Things that happened 20/30 years ago that wouldn't today

[Putrid46]

As a child I recall aunties, uncles and grandparents smoking around me all the time with no ventilation. I'd stay at my grandparents for the weekend and go home with a cough, it was seen as normal.

Parents driving me to school hungover from the night before possibly still slightly drunk.

As an A level pupil in the early 2000s I recall staying until around 7pm one evening with 2 teachers to finish coursework due in the next day, the teachers practically did it for me and then one of them dropped me off home in her car, nobody batted an eyelid.

We had a French language assistant, who was actually French and she invited us to her home one Sunday to do coursework and eat croissants, again it was all above board, she was a lovely Mrs Doubtfire type lady and it was all fine but looking back, that'd never happen now!

Interested to hear from anyone else

I was regularly babysitting at 12. For loads of families and kids. Once or twice for a 9-week old baby. I used to stay overnight as the parents were back so late. Even at the time I thought it was crazy!

I can't imagine leaving a 12-year-old with my kids now.

Yes! I can't quite believe that I spent school, uni and a fair bit of my 20s without a mobile phone. At all. I went to Asia for 6 months and didn't even think to take a phone. We made a plan to meet at X place at X time and we did it! I did a mass email home every few weeks (typing in everyone's email addresses from the back of my notebook), otherwise I was completely uncontactable, my parent had no idea where I was.

Now people are sending selfies from Machu Picchu as soon as they're there.

I do think I was more efficient back then. Now I'm late all the time, just send a quick text to say I missed the bus etc

I was 18 in 1996. All the smoking stuff - yes!

I’d been getting into pubs and West End nightclubs since I was 15 - only rarely had to produce my fake ID (NUS card you could write off for without any proof of age).

In London you still paid cash to get on the bus, although bus conductors had gone by then, and paper travel cards were still in use - homeless guys would often pick up discarded travel cards from the floor or fish out of bins and hang around outside the station trying to sell them half price to commuters.

Chequebooks were still a thing and chequebook fraud was rife.

There is a thread at the moment about a couple who got together when one was 18 and the other 32. Not many people would have batted an eyelid back then. I had a 32 year old ‘boy’ friend at that age, and it was common in my friend group to date men 10 + years older.

I remember getting into lots of clubs underage, just told them a fake DOB/borrowed someone's ID, not sure how much that happens today.
A bouncer told my friend she could get in if she 'sucked his d**k", he was around 40 and we were 16. Again just brushed under the carpet, nothing came of it.

True, but your first sentence refers to 40 years, which was what I was responding to.

I remember our (female) Head of 6th form made friends with a group of 6th form girls and would regularly have them over to her place for parties (with other adult friends) and sleepovers. She also gave them access to a classroom and locked cupboards to use before/after school and a breaks and store clothes etc. She justified this because they were 'much more mature than the other students'. Everyone knew about this and most of the other students thought it was weird but as far as I know none of the school staff/parents etc ever even queried it. It was an open secret that some of these girls were going out with her male friends (in their 30s/40s).

As a child in the 80s, I remember that smoking in the home, including around children and at meal times was the norm. So much so that even families where no one smoked would have ash trays around for guests and no one would ever ask before they lit a cigarette. Up until the 90s my senior school had a smoking room (a portacabin) for teachers. In 6th form I remember a group of students asking for permission to use it too and the matter was given consideration- ultimately the reason given for declining was that teachers needed an area free from students for their breaks (nothing to do with discouraging 16-18 year olds from smoking).

I worked in Paris in 2011, teachers and pupils standing together smoking at the front of the building was seen as common, here a teacher wouldn't be seen dead smoking within a 5 mile radius!

I think it's generally less common to smoke nowadays largely with the introduction of vapes but also more of taboo around smoking.

Massive snowfall and school shut for a week.

School dinners - lime green custard every Thursday (it was horrific, I'll never forget).

Dad driving home drunk from the pub every single weekend.

Smoking on planes, I still remember the ashtrays in all the armrests.

I think peoples memories go back to 40 -50 years ago, to the mid 70's - mid 80's when asked this question.

