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 uncle fitted an 8 track player (doubt anyone remembers those) into my nans car because she needed to listen to Englebert Humperdink on the long, long drive to her caravan; the long long drive with at least 5 assorted grandchildren stuffed into the car with no seatbelts, trapped with Englebert on repeat for 3 hours.

We could buy packets of 10 cigarettes. If you only wanted 5 the shop owner would open a packet and take 5 out for you. Leave the other 5 in the packet to be sold later.

Wasn't it called Lovefilm then?

My parents sending me, at 5 or 6 years of age, out of our little housing development, across a busy road to the corner store to buy cigarettes. The man who owned the shop used to pinch the cheeks of all children.

Making a phone call to listen to the number 1 record. I think it was 101 or 140

I've seen vintage American cars - early 1960s - with record players fitted as standard...

The car radio was an expensive added extra, and a prime target for thieves.

We have a car 8 track and some casettes in the loft if you are desperate for one?

Paying per text. 10p a text! And lend a quid on the o2 network 🤣

The emergency messages on Sunday lunch times on radio 4.
" Will Mr &Mrs H Smith thought to be travelling in North Yorkshire please contact Sussex Hospital about their daughter who is dangerously ill"

Being taught by nuns
Teachers could hit us...but my mum went into school the next morning after my sister was hit, she couldn't sleep the night before, and went straight to the teacher and hit her the biggest slap on the face and walked out of there...
Being able to go out for hours and no way to contact us seems nuts to me still and can't ever imagine not having any means of keeping in contact with my children.
Our world was so small and we just knew who we would see..apart from if we had a pen pal.
Now our children know so many people cuz of social media and are able to find out something about someone in a blink just by asking someone else who knows them 😬

And those train carriages where you could only get 6 or 8 people in! You were all facing each other. Don't know the proper name for them.

@Isthisreasonable I this with my kids a couple of years ago.we were driving along a country road and they spotted one and asked what it was. They thought it was hilarious and couldn’t believe I was 12 before we had a house phone amid nearest phone was a mile away. And no mobiles!!!!

Outside toilets.

Public toilets. They were always within reach. Now you need to be in a supermarket or shopping centre to have a hope.

There was one near me that was built in 1880 something (date on the outside!) and very well built with the tiles etc inside. Now it is a solicitors office! I am not sure that my kids really believe me that it used to be a public bog. Pubs in the countryside probably do very well out of people who dont actually want a drink but are desperate for a pee and buy a drink just to use the loo!

Oh and further......loos that cost a penny or twopence to go into the cubicle. Dont know how it worked in the mens but there would always be a queue in the ladies market loos that charged so it was understood that you held the door open for the next woman to go in for free! If you were unlucky and had to pay, well you paid it forward as a thank you for all the times someone else had had to pay!

I feel like the baby in the group, and I remember that too! I am 51!

I remember telling my mum I was going to meet someone from an internet forum
Lots of hushed hissing/whispering between my parents
When she turned up my mum was all "but she's... normal?!"

Now my dad will ask what I'm up to, if I said going meeting a group of people off the internet he would be "cool, have fun"

Oh playing bamboozled on teletext!

Grew up in NI in the 80s & 90s so soldiers getting on the buses fully armed doing checks, bag searches in every shop. Things are so different now for my children, most things have improved for the better.

I really agree. My youth was untainted by social media/mobiles and I'll likely be dead before climate change seriously hits the fan. I know it's bad now, but it's not long before millions are affected by drought, floods and famines. There will be mass migrations from uninhabitable places. Very bad times are coming.

So I feel lucky to be 60 and not 16.

I don't think previous generations have felt this way, that there is an immediate threat to the global environment.

There was a lot more of the national anthem. They played it at the start of the cinema and everyone stood up. It played at the end of the TV schedule too, followed by a long beep and that was it. No more telly that night. I would quite often fall asleep watching TV and wake up to the National Anthem.

Do you mean the "compartments" within the carriages? As described in Harry Potter? Some people think the slam doors were better for crowded trains, as there were far more doors for each carriage, rather than the two sliding doors in each carriage that the modern trains have.

Blind man's buff being a fun way for children to pass some time; at least, seeing how often it is referenced in old literature; now, like conkers, it's one of those classic games that's "too dangerous"; and children would get their devices out instead. Having said that, I remember a group of us teenagers playing it during a dull moment on a school trip abroad.

Mother's day is actually an American invention to sell cards. In the UK (well England but I think it applies to the other home nations apologies if it doesn't) 'Mothering Sunday' was the day you went to your 'Mother Church'. This is the church where you were baptised.

It is in the middle of Lent and the restrictions of fasting were / are relaxed. Servants were allowed the day off so they could attend church which often included a meal at the family home.

Servants walking home would collect wild flowers as a gift for their mother.

Nowadays it is more of a secular celebration based on the US 'Mother's day'.

@@PyongyangKipperbang

Men never had to pay, it was the law.

Pudmyboy · Yesterday 22:22

Home cooked chips were not frozen chips cooked in the oven, they were made from spuds cut up at home (peeled first of course) then fried in a chip pan full of lard, which was left to set after use and used again and again until it went manky. The first batch of chips after the lard was changed were always the most delicious.

My mother always used dripping and God knows how long it lasted. Once there was a certain amount of black gravel in it, she'd decant it into a bowl and then strain all the gravel, before returning it all to the pan!

Appalonia · Today 00:59

Outside toilets.

We've got one, it's in the garage, which was built at a later date. It's fully functional and the cistern is black Bakelite, as used to be in schools.

They used to read them after the evening news as well. I was always intrigued by them as a child. One such message is a plot point in George Orwell's novel 'Coming up for Air' set in the 1930s.