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.

I never got to go to a McD birthday party, never got an invite! They sounded amazing though, are they not a thing now?

I don’t think kids today would believe that there was a thing called Ceefax on the TV and there were even “chat rooms” where people could text each other.

As a child I used to get super excited when the autumn/winter catalogue came in, I'd go through the toy section and write my Christmas list. My poor parents 😂

White dog mess was everywhere in the summer. Never see it now!

Green Shield Stamps.

A lovely old man (Harry) at the rec who would push us on the swings etc.

I used to walk my geography teacher’s dog, along with my own, after school. Some days she would come with me and we would go up to the woods in her car and walk them there.

Being given 50p by grandparents and told not to spend it all at once!

early shop closing on Wednesdays

Listening posts in record shops

Looking for jobs in the papers or specific professional journals.

Counting out the cigarette packet vouchers!!

I can remember when we had to wait TEN YEARS for a film to be shown on TV after it had been on at the cinema! But then,I am quite old (61)!

There was a Banda machine in the first school I taught in - mid 1970s. All girls school, almost all female teachers.

When I left my friend and fellow teacher, who was French but taught something else, told me that “bander” was French for something rude, and that the two French teachers used to snigger when I left the staff room saying I was going to use the Banda.

Well, it was a reprographic machine…

Google translate says it means “get hard.”

TheFormidableMrsC · Today 10:25

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.

My mother did that on my first day of infants. I missed the first 3 weeks, having bronchitis and some of the kids bent over the milk crates and stuck their straws in without taking the bottles out, so I followed suit. A teacher slapped my legs really hard and roared, "You've been told enough times!" and took the milk away.

When my mother collected us, she said that it looked like a red hand print on my legs and asked if someone had hit me. I told her and she dragged us in and asked the teacher if she'd hit me, which she tried to deny. Mam swung me round and said, "What's that then?" Then she fetched her a good slap across the face and shouted, "No one hits my kids except me!"

Did yours used to do the hot orange drink too? I used to have it as a change from tea or hot chocolate sometimes, but looking back, it was bloody awful 😆

Ah the Banda machine and its heady cocktail of chemicals, its funny rhythm and its bright indigo ink!

You used to write or type onto paper that came into contact with a sheet of indigo dye, then put the 'master' onto a drum inside the machine, add some chemicals and then turn the handle to print multiple copies page by page!

If it went to a fancy school (I didn't) they used contact sheets in a range of colours...

It made a very distinctive sound. Ka-bom! Ka-bom! It must have been a great way to get rid of aggression or frustration. Perhaps they're due a comeback...

I imagine that the doctor had a car but a lot of families didn't.

@FavouriteTshirt I loved the smell of the banda machine ink.

I think young people today would find it weird and horrifying how often casual sexual abuse and harassment (groping, molesting, flashing etc) was so often downplayed or the victims not believed. Also the normalisation of verbal and emotional abuse by teachers and parents especially. I think we know more about childhood trauma now and how seemingly low level incidents can have an effect on ability to trust or feel safe.

We lived in the same road as the doctor though. It was five minutes' walk away.

He still did home visits if we had a suspected communicable disease.

Billy Smarts fucking circus on the telly every easter. Just...why? (ditto Perry Como at Christmas )

It always seemed nuts that my mum got a brownies badge for making a phone call. Apparently it was really difficult, from a phone box and you had to press buttons in a certain order and add the money at the right time

You’re making me think I was well paid.

I had a Saturday job at age 16 in 1968. I got £1 for the day, less 3d for “the stamp,” so received 19s 9d (19 shillings and 9 pence) in cash in a little brown envelope at the end of each day. The calculations were written in a printed grid on the outside of the envelope.

I worked in a slightly posh dress shop. There was a small area on ground floor level, and customers had to go upstairs to a much bigger space to see the clothes. Unless it was exceptionally busy my job consisted only of asking customers when they came in “Coats or dresses?” and pressing the associated bell. This rang upstairs so the appropriate sales lady came forward to greet them there. I imagine clothes could be brought down if the customer couldn’t manage the stairs.

In those days you couldn’t browse the clothes rails, you had to know what you were going in for and had dedicated one-one service while you were in the shop. The saleswomen were on generous commission. The senior sales lady sold the coats and the second one dresses, presumably because they were cheaper so attracted less commission. Then down the hierarchy if those “above them” were busy when new customers came in.

The only man employed by the shop was the manager. He sat in a little office on his own all day. As far as I recall all he did was prepare the wage packets and possibly handled the customers’ payments - cash or cheque - although I vaguely remember that the second sales lady did that, too.

As in “Are You Being Served,” the staff were all known as Mrs, Mr or Miss whatever their surnames were.

I did get staff discount but, as an earlier poster has said, they didn’t really sell anything I wanted to buy. I still remember that the one thing I did get was a short silver and white A line dress with a zip up the front. Quite 60s.

Loving this thread. So many memories.

I have just remembered that when the Falklands War started, our boss went out and bought a radio so we could keep up with the news in the office.

My DC who have never not known mobile phones or computers think that is very weird.

Blimey, it wasn't that difficult.

You put 4 pennies in, dialled the number, then pressed Button A when they answered.

If nobody answered, you pressed Button B to get your 4 pennies back.

And sometimes you didn't get your money back but there was nothing you could do about it

My dad told us he always kept 4 pennies handy when my mother was pregnant, to go down the road to the phone box to call a taxi when she went into labour.

I'm currently trying to locate the nearest functioning telephone box to our Scout Hut as bizarrely its still on a badge criteria!

We didn’t have a phone at home until I was eight and we moved to another part of the country. I remember my Dad went out a few times and rang home, to get me used to answering it.

Before we moved my mum occasionally worked as a supply teacher in the primary school I went to. I remember being given a message on at least one occasion to ask her if she’d come into school the next day as they needed someone. It sounds a very unreliable system now, but if phones weren’t commonplace there wouldn’t have been a quick way to get in touch with her.

People didn't want others to hear them and wanted the privacy of a phone box.
Now sadly you can hear people's business and life story on the bus.🙄