Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[Jimini]

Or if they couldn't quite stretch to a phone, a pager clipped to their belt.

I remember a window of time in the early '90s where pagers were king, before the wider introduction of mobiles.

With hindsight, the ability for others to contact us at will accelerated exponentially in the '90s and into the '00s and beyond (BlackBerry / Nokia / iPhone tech, I'm looking at you). Work habits changed beyond recognition during this period of time.

It's probably one for another thread, but mobile tech really did change the landscape of working patterns. The last time I was uncontactable for work purposes was around 1999 before company work phones (Nokia in my example) became commonplace and with that came the expectation that one could always be reached if necessary. That said, I do remember journos that got called back to the office via. Pager from the early '90s.

 

[Springs Branch]

I remember a window of time in the early '90s where pagers were king, before the wider introduction of mobiles.

With hindsight, the ability for others to contact us at will accelerated exponentially in the '90s and into the '00s and beyond (BlackBerry / Nokia / iPhone tech, I'm looking at you).

In the early '90s I made my first visit to a big industry convention in the USA. This annual shindig was held in Florida at a large hotel / convention centerre in Orlando, or some such.

Jet lag being what it is, on the eve of the first day I was wide awake in my hotel room at 4am and went for a wander to find exactly where I needed to go later in the morning. I found the cavernous conference hall easily enough, all set up ready for the plenary session and deserted except for a couple of dark-skinned operatives doing some last-minute vacuuming.

What I noticed was that all along the length of back wall of the hall was a line-up of payphones. Probably well over two dozen and packed so tightly you couldn't really fit in any more if you tried. "Why on earth do they need so many payphones in here?" I wondered to myself.

Wind forward a few hours and the convention gets underway. Come the mid-morning coffee break, there's a mad rush by many of the American attendees for those payphones - such that every single one was in use and you could almost imagine fights breaking out to grab the last one. Seems every American executive worth his salt was urgently checking in with their home office, their "message service" (didn't one of those feature in a Seinfeld episode?) or answering beeping pagers.

The same thing repeated at every break throughout the conference. That's when I learned that Americans were obsessed with phones and "making calls" - even before the advent of mobiles.

 

[dangie]

Army & Navy Stores
The go-to place for Wranglers & Levi's.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lanry bleach

Oxydol washing powder

 

[John Webb]

I remember a window of time in the early '90s where pagers were king, before the wider introduction of mobiles.

With hindsight, the ability for others to contact us at will accelerated exponentially in the '90s and into the '00s and beyond (BlackBerry / Nokia / iPhone tech, I'm looking at you). Work habits changed beyond recognition during this period of time.

It's probably one for another thread, but mobile tech really did change the landscape of working patterns. The last time I was uncontactable for work purposes was around 1999 before company work phones (Nokia in my example) became commonplace and with that came the expectation that one could always be reached if necessary. That said, I do remember journos that got called back to the office via. Pager from the early '90s.

Working on a not very large site - but I and others were often working in laboratories away from our office phones. So as a First-aider (and also a member of our voluntary works fire brigade) I and others were issued with pagers in the mid-1970s for contact in emergencies.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I shall answer this with the advertising jingle...

Collect the labels, the gifts are free,
With Black and Greens, the family tea.

 

[Killingworth]

Country village stations, some with their own station hotel.

I was reminded of this when stopped at a level crossing at Carlton-on-Trent yesterday. The great Northern Railway's station was a pre-Beeching casualty in 1953 but the Great Northern Inn lived actively on until 2023. It's yours now if you want it, see below, good for train spotting.

Across the land there were many stations like this, possibly with only one or two stops a day by slow trains to some distant town. When railways were new it was great, allowing anyone and everyone to travel the country with relative ease. No bicycles back then, let alone cars. And coal for domestic fires became easy to obtain from a siding where trucks could be dropped off.

My own memory is of visits to Middleton-on-the-Wolds between Market Weighton and Driffield. Closed to passengers in 1954 I must have been taken to the village by train in my early years. It shows as closed for freight in 1964 but I doubt it had been much used for some time before that - there were rusting and rotting away wagons abandoned for years. That line is now long gone as have so many others.

Railways as known in 1950 are largely an anachronism today!



Updated, the Great Northern Inn had top ratings on Tripadvsor until it closed in August 2023 and appears to have been sold subject to contract - it was offered freehold at £275,000.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Fifteen and sixteen year olds being allowed to travel on the rail network without creating a media storm. (Viz. Kirsty Allsopp's decision to let her 15-year-old son go Interrailing, leading to someone reporting her to social services.)

 

[Harpo]

Fifteen and sixteen year olds being allowed to travel on the rail network without creating a media storm. (Viz. Kirsty Allsopp's decision to let her 15-year-old son go Interrailing, leading to someone reporting her to social services.)

The age-range in railway seminar photos probably belongs in this thread!

 

[Ashley Hill]

The age-range in railway seminar photos probably belongs in this thread!

Of all the tours I went on in the 80s I’ve never seen any of the seminar shots that we all posed for.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

The age-range in railway seminar photos probably belongs in this thread!

I did my first international train journey at 14.
I went to Shrewsbury.

 

[Harpo]

Going to Oasis concerts?

 

[etr221]

Something else: keyboards - on typewriters (virtually nobody had or used anything else with one) - that only had eight or nine digits: 2-9, some also had a 0 - you made do with (normally) l (lower case L), sometimes I would be used, and (when needed) o (or O). And, come to it, how common are typewriters these days?

 

[Bishopstone]

Postcards.

