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.

All the AIDS adverts on billboards with a massive tombstone and "AIDS. Dont die of ignorance" on them.

Kids used to be able to buy cigarettes on behalf of their parents at the corner shop!

you could smoke in the office.

Every business being closed on a Sunday. Unless it was nice weather when you could go for a walk, your choices were a black and white film on TV at 2pm, reading a book or doing a crossword/playing cards!

A fax machine and dial up Internet...over head projector

My mum put a lock on our dial house phone to stop us (me) using it. So I didn't tell her I knew how to tap out the numbers using tabs that would usually disconnect your call (don't know what they're called)
You had to be very precise but it worked 🤣
We were out all day during the holidays. I'd walk for miles with friends. Would be in serious shit if not home on time for dinner, got skelped more than was reasonable.
At a very young age (from 5) I was sent to the shop with 50p to get my mum cigarettes and bread. Always with the money in note.

Staying up especially late by mums special permission so I could watch the first release of a video to music on 'the Tube' music programme
Thriller
Two tribes
China Girl
Stand-out memories 😁

As a primary school teacher, I made hundreds of 'work cards' - pieces of card with times tables / addition / subtraction/ division sums written on. Then I'd cover each one in sticky backed plastic so they'd last longer. Used them in class instead of / as well as text books. Also made cards for spelling / grammar etc. It took for ever to make these (I needed enough for nearly 40 children), but we only had 1 photocopying machine in the secretary's office and that wasn't available most of the time for teachers. Teachers didn't have much official paperwork to complete, but we were trained to keep our own records which were supposed to be go with the children to their next teachers.

With all the very explicit ads now for Sanpro it's reminded me that my mum used to send me to the chemist with a note which said 'STs'. They were put in a brown bag and I never know what they were for until I, myself started menstruating,

Almost everything I do and everything I say according to my children and grandchildren.

Thank you I was coming on here to say this.

Bonfires were lit at the time to celebrate that the plotters had failed and that the king didn't die

When I think that we now have a device we keep in our pockets, that has all the information about the world. We use it to watch cat videos.

In Queensland in 1985, it was entirely legal and not infrequent for naughty children to be given the cane...by the headmaster of the school. In year 4.

A remote control for your TV was not standard. We used to physically get up and go to the TV set to adjust the volume, switch channels etc. And for many years, we watched just 3 channels.

I remember when there were only two.

I recently told my DD about teletext holidays and finding the lottery numbers on there, page 123 if anyone needs to know 😂 she couldn't grasp it. I think she thought I was mad and talking nonsense.

My nephew was shocked phones were connected to the wall with a wire and the headset also connected...he was more shocked when he found out he lived with it when he was younger.

No calls before 6pm in our house too and they could only last 59 minutes or less, if you wanted to speak longer you hung up and called back so it wouldn't cost anything.

I remember buying cds with fondness from wollys, only singles tho, I had 1 album for my birthday, I thought I was rich!

I remember when channel 5 was launched, and the films on a Sunday afternoon (after the eastenders omnibus despite my mum watching all the episodes during the week) Adams family and sister act were regulars.

Christmas was amazing, so many films to watch and not the usual ones played almost weekly throughout the year.

Knocking someone's door and often speaking with their mum to see if they could come out to play, you didn't know if they were in or allowed but you tried anyway.

As long as I was with my male same age cousin I could go anywhere, if I was with him (even when we were 7-8ish) I was safe....ironically he got me into more trouble than if I was on my own. And always being in shouting distance for tea (again due to the aforementioned cousin it didn't often happy but it was a rule)

Clearing out my mums house with my young daughter we went through her records and tapes and she was amazed! She called them big black CD things. 😂😂 blew her mind.

I still have an oxo cube & pepper on a cold evening 😊 my Niece said, she couldn’t think of anything worse, “than having a cup of gravy” 🤣

Being able to go out with £5 getting pissed and still having money left for chips.🤣.

I remember the day my husband got medical retirement, and one of the things he did was buy an iPod.
came home. put it on the table next to my desktop computer and announced. "guess what! this has more memory than that big box under the table does!"
and we both thought that was amazing.

and the school staff room always absolutely REEKED of cigarettes.

I'm 44, and on my first day of school I was called up in front of the entire school, during assembly and smacked for not bowing my head and putting my hands together when they said "let us pray"
it wasn't a religious school, just a normal, council one, and I wasn't from a Christian family.

to this day I am SO ANGRY that basically on my first day of school I was HIT in front of everyone for not being a Christian.
how was I supposed to know that those words meant "perform these actions and pretend to pray to someone else's deity"

I never did though. I was always stubborn about that. I kept getting into trouble for it, but why SHOULD I get into trouble for that? it's not like I was disruptive, I just didn't perform the actions they thought everyone should, regardless of their beliefs.

Ugh. my dad used to yell at me for being "selfish" if I opened my window when he was smoking in the car. he would complain it was cold. yeaahh, well I couldn't breathe, and thought I was going to vomit. he also used to talk about my "travel sickness" I've never had travel sickness, I've just had shut in a car full of smoke and not being allowed to open the window sickness

I hated him so much.

I can't remember specifically who it was, but I remember knowing several people who would only smoke in the children's bedroom, as they didn't want their house to smell of cigarettes. and visitors tend not to go to the children's rooms.

we weren't that posh. when we first moved to Cornwall, there was a Rayburn.
basically the same thing, but not considered as aspirational.
it was a bugger to cook on the hot plates, but it made THE best roast dinners in the oven. but all the scraping out the ashes, building up the coals etc. was a pain in the arse.

I was talking about this to my 15 year old last night on the back of this thread...he did indeed think it was nuts! (And told me it made me sound really old!)

I was still pretty young when the fear of nuclear war was at its peak in the 1980s, but looking back at adverts from the 70s Protect and Survive, the absurdity that we could actual survive or want to survive a nuclear winter is pretty mind blowing. You only have to watch or read When The Wind Blows to see the futility of obeying government instructions to the letter. It's not surprising that many people struggled with taking the government seriously in 2020 during lockdown.