20 years ago is 2006 ...no smoking in most places, the world wasn't far off what it is today.

I used to babysit millions of kids for a fiver! 😂

If we are talking 40 -50 years ago..

Having about 30 phone numbers stored in your own memory , and if necessary a literal little black book for all your nightclub cop offs.

More and heavier snow

I started a job in the early 90's where the trainer was pregnant, and she was shut in an unventilated training room all day with us where 8 of the 10 trainees were smoking heavily.

Men having to wear shoes , proper trousers, collard shirts and even ties to get into nightclubs. Going out anywhere at night in jeans was unthinkable.

Everybody's parents drink driving, even with children in the car ( it's not far, there won't be any police about etc etc)

YTS schemes for school leavers..basically slave labour for 39 hours a week with no guaranteed proper job at the end.

Err..Serial killers that didn't just work in hospitals. I'm sure advances in forensic science have stopped murderers going on to kill multiple times before getting caught.

I can still remember the landline number for a house I left 36 years ago. These things stick in your memory.

I recall in the early '90s, so a bit outside the time scale, I overheard girls in my form, 14/15, saying how they were going to a particular club in the city because footballers went there and they wanted to 'cop off' with one. After I spoke to them about how this wasn't a good idea one of the parents phoned in to complain, that I should mind my own f business!

Heh, something that happened almost exactly 30 years ago was my friend copping off with David Beckham (just) pre Victoria. We are the same age though, no scandal there. Would that happen today? Let's assume their lawyers are reading this and go with "definitely not". 😂

I fancied Ryan Giggs more at the time. That thought aged well. 😅He looked quite shy when we saw him out and about.

20 years ago - nothing wild
30ish years ago - having a 26yo boyfriend in Y11, babysitting at age 14 for every local family, including newborns and being invited to bring a friend, a neighbour coming round and smoking over all my clothes (freshly washed for uni, still grumpy about that).

Sounds like a similar part of the country! NW?

I surprised myself last year by realising we were 25% through the 21st Century, surely the Millennium was only 5 years ago!

The slogan for front seat belts was Clunk Click, every Trip, fronted by Jimmy Saville!

I started work in the early 80s, people still smoked at their desks and in the office coffee bars and canteen, there was nowhere you could go that was smoke free.

Getting threatened with the belt as an 11 year old by gym teacher because I accidentally hit the netball pole on gym floor - it was too heavy for me.

Getting kicked on bottom by same gym teacher at 13 for failing to show enough vigour in dancing.

Again threats of corporal punishment for my inability to serve properly at badminton. Later I realised my eyesight would never have permitted me to do any better!

Thankfully my children’s experiences of PE have been as far away from this as can be imagined.

Ah, that's rotten, EB. ☹️ I was hopeless at sports too due to my rubbish eyesight, but our PE teachers (girls school, '82 to '89) never laid a finger on any of us. The non sporty girls were just allocated minor positions and left to bob about on the outer reaches of the court or pitch.

I’d forgotten that!!!

Everyone smoked! Even McDonald's had ashtrays. Cars had them built in! Teachers smoked in the staff room. I remember smoking in the smoking section of a plane as recently as 1998. One of my teachers smoked in the classroom ( wasn't supposed to but it was A level art not first year comp.)

In the early nineties there was a smoking room at work. As late as the early noughties we were allowed smoking breaks throughout the day.

I finished primary school in the mid 1980s.

In my last few years...
The headteacher would take us to swimming lessons, then for the last 10 mins he'd strip off to his trunks and have a swim too.

He once taught a science lesson standing on the roof of the single storey school building with us standing on the floor below. And on another occasion he let off fireworks on the school field.

He was a friend of my Dad's and one day he remembered he'd promised to return a VHS he'd borrowed. He gave it to ten-year-old me and told me to out of school and walk home and give it to my Mum. Said I could leave it in the coal bunker if she wasn't home.

He also gave the y6s an IQ test and took a group of us who tested high enough to a Saturday MENSA club. He drove the 4 of us kids there on his own in his brown Austin Maxi.