Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[GordonT]

Sales reps who visited their clients houses on a regular basis to take orders or deliver the goods. In the 1960s one such chap who had my parents house on his list was always referred to as "The Betterwear Man".

This was taken a stage further by reps who facilitated "Tupperware Parties".

 

[Killingworth]

The signing in book or clocking on device. Are they still used anywhere?

I recall having to rule off a book at 9.00, often latitude allowed for a minute or two. Presumably now done electronically.

 

[jbqfc]

I still clock in and out although these days I use my finger print

 

[MP33]

With reference to a Sandwich Board man. A fellow walked into my employer, wearing sandwich boards with, I hate the Pigs and The West Midlands Police are corrupt. It turned out he wanted the Crown Prosecution Service, down the road.

 

[John Webb]

Sales reps who visited their clients houses on a regular basis to take orders or deliver the goods. In the 1960s one such chap who had my parents house on his list was always referred to as "The Betterware Man".......

I remember the 'Betterware Man' well - in part because before moving out of my parents in 1977 I bought shoe-polishing brushes and a set of kitchen brushes for cleaning pots and pans - and they are still in use today! (By the way, it was "Betterwear".)

 

[Trackman]

I remember the 'Betterware Man' well - in part because before moving out of my parents in 1977 I bought shoe-polishing brushes and a set of kitchen brushes for cleaning pots and pans - and they are still in use today! (By the way, it was "Betterwear".)

My Mum used to buy junk from the Betterware person (not sure if male/female). One was a large plastic salad bowl 'thingy' with a supposed vacuum seal and a plastic 'button' on the top.

 

[AM9]

My Mum used to buy junk from the Betterware person (not sure if male/female). One was a large plastic salad bowel bowl'thingy' with a supposed vacuum seal and a plastic 'button' on the top.

I've corrected your post to avoid embarrassment.

 

[Trackman]

I've corrected your post to avoid embarrassment.

Corrected my original post, thanks!

 

[najaB]

2012 my company used Google. 2015, my next company used Google and we transitioned to Teams in 2017; and my next company after that, was already fully Teams adopted when I joined end-2019. Hence the second part of my post #2570.

Still, "grown up companies" were using both Skype for Business and Lync for years before Teams debuted.

 

[GusB]

Sales reps who visited their clients houses on a regular basis to take orders or deliver the goods. In the 1960s one such chap who had my parents house on his list was always referred to as "The Betterware Man".

Betterware and Kleeneze are both still around and very occasionally someone will start up as a rep and post a catalogue through the letterbox. Nobody seems to do the job for very long, though. The products being available online is probably the main reason, along with people having different working patterns. As far as I remember the reps had to buy the catalogues, so that's a significant outlay before they make any sales, and there is the risk that they won't get them back.

This was taken a stage further by reps who facilitated "Tupperware Parties".

Tupperware parties were quite a regular occurrence when my folks lived in RAF married quarters and occasionally I'd be taken along to one if it was during the school holidays. I still have some Tupperware tubs in the cupboard, some of which are possibly older than me!

Another regular visitor was the Avon Lady. A few years ago, a friend of mine did Avon sales to earn a bit of extra income and did quite well out of it.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Still, "grown up companies" were using both Skype for Business and Lync for years before Teams debuted.

I can fully believe that, yes. My stance was purely in esponse to post #2569's comment:
"Skype has given way to Teams, except for business users." - which was at complete odds with my career experience.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I remember the 'Betterware Man' well - in part because before moving out of my parents in 1977 I bought shoe-polishing brushes and a set of kitchen brushes for cleaning pots and pans - and they are still in use today! (By the way, it was "Betterwear".)

It was both. Stanley Cohen's business (possibly Betterwear Products Ltd) was apparently originally known as 'Betterwear' before then being rebranded 'Betterware' in or around 1970.

 

[Springs Branch]

87 pages into this thread and I don't think we've mentioned the way that pubs and bars always used to have frosted glass windows.

