The latest trend round here is milk vending machines from local farms.
But back on topic- Corona fizzy drinks delivered on a Friday by the milkman. Gawd knows how much sugar those had in them.
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Things the younger generation wouldn’t believe when you were a kid
- Thread starter johnnychips
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But back on topic- Corona fizzy drinks delivered on a Friday by the milkman. Gawd knows how much sugar those had in them.
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philthetube
Established Member
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The white dot in the middle of the telly which slowly faded away when the set was switched off.
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
I'm 36 and remember this in London, with the open platform Routemasters!
birchesgreen
Established Member
Birmingham switched to OMO early, even as a kid in the late 70s there didn't seem to be conductors unless you went on Midland Red.
Still pretty common in our area. We have milk in glass bottles delivered to our doorstep 3 times per week.
birchesgreen
Established Member
Yes around here too, my neighbour has it delivered.
So many here I recall
The radio urgent message announcement.
Most relating to telephone.
My first ~25 years were living in a village. We had telephone as long as I recall. When the neighbours wanted it we agreed to a party line, later when neighbours changed and it was a weekend cottage for them it became a nuisance as they made long calls. The number was just three digits and the exchange covered several villages with around 800 numbers available. To call the same exchange just dial three digits. For adjacent exchanges a local code then full code and number long distance. For a few still once had to connect via the operator. No caller display or even 1471, no idea who was calling and had to ask for number hence a pad and pencil by the phone. No way to store number, dial every time.
Appliance repair was normal. Even smaller towns had a shop for common parts of vacuum cleaner (e.g. paper collecting bags, belt, revolving floor/carpet brushes, flexible fittings, motor brushes), washing machine, kettle elements etc. If not a stock item ordered to collect in a week. The washing machine even had an annual service. Light bulbs tested before selling.
No out-of-town large shops and supermarkets generally did not have adjacent car parks so food carried to the car park a street or several away. Supermarkets were much smaller, the size of a typical Iceland store / not that much larger than some Express stores. Fresh and cooked meat not pre-packed but chosen or cut to order and weighed be that in the supermarket or from Baxters, Dewhurst or an independent. Similarly fish from MacFisheries or an independent. Vegetables & fruit loose from the green grocer. Everything priced as no barcodes. Checkout staff had to key every item in plus weight loose items then either read price from scales or work out from a list of Shops had frozen food but a home freezer was not normal. Ice cream would just about keep a day in the fridge icebox. Frozen fish etc. was cooked either same day or next day. No microwave so normal cooking times in the oven. A quick easy meal was from tins cooked in pans on the hob e.g. mince or frankfurter sausage, tinned vegetables or baked beans, tinned potatoes or powered mash ' just add boiling water '. There was boil-in-the bag but usually took longer. I recall fish with sauce, kippers and Vesta Chinese meals.
Radio was a valve set medium wave, long wave and short wave - manual tuning with stations marked on the panel that the pointer moved behind. The radio frequencies were changed and stickers supplied to attach. VHF broadcasting but only received when valve set died and new radio purchased. Getting your own radio which was just medium wave with a coarse tuning dial and a ' tinny ' speaker. Later first cassette recorder and recording tracks from Top40 5-7pm on Sunday. Making a compilation by wiring your cassette recorder to a friends.
No such thing as a debit card, it was cash or cheque. The latter later supported by a cheque guarantee card.
Credit card put with a 5 sheet carbon copy booklet through a machine to make an impression of the card and store details on each sheet then signed to complete purchase. For a high value purchase the store had to phone Access / Barclaycard / AmEx for an authorisation code.
In some large stores a separate accounts department linked by air/vacuum tubes and capsules to send details of the purchase and payment then return change and receipt.
Ordering route directions from the AA to holiday destinations. Mostly pre-printed sheets stapled together in sequence but occasionally hand-typed. No looking up on Google Maps never mind Sat-navs.
The radio urgent message announcement.
Most relating to telephone.
My first ~25 years were living in a village. We had telephone as long as I recall. When the neighbours wanted it we agreed to a party line, later when neighbours changed and it was a weekend cottage for them it became a nuisance as they made long calls. The number was just three digits and the exchange covered several villages with around 800 numbers available. To call the same exchange just dial three digits. For adjacent exchanges a local code then full code and number long distance. For a few still once had to connect via the operator. No caller display or even 1471, no idea who was calling and had to ask for number hence a pad and pencil by the phone. No way to store number, dial every time.
