You know you’re getting older when……

[swt_passenger]

When a mobile phone is just something you keep in your bag for an emergency like having to ring for a taxi or to inform a family member that you are going to be late home. Most of the time it is switched off and you only switch it on when you need to make that rare call. Also it only needs charging every few weeks.

Yes, my dad had one of those “It’s only for emergencies so I don’t switch it on” models about 20 years ago, just before he died at 74. A generation on and mine‘s in constant use, but I still rarely make an actual phone call…

 

[OhNoAPacer]

When you mention "Tommy Cooper" (or others from that era) to someone and you are met with a blank expression.

Try making reference to The Tufty Club!

Incidentally I still have my tufty club badge.

 

[Gloster]

If your laces come undone when you are away from home you just live with it as bending or leaning down to do them up again is such a risky business.

 

[Ediswan]

Try making reference to The Tufty Club!

Tufty lasted until 1994 according to RoSPA.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Tufty lasted until 1994 according to RoSPA.

1994 seems very recent to me but for many I worked with it may as well have been the neolithic!

 

[GusB]

In a similar vein to the Tufty Club, which I had no involvement with, was the Green Cross Code man. I remember being bussed with my classmates to the Town Hall to see him, the late Dave Prowse, on stage.

Those of us of a certain age will remember the many public information films that were broadcast.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

In a similar vein to the Tufty Club, which I had no involvement with, was the Green Cross Code man. I remember being bussed with my classmates to the Town Hall to see him, the late Dave Prowse, on stage.

Those of us of a certain age will remember the many public information films that were broadcast.

And who would have imagined that the green cross code man would one day turn to the dark side

Of course you need to be of a certain age to get the joke!

 

[TheBigD]

From my 9 yr old god daughter this evening...
"Why have you still got a map book in the car?"

(It's an RAC road atlas from 2008)

 

[contrex]

Try making reference to The Tufty Club!

Incidentally I still have my tufty club badge.

We nicknamed our form master 'Tufty' and that was in 1965 when I was 13.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Being if a certain age I wasn't taught the green cross code I was taught Kerb Drill.

 

[duncanp]

Another sign of age is if you can remember the test card on BBC2.

...or bus conductors

...or sweet cigarettes. (These were sweets that were made to look like cigarettes - perhaps there ought to be a thread "...Things that were allowed in the 1960s and 1970s that you would never get away with now)

 

[32475]

An excellent idea for a new thread duncanp. Over to you!

 

[birchesgreen]

I used to love the testcard as a kid, and the music. Years later i bought a few CDs of testcard music, very nostalgic for when i was used to be sat at my Nan's house in my Hai Karate pjyamas waiting for TV to start up, Paint Along With Nancy was usually the first show... mesmerised by a woman doing a painting of a pot plant using a butter knife.

Arn't sweet ciggies still available but under a different name?

 

[gg1]

...or sweet cigarettes. (These were sweets that were made to look like cigarettes - perhaps there ought to be a thread "...Things that were allowed in the 1960s and 1970s that you would never get away with now)

Similarly, beer flavoured jelly sweets in the shape of a pint glass.

 

[DelayRepay]

Another sign of age is if you can remember the test card on BBC2.

Even remembering Ceefax (and 'Pages from Ceefax' being shown on the main channel with music) makes me feel old, even though it's not that long ago that it was turned off.

In a conversation the other day I mentioned how BBC 1 used to end the day's programmes by telling people what was on the radio overnight, a weather forecast and the playing National Anthem before ceasing transmission. A younger person thought I was winding him up - the only time he's ever heard the National Anthem on the BBC is during sporting events and when the Duke of Edinburgh died.

...or sweet cigarettes. (These were sweets that were made to look like cigarettes - perhaps there ought to be a thread

I remember those from my 1980s childhood. I saved the packets and 'sold' them in my toy shop!