A brief wander around the internet gives several suggestions (none of them very authoritative) as to why that was. Including:-

• A requirement imposed by puritanical Victorian & Edwardian-era licencing authorities - to help dissuade weak-willed wastrels from the Lower Orders being tempted into the pub. Presumably with the hope they would keep on walking and find something more wholesome or worthwhile to do instead.
• For privacy reasons in more prudish times - when customers might not want to be seen drinking in public by their upstanding neighbours, the vicar, or nosy Mrs Miggins from no. 23 who would certainly tell your wife at the first opportunity.
• A cunning plan by publicans to impart some air of mystery and intrigue to their establishment - meaning a curious passer-by would be enticed to step inside to find out just what pleasures lay within.

On the last of these, I must say that as a not-quite-old-enough-to-get-away-with-it teenager, when walking past busy street-corner boozers on Friday or Saturday evenings, I was always fascinated by the loud chatter, raucous laughs and hint of a coloured light or two from within, and warm fug of beer and cigarette smoke coming from the extraction fan inserted into one of the frosted windows. "I'd like some of that", I used to think to myself at the time.

Of course, when I became old enough to consume the forbidden fruit, not every northern local pub in the 1970s turned out quite as exotic as it had seemed from outside the frosted glass.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I've always loved pubs like that, @Springs Branch and there were several in London which still had their wooden privacy-booths, adjoining the bar; enabling clandestine meetings to take place whilst enjoying a few tipples.

 

[John Webb]

It was both. Stanley Cohen's business (possibly Betterwear Products Ltd) was apparently originally known as 'Betterwear' before then being rebranded 'Betterware' in or around 1970.

Interesting - the brushes I bought in 1977 were still marked as Betterwear - presumably too expensive to alter the moulds, or they'd got a good stock of them in hand!

 

[BingMan]

Sales reps who visited their clients houses on a regular basis to take orders or deliver the goods. In the 1960s one such chap who had my parents house on his list was always referred to as "The Betterwear Man".

This was taken a stage further by reps who facilitated "Tupperware Parties".

And the "man from the Pru" who called to collect insurance premiums.
And, of course, encylopedia salesmen

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Still remember the coal sack deliveries we had (1960's), on what I always thought at the time was a flat bed lorry, but learnt later were Bedford TK drop-sides! Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

 

[3141]

Still remember the coal sack deliveries we had (1960's), on what I always thought at the time was a flat bed lorry, but learnt later were Bedford TK drop-sides! Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

Associated with that, there were the areas within the goods yard at stations where various coal merchants held their stock of coal of various types - anthracite, coke, etc.

My Dad constructed a brick coal bunker in our garden, with two sections: one for coke for the boiler which heated the hot water, and one for the coal that we used for fires to warm the house (slowly).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Certainly in South West Wales we had a travelling ironmongers business , which the owner used to ring a large handbell to announce his arrival.

Known in true Welsh style as "Trevor the Oil" - he had 2 large tanks built into the van , from which he would dispense paraffin and parazone -bring your own (pop) bottle to fill. Potentially very dangerous as one young girl found the parazone bottle in the shed , and took a hefty swig from it. Very fortunately it was spotted and urgent medical attention called.

Trevor once set off down the road with the paraffin brass tap , dribbling said product as he drove. It could have been a mini Flixborough had it not been spotted in good time.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

There's three at my dad's place which he uses as additional sheds...

 

[Statto]

Betterware and Kleeneze are both still around and very occasionally someone will start up as a rep and post a catalogue through the letterbox. Nobody seems to do the job for very long, though. The products being available online is probably the main reason, along with people having different working patterns. As far as I remember the reps had to buy the catalogues, so that's a significant outlay before they make any sales, and there is the risk that they won't get them back.

Reading Wiki site, the original Betterware company went into liquidation in 2018, a new company using the same name was then set up after aquiring the trademarks from the liquidators, that too went into liquidation in 2023.

Betterware - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LowLevel]

Certainly in South West Wales we had a travelling ironmongers business , which the owner used to ring a large handbell to announce his arrival.

Known in true Welsh style as "Trevor the Oil" - he had 2 large tanks built into the van , from which he would dispense paraffin and parazone -bring your own (pop) bottle to fill. Potentially very dangerous as one young girl found the parazone bottle in the shed , and took a hefty swig from it. Very fortunately it was spotted and urgent medical attention called.

