Things the younger generation wouldn’t believe when you were a kid

[McRhu]

As regards 'phones, it was possible to make free conversations by tapping the receiver multiple times for each number being dialled. This was coded so that '3' might equate to 7 taps and so on. It was a bit of trial and error, but once mastered the entire phone directory was your oyster. TV? We had one channel (BBC) but it sufficed to let me watch Fireball XL5 on a Thursday evening. And the faint echoes of Alvar Lidel still haunted the corridors Home Service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

3 was 3 taps etc. Could still do it in the 90s on some phones.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

TV? We had one channel (BBC) but it sufficed to let me watch Fireball XL5 on a Thursday evening.

Fireball XL5 wasn't ever broadcast on the BBC, was it? Fairly sure it was originally only networked on ITV.

 

[Whistler40145]

Doctors regularly did home visits

 

[Gloster]

Fireball XL5 wasn't ever broadcast on the BBC, was it? Fairly sure it was originally only networked on ITV.

Wikipedia says it was an ATV production on ITV. It started in 1962, but ITV appeared in 1955.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Wikipedia says it was an ATV production on ITV. It started in 1962, but ITV appeared in 1955.

So, it (Fireball XL5) wasn't on BBC then? Means that the younger generation would be right not to believe that!

 

[swt_passenger]

This reminds me of giving someone 'three rings'. E.g. if we were going to see my grandad, my mum would give him 'three rings' before we set off so he knew when to expect us. This was just dialling his number, letting it ring three times then hanging up. Obviously you had to agree what three rings meant in advance!

Was this just something my family did because we were too tight to pay for phone calls?

I also remember desperately waiting for 6pm because I wanted to phone someone. My dad wouldn't let us use the phone before 6pm unless it was an emergency, as peak rate calls were too expensive for a tight Yorkshireman

I remember giving 3 rings to tell them I’d got back home safely after visiting my parents.

IIRC GPO adverts used to say (or read) “It’s cheaper to phone your friends - after 6 and at weekends”…

 

[Howardh]

Fireball XL5 wasn't ever broadcast on the BBC, was it? Fairly sure it was originally only networked on ITV.

Think the poster meant that they were allowed to switch over to ITV just for that one programme.

 

[Western Lord]

When we moved into a new house in 1955, my parents (especially my mum) insisted on keeping the "front room" for best. We all had to cram into the back room (always called the dining room as it was next door to the kitchen) and there were seven of us altogether. The "front room" was off limits except for guests (who must have enjoyed the musty smell). Every Christmas there was the ceremonial opening of the double doors which connected the two rooms and for about a week we had the luxury of extra space, then the doors were closed again, and it was back to the dining room. This continued for almost fifteen years when they got rid of the connecting doors and opened up the front room, though the eldest two had by this time flown the nest so there were fewer of us to enjoy the space.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

TV? We had one channel (BBC) but it sufficed to let me watch Fireball XL5 on a Thursday evening.

Think the poster meant that they were allowed to switch over to ITV just for that one programme.

You reckon?

 

[Springs Branch]

How about some railway-related ones:

If you wanted some info regarding train times or fares, you first consulted the Telephone Directory (kept on the hall table), then rang a local number, connecting you to the Enquiry Office at Wigan North Western station.

Either the call was picked up right away by a bloke with a gruff, local accent, or you got the engaged signal - in which case try again a couple of minutes later.

The enquiry clerk probably had been 'on the railway' for a good many years, so knew what he was talking about and your question about times of trains* to Birmingham or Glasgow, the price of a single to Cambridge, or a Monthly Return to Dun Laoghaire was answered accurately and unambiguously.

* I never needed to ring the station to ask about train times, since (as with every self-respecting enthusiast at the time) I always had a current, well-thumbed BR National Timetable book readily to hand at home. However comprehensive info on fares was not easily available back then.

 

[GusB]

My parents always did that too.

I guess the youngsters will give me a blank look if I say 4291 at this point!

I'd expect you to be using the puppy handset when you did so

 

[Whistler40145]

Buses had conductors who sold tickets and gave change

 

[Galvanize]

Buses had conductors who sold tickets and gave change

In Dundee where my Grandparents lived, the local buses operated by Strathtay Scottish still had Conductors well into the 21st century…even after Yorkshire Traction was bought out by Stagecoach in 2005/6! So quite possibly the Strathtay Conductors outlived London one’s (barring the 9 and 15 Heritage routes)…but they’ve been one person operated for at least a decade now.

It was quite weird getting on a low floor Dennis Trident
“One Adult and two children to City Centre!” to the Driver and he/she going (if they were one of the more polite Drivers)
“Ah pay the Conductor, not me!” knowing we were not from around there!

 

[Busaholic]

There were emergency messages on the radio (Home or later Radio Four) for people who were out of contact and needed to be found urgently for a family emergency, such as an imminent death. They used to be made once and this would be immediately before the six o’clock news.

“Before the news, here is an emergency SOS message for Mr John William Smith. Would Mr John William Smith of Acacia Avenue, Dartford, currently believed to be touring the Lake District in a blue Triumph Herald, registration number ABC123D, please contact the Memorial Hospital, Orpington, where his mother, Mrs Anne Mary Smith, is dangerously ill. That is the the end of the SOS message.” Alternatively, John William Smith might be described as ‘last heard of in the Reading area four years ago’.

Around 1980 a friend was on a family camping holiday: he was an ardent Nottingham Forest supporter, when that team was at the top. He and his brother missed the football results, so they were allowed to get back in the car at the campsite to listen to the news (No doubt they were told not to run down the battery.) Just before the news there was one of these messages. Suddenly his brother got out and went across to a family sitting opposite and spoke to them: it was the people who the message was aimed at. His brother said it was a bit odd as they gave the description of the type of car and he thought, ‘Like that one opposite’, and then found himself reading the numbers as the announcer read out the registration.

