Did they have telly in the olden days when you were young Mum?

[ghosty]

DS' corker of a question 5 minutes ago!

So, I have been thinking ...

What do we take for granted now that we didn't have in the "olden days"?

I remember not having a tv. My mother says the first time I saw a tv I was 2 and a half (I was born in 1970)
We always had a phone but didn't get cordless phones till I was well over 20.
I remember my Dad getting a VCR player when I was about 12 ... that was cool!
I worked for a 'mobile' phone hire and repair firm in my Uni Holidays ... they were mostly those brick like car phones
My Dad had a telex machine when I was about 8 ... a great big thing the size of an electic keyboard that clattered INSTANT messages to him from colleagues in America ... ...
I remember an american friend of ours showing us this amazing new innovation called BAR CODES on the label of his peanut butter jar that he travelled everywhere with ....

What else, Oh, being the first in the school to use the brand new Electric Typewriters in my typing lessons and the dizzy heights of BBC computers in the computer room at school (state of the art technology in 1984) and Amstrad Word Processor ... my Dad was so proud of his in 1986!

[Bugmum]

Oh, and I remember we had a phone when most of the street didn't, so people used to knock to use the phone, and would leave 2p (decimal had just come in when I was five) on the hall table. 2p!!!!

[SCARErenity]

The CH thing is a bit of a mixed bag I think. My Mum didn't get it until I was 18, and then I've only had it here for about 2.5 years (I think I posted on here saying how excited I was to get it ) I don't think it's as 'standard' as people seem to think.

[suedonim]

Liberty bodices! My mum made me wear them after I was very ill one time. They had rubbery buttons all down the front. I was mortified at having to wear them.

Dh and I didn't have CH into the 80's. I used to have break the ice on the nappy bucket on cold winter mornings and can feel the pain in my hands to this day.

[Bugmum]

Born in 1966, and many of mine have already appeared on this thread: black and white telly (from Radio Rentals, as was our later colour - no owning them!), no contral heating until about 11, no video until I was almost leaving home and so on.

But my dad was gadget mad, and would go down the Roman or similar, and come back toting the latest 70's miracle, like a thingy that cut boiled eggs and cucumbers into star shapes (why? why?) or an electric tin opener (cue for Dad opening every tin in the house; Mum not best pleased).

I never had a space hopper, though, as my mum (waaaaaaaaay too cautious) thought I'd hurt myself, although oddly, I had the extra-long clackers (is that what they were called?) from America that were banned here. You know, those hard plastic balls on two pieces of string.

[MadamePlatypus]

We had a sodastream, but I am not actually sure what the point of it was. We used it loads, but I am not sure why it was so exciting. Maybe its because it is easy to buy cheap fizzy mineral water now so I underestimate how exciting it was to "get busy with the fizzy". Were soft drinks really expensive in the 70's or were they just boring? Just can't remember what the appeal of making your own coke from concentrate was.

[ghosty]

Do you remember having Microfiche at the library to research homework and Uni essays?

[EliBoo]

Yes, and pre-decimal coins - and slide-rules to do maths with at school, along with cos and sine tables. No pocket calculators

I was born in 1960.

[EliBoo]

Aah...bubble lamps. They seem to be around again now, weirdly.

Space Invaders, and before them those tennis bat/ball games on word processors you could get..

I remember b&w tv only, the first moon landing, the Beatles.....later on, Curly Wurlies, sherbert fountains, and black jacks. Gobstoppers.

Doctors who made house calls

[Mirage]

I was born in 1968 & remember pre decimal coins.
We had no inside toilets or mains sewers until 1975.
No phone until 1985 when I started work.There was no bus home from work so my dad had to meet me in a village,6 miles away & bring me home.My dad shared a car with my uncle & aunt & didn't have a car of his own until 2001.No gas supply until the late 1990's.No central heating.I had never lived in a house with central heating until last year.

We had no shop in our village after the early 1970's,but had a mobile library,mobile fish & chip van,mobile shop,the butcher & baker who came round & the 'suitcase man'who turned up periodically & sold dusters,exercise books ect out of a big suitcase.I never drank bottled or treated milk until I started work,ours was straight from the cow & kept in a bucket in the fridge.

