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Everyday things from back in the day that seem really weird now

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  • Stuart_the_Red
    Stuart_the_Red Posts: 1,850
    Putting money in the meter for the leccy.
    50p pocket money/week.
    A child’s bus fare costing 2p. 
    Bus conductors.
    Toasting bread under the grill on top of the stove.

  • ValleyGary
    ValleyGary Posts: 37,979
    Having to nail the timing on pressing play/record to tape a song off the radio.
    I'm surprised you're old enough to have done that,
    Just, but I appreciate the compliment haha 
  • JamesSeed
    JamesSeed Posts: 17,380
    edited May 2023
    Pedro45 said:
    Green Shield Stamps.
    Green Shield Stamps in cigarette packets. I *think* these came without perforations? (Got caught out when my mum found them in my pocket once).

    Turning on the b&w TV to watch the test card, waiting for the live cricket to come on, often presented by Peter West.

    'Drawing' a fire by lighting it in the grate and sticking a sheet of (broadsheet) newspaper over the open fireplace, to get it going.

    Ice on the inside of windows (before the fires were lit).

    More recently, the sound of dial up broadband dialling up.
  • JamesSeed
    JamesSeed Posts: 17,380
    Doorstep milk deliveries. Glass pint milk bottles.

    Oh and mum washing up the empty bottles to leave out overnight to be collected.

    Pound notes.
    Still happens in our street.
  • ValleyGary
    ValleyGary Posts: 37,979
    Working in an office with others smoking all day. 
    This is a good one. Even being around someone, especially indoors, that has a fag is absolute rancid.
  • JamesSeed
    JamesSeed Posts: 17,380
    Genuine question, before kebab shops etc became popular, was it fish and chips or nothing on the way back from the pub?
    They've had Indian and Chinese takeaways in London for many decades. Certainly since before WW2.
  • North Lower Neil
    North Lower Neil Posts: 22,952
    Working in an office with others smoking all day. 
    This is a good one. Even being around someone, especially indoors, that has a fag is absolute rancid.
    I've always been a non-smoker but still remember stinking of cigarettes and having a croaky voice after a night at a club.
  • captainbob
    captainbob Posts: 941
    Topping up the barrel of water in the cellar in case of fire
    The Queen going to Tilbury
    Daytrips to Greenwich for the cleaner air
    Latin prep
    Going to the Globe Theatre
    Scurvy
    Hiding from the press gangs 
    Skating on the Thames
    Leeches
    Charlton beating Millwall


  • North Lower Neil
    North Lower Neil Posts: 22,952
    Weird campaigns about fictional soap storylines.

    Free Deidre etc.
  • Covered End
    Covered End Posts: 51,995
    edited May 2023
    Topping up the barrel of water in the cellar in case of fire
    The Queen going to Tilbury
    Daytrips to Greenwich for the cleaner air
    Latin prep
    Going to the Globe Theatre
    Scurvy 
    Hiding from the press gangs 
    Skating on the Thames
    Leeches
    Charlton beating Millwall


    You must be around 100?   :D
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  • O-Randy-Hunt
    O-Randy-Hunt Posts: 10,642
    A man on a bike screaming 'Toffee apples, Monkey nuts'

    However I wouldn't find that weird today and would happily go out and make a purchase if it still happened.
  • JaShea99
    JaShea99 Posts: 5,458
    People called Reg.
    Assume you don’t have kids in school now? Weirdly it’s become very popular again. Each to their own.
  • ValleyGary
    ValleyGary Posts: 37,979
    School now seems alien. Warm milk given out at break time, singing Christian hymns in assembly. Weird.
  • Stig
    Stig Posts: 29,024
    Meat raffles down the pub. Such a weird prize.
    By coincidence I saw an advert for one of those today, in The Dolphin, Hastings. Haven't seen such a thing in years. Thought it was weird back then, perhaps even weirder now.
  • Early closing
  • Stig
    Stig Posts: 29,024
    Going to the phone box to call your girlfriend.
    In metalwork lessons we all made handy gadgets that would push the bar down in the old-fashioned coin slot so you could get free calls. The metalwork teacher knew exactly what we were up to but he didn't care.
  • Stig
    Stig Posts: 29,024
    I never saw it in action, but I have at home a government issue candle holder. These were issued to all civil servants during the winter of discontent so that they could carry on working when the lights went out. Naked flames in offices that were crammed full of paper. Madness.
  • Blackheathen
    Blackheathen Posts: 6,655
    The family would stand for the National Anthem before the Monarch’s Christmas Day address to the nation.  I can recall listening to a radio broadcast of Charlton games on Christmas Day (we didn’t stand for those).

