Page 26 | Stuff that didn’t seem weird at the time but when you tell someone younger they think it’s nuts

MildGreenDairyLiquid · 2024-10-31T00:27:02+00:00

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.

thegirlwithemousyhair · 31/10/2024 14:36

Flatulence · 31/10/2024 14:01

Not having a computer and handwriting essays and coursework for school.
Having to head to the university computer room to word process an essay and then print it and hand it in.
Having to make plans with friends in advance and agree to meet in X place at Y time.
Owning a book with national rail times.
Owning multiple paper leaflets containing bus timetables
Getting the local paper for different things on different days (the property section was one day, jobs another) and relying on it for small ads and cinema times.
Having to do most banking in person and your own bank branch. Which meant that if you moved house to another area you had to transfer your bank account to another branch.
Having to get all the money you needed for the weekend by noon on a Saturday as cash machines were few and far between and lots of places didn't take card or cheque.
Paying by card and the cashier bringing out the giant guillotine-looking-thing to take an impression of your card.
Relying on cheque payment at the end of the month because they'd not clear until after pay day.
Smoking everywhere: staff rooms (including at schools), top deck of the bus, cinema, restaurants, planes, hairdressers
Renting the TV from Rumbelows.
Standing outside a TV shop to find out what was going on in the world (e.g. football results, news events).
No rolling news. So very occasionally, if something major happened, the normal TV shows would be interrupted for a news bulletin.
Leaving cash in an envelope on the doorstep for the milkman
Most chickens were sold with the giblets in a wee bag inside it - and they made great stock.
Almost nothing being open on a Sunday.
Having very few photos from school/university because you needed a separate film camera and buying film and developing it were expensive.
Owning an address book and a paper diary, and being completely reliant on both.
Schools having just one or two computers for a few hundred kids. And they were the BBC computers.
Having to go into a physical travel agent shop to book a holiday or flight
Flying being really rare, almost luxurious.
No Channel Tunnel - instead one had to take a flight or board a ferry to get to France.
There being a HUGE gap between films and TV shows being released in the US and then being released in the UK. For films, six months or more was common. For TV shows it was years.
Being left alone as a kid a lot of the time - in the car while my mum went to the supermarket; in the house while my parents went out; letting myself into an empty house after school from the age of 9; being sent to the shops alone from the age of about six.
Sitting outside the pub with a fizzy drink and a bag of crisps to share with your siblings while your parents drank inside.
Four TV channels.
The Radio Times Christmas edition being invaluable - and everyone went through it to circle what they wanted to watch. God forbid there was a clash!

I'm only in my early 40s!

Edited

That made me smile.

Renting the telly from Rumbelows and taking it back to be repaired ! Imagine - reparing a TV!

Buying clothes on tick from the local boutique 😄

Sending off postal orders to pay for rare albums not available in the shops

Collecting Green Shield stamps from the local garage

Phoning in an order to the local grocery shop and picking it up in a cardboard box

Half day closing on Wednesday

No heating upstairs

Not having a shower - only a bath

The speaking clock

The Trade Test Transmissions https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/girl-clown-blackboard-trade-test-transmissions/index.html

Most of these my mum did..

They were great days!

A Girl, A Clown, A Blackboard: Trade Test Transmissions

Bob Stanley discusses his recent project, Trade Test Transmission Card, and his work as musician, producer and journalist.

https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/girl-clown-blackboard-trade-test-transmissions/index.html

MissFancyDay · 31/10/2024 14:44

TheShellBeach · 31/10/2024 14:33

First, second and third class carriages on trains.

Oh yes, have we done trains yet, I haven't read the whole thread yet, I'm savouring it in small chunks.

Dd found it hard to believe that we used to have trains without a corridor going down the whole length of the train. I used to get a train regularly from Croydon into London which was separate carriages, only accessed by the door.

Even in those days, while being a fairly reckless young woman, I used to hate those carriages. I always chose one with lots of people in, but then they slowly all got out at their stops and I was sometimes left with a single man. There was no way of escape, for sometimes as long as ten minutes. I would have nightmares if my daughter had to do that now.

