Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[alxndr]

A few more recent examples:

Credit card imprint machines - lots of cards now are starting to come out with raised numbers
Having boxes connected to your TV with a combination of RGB to scart adapters, and the three-in one-out scart boxes
PS/2 connectors for mice and keyboards (I recently came across an old keyboard and pointed it out to a colleague as a piece of nostalia, he is just two years younger than me but had no idea what it was)
Giving three rings on the phone to say you'd arrived safely home
Letting people know your flight number so they could look your flight up on teletext
Hotels giving away books of matches
Strike-anywhere matches

 

[LYradial]

Roads with no speed limit

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Virol

 

[coppercapped]

No, you’re just imagining that…

No, really. The gas lamps were replaced by electric lamps in the mid/late 1950s with the columns in slightly different positions. The gas lamps ran on a clockwork timer which lit them at the correct time and turned them off in the morning. A council man wound the clocks up once a week and checked that the mantles were in order. I can still remember the slight hiss they made when lit — it's amazing what a 10 year old observed and can still remember.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Tin baths that you could hang up on a big nail on the back yard wall.

 

[GordonT]

Bronco and Izal the "jaggy" toilet paper brands often dispensed in schools and occasionally also used as tracing paper.

 

[adc82140]

PS/2 connectors for mice and keyboards

I still have a handful of USB to PS/2 adaptors, just in case I come across a PC that needs them. OK, I never will, but my big boxes of cables attest to the fact I can't chuck anything out like that. Anyone need a scart cable or 10?

 

[barringtoncem]

Button A & B in the phone box depending on where you wanted to call & Philips Laserdiscs and V2000 double sided tapes

 

[Ashley Hill]

For reasons best known to themselves, Inter City under BR designated coach B as the smoking coach in the 90s, so if you were sitting in A and wanted to go to the buffet car you had to walk through the smog. Never understood why A wasn't the smoking coach.

Perhaps Guards didn’t want that foul smell in their van.
Izal toilet paper;horrible stuff.

 

[Trackman]

OK, I never will, but my big boxes of cables attest to the fact I can't chuck anything out like that. Anyone need a scart cable or 10?

I have such a stash.
There are all sorts of obsolete cabling and such, but I don't have the heart to throw anything away. You never know!!!

 

[etr221]

Button A & B in the phone box depending on where you wanted to call & Philips Laserdiscs and V2000 double sided tapes

As I remember it, you pressed button A to make the connection once the number called answered (and your money was taken), or button B to get your money back if it wasn't. The great thing as a kid was to just press button B, in the hope that the last caller hadn't, and you got a free penny or two....

Butter and cheese being cut to the size you wanted and individually wrapped in the shops - with butter being patted into shape. No self service in those days...

⅓rd pint bottles of milk at school, as a free ration - morning break (playtime) as I recall. Lasted until the early 70's IIRC - Labour Party slogan at the time was 'Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher' (she was the minister responsible for withdrawing it. School dinner money was a shilling a day - collected every Monday morning, so 5/- - normally two half crowns (2/6 coins): florins (2/- pieces: later 10p) were relatively uncommon.

At school, being told not to do certain money sums, of those in the book - they were the ones with farthings (¼d), which we hadn't learnt as the coin had been withdrawn.
Looking through the pennies you got for a 'bun penny' (older Queen Victoria one, with her hair in a bun)

 

[Ashley Hill]

In reference to @Trackman comment, my father bought a new telly and cannot connect his old DVD player as new telly doesn’t have a Scart connection. Needs a new DVD player with HD connection.

 

[Trackman]

In reference to @Trackman comment, my father bought a new telly and cannot connect his old DVD player as new telly doesn’t have a Scart connection. Needs a new DVD player with HD connection.

They will be an adaptor on ebay!
My SCART cable collection only has two cables left now. Last one given away was an Amiga to RGB SCART, Yes, full RGB not AV.
I really need to take stock of this drawer, there are IDE and floppy cables in there and SCSI 'Scuzzy' cables!

