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Post by Phantom of London on Nov 21, 2021 18:17:31 GMT
We were the last to have central heating in the road and still remember having 2 tonne of coal being delivered. I also remember the old couple next door having an outside toilet.
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Post by lynette on Nov 21, 2021 18:36:22 GMT
When I was young if you were feeling ill you'd stay in bed and the GP would come and visit you. A whole new ball game, the change, some would say decline, in medical services. I can date it from ‘79 when a locum came to visit my 2yr old who was having fits in the middle of the night. Prescribed antibiotics which OH had to find by driving half way across London to an open pharmacist. That was the last time a GP came to our home. Sadly it is more difficult now to access GP in person. Despite the miseries of freezing bedrooms, unwashed lettuce, phone boxes, the 3 day week and The Black and White Minstrel Show, I still think some of us have lived through a Golden Age in the UK: yes the NHS, yes education, free right thru to post post stuff, cheap food and easy travel possible, no wars so no conscription, home ownership…etc. As has been said, we didn't light the fire…. |
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Post by londonpostie on Nov 21, 2021 20:27:48 GMT
I look at the data and see longer active lives and longer lives and think of my grandfathers who both died within 6-months of reaching their pension age, having started work at 13 or 14 (both to cancer). Somehow they both made it through the war. Ditto their wives surviving 6 births but losing two of them (twins). Best we know, they all disguised their lack of basic reading and writing abilities.
When my last grandparent died we found a pad in her bedside cabinet where she had been practicing writing the phrase 'I love you all' after someone else had started. Her husband had 14 years in his entire life when he wasn't either working or avoiding Japanese bullets.
I also miss the simpler life but jesus christ it was hard for working-class famiiies. |
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Post by Jon on Nov 21, 2021 20:31:44 GMT
Very soon someone is going to say that they grew up living in a cardboard box in the middle of a motorway... 'Cardboard box? utter luxury! We had to sleep in a ditch in a field!' |
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Nov 22, 2021 7:55:14 GMT
Very soon someone is going to say that they grew up living in a cardboard box in the middle of a motorway... 'Cardboard box? utter luxury! We had to sleep in a ditch in a field!' He he |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2021 11:38:30 GMT
I forget when it was and who it was and where it was, but I remember someone complaining that people today have it so easy compared with the past, and the response was "Of course life is easier today. That's the whole —ing point."
I was thinking a while ago: I can't actually remember how I did things before the Internet. These days if I need to go somewhere I'll check it out on aerial photographs so I know where I'm going. If I'm driving I'll check the car parking; if by public transport I'll measure the distances so I know how long it'll take to walk. If I'm going to a shop I'll check online to see whether what I want is in stock, and to make sure of their opening hours. I assume that before I had Internet access I'd just head off and chance it but I can't recall how I knew there was something to go to; for example, if I was going to visit a shop in London I can't remember how I'd have found out about the shop in the first place.
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Post by bimse on Nov 22, 2021 13:50:21 GMT
Very soon someone is going to say that they grew up living in a cardboard box in the middle of a motorway... ….. but we didn’t have motorways in those days . |
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Post by crowblack on Nov 22, 2021 17:17:22 GMT
if I was going to visit a shop in London I can't remember how I'd have found out about the shop in the first place. I was thinking about how we found out about stuff like this. The cafe in our city centre art gallery had a carousel of flyers, free listings magazines for the region and small B&W 'zines', as did the 'vintage' clothing shops. Magazines like i-D had back pages full of adverts too (street fashion stuff, not the high end brands it's full of now) and there was a lot more 'what's on' coverage of the arts and fashion on mainstream TV. You'd even get voiceovers telling you 'so and so is now appearing in Oops There Go My Trousers at the Theatre Royal Bath'or whatever over the end credits of a sitcom. My first theatre trips with schoolfriends (as opposed to with the school or parents) were to see some of the Young Ones / Comic Strip Presents cast on tour. And we saw Complicite for the first time after seeing them on Terry Wogan! |
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Post by sfsusan on Nov 22, 2021 18:05:32 GMT
When the appliances made it home it would never work as it never had a plug on, you had to put a plug on before using it. On my first visit to London in 1980, I had to buy a hair dryer (I knew my American one wouldn't work). Found a shop (maybe the Army & Navy store?), found a cheap hair dryer, went to buy it, and the clerk asked if we had a plug. After much confusion on our part, the clerk found the right plug and handed us our two purchases. At which point we looked even more confused and asked, "what do we do with these?" He sighed, and bless his heart, did whatever was needed to attach the plug to the dryer correctly and sent us on our way, still somewhat bemused. Oh, you crazy kids with your Walkmans... when *I* was in school, the only portable music was from the new transistor radios. And even my dad's fancy hi-fi system didn't have anything but a turntable and speakers (albeit in a tasteful Danish Modern cabinet)... and wasn't stereo. |
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Post by Dawnstar on Nov 22, 2021 18:20:32 GMT
I assume that before I had Internet access I'd just head off and chance it but I can't recall how I knew there was something to go to; for example, if I was going to visit a shop in London I can't remember how I'd have found out about the shop in the first place.
Street directories? We have one for Cambridge for 1962 that we inherited from my grandparents (though given they didn't move to near Cambridge til about 1980 I don't know why they had it!). Obviously I wasn't around in 1962 to compare it to reality, but it looks pretty comprehensive. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2021 20:12:19 GMT
Possibly. I guess there was Time Out as well. I just don't remember doing it.
