Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It did. George Henry Lee in Liverpool (another John Lewis store) was the same. It was rather cruelly renamed John Lewis in the early 2000s which was a bit daft because there was also Lewis's (no relation), although this closed a few years later so lessening the confusion.

Was the Lewis's store in Liverpool the one that had one of its facades commemorated in the chorus of the folk song...."In my Liverpool home"?

"We speak with an accent exceedingly rare
Meet under a statue exceedingly bare
And if you want a cathedral, we've got one to spare
In my Liverpool home"

 

[GordonT]

Pokers to stir the fire with.

Along with tongs and possibly bellows to further encourage the conflagration.

 

[Ediswan]

Along with tongs and possibly bellows to further encourage the conflagration.

All still common in rural areas.

 

[urbophile]

Was the Lewis's store in Liverpool the one that had one of its facades commemorated in the chorus of the folk song...."In my Liverpool home"?

"We speak with an accent exceedingly rare
Meet under a statue exceedingly bare
And if you want a cathedral, we've got one to spare
In my Liverpool home"

Thebuilding is still there, and yes it does. 'Liverpool resurgent ' (!!) by Jacob Epstein.

 

[dangie]

Buttered toast done with a toasting fork held in front of a coal fire.
Ok I know someone will still have that luxury.
Tasted much better than an electric toaster. Or was that simply my faded memory?

 

[MotCO]

It's interesting that some writers imagining a world centuries in the future assumed that slide rules would still be in use, though there were others who did envisage some sort of personal calculator. Perhaps it's relatively easy to imagine the calculator but more difficult to imagine the form it would take. When pocket calculators began to become available in the 1970s few people would have expected it to exist in a much more advanced form on a smartphone. I won't try to predict its form fifty years from now!

I recall having a desktop electric calculator at work, and its individual buttons could be prised off. Someone, for an April Fool prank, swapped the top row for the bottom row, so that the keyboard was similar to the layout of a touchphone, so it didn't really look unusual. Except the answers coming out were somewhat unusual .

 

[AM9]

Along with tongs and possibly bellows to further encourage the conflagration.

They were called fireside companion sets and the standard complement when I was a sprog was poker, tongs, dustpan & brush. I reality, the poker was usually too short when the fire was wellunderway, the spring on the tongs was too stiff, and the bristles on the brish were sinnged because they had been used to clear the hearth of hot embers.
I do remember the difficulty we had lighting the fire on dank winter days, the paper would burn out before the wood caught, so the next attempt meant holding paper up over the opening to increase the draught, (taking care to not set the paper alight)! This was before firelighters became readily available.

 

[McRhu]

We had a pair of brass tongs whose hands were uncannily like sinewy lions' paws: the kind of things that might take on a murderous life of their own in the middle of the pitch-dark night, climb the stairs and throttle people in their sleep. I was around six or seven at the time and this was a major consideration for me.

 

[Andyjs247]

Milk bottles and daily deliveries from an electric milk float. My grandmother used to get gold top milk delivered and would skim off the cream to make clotted cream.

 

[GordonT]

"Chain letters". I can't quite remember how they worked in detail but if you received one you were urged to send it onwards to someone you knew with a similar expectation that they would pass it on to someone they knew and so on ad infinitum. Some dire but unspecified ill luck was supposed to befall anyone who "broke the chain". I suppose the modern equivalent might be the lengthy laborious posts sometimes seen on Facebook in which readers are urged to share with a specified number of 'friends'.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

They were called fireside companion sets and the standard complement when I was a sprog was poker, tongs, dustpan & brush. I reality, the poker was usually too short when the fire was wellunderway.....

The poker that my great-aunts had was the work of a blacksmith and was long enough to keep your hands well away from the fire. It had a base unit upon which it lay flat on supporting small brackets when not being used, also made by the same blacksmith.

 

[D6130]

Hot water bottles. We had the 'modern' rubber ones....but my grandparents had the big old heavy stoneware ones.

 

[najaB]

Hot water bottles. We had the 'modern' rubber ones....but my grandparents had the big old heavy stoneware ones.

Very much still a thing. Though, more commonly used for additional warmth while sick or by women to ease menstrual cramps, than for general warmth because houses are cold.

 

[swt_passenger]

I remember it as “half day closing” but of course it was the same thing. Usually Wednesdays I agree.

Half day closing was apparently enforced to help reduce the working week for those shop workers who invariably worked all day Saturdays. The reason all shops in a locality closed on the same afternoon was to make sure the shops that were open didn’t take trade away from those that were shut that day, initially shops were free to choose their own half day.

 

[Ediswan]

Half day closing was apparently enforced to help reduce the working week for those shop workers who invariably worked all day Saturdays. The reason all shops in a locality closed on the same afternoon was to make sure the shops that were open didn’t take trade away from those that were shut that day, initially shops were free to choose their own half day.

I used to live near Bush Hill Park station. Shops on one side of the line were half day on Wednesday. On the other side, half day on Thursday.