Appliance repair was normal. Even smaller towns had a shop for common parts of vacuum cleaner (e.g. paper collecting bags, belt, revolving floor/carpet brushes, flexible fittings, motor brushes), washing machine, kettle elements etc. If not a stock item ordered to collect in a week. The washing machine even had an annual service. Light bulbs tested before selling.
No out-of-town large shops and supermarkets generally did not have adjacent car parks so food carried to the car park a street or several away. Supermarkets were much smaller, the size of a typical Iceland store / not that much larger than some Express stores. Fresh and cooked meat not pre-packed but chosen or cut to order and weighed be that in the supermarket or from Baxters, Dewhurst or an independent. Similarly fish from MacFisheries or an independent. Vegetables & fruit loose from the green grocer. Everything priced as no barcodes. Checkout staff had to key every item in plus weight loose items then either read price from scales or work out from a list of Shops had frozen food but a home freezer was not normal. Ice cream would just about keep a day in the fridge icebox. Frozen fish etc. was cooked either same day or next day. No microwave so normal cooking times in the oven. A quick easy meal was from tins cooked in pans on the hob e.g. mince or frankfurter sausage, tinned vegetables or baked beans, tinned potatoes or powered mash ' just add boiling water '. There was boil-in-the bag but usually took longer. I recall fish with sauce, kippers and Vesta Chinese meals.
Radio was a valve set medium wave, long wave and short wave - manual tuning with stations marked on the panel that the pointer moved behind. The radio frequencies were changed and stickers supplied to attach. VHF broadcasting but only received when valve set died and new radio purchased. Getting your own radio which was just medium wave with a coarse tuning dial and a ' tinny ' speaker. Later first cassette recorder and recording tracks from Top40 5-7pm on Sunday. Making a compilation by wiring your cassette recorder to a friends.
No such thing as a debit card, it was cash or cheque. The latter later supported by a cheque guarantee card.
Credit card put with a 5 sheet carbon copy booklet through a machine to make an impression of the card and store details on each sheet then signed to complete purchase. For a high value purchase the store had to phone Access / Barclaycard / AmEx for an authorisation code.
In some large stores a separate accounts department linked by air/vacuum tubes and capsules to send details of the purchase and payment then return change and receipt.
Ordering route directions from the AA to holiday destinations. Mostly pre-printed sheets stapled together in sequence but occasionally hand-typed. No looking up on Google Maps never mind Sat-navs.
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busestrains
On Moderation
When i was a kid there was:
• no internet
• no computers
• no smartphones
• no mobile phones
• black and white TVs
• payphones that worked
When i tell this to my grandchildren they can not believe it. The children these days have grown up so differently with all of this technology. Even primary school kids all have smartphones these days and spend the whole day online.
• no internet
• no computers
• no smartphones
• no mobile phones
• black and white TVs
• payphones that worked
When i tell this to my grandchildren they can not believe it. The children these days have grown up so differently with all of this technology. Even primary school kids all have smartphones these days and spend the whole day online.
telstarbox
Established Member
And they bring oat milk to us - moving with the times!
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
And the tellies that you switched on and they took a few minutes to warm up. Before the 1980s came and ever since then we've had tv's that come on immediately and. *Thinks about the Virgin digibox* Oh, hang on...
Using a phone box you could make 'reverse charge calls' which made the person you called pay for it.
Being able to dial a 4 digit phone number for a local call
Roadsweepers came down your road regularly
Recording music of the radio.... using blank tapes.
VHS/Betamax
Cameras that used film
Being able to dial a 4 digit phone number for a local call
Roadsweepers came down your road regularly
Recording music of the radio.... using blank tapes.
VHS/Betamax
Cameras that used film
It was Great Universal for us, with goods being delivered in a White Arrow van.
Anyone on here have to make do with a so-called "party line", where a random nearby household also shared the phone line, so that if you needed to make a call, there was every chance the line was already in use?!
That was only ten years ago!
Yeah. My class are 7, 8 and 9.
Galvanize
Member
Listening to a Storytape on long car journeys. Depending how good the car’s Tapedeck was…you either had to eject the tape and turn it over yourself…or the tapedeck could read both sides!!
Quite often we had on in the car a couple of Babar the Elephant stories, Ivor the Engine, The Bear, a Nursery Rhymes tape (which used to annoy Dad to no end!)…and quite mild for my age at the time…
Blackadder “Bells” from series 2!