Trevor once set off down the road with the paraffin brass tap , dribbling said product as he drove. It could have been a mini Flixborough had it not been spotted in good time.

Nowhere near as long ago but teenage me once decided to be clever and get rid of an old fabric softener bottle on my heritage railway by chucking it on a fire. Of course it had been in use storing paraffin for the tail lamps and promptly exploded.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Still remember the coal sack deliveries we had (1960's), on what I always thought at the time was a flat bed lorry, but learnt later were Bedford TK drop-sides! Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

Another thing that’s still going in the rural Peak District. It’s amazing that you can (landline) phone up in the morning and with luck the little drop-side will chug up in the afternoon with the sacks. The merchant still operates out of a former station goods yard too.

 

[Harpo]

There's three at my dad's place which he uses as additional sheds...

I have two small (1.5m x 1.5m) brick sheds in my back garden. Being on a steep hillside, they sit under the garage floor, and that floor has a metal hatch to drop coal into one of the sheds. All built in the 1970s.

 

[GusB]

Still remember the coal sack deliveries we had (1960's), on what I always thought at the time was a flat bed lorry, but learnt later were Bedford TK drop-sides! Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

There were two local coal merchants that we could request deliveries from. The first was McGruther and Marshall, which I believe was Inverness based; I can't be certain, but I think they used to operate from the coal yard adjacent to Elgin station. I think they ended up being bought out by another company. The other was J.G. Dick, who still seems to be in business. Both firms used flatbed lorries and I'm fairly certain that they were Bedford TKs.

Out the back we had an old wooden lean-to coal shed. I used to hate going out there at night to fetch coal; more so after I discovered that a feral cat was bringing up a litter in there - it flew past me one night and I swear I almost had kittens myself!

The shed had seen better days and was eventually taken down to make room for an oil tank. In the corner there was a bricked-up chimney stack which would originally have been used for smoking fish. Quite a few houses in the village would have had a similar facility.

 

[John Webb]

Still remember the coal sack deliveries we had (1960's), on what I always thought at the time was a flat bed lorry, but learnt later were Bedford TK drop-sides! Still had one of those concrete coal bunkers until the early 90's when it had to make way for other things.

My grandmother's house, being on the downward hill side of her road, had a 'semi-basement' ground floor, a first floor that was about three steps up from the pavement and a second floor. The formal front door to the first-floor was reached by a short path, in the middle of which was a circular manhole cover. Our local coal merchant (with a horse-drawn cart) would turn up when requested and empty several sacks of coal into the coal cellar creating a tremendous noise.

I didn't mind too much at seven or eight years old being asked to go 'coal-mining' to fill the small coal-scuttle.
But I loathed being given a 2 gallon galvanised bucket and a small shovel and being asked to follow the horse and collect the droppings for the benefit of the garden!

 

[swt_passenger]

I didn't mind too much at seven or eight years old being asked to go 'coal-mining' to fill the small coal-scuttle.
But I loathed being given a 2 galleon galvanised bucket and a small shovel and being asked to follow the horse and collect the droppings for the benefit of the garden!

That’s a huge, (and hitherto little known), unit of measurement as well…

 

[Brent Goose]

How does that compare with the SI unit - the Olympic swimming pool?

 

[Indigo Soup]

We used to have conference call with our colleagues in New Mexico and Arizona.
Time was problem especially around the transition into or out of Summertime.
USA had different dates to GB and Arizona doesn't do DST

I used to work on a project between the UK and Australia. Not only were the dates totally different, but they were 'springing forward' around the time we were 'falling back', which meant that the time difference increased by two hours

Tupperware parties were quite a regular occurrence when my folks lived in RAF married quarters and occasionally I'd be taken along to one if it was during the school holidays. I still have some Tupperware tubs in the cupboard, some of which are possibly older than me!

A well-known high street retailer of lingerie and 'marital aids' used to operate a similar model - my mother-in-law usefully supplemented their household income by running 'parties' as one of their reps.

 

[John Webb]

That’s a huge, (and hitherto little known), unit of measurement as well…

How does that compare with the SI unit - the Olympic swimming pool?

Opps! Must have been influenced by sailing on into my memories!