 

[PeterC]

When you think back to the occasion when you first used a train, and think that if you go back the same number of years in the other direction, you end up in WW11

Puts me between Her Majesty's two jubilees. I mean VR not ER.

 

[nw1]

Another sign of age is if you can remember the test card on BBC2.

Yes

...or bus conductors

No

...or sweet cigarettes.

Still around in the late 70s and early 80s, so I remember them.

So 2 out of 3 I remember, so I guess, on balance I am old.

(These were sweets that were made to look like cigarettes - perhaps there ought to be a thread "...Things that were allowed in the 1960s and 1970s that you would never get away with now)

True, aka "things that are not tolerated now due to our apparent obsession with a zero-risk society". I ate sweet cigarettes as a child, yet I have had a lifelong aversion to smoking - so I think the idea that sweet cigarettes will turn you into a chain-smoker is, quite frankly, rubbish.

Similarly, beer flavoured jelly sweets in the shape of a pint glass.

Remember those as well (from the 1980s, I think). While I do drink alcohol regularly, I have not become an alcoholic as a result.

 

[Typhoon]

When you can remember the Co-op divi number (177612) but not your PIN.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

When you still expect to be offered Green Shield Stamps.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

When you still expect to be offered Green Shield Stamps.

Got to be over thirty years since they were still a thing!

 

[gg1]

When you can remember the Co-op divi number (177612) but not your PIN.

Along similar lines, I still remember some of the internal cost centre codes for a finance job I left in 2005

 

[Pinza-C55]

When you can remember Vinyl records being replaced by cassettes, cassettes being replaced by CDs and DVDs, then you read that DVD is now a "dead format".

 

[nw1]

When you can remember Vinyl records being replaced by cassettes, cassettes being replaced by CDs and DVDs, then you read that DVD is now a "dead format".

I don't remember the first (in my earlier memories, it was vinyl and cassette simultaneously), but I do, after quite a few years of the vinyl/cassette era, remember CDs being introduced and later DVDs. DVDs seem quite recent so I can't get my head around them being a "dead format". Not everyone has a fast enough internet connection to stream - there seems to be something of an assumption that everyone has a high-bandwidth broadband connection.

I consider my broadband quite good, but I do get glitches when streaming video, and I do find that if I have to download large amounts of (work related) content, I have to actually go into work for it to be done at an acceptable speed.

 

[gg1]

I don't remember the first (it was vinyl and cassette simultaneously), but I do remember CDs being introduced and later DVDs. DVDs seem quite recent so I can't get my head around them being a "dead format". Not everyone has a fast enough internet connection to stream.

I'm one of those dinosaurs who still prefers physical media, it annoys me when I come across an album or TV series which is only available through streaming services or download. I've yet to encounter a film which falls into that category but I'm sure that day will come.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

You used to scour the ground for pop bottles as a kid so you could return them and use the deposit money to buy sweets (the cheap so many for a penny ones)

 

[Gloster]

You can remember when record-players were still sold with 78 on the dial.

 

[nw1]

Got to be over thirty years since they were still a thing!

I do remember green stamps from the Co-op in around 1979 or 1980, which presumably were Green Shield stamps. Think they disappeared very soon after that, they didn't survive long into the 80s.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

The term download meant you had dropped something heavy

I do remember green stamps from the Co-op in around 1979 or 1980, which presumably were Green Shield stamps. Think they disappeared very soon after that, they didn't survive long into the 80s.

I remember the coop doing their own stamps, they were blue.

 

[Bertone]

Remember “Embassy” cigarette coupons?
Found one up in the loft recently amongst other stuff that hasn’t been touched for 40+ years!

 

[DelayRepay]

Along similar lines, I still remember some of the internal cost centre codes for a finance job I left in 2005

I can remember landline phone numbers for many long deceased relatives, and school aged friends, and most of the internal extension numbers from my first job.

But I couldn't tell you anyone's mobile number. I struggle to remember my own!