DisabledDemon · 31/10/2024 14:46

Cameras with film in. A lot of my students are doing War Photographer as part of their poetry anthology and unless you know that you needed a spool of film in your camera that needed to be developed in a dark room, the first stanza makes no sense. They're all accustomed to taking photos on their phones these days!

Dontlletmedownbruce · 31/10/2024 14:46

Enjoying a smoke between courses at a restaurant

Cycling places you wanted to go and being home for dinner. No checking in during the day.

Going to mass on every holy day and sometimes every day during Lent (Irish Catholic). Dreading Easter because of the extra long Holy Thursday mass and Stations again on Friday. Even worse was the miserable St Patrick's day mass in Irish.

Calling to a friends house to listen to a new album.

Writing to relatives in the US to find out about a particular twist in a TV series that was a season ahead in US. Or badgering a classmate who you knew had a cousin to do this.

benid · 31/10/2024 14:49

PixiePirate · 31/10/2024 04:05

Email round robins in the late 90’s to 2000’s - sending multiple recipients lame jokes or (usually hoax) ‘warnings’ by email.

I look back and cringe at using my work email account to send the kind of thing that you see on scammy social media posts these days. The distribution list would be huge 😱

That's made me think of chain letters - as in actual letters. If you received one you were supposed to copy them out 10 times and pass on to 10 other people

taxguru · 31/10/2024 14:50

KimberleyClark · 31/10/2024 14:24

Re the Radio Times Christmas edition, I remember when itdidn’t have the ITV listings so you had to get the TV Times Christmas one too. And if you weren’t sharp about it they’d sell out.

Yep, when we had our newsagents shop in the 70s, the only way of ensuring a copy of the Radio and TV Times at Christmas was to pre order. We opened the order lists around October as we had to put in the orders to the wholesalers at the start of December. We'd get a few "extras", but there was never any guarantee as to how many, so it was a bit of a lottery for people who hadn't ordered in time, as the "extras" would sell out very quickly. We had a constant stream of people coming in asking for them who were doing the rounds of going to lots of different newsagents trying to find one with a spare copy of each. That was the days before supermarkets and garage forecourts sold papers and magazines. It really was only newsagents that sold them. Also in the days before widespread sale or return and the publishers printing lots of extra copies - it really was all based on pre-orders and if a newsagent ordered too many, it was their hard luck as they'd not be able to return the unsold copies for refund.

Cyclebabble · 31/10/2024 14:51

Hasten to add I was the kid not the adults!

VikingLady · 31/10/2024 14:53

Being taught to use the card catalogue at university,
Writing long essays by hand,
Debates at university about how on earth we were to reference websites in bibliographies because it was such a new issue!

LightSpeeds · 31/10/2024 15:00

Having a 4 digit phone number!

SAH07 · 31/10/2024 15:01

Probably been mentioned but haven't read the 26 pages!

I was only talking to my children about this a few days ago, no access to Internet on your phones. We used to have to physically go to a PC, plug the phone line in and dial in. There was a funny noise whilst connecting, and then no one else could use the phone whilst you were online, there would have been an engaged tone

Itsbetterbythebeach · 31/10/2024 15:02

scalt · 31/10/2024 08:33

@fungibletoken I bet they used the telephone tree during one school trip I was on: the whole school going to a West End theatre. After the performance, we were suddenly all made to sit on the floor of the foyer, probably because the coaches home hadn't turned up; and we were told to be very quiet, because the headmistress had to make a phone call. (Remember the signs which said "you may telephone from here"?) If there hadn't been so many of us, they might have tried to take us back to school on London buses.

Just thinking about how some people have drones now: back when a drone meant "a male bee", I find it weird to think that "remote controlled model aircraft" were once a thing, and that some children had them as toys: now that kind of model plane is the preserve of specialist flying clubs.