    Does anyone these days admit to enjoying The Rolf Harris show?  We certainly did.  The very thought.
  • Fanny Fanackapan
    Fanny Fanackapan Posts: 18,737
    edited May 2023
    Coming home for dinner from primary school every day -10 min walk each way.

    Saturday morning pictures at the Granada, Dartford.

    Getting the train to Lewisham to exchange multiple books of Green Shield Stamps for a set of towels.

    " Listen with Mother " each afternoon via a large wireless. 
  • ValleyGary
    ValleyGary Posts: 37,979
    edited May 2023
    Drink driving. My dad used to be the worst for it. 10 pints down the football club then drive me home. Then a big campaign come out and the whole attitude changed. Mental cos he was a fireman and always told us stories of a bloke getting decapitated and cutting people out of cars from doing it. Not one to be proud of but it was definitely worse 25-30 years ago.
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  • We had a knife sharpening bloke come round who'd operate from his van - knives, scissors, shears, tools - he was quite popular.

    Also the French onion man on his bike.  
  • North Lower Neil
    North Lower Neil Posts: 22,952
    We had a knife sharpening bloke come round who'd operate from his van - knives, scissors, shears, tools - he was quite popular.
      
    There's a food/craft market near us once a month and there's a knife sharpener guy and his van parked up who always seems to do a roaring trade.
  • Cafc43v3r
    Cafc43v3r Posts: 21,600
    We had a knife sharpening bloke come round who'd operate from his van - knives, scissors, shears, tools - he was quite popular.

    Also the French onion man on his bike.  


    Gordon, or Mr Kaye as we used to have to call him, used to shop in my shop.  In his later years he was, let's just say, difficult.  But that's for another thread.
  • Stig
    Stig Posts: 29,024
    My Dad's car having a bench seat at the front - which was brilliant for a family of three. Then it had something done (new engine?) and for ages we were on a go slow with our 'running in, please pass' sticker in the back.
  • LenGlover
    LenGlover Posts: 31,651
    Renting the telly and buying the Evening classified after watching Charlton.
  • Rob7Lee
    Rob7Lee Posts: 9,595
    Carrying the Lino down to Lewisham to break dance,
    Getting told to get up to change the TV channel for my dad, just BBC1, 2 & 3.
    Seeing my dad on the kitchen chair after having our first automatic washing machine installed, I'm convinced he sat there and watched the whole programme from start to finish.
    Loading up games on the spectrum
    TV going off with the card, what about 11pm?
    Some others have said taping the charts.
    Going out on a weekend and just saying to your mum, I'll be back for tea.
    Crook log under 16's disco.
    Medicine cupboard consisting of aspirin, disprin, calamine lotion, vic and a benelyn.
    Vosene shampoo, a bar of soap!
    Rubber tap attachments to shower your hair
    Buying 20 B&H and a box of matches for £1.20 and selling 12 for 10p each.
    Rag and bone man
    Pools collector
    Milkman with his big black book
    Dialling on the old phones with the circular dial
    Running downstairs in the morning in winter to get into the lounge where my dad had turned on the fire 5 minutes before (the only heater in the house).
    Getting tortoises as a present (might just be me)
    One Friday a month having the choice of fish and chips or laterly McDonalds
    When we eventually got a car it was an old fruit and veg van, me and my sister just sitting on the floor in the back all the way to Cliftonville with the one suitcase we owned (not sure that was legal even then).
    Freemans catalogue

  • Kap10
    Kap10 Posts: 15,566
    My dad turning the handle to turn over the car engine on a cold day
  • TEL
    TEL Posts: 10,100
    edited May 2023
    Meat raffles down the pub. Such a weird prize.


    Happens here all over Australia every week in the RSL's 
  • Stig
    Stig Posts: 29,024
    The Insurance Man coming around every year and taking an age to renew whatever policies we had by writing stuff on bits of paper.