The mention of directories reminds me of something else that existed for a very short time indeed. In the mid-1990s I had an Internet Directory, as in a printed book listing all the most interesting websites of the time. I threw it out a few years ago, but now I wish I'd kept it because it was a snapshot of a moment in time when there were enough Internet users to make a print run viable but not enough Internet to make coverage impossible. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Nov 22, 2021 20:30:02 GMT
Record Mirror? NME? Melody Maker?
I was a Record Mirror kid. Oh yes! my trashy, populist tastes were as evident back then as they are today. I tried NME but it was all a bit too serious, as for Melody Maker… that was for old fogeys. But how grown up I felt buying my own tabloid style newspaper every week and reading it on the bus home from school.
Then in the early eighties it turned into a glossy magazine and went too poppy and downmarket even for me so I sacked it off, went all new romantic and started messing with The Face instead 😀.
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Post by nick on Nov 23, 2021 8:23:10 GMT
Possibly. I guess there was Time Out as well. I just don't remember doing it.
The mention of directories reminds me of something else that existed for a very short time indeed. In the mid-1990s I had an Internet Directory, as in a printed book listing all the most interesting websites of the time. I threw it out a few years ago, but now I wish I'd kept it because it was a snapshot of a moment in time when there were enough Internet users to make a print run viable but not enough Internet to make coverage impossible. This reminds me of Halt and Catch Fire. They start the last series by cataloguing the entire internet (not on paper) and, of course, it is entirely possible in 1992 ( or so). As the series goes on it becomes increasingly impossible. It’s a time i remember well - I first used the Internet at that time. |
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Post by mistressjojo on Nov 23, 2021 10:27:20 GMT
I remember blankets and scarves etc always seemed to be super itchy as a kid, the last thing you wanted was for them to touch your skin. I still remember my surprise being given a soft scarf as an adult after years of refusing to wear the itchy ones and being cold. Actually, your childhood woollens probably *were* scratchier than today's versions. Lots of work has been done in breeding and processing to grow softer, finer micron sheep wool without the 'itch' factor. You can thank us Aussies for that one! |
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Post by nick on Nov 23, 2021 11:35:07 GMT
I remember blankets and scarves etc always seemed to be super itchy as a kid, the last thing you wanted was for them to touch your skin. I still remember my surprise being given a soft scarf as an adult after years of refusing to wear the itchy ones and being cold. Actually, your childhood woollens probably *were* scratchier than today's versions. Lots of work has been done in breeding and processing to grow softer, finer micron sheep wool without the 'itch' factor. You can thank us Aussies for that one! Hmm I'm sure you are correct but I suspect that many scarves and blankets of the 70s 80s just weren't pure wool. I started getting interested in clothes in the early 80s and ended up wearing vintage clothes all the time as I wanted natural fabrics and new clothes were rarely 100% wool or 100% cotton. Mind you vintage then meant victorian up to 40s and were very cheap. Also I do historical reenactment and sometime wear clothes made from wool from old style sheep that have been hand spun, dyed and woven and they aren't really scratchy - although I'd hesitate to say they were soft. |
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Post by peggs on Nov 23, 2021 19:22:36 GMT
Interesting.
I started buying bits and pieces from small businesses in first lock down and this included a lovely woolly hat from a farmer in Cumbria. I asked at the time if it would be itchy and cited my childhood memories and was kindly told the type of wool it was (wish I could remember, it was a combo of two british breeds I think) and that no not itchy and yes while I probably wouldn't opted for wearing it next to my skin as a hat it's lovely and soft. And yeah like your reactant stuff hand spun, dyed and woven.
But yes also different breeds of sheep for different things, I never used to realise that tweed was from wool.
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Post by Phantom of London on Dec 1, 2021 23:40:05 GMT
Wondering as i am in Iceland at the moment, very cold here, does anyone remember Bejams? Or maybe Safeways or Prestos, or maybe the god awful supermarket chain Somerfields?
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Post by showgirl on Dec 2, 2021 5:14:42 GMT
All of those and for another blast from the past, what about Fine Fare and MacFisheries?
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Post by anita on Dec 2, 2021 10:05:34 GMT
What about the original Sainsburys - where you queued at different counters for different things & then went to a window at the back to pay for all.
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Post by alece10 on Dec 2, 2021 12:00:16 GMT
What was that awful supermarket back in the 90s whose slogan was "stack em high, sell em low" Called?
It was truly dreadful.
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Post by dontdreamit on Dec 2, 2021 12:59:54 GMT
What was that awful supermarket back in the 90s whose slogan was "stack em high, sell em low" Called? It was truly dreadful. Kwick Save? |
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Post by lichtie on Dec 2, 2021 13:15:11 GMT
What was that awful supermarket back in the 90s whose slogan was "stack em high, sell em low" Called? It was truly dreadful. Actually that was Tesco... |
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Post by alece10 on Dec 2, 2021 14:38:12 GMT
What was that awful supermarket back in the 90s whose slogan was "stack em high, sell em low" Called? It was truly dreadful. Kwick Save? Thats the one. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Dec 2, 2021 21:29:40 GMT
I remember Kwick Save a bit like Sumerfields, what happened to them.
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Post by alece10 on Dec 2, 2021 21:34:57 GMT
I remember Kwick Save a bit like Sumerfields, what happened to them. Did Co-Op buy Sumerfields? |
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