Quite often we had on in the car a couple of Babar the Elephant stories, Ivor the Engine, The Bear, a Nursery Rhymes tape (which used to annoy Dad to no end!)…and quite mild for my age at the time…
Blackadder “Bells” from series 2!
PaulJ
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- 121
Johnny Brown is a live wire, grass is green it grows in the earth. This has stuck on mind for 45 years now!
Jamiescott1
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Renting a TV (and other home appliances)
Only getting new clothes when family allowance came through
Eating out was not a thing. Maybe once yearly.
Takeaways weren't delivered. You had to go collect them
The post was delivered before id left for school
Only getting new clothes when family allowance came through
Eating out was not a thing. Maybe once yearly.
Takeaways weren't delivered. You had to go collect them
The post was delivered before id left for school
DelW
Established Member
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- 15 Jan 2015
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None of this new-fangled blue and brown, when I first wired 3 pin plugs the wires were black, red and green.
Shops still sell plugs, so someone must still be wiring them up at home despite everything coming with a moulded on one.
Even just 20 years ago was hugely different to today in many respects:
- Mobile phones were half the size with no internet or touchscreen
- The internet was largely accessed through dial-up on a bulky desktop
- Missing a TV show meant waiting for it to be broadcast again in order to get another chance to watch it
- Smoking in pubs was still legal
- Vinyl as a music format was on the verge of becoming extinct
- Slam-door trains and high-floor double decker buses were still in widespread use
Your school must have been posher than mine: I remember live = brown because that's the colour your trousers go if you touch it!
If I recall correctly, when Top of the Pops was broadcast on BBC1 on Thursday nights in the late '80s / early '90s, it was simultaneously broadcast on BBC Radio 1 as well, so you could mute your telly and listen to the music in stereo sound?
birchesgreen
Established Member
As a little boy you looked forward to seeing the new toys.
Later on it was...something earlier in the book of interest
Cheshire Scot
Established Member
You could actually get an appointment to see the Doctor!
Ashley Hill
Established Member
When you refer taking your exams in your 5th year meaning 5th and final year at 16 and not in year 5 as I believe is modern parlance. Then having to explain what O levels and CSEs are.
fourtytwo
Member
Trolleybuses in Bournemouth where my mothers relatives lived, these had rubber tires and no tracks unlike trams so the overhead pickup was two poles. I don't know why they ever got rid of them the replacement diesel buses produced clouds of black smoke!
Black hands whenever we traveled on the met (London Metropolitan railway) to see my fathers parents as in those days it was steam and I was forever hanging on the windowsills looking out.
Being generally belabored by teachers, the nastiest punishment being the edge of a ruler across the knuckles, If I was stupid enough to tell my father he would often add a further punishment of his own!
The clinking of bottles and curious wining noise early in the morning as the electric milk cart made it's way down the street.
Going on holiday by train, steam of course but later diesels, we didn't have a car till the middle 60's.
Clanking of goods trains being shunted at the local railway station.
The coal man delivering coal to the house, we had a bunker outside and coal hod to bring it in to feed the boiler in the kitchen and the Rayburn coal fires in the front & back rooms. There was no automatic central heating, the house was icy cold first thing in the morning and the water would only begin to warm up a while after someone turned on the immersion heater, I think the coal boiler often went out in the night.
So many more I could add.......
Great thread, really fun read
Black hands whenever we traveled on the met (London Metropolitan railway) to see my fathers parents as in those days it was steam and I was forever hanging on the windowsills looking out.
Being generally belabored by teachers, the nastiest punishment being the edge of a ruler across the knuckles, If I was stupid enough to tell my father he would often add a further punishment of his own!
The clinking of bottles and curious wining noise early in the morning as the electric milk cart made it's way down the street.
Going on holiday by train, steam of course but later diesels, we didn't have a car till the middle 60's.
Clanking of goods trains being shunted at the local railway station.
The coal man delivering coal to the house, we had a bunker outside and coal hod to bring it in to feed the boiler in the kitchen and the Rayburn coal fires in the front & back rooms. There was no automatic central heating, the house was icy cold first thing in the morning and the water would only begin to warm up a while after someone turned on the immersion heater, I think the coal boiler often went out in the night.
So many more I could add.......
Great thread, really fun read
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birchesgreen
Established Member
If you didn't know something, you had to look it up in a book (probably in a public library).
Gloster
Established Member
Making reverse charge calls from ‘phone boxes, although they got wise to that. And don’t give the X at the end of the number.
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