What Do You Miss From The Old Days?

[vanessan]

2 hours ago, Lulu said:

Dad driving over the hump back bridge into the Porter & Haylett yard in Wroxham. It used  to scare me every time but also the sheer excitement of knowing we were just about to start our holiday. 

It’s still there but I bet the feeling wouldn’t be quite like it was ‘back in the day’. 

[ChrisB]

3 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

A pint of beer for 12.5 pence!

At the end of 1972 I was on a 3 month contract working in Bethnal Green Road. ( it was to last 9 years 5 months ). I had my lunch every day in The Dolphin in Redchurch Street. A pint of Trumans bitter was indeed 12.5p my toasted sandwich was 18p. Frank the landlord used to let me off the 0.5p, so my pint and a toastie was 30p.

[Lulu]

46 minutes ago, vanessan said:

It’s still there but I bet the feeling wouldn’t be quite like it was ‘back in the day’. 

In dad’s wallowy automatic Cortina, it was always touch and go if we would get to the summit! 

[LizG]

16 minutes ago, Lulu said:

In dad’s wallowy automatic Cortina, it was always touch and go if we would get to the summit! 

Back in the 1970s I occasionally had to drive over the bridge in a transit van - that was seriously scary!

Liz

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

I miss the way life was in general, people were more responsible, more friendly, and would take responsibility for their own actions.  I miss having a large manufacturing industry which employed many thousands of people. I miss all the British makes of car, i miss the milkman, travelling grocery van, mobile butchers van, the shell fish man in the pubs. I miss the uncrowded roads, the ability as a child to ride a pushbike around the woods without somebody being offended, or thrown off for health and safety. I miss the fact that many years ago, it was`nt a crime to make a mistake. I miss the fact i could roam around this beautiful country WITHOUT being watched by sneaky cameras all the time. I miss the police actually being there for the public, and upholding British law, instead of doing their best to nick you when you HAVE`NT actually broken any laws, it`s very convincing when they say you`ve committed a "public order offence" then see you in court for nothing.  I miss the village shops, and the local shops in walking distance from your front door. I miss when parents walked their kids to school, and in all weathers. I miss haveing the freedom to choose, instead of being told "you have to". I miss the chance to say or do anything, or tell a joke etc, without some halfwit being professionally offended, and when men were men, women were women, and girls and boys enjoyed their innocence without wierd parents making them mentally f....d.

Generally, i miss a much more fun life, where you could live normally, and with very little stress. I never had to work 50+ hours every week just to pay the bills.

Modern life just sucks, that`s why it`s good to be a luddite.

[YnysMon]

On the other hand,  I don’t miss the days when you were blamed for being a spoil sport for getting offended at ‘jokes’. Maybe some of the ‘offended’ might have been just ordinary people fed up of being constantly the butt of jokes.

I do see that it’s all relative though. Most people are fine with the odd good natured leg pull or two. I got teased like anything in my first job, especially being the only girl in an office of youngish blokes. It was all good natured teasing though. However, when I first moved from Anglesey to MK and was working in Watford Station, I got so fed up of having to ‘grin and bear it’ at a couple of the guys’ sense of ‘humour’ (mostly aimed at my being Welsh/female). They were so relentless it just felt like bullying.
 

[Guest]

I think you're right there Hells Bells, although I never get offended by anything myself 

As much as I love having a laugh and joke with absolutely anyone (oh come on, someone must have noticed an odd joke I've made...) I lived a lifetime in hell for almost the first two decades of my life in many different ways and I wouldn't ever want to make anyone ever feel just 1% of what I felt back then from anything I did or said which is why I TRY and ensure my attempts at "humour" don't cross a line...

I think I fail sometimes, but never intentionally. I'd be absolutely gutted if I found that had been the case

Anyway JM, this 12½p pint of beer...

[YnysMon]

What odd joke would that be Jay?

 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

What odd joke would that be Jay?

They're all odd jokes Helen, it's what makes me, me 

[Chelsea14Ian]

Skill,or lack of it.When I learnt to cook I was taught the basics and did jobs from start to finish well. Something that has stayed with me all my working life.Sadly many chefs now dont know the basics, yet think they are Gordon Ramsay (There not).Not even close. Not only Chefs,many waiting  staff,front of house,Managers dont have a clue .

[YnysMon]

Do we see some of that in the first rounds of Masterchef? It always starts with a skills test, and I’m often surprised at contestants who don’t seem to have come across cooking techniques that I, as a basic home cook, am familiar with.
Mind you, I do sympathise with those faced with a more unusual challenge or ingredient. I notice the judges generally seem more lenient with those who admit ignorance and ask for some guidance than those who ‘blag’, but don’t really know.

[stumpy]

Walking the couple of miles to Scouts at about 13 with a six inch bladed sheath knife and a hand axe on my belt and getting a wave from the local bobby on his bike as he pedalled past with a fag in his mouth.

[MauriceMynah]

13 hours ago, SPEEDTRIPLE said:