 

[Sun Chariot]

This could be in ‘You know you’re getting old’ but Ceefax is 50 years old today. Remember it fondly.

My wife and I were reminiscing about it, only half an hour ago. These images have a place in my heart.

And my candidate for this thread: vol au vents

 

[BanburyBlue]

Landlords refusing to sell pints to women in pubs.

 

[Killingworth]

Landlords refusing to sell pints to women in pubs.

Pubs not admitting women - certainly near Ashington in November 1968.

 

[Springs Branch]

Landlords refusing to sell pints to women in pubs.

And ordering "a pint of bitter and a half of lager in a lady's glass" at the bar.

Half day closing was apparently enforced to help reduce the working week for those shop workers who invariably worked all day Saturdays. The reason all shops in a locality closed on the same afternoon was to make sure the shops that were open didn’t take trade away from those that were shut that day, initially shops were free to choose their own half day.

I remember a conversation as a child . . .
[Youthful me] "Dad, dad! Why are all the shops closed on Wednesday afternoon?"
[Dad] "Well son, the shopworkers need to work all day on Saturdays, so they have an afternoon off during the week to get their own shopping done."
. . . just to show that lame dad jokes are not a new thing.

As this is a Rail Forum, back in the steam era, one knock-on effect was some railway & bus timetables for more rural routes had mid-day local trains shown as WO and WX (maybe there were TuO & ThX variations too, depending on the location) to allow for half-day closing. The Ormskirk to Southport trains come to mind (half-day closing was Wednesday in Ormskirk). I suspect these variations died out in the 1950s or early 60s.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In my very much younger days, when I was a single lad with an eye for the ladies, if I asked them what drink they liked, the answer was usually "Brandy and Babycham"

 

[52290]

In my very much younger days, when I was a single lad with an eye for the ladies, if I asked them what drink they liked, the answer was usually "Brandy and Babycham"

In Preston in the 1970's ladies of a certain age would go up to the bar and ask for "a beer please". The bar person would then serve them a half of mild.

 

[GordonT]

Beauty Contests of a regional or local nature sometimes sponsored by the local newspaper or radio station.

 

[McRhu]

Children's sit in/on rides outside shops: space rockets, cars, dinosaurs... the kind of thing you put a £ or two in, then a kid, and it jolted around and played music. Haven't seen one for a long time.

 

[AM9]

Children's sit in/on rides outside shops: space rockets, cars, dinosaurs... the kind of thing you put a £ or two in, then a kid, and it jolted around and played music. Haven't seen one for a long time.

Also, outside shops, chewing gum machines where every 4th packet came with another packet free.
This thread is over 1000 posts long so apologies if this matter has already been posted.

 

[najaB]

Children's sit in/on rides outside shops: space rockets, cars, dinosaurs... the kind of thing you put a £ or two in, then a kid, and it jolted around and played music.

A lot of them disappeared during the Covid lock-downs, at least that seems like when they started to vanish.

 

[Jimini]

Children's sit in/on rides outside shops: space rockets, cars, dinosaurs... the kind of thing you put a £ or two in, then a kid, and it jolted around and played music. Haven't seen one for a long time.

There’s one down the road from my old house in Coventry on Daventry Road that used to be owned by the local jewellers, but was “adopted” by the local butcher when the former closed down.

(Image is of Jerry the Giraffe outside his new home).

 

[McRhu]

Long live Jerry!

 

[Merle Haggard]

Also, outside shops, chewing gum machines where every 4th packet came with another packet free.
This thread is over 1000 posts long so apologies if this matter has already been posted.

I remember in the 1950s / early 1960s that there were machines that sold bubble gum loose (no wrapping) in a container at child head-height with clear plastic or glass sides and top. Through the glass you could see the different colours on offer (although you had no choice of that - it was just what that fell through the flap when you inserted your money and pushed the button) you could also watch the activities of earwigs and other large insects scoffing away inside

 

[gg1]

I remember in the 1950s / early 1960s that there were machines that sold bubble gum loose (no wrapping) in a container at child head-height with clear plastic or glass sides and top. Through the glass you could see the different colours on offer (although you had no choice of that - it was just what that fell through the flap when you inserted your money and pushed the button) you could also watch the activities of earwigs and other large insects scoffing away inside

They were definitely still around in the late 80s, some of them had sweets, others had little toys in clear plastic spheres.

 

[McRhu]

I remember in the 1950s / early 1960s that there were machines that sold bubble gum loose (no wrapping) in a container at child head-height with clear plastic or glass sides and top. Through the glass you could see the different colours on offer (although you had no choice of that - it was just what that fell through the flap when you inserted your money and pushed the button) you could also watch the activities of earwigs and other large insects scoffing away inside

The versions of those machines that I remember from the early sixties had a substantial spring loaded tray, akin to a gin trap, that you pulled out to retrieve your Bazooka Joe/ Beechnut/ Fry's Five Boys/ Capstan Navy Cut, and then counted your fingers as it slammed back in.