I remember a school trip (late 70s, I think we were 11 or 12) to a Museum in London when the coach did not turn up to take us home. Poor teachers ended up talking all 30 of us home on the underground/train (in rush hour) all the way back to Winchester. Amazingly none of us got lost/separated. Talk about stressful (plus can you imagine how much those last minute peak time train fares would cost now😱)

MrsAvocet · 31/10/2024 15:04

That was another thing. When relatives moved to far away places such as Australia/New Zealand/Canada (and lots of my family did because the economy in Scotland and the North of England was so woeful in the 80s) you just sucked up the fact you'd either never see them again or see them about once every 10 years because air travel was so expensive and Skype didn't exist. Even phone calls were extortionate. So you wrote. My grandmother kept every postcard and letter from my Aussie cousins and my auntie - we found them all when she died and there were boxes full.
And if you wrote, chances are you used air mail paper, which was basically tissue paper! You could buy it in pads, or you could get an air mail letter from the post office which you wrote on and the folded up and sealed into a square about the size of an envelope, so your letter didn't have the added weight of an envelope too. I remember writing to pen friends abroad and covering every square inch of the paper with tiny writing so I didn't have to pay extra to post it. At the post office they'd ask if you wanted letters abroad to go air mail or surface mail. Surface was cheaper and you could use normal paper without worrying about the weight but it took weeks or even months to reach it's destination depending where in the world it was going. Even air mail would take days to weeks.Getting a letter with a foreign stamp was an exciting and rare treat. Hard to believe when we can communicate with people anywhere in the world instantaneously now!

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:04

KimberleyClark · 31/10/2024 10:56

Oh yes. My parents never felt it was their duty to constantly keep us entertained., we had to do it ourselves.

Show quote history

There's a scene in the Wonder Years (made in the 80s, but based in the 60s) where a boy complaining of boredom has to clear out the garage.

nosmartphone · 31/10/2024 15:06

My first job we had to go to the 'mail' room first thing, write your initials on the post that you wanted a copy of , and it would be photocopied and put in your pigeon hole later that day. No emails at all.

If you wanted to communicate with a senior boss, you basically typed a letter and printed it out.

IcedPurple · 31/10/2024 15:07

Picking up the landline phone only to hear a squeaky hiss, because someone in the house was using the internet.

Dial up internet was revolutionary in its day, but seems so archaic in the age of unlimited Wifi, any time, anywhere.

godmum56 · 31/10/2024 15:10

Wherewhatnow · 31/10/2024 14:21

Eating dinner as a child even if it was something I didn't particularly like, because, well, that was the dinner that day, and if we were hungry between meals there were apples or oranges, and THAT WAS ALL. Teen DD said she'd have killed herself 🙄

I was born in the early 50's and it wasn't like that in our house. my oldest sibling was very seriously ill as a littlie and when they came out of hospital, would only eat milk pudding..rice pudding, semolina and so on. The doctor was amazing for the time and said if that is what they want then just give it. It was touch and go for a while but they did recover and started to eat normally again. My mother never forgot the advice and, while we weren't rich, she always made sure that there was something we liked to eat at every meal and never forced us. The between meal options were plain biscuits, fruit, toast...plain things but things we liked, and we weren't allowed snacks just before meals but there were never battles over food.

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:11

scalt · 31/10/2024 14:13

Re the test card on TV, the girl in the picture was left-handed, so the picture was reversed, so she would be holding the chalk in her right hand.

A punishment for naughty children (not in my time) was being locked in their bedrooms, or "nurseries". It's often seen in books such as the Famous Five, or being sent to bed without supper.

Indeed, houses where all the internal doors had locks with keys seems weird now.

All my rooms have a lock, but I don't have the key. Unfortunately, no key for the bathroom either, which I find really annoying when I have guests.

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:12

Zebedee999 · 31/10/2024 14:28

After a death it was common to have an open coffin in the deceased's house to allow all and sundry to come and pay their respects. My mother saw a few of these as a girl involuntarily as everyone was pressing her to "go say goodby to ...".

Might still happen today, back then it was common... either way it's unnecessary.

Not sure if it's unnecessary. It might help some people grieve.
(Never seen an open coffin myself).

Someone I know had to kiss the dead body (Latin America).

TheShellBeach · 31/10/2024 15:13

Party lines!

This was where two families living next door to one another shared a phone line, because it was cheaper to do so.

The problem came when someone next door was using the phone, so you couldn't use it till they'd finished - and you could hear each other's conversations.

It sounds mad, but that's how it was.

