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.

When my dad was in hospital in the early 90s, it was still one TV per ward but the ward he was on had evolved an etiquette whereby the remote control went to whoever had been in the ward longest, who then passed it to the next longest standing patient when they were discharged.

I think they probably have @RogueFemale.

I well remember my A-level History teacher telling us (in around 1990) that they genuinely believed the world would end at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and there must have been other moments like that during the period of detente.

I've just remembered the Webb Ivory catalogue. A mail order thing for Christmas gifts that you did via school.

Also the Puffin Book Club.

Somehow it was so much more exciting when these things arrived via school. Especially if it was a Choose Your Own Adventure book!

It also applied to students in the Seventies, in fact I got a better grant than my younger brother, who started university in 1977, a mere 3 years after I did.

Only one TV in the house.

Haven’t RTFT so I’m almost certain this has been mentioned! Having to get off the computer for someone else to use the landline and the awful, crackly shriek when you dialled up the modem!

Oh, and foundation on lips.

We still only have 1 TV in the house! Staying in a hotel and being able to watch TV in bed is a real luxury!

@EagerExpert I worked at Toy Master in 2001 when I was 15, and earned £2.30 an hour!

I got a grant in the very early 1980s. At that point the number of 18yo school leavers in higher education was something like 15%, IIRC. The vast majority of my age group left school at 16, many with no qualifications at all, but some would have been able to study on day release from their jobs, funded by their employers.

For university and polytechnic students, Local Education Authorities had to pay the tuition fees to the institution and a maintenance grant to the student, which was means tested. If the family income was low, the student would get a full grant. My parents' income was not all that high but not low enough for a full grant, so they were expected to make up the difference, which they did, willingly (thanks, Mum and Dad!) as they were so proud to have both their children studying for degrees - not an opportunity that either of them had had. They were both easily bright enough but grant funding was not available when they left school in the late 1940s. My Mum did later get funding to attend teacher training college in the early 1950s. She wouldn't have been able to do that without the grant system as she had to give up her Civil Service job to do it.

My husband went to university as a mature student after working for a few years after A levels. Once you were over 23, the LEA had to fund you without reference to your family income. I suppose if he'd been independently wealthy he might not have qualified for a full maintenance grant, but he wasn't, so he got the full grant in his own right. (His parents would have funded him earlier - it just took him some time to decide he really did want to go to university.)

I feel very lucky to have had a grant. However, the system probably paid for itself as most of us who graduated back then got much better paid jobs later on than we would have done otherwise and we will have paid a lot back in tax and National Insurance.

I went to university in 1981. I had a minimum grant which was £410/year, my parents made up the rest via a deed of covenant which I think was a tax thing. I remember queuing up for our grant cheques. From the second year I believe it halved to £205/year. So it was still the case that many people were dependent on their parents helping them out. DH got a full grant & felt he was rolling in money having come from a very deprived background.

I'll get her to give the badge back then.

I remember being able to sign on at age 16 while I was doing my Alevels. This was because I left school and did them at a technical college and one of them was in the evening so I qualified for benefits because it was under the hours necessary to be eligible. Unthinkable now!

TV Licence Detector Vans.

I remember following one down the motorway in 1989 and trying to explain it to my American friend in the pasenger seat.

I found pay phones a bit tricky. They were kind of temperamental.

I never did because I never smoked but shops would sell you a "Lucy" which was one loose cigarette.

Oh yes our sweet/fag shop had singles in a jar for 8p each!

It seems wild to me that a pixie cut constitutes 'not conforming to conventional stereotypes of female beauty' but I know what you mean.
DD who's now at uni has had a pixie cut for about 4 years - she was one of two short-haired girls in her year at school, one of a handful at 6th form, not sure what things are like where she is now. As she's also small and slim with braces on her teeth, she frequently gets taken for a younger boy. I find the generalisation a bit sad to be honest but it just is so uncommon

I’d heard of those but always imagined it was a “loosey”- because it was separated from the pack .

I think it started off as a loosey and then changed as a kind of joke

Lovefilm was a different company, it was bought by Amazon and eventually became what is now Prime video. I knew people who had mail order Netflix here but I wonder if it was a bigger thing in the US (I've seen it referenced on American TV shows)

When my kids were doing GCSEs they were given revision guides, which basically had the syllabus condensed in easy chunks. They had numerous websites with games basically. Everything was totally spoon fed to them and they still moaned and didn’t revise!
I said, well I had to take my own notes from big dusty books and in lessons and that’s what I’d use to revise! That worries me about the young generation, how pre digested and simplified all their information is. Over the years I have got good at skimming huge swathes of text, note taking, identifying the important bits quickly, prioritising actions etc.
I know AI can now take meeting notes and write essays and all that but even from day 1 in school children are set up to be spoon fed. Brains must lose something, some kind of development surely? Maybe they are developing different skills, I don’t know.
I like being the age I am because, as pp have pointed out, I am relatively tech savvy but I don’t need it. I know I’m resourceful as fuck, and know how to function without an app.

Makes sense!

When I did GCSEs I bought Letts revision guides from WH Smith! And there were guides to the key texts for English literature. I don't think anything has really changed there.

Following a recent conversation with my 20-something nieces and MIL:

milkmen delivering milk to your house daily

carbon paper and typewriters

having to go into the bank to withdraw cash (followed by an explanation of why we couldn't "just pay on our cards")

petrol stations where you stayed in your car and someone came and filled your tank

snowy winters where you'd sometimes be stuck at home because only the main roads were passable and public transport wasn't able to run (we're in the SE, so haven't had a significant snowfall for years)

no appointments needed to see the doctor, you just rocked up and waited your turn

My friend has one, and she loves it. It's very handy when she's gardening, and when she has more than a few visitors.

It's also compulsory for very drunk guests to use. Her cottage has very treacherous narrow, steep stairs and they're a deathtrap when you're sober, never mind pissed.