the next village who would connect you to the number you needed. Our number was 'next village 53' (which come to think of it is why half my Dublin relatives are convinced we live in next village not this village).

At one stage there were several international aircraft brokers living locally, operator didn't know whether to be charmed or appalled at calls in the middle of the night from Taiwan or California or wherever. Goodness knows what the people he was connecting made of it all.

I wonder how many of these things were better than they are now? Being able to actually speak to someone at British rail and phone boxes spring to mind. My mobile crashed the other day and I was stuffed!

Early Netflix, pay a monthly fee, and choose 3 DVDs a month to watch. They came by post, and you had to post them back. We thought it was the last word in advanced tech 😂

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread, so thank you to the OP for starting it.

My late DP and I were one month apart in age, and a large part of our attraction came from "seeing" each other in our shared experiences of growing up with weirdly similar family dynamics and lives until we met at 42. One thing I really miss is the exchange of humorous memories that hinge on the times we were born into.

I'm going graveside with a few close friends this afternoon because we're lifestyle Goths and Halloween is one of a few resonant days we mark, so I'll be bathed in an extra glow of nostalgia thanks to this thread.

We spend so much time having to live fast in the present, and look to the future, yet we are in some ways so much products of the past, with particular perspectives. While wallowing in nostalgia may not always be healthy, because Lord knows progress has improved things in so many ways, I do think it's worthwhile sometimes to look back and sort of marvel at it all, especially our "one foot in, one foot out" situation with technology as others have mentioned.

We can't put the genie back in the bottle (barring EMP or catastrophic solar flare, which, though tempting, is not ideal) but we can remember there was a time before with all it's faults and benefits.

Happy Halloween to you all, and here's to remembering, when appropriate, our departed pasts....

In the 1980s there were designated smoking rooms for patients in maternity wards 😳

And on planes!!! Mind boggling now.

This is very true. Was looking at my Dad's CV the other day and he left home at 13, to live in another town (not neighbouring quite far) as there was no high school where he lived. He rented a room and lived on his own, although there were other tenants but he was responsible for himself, a bonafide tenant at 13yrs.

Be kind, Rewind!

I remember when the charts came out on a Tuesday and some people would smuggle their radios in to school so we could listen to them.

Having 2 channels on our black and white TV and being mad on budget day when kids' programmes were put on BBC2 which we didn't get.

Not having a phone in the house at all until about 1972. Not being allowed to use said phone until after 6pm and then having to put 5p in a little box every time we used it.

Having to go to church every Sunday.

Not daring to disagree or have any opinion on anything.

when the WWW was first introduced on my PC at work and before Yahoo! or Google, you had to guess what the web address might be of your favourite shop and type it in the bar at the top of the screen, very few had a website - one of the first was hotmail. Friends Reunited was a game changer!

I have regularly stunned my sixth formers by explaining the concept of handwritten letters (and that I used to write them in the laundrette as it was warm).

They are also horrified that I occasionally used to hitch hike when I was a student!

The post was delivered three times a day when I was a child.

Everyone went mad when it was changed to just twice a day.

5p used to be called a shilling, and a shilling comprised 12 pennies.

A penny used to contain 4 farthings.

So it was possible for 5p to be divided into 48 coins of a lower value.

That still blows my mind.

This is the cultural loss that's hurt me the most in my lifetime.

Back in my day (eww) a kids movie was 50p, a regular movie was £1.50 and a new release was £2-3.

I think we had as much fun choosing as we did watching!

I also miss minidisk - All (most) of the convenience of digital music with the tactile joy of physically making your own mix-tapes. Taping off the radio/record deck will always be king though.

My Step-Mum trained as a nurse in the late 60s/ early 70s and one of the jobs for student nurses on the first shift (these were general wards, not maternity) was to make sure there was a clean ashtray on every bedside table. So, smoking in bed on wards!

I started nursing late 90s in psychiatry and we had a staff room you could smoke in so long as no-one objected, if anyone did object there was a kind of cupboard staff could smoke in on breaks. If there were enough smokers on shifts, we'd all smoke in the staff room during handover and if the Consultants smoked, we'd prepare ward round in the staff room, all smoking our heads off, before going to the meeting room to call in patients

If there were non-smokers who objected to smoking during handover or preparing ward round then we wouldn't but of course, the room would still stink of smoke.

When I had my first Saturday job, I was paid £1.71 for a full day (thanks, Boots).

On my birthday the next year, I got a pay rise, so I then earned £1.73 a day.

And my friend worked at British Home Stores, and got more than £3 a day.

For my Saturday job at Boots, I got 19/6d. but the staff discount was worth having.