🤣🤣🤣

nosmartphone · 31/10/2024 15:13

Also, having a Sunday best dress, blue velvet, that I had to put on to go to Sunday school. All girls had a 'party dress' that you wore to every party.

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:16

TheShellBeach · 31/10/2024 15:13

Party lines!

This was where two families living next door to one another shared a phone line, because it was cheaper to do so.

The problem came when someone next door was using the phone, so you couldn't use it till they'd finished - and you could hear each other's conversations.

It sounds mad, but that's how it was.

🤣🤣🤣

We could hear other people's phone conversations on the ghetto blaster!

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:17

nosmartphone · 31/10/2024 15:13

Also, having a Sunday best dress, blue velvet, that I had to put on to go to Sunday school. All girls had a 'party dress' that you wore to every party.

Yes, I find it a bit sad now that they just go to parties in their leggings.

benid · 31/10/2024 15:17

MistressoftheDarkSide · 31/10/2024 07:49

Catalogues.

Leaving babies outside shops in prams.

As a PP mentioned, sexual harassment being treated as pretty much a rite of passage when you entered the workplace.

Spaghetti bolognese and yoghurt being exotic in the 70s.

Taking sandwiches and a flask on days out, because even greasy spoons were a treat.

Reins on toddlers being absolutely standard.

Buses with a conductor coming round to take your money with a leather pouch for the money. If you did regular journies and got to know them, you might be given the end of the rolls of tickets to take home and play with.

Your grandmother saving up margarine tubs and toilet roll tubes for you to play with, and hours of fun emptying kitchen cupboards and using pans and wooden spoons as drums. (I know some people probably still do this to be fair, just there wasn't quite the proliferation of toys that there is now, and if your family was on a tight budget, they were few and far between).

A pound a week pocket money being considered extravagant.

Love this! I got 50p a week <or> a comic. I used to get Twinkle when I was tiny, then the Beano then Girl 😀
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle_(comics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_(British_comics)

godmum56 · 31/10/2024 15:18

MrsAvocet · 31/10/2024 15:04

That was another thing. When relatives moved to far away places such as Australia/New Zealand/Canada (and lots of my family did because the economy in Scotland and the North of England was so woeful in the 80s) you just sucked up the fact you'd either never see them again or see them about once every 10 years because air travel was so expensive and Skype didn't exist. Even phone calls were extortionate. So you wrote. My grandmother kept every postcard and letter from my Aussie cousins and my auntie - we found them all when she died and there were boxes full.
And if you wrote, chances are you used air mail paper, which was basically tissue paper! You could buy it in pads, or you could get an air mail letter from the post office which you wrote on and the folded up and sealed into a square about the size of an envelope, so your letter didn't have the added weight of an envelope too. I remember writing to pen friends abroad and covering every square inch of the paper with tiny writing so I didn't have to pay extra to post it. At the post office they'd ask if you wanted letters abroad to go air mail or surface mail. Surface was cheaper and you could use normal paper without worrying about the weight but it took weeks or even months to reach it's destination depending where in the world it was going. Even air mail would take days to weeks.Getting a letter with a foreign stamp was an exciting and rare treat. Hard to believe when we can communicate with people anywhere in the world instantaneously now!

yup. I spent time in the USA and my sibs kid and partner went out to Dubai for years. I often think how much my mum would have loved facetiming. I have still got the letters my late DH wrote me. We were at college at the same time and he was studying for the merchant navy so he was away abroad a lot. When the postage strike happened in 1971, the company he was working for got letters from the ships flown home by their agents and then the agents travelled around England from their local offices delivering them. If you could get to an agent's office, you could send mail back to the ships. They had to get the admin stuff moved to and from the ships anyway so they just said they would carry personal mail as well.

Gwenhwyfar · 31/10/2024 15:18

nosmartphone · 31/10/2024 15:13

Also, having a Sunday best dress, blue velvet, that I had to put on to go to Sunday school. All girls had a 'party dress' that you wore to every party.

In one of my early school photos (no uniform as small school) I'm wearing a 'suit' a kind of velvet waistcoat and matching skirt. Can't imagine a child now dressing like that.