You're absolutely right, except the wording was always 'urgent message' rather than 'emergency message'. I've tried to establish when they ended, but they just seem to have faded out as mobile phones became more prevalent, but certainly in the 1990s. The BBC World Service apparently carried on broadcasting them into the early years of this century. The first one was broadcast in 1923.

 

[McRhu]

Ah... XL5 on STV (or Grampian more likely) then... OK. We must have had two channels and all this time I have been labouring under the dreadful misapprehension that I was televisually hard done by.

 

[GusB]

In Dundee where my Grandparents lived, the local buses operated by Strathtay Scottish still had Conductors well into the 21st century…even after Yorkshire Traction was bought out by Stagecoach in 2005/6! So quite possibly the Strathtay Conductors outlived London one’s (barring the 9 and 15 Heritage routes)…but they’ve been one person operated for at least a decade now.

It was quite weird getting on a low floor Dennis Trident
“One Adult and two children to City Centre!” to the Driver and he/she going (if they were one of the more polite Drivers)
“Ah pay the Conductor, not me!” knowing we were not from around there!

Conductors were only withdrawn from that route in 2020, so the younger generation will still be aware of them!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

We must have had two channels and all this time I have been labouring under the dreadful misapprehension that I was televisually hard done by.

Of course, some "Hyacinth Bucket" types in the mid 1950s/1960s (and possibly more recently) would only ever watch the BBC, and would never "lower themselves" to watch commercial TV.

 

[Busaholic]

Conductors were only withdrawn from that route in 2020, so the younger generation will still be aware of them!

And conductors had disappeared from all London bus routes other than the Heritage stuff in December 2005, so the Dundee ones long outlived them.

 

[adc82140]

In order to make some international phone calls, you had to book a time slot with the operator.

In the early days of mobile phones, sometimes even with good signal you couldn't get a line.

If you had BT call waiting, it would boot you off dial up Internet if so eone tried to call in.

 

[Gloster]

You're absolutely right, except the wording was always 'urgent message' rather than 'emergency message'. I've tried to establish when they ended, but they just seem to have faded out as mobile phones became more prevalent, but certainly in the 1990s. The BBC World Service apparently carried on broadcasting them into the early years of this century. The first one was broadcast in 1923.

There was a programme on Radio 4 about them a few years ago and they said that they had no record of when the last one was broadcast, although it was probably the mid-1990s. At the time they probably didn’t realise it was the last.

 

[DelayRepay]

There was a programme on Radio 4 about them a few years ago and they said that they had no record of when the last one was broadcast, although it was probably the mid-1990s. At the time they probably didn’t realise it was the last.

There's an interesting read about the SOS Messages, including a clip from the Radio 4 programme here

The personal SOS messages the BBC used to send

Before mobile phones, the BBC's SOS radio messages were the only way some people found out about their relatives' illnesses or accidents.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Whistler40145]

Rail Replacement Buses were a rareity

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Expanding on that…my Grandparents were quite old fashioned with their phone answering.

Both would answer the phone quoting the Phone Number (minus the Area Code)…that’s something that just died out with the generations!

Yeah, that was how it was done then. I guess that practice died out when mobiles came along with their ability to save numbers and automatically display the associated stored name, eliminating the need to remember anyone's actual number.

 

[Pinza-C55]

In my early teens we had a coal fired power station in the middle of the town which belched smoke and steam.
In 1973 we had the power cuts and had to light the house with candles.
We lived next to a bottled gas factory and one night it caught fire and the gas bottles took off like rockets.
At secondary school one teacher caned me on the palm so hard that it took 2 weeks to heal.
My late sister lived in a house with an outside toilet inhabited by a huge spider.
My dad would send me aged 10 to the local pub to take the beer bottles back and get his cigarettes.
We had a black and white TV with valves inside and no phone or colour tv till 1978.

 

[DelayRepay]

Electrical appliances like fridges, video recorders and irons were expensive. When they broke, you would try to get them repaired, often by a man whose phone number you found in the small ads in the local free paper.

The only part of that story a young person would recognise is 'fridges' and possibly 'irons' although the later aren't as common as they used to be!

And, when we were going on holiday, my dad would sit down with a road atlas and work out the route, which would be written out so that my mum could navigate. If there were road closures en-route, mum would have to get the maps out to try to work out an alternative on the fly. Satnav mark 1!

 

[birchesgreen]

My late sister lived in a house with an outside toilet inhabited by a huge spider.

Same as my Nan's house in Liverpool, outdoors bog. She never had an indoors one, even when she died in the late 80s. I assume the current owners of the house have one by now!

 

[owidoe]

Indeed - and I remember being taught in school how to wire a plug, and how to change the fuse! Nowadays I think you're supposed to throw the whole appliance away and buy a new one.

This is still part of GCSE physics (though how useful it is now that the GFCI will almost certainly intervene before a plug fuse breaks, and plugs rarely are disassemble-able anyway, is debatable).

 

[Pinza-C55]

In addition to my earlier ones
Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile were much loved family entertainers.
There were coal mines and slag heaps everywhere.
You could own an air rifle in the 1970s and carry it about in the open.
There were people called milkmen who delivered milk to your door.
Telephone boxes had books with people's phone numbers listed.
Fish and chips was a cheap meal and it was wrapped up in newspaper.

 

[GusB]

There were people called milkmen who delivered milk to your door.

A local dairy has re-started deliveries here in the last few years, and there was a rep from a new one trying to drum up custom a couple of weeks ago.