We used to pick potatoes,build haystacks & pluck turkeys,pheasants & geese at Christmas.Talk about child labour!

[samwhite]

my DH tried telling ds1 that you don't get books scanned in the library when they were playing libraries. made him feel very out of touch

reading Kittylette's makes me feel like i'm a very old mum {envy} - although i was born after 1970 i relate to these experiences, didn't have a tv when very little, then when we did it was B&W remember the VCR coming and the PC, also getting a dishwasher when i'd almost left home (that was probably why) as with the cordless phone, when little, mum didn't drive, if you couldn't afford it you didn't get it, you didn't worry about feeding your children lard and butter, we were outside all weathers. did not have central heating nor tumble dryer. didn't have a shower in bathroom until teenager, bliss. having milk delivered by the milkman - just started that up in out house again soo nice to see milk bottles on the doorstep in the morning, reakky had missed that. less rubbish about everywhere

[housemum]

DD age 3 asked me if Jesus was born when I was little!

[bloodyhowler]

My ds asked dp the other day if he had done national service!!!!!!!

[housemum]

• Beano and Dandy costing 4p (1970's)
• no hot water
• outside lav
• tracing paper loo roll at school (also outside until '79)
• nit nurses (bring 'em back)
• no such thing as cafeteria school dinners - choice was 2 items, take it or leave it (not such a bad thing)
• half-pence coins - how stupid and small were they?
• Saturday kids' telly consisting of Champion the Wonder Horse and an old Elvis film in the school hols
• only 1-and-a-half hours of kids tv in the afternoon not 24/7
• the National Anthem and the little white dot when the telly ended at midnight
• everything was shut on Sundays - peace and quiet (and deadly dull when you were a kid - I'd love it now!)
• using the phone was expensive so no long lingering calls and certainly not calling someone who was only next door!
• Ronco buttoneer ads on the telly in December meant the Christmas season started
• the boys at school with the chunky Casio watches with "games" on (the games all being something with numbers like Mastermind as that's all there was the technology for)
• rag and bone men
• the notion that air travel was "posh" (no Easy jet back then!)

[ProfYaffle]

When I was little my Nan lived about 9 miles away in the next town. Mum didn't drive (her and Dad seperated at the time) and we didn't have a phone. The only way to keep in touch was by - gasp - letter! Visits were rare as it took 3 buses and most of the day.

I remember by other Nan getting a microwave in the early 80s and we stayed up late making jacket potatoes and cooking bacon, then tasting it and being amazed it was actually cooked after 2 minutes!

[puffling]

I was born in 1970. In the 70's there was lots of dry white dog poo on the pavements. What happened to that?

[caterpiller]

I also desperately wanted a Soda Stream, but my mum never got one. I'd still like one actually

[laudaud]

speaking of cars, 9 of us squeezed into a car to see the Pope in Dublin - 3 adults and 6 children and there weren't any 7 seaters then either!!!

[Tortington]

inside toilet!

[rachluv]

like i said we should never have survived its amazing how we wern,t all killed in car crashes for not wearing seat belts or burnt making coal fires or falling down celler steps fetching coal or drinking milk straight from the cow, or eating sea food that had been driven around on a bike for hours or dying in our beds from hypothermia coz the blankets were thread bear pmsl none of us should really be here now theres a tought

[sockmonkey]

Oh I am 27...just

[sockmonkey]

We had a coal fire... my job was to fetch coal from the cellar...where the monsters lived too. eek.

My dad got a VCR from work when I was about 8. And one year work lent him a camcorder, which took full size cassettes, i think I might have been 10.

Holidays to Filey were the best. Mum, Dad, 7 children, and dog and usually a friend, plus bedding & food for 2 weeks all crammed into an Vauxhall Astra estate car. No booster seats, or even seatbelts then.

[kittylette]

im only 21 so had most things when little,

but i do remember my dad gettin 'laser discs' HUGE dvds,

the thing i liked about being little is how everything seemed so big and magical.

how my grans garden felt like a magical woods, with a secret area at the back and a big old haunted house at the bottom,

but now i just see a garden with a partition, a few bushes and a shed!