Not so much postcards from traditional domestic holiday resorts, but the way you could visit a newsagents shop in Hornchurch and buy a postcard featuring views of the swimming baths, Sainsbury’s, the church and the theatre. A ‘wish you were here’ from places without a tourist trade.

 

[etr221]

Postcards.

Not so much postcards from traditional domestic holiday resorts, but the way you could visit a newsagents shop in Hornchurch and buy a postcard featuring views of the swimming baths, Sainsbury’s, the church and the theatre. A ‘wish you were here’ from places without a tourist trade.

Or even just plain ones, used for sending messages (which didn't require the privacy of an envelope, obviously) "Answers on a post card" were requested for TV/radio quizzes and the like.

Aerogrammes - fold up pieces of blue paper for air mail letters, which came with an address space and 'airmail postage paid' note, so no need for paper and envelope.

 

[Killingworth]

Postcards.

Not so much postcards from traditional domestic holiday resorts, but the way you could visit a newsagents shop in Hornchurch and buy a postcard featuring views of the swimming baths, Sainsbury’s, the church and the theatre. A ‘wish you were here’ from places without a tourist trade.

W H Smiths always had a range of local view postcards in all their station shops. You'd buy one on arrival and send it home to assure of a safe arrival. It probably got delivered the following day, if not the same day if very local. No WhatsApp, tweets or Facebook messages then. If not WHS the local Post Office or general dealer.

The village where I stayed had 3 cards, the church, Front Street and Back Street. My wife still has the cards I sent her 60 years ago!

 

[John Webb]

Fifteen and sixteen year olds being allowed to travel on the rail network without creating a media storm. (Viz. Kirsty Allsopp's decision to let her 15-year-old son go Interrailing, leading to someone reporting her to social services.)

My parents, particularly my mother, got fed up with me dragging them off to the Science Museum in South Kensington every school holiday from SE London. As soon as I was at secondary school they simply said 'You know the way - off you go'. Likewise from eleven onwards cycling around during the holidays to various local places, and by sixteen off on the bike youth hostelling for a few days at a time.
And as for travelling 2 miles to school by bus unaccompanied from the age of eight onwards - what would they say today?

 

[D6130]

Fifteen and sixteen year olds being allowed to travel on the rail network without creating a media storm. (Viz. Kirsty Allsopp's decision to let her 15-year-old son go Interrailing, leading to someone reporting her to social services.)

I and a couple of friends - including @McRhu - were allowed to go off on Freedom of Scotland weekly rovers together from the age of 15....although we had to return home every night, which ruled-out the Kyle and Far North lines.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Rinso washing powder.

 

[GordonT]

The old-style slow speed drill at dentists. Struggling to fully recall it other than its discomfort but I think its mechanism had a couple of parallel cords as part of its structure which you could observe rotating above you whilst the drill was rasping its way unfailingly towards the nerve of your tooth. I don't think the older generation dentists back in the day troubled themselves much with offering injections for mere fillings.

"Gas" at the dentist to put you to sleep for a tooth or teeth extraction(s). Administered by means of a rubber mask over the patient's nose by the dentist himself/herself.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The old-style slow speed drill at dentists. Struggling to fully recall it other than its discomfort but I think its mechanism had a couple of parallel cords as part of its structure which you could observe rotating above you whilst the drill was rasping its way unfailingly towards the nerve of your tooth. I don't think the older generation dentists back in the day troubled themselves much with offering injections for mere fillings.

"Gas" at the dentist to put you to sleep for a tooth or teeth extraction(s). Administered by means of a rubber mask over the patient's nose by the dentist himself/herself.

Like these things at Beamish...? The treadle powered drill and the gas bottles...?

 

[najaB]

And, come to it, how common are typewriters these days?

Extremely uncommon, tbh. I seem to remember something about "the last typewriter" being sold a couple years ago. Of course, it wouldn't have been the literal last one, but was more likely the last of the major manufacturers getting out of the industry.

 

[GordonT]

Like these things at Beamish...? The treadle powered drill and the gas bottles...?

Not quite as prehistoric. The "slow" drill I recall was powered by electrictity and the "gas" was in fairly large coloured cylinders.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

The Tufty Club

(I still have my badge)

 

[Jimini]

I'm staying in Haslemere at the moment. Nice village. There is however, a 'club' that still only allows male members, and females need to be signed in by a male member. Quite the dated logic!

 

[Howardh]

Only boys doing metalwork, woodwork and technical drawing at school and with male teachers, and only girls doing needlework and cookery with female teachers.

Yes, absolutely affected me when I wanted to do cookery but was forced to do woodwork.

Naturally now as an adult I can put together a meal, but haven't a clue about joining two bits of wood!

Had to learn (well, I didn't) French and didn't have Italian as an alternative - guess where I spent my holidays as a nipper...

 

[Harvester]

Twelve/thirteen year old boys in school uniform wearing short trousers.

 

[dangie]

‘Golliwogs’ on jam jars.

On a similar vein there is a pub near to where I was born called the ‘Labour in Vain’. The original pub sign consisted of a black child in a bath being scrubbed ‘clean’ by a white woman. It was removed some years ago after being considered racist. After a petition by local village residents the sign was resurrected and the landlord hung it up in the beer garden.

Twelve/thirteen year old boys in school uniform wearing short trousers.

I was one of the last in my school age year to graduate to long trousers. Obviously as was the case back in the early 1960’s I endured quite a bit of both friendly and often unfriendly ribbing.

Having said this, I now spend 9-10 months of the year in shorts

 

[Killingworth]

Twelve/thirteen year old boys in school uniform wearing short trousers.

Now standard rig for postal delivery men even in winter!

 

[Hadlow Road]

Now standard rig for postal delivery men even in winter!

And our local post delivery lady.