Rather than take the thread about the potential death of pinball way too far off track I was thinking about general stuff from the 70s/early 80s that younger people would simply find hard to believe were true as the world’s changed so much.
1 education. Let’s just say it was patchy. Physical punishment of students was still normal. Geography text books had a hell of a lot of the world still coloured in pink as they were 30 years out of date. Kids could leave with no qualifications on their 15th birthday. Teachers openly dated 6th form students. Teachers regularly went to the pub at lunchtimes and taught drunk in the afternoons. We used to put metal pencil sharpeners on the grills in front of electric heaters and then use rulers to catapult them at other kids when they were burning hot.
2. Telephones. Way before mobiles. All were rotary dial but were strictly for looking at only and NEVER for using unless it’s an emergency. Want a lift? Use the secret ring code. 2 rings means “at the station” Even businesses had a no ring before 1pm policy due to costs.
3. Money. Seven and a half pence was a perfectly sensible price point. Bonus points for shops displaying a “d” sign rather than a “p”
4. Restaurants. The idea of casual dining just didn’t happen. If you ate out twice a year at a restaurant you were clearly rich. The exception to this was a “ploughman’s” in a pub, often shared amongst the family.
5. Child care. Old enough to walk and talk? See you later. Provided you were home before dark that was the end of parental responsibility. Decided to hang out on building sites or in a flat with strange adults. What could go wrong there?
6. Glue sniffing. Seriously. WTF. your local dealer would flog you a tub of evostick and you dumped it in a plastic bag. Girls would swoon over the bad boy look of crusty scabs all around the nose and mouth
7. Casual bigotry. To say I’m deeply ashamed of some of the terms I used growing up is a massive understatement. See the boy over there who has an ironed shirt? Let’s call him “bender” for the next five years ….. and that was mild.
8. Sending off for stuff. “Please allow 28 days for delivery”. Bonus points if it involved using postal orders to pay for it.
9. Vaccination scars. I missed this by less than a year. Everyone older than me had one on their arm. Pretty much as good as an ID card
10. Porn. Although proper magazines could only be sourced dumped in building sites there was in hindsight an amazing amount of nudity on TV. Not entirely convinced programs such as the sweeny and The Bill had to have quite so many scenes shot in brothels. Compulsory Saturday evening TV included the opening titles to “tales of the unexpected” purely for the boob shot. When channel 4 launched it was pretty much porn and countdown.
11 chokes on cars and rip cords on lawn mowers. Seems such an alien idea now. Forget about it and your engine becomes flooded and you’re not going anywhere.
It’s easy to think of the past as a great time full of pinballs and arcades but a lot of it was ****. Nostalgia has a lot to answer for.
What else do you remember that younger generations would struggle with? What things should we celebrate seeing the back off?
1 education. Let’s just say it was patchy. Physical punishment of students was still normal. Geography text books had a hell of a lot of the world still coloured in pink as they were 30 years out of date. Kids could leave with no qualifications on their 15th birthday. Teachers openly dated 6th form students. Teachers regularly went to the pub at lunchtimes and taught drunk in the afternoons. We used to put metal pencil sharpeners on the grills in front of electric heaters and then use rulers to catapult them at other kids when they were burning hot.
2. Telephones. Way before mobiles. All were rotary dial but were strictly for looking at only and NEVER for using unless it’s an emergency. Want a lift? Use the secret ring code. 2 rings means “at the station” Even businesses had a no ring before 1pm policy due to costs.
3. Money. Seven and a half pence was a perfectly sensible price point. Bonus points for shops displaying a “d” sign rather than a “p”
4. Restaurants. The idea of casual dining just didn’t happen. If you ate out twice a year at a restaurant you were clearly rich. The exception to this was a “ploughman’s” in a pub, often shared amongst the family.
5. Child care. Old enough to walk and talk? See you later. Provided you were home before dark that was the end of parental responsibility. Decided to hang out on building sites or in a flat with strange adults. What could go wrong there?
6. Glue sniffing. Seriously. WTF. your local dealer would flog you a tub of evostick and you dumped it in a plastic bag. Girls would swoon over the bad boy look of crusty scabs all around the nose and mouth
7. Casual bigotry. To say I’m deeply ashamed of some of the terms I used growing up is a massive understatement. See the boy over there who has an ironed shirt? Let’s call him “bender” for the next five years ….. and that was mild.
8. Sending off for stuff. “Please allow 28 days for delivery”. Bonus points if it involved using postal orders to pay for it.
9. Vaccination scars. I missed this by less than a year. Everyone older than me had one on their arm. Pretty much as good as an ID card
10. Porn. Although proper magazines could only be sourced dumped in building sites there was in hindsight an amazing amount of nudity on TV. Not entirely convinced programs such as the sweeny and The Bill had to have quite so many scenes shot in brothels. Compulsory Saturday evening TV included the opening titles to “tales of the unexpected” purely for the boob shot. When channel 4 launched it was pretty much porn and countdown.
11 chokes on cars and rip cords on lawn mowers. Seems such an alien idea now. Forget about it and your engine becomes flooded and you’re not going anywhere.
It’s easy to think of the past as a great time full of pinballs and arcades but a lot of it was ****. Nostalgia has a lot to answer for.
What else do you remember that younger generations would struggle with? What things should we celebrate seeing the back off?