 

[bspahh]

When I was at school in the early 80s, they published a book each year with pretty much everyone's name, date of birth, home address and phone number. I wonder how many passwords I could crack.

 

[JamesT]

Also anachronistic now, Ben Sherman shirts, Virgin Trains and HSTs

Ben Sherman are still out there, they did the shirts Team GB were wearing at the Olympic Closing Ceremony last weekend.

 

[D6130]

Giving three rings on the phone to say you'd arrived safely home

My wife and I still do that....and also to let friends and neighbours know when we are leaving the house to meet them at a pre-arranged location.

 

[JamesT]

No, really. The gas lamps were replaced by electric lamps in the mid/late 1950s with the columns in slightly different positions. The gas lamps ran on a clockwork timer which lit them at the correct time and turned them off in the morning. A council man wound the clocks up once a week and checked that the mantles were in order. I can still remember the slight hiss they made when lit — it's amazing what a 10 year old observed and can still remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting may be of interest to explain the more modern use of the term…

 

[Busaholic]

Reverse charge calls from phone boxes used by impoverished teenagers

BRS (British Road Services) lorries, which dated from the nationalisation of both the railway industry and part of the road transport industry in 1948. I believe Pickfords Removals, which still exists, formed part of this organisation too

Red and dark green GPO (General Post Office) vans, the former for the postal side of that organisation and the latter for the telephonic side. When I briefly lived with my grandmother in Well Hall Road, Eltham in 1951/2 we had a 'green' depot next door, with the little Morris vans driving out over the tram tracks, on which double deck London trams still ran.

Starting handles

Liberty bodices - I remember my little sister moaning about having to wear one

Secondary modern schools

 

[Royston Vasey]

Ben Sherman are still out there, they did the shirts Team GB were wearing at the Olympic Closing Ceremony last weekend.

I bet they weren't baggy, button down collar, and made of a material equidistant between cotton and denim

 

[Howardh]

Reading a newspaper.

My last delivery was over 10 years ago and I haven't bought one since.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

If you wanted to watch a TV programme you had to be present when it was transmitted. None of this high faluting video recorder nonsense, and as for the idea of on demand streaming, well!

 

[GordonT]

In some localities being able to walk into a GP's surgery with no prior appointment and being invited to sit in the waiting room until a doctor was available.

Being seen by a (virtually) chain-smoking or pipe-smoking GP with the evidence in the copious ashtray on his desk.

Your "own" GP visiting you or a family member in your own home if the patient reckoned they were a little bit too poorly to make it to the surgery.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Buying milk tokens in the coop which you then put out with the empties to indicate how many bottles of milk you required from the milkman.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

No, really. The gas lamps were replaced by electric lamps in the mid/late 1950s with the columns in slightly different positions. The gas lamps ran on a clockwork timer which lit them at the correct time and turned them off in the morning. A council man wound the clocks up once a week and checked that the mantles were in order. I can still remember the slight hiss they made when lit — it's amazing what a 10 year old observed and can still remember.

There are still around 1,300 gas street lights in use in London even now - 270 of them in Westminster alone.

 

[Busaholic]

There are still around 1,300 gas street lights in use in London even now - 270 of them in Westminster alone.

With four in Soho given Grade 2 listed protection earlier this year.

 

[zero]

Your "own" GP visiting you or a family member in your own home if the patient reckoned they were a little bit too poorly to make it to the surgery.

This still happens - if the GP has time at least

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Izal toilet paper;horrible stuff.

A big +1 from me. I hated it. So harsh and not particularly effective either!

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Leeds United being regarded as a big successful football club

 

[AM9]

When English professional football teams were in four divisions numbered one to four, - unlike now with three firsts any one second. Another example of grade inflation?

 

[dosxuk]

The television Test Card (is that still available?)

As you can see in this image from the Olympics the other week, the test card is alive and well, it's just there's no time to broadcast it to homes as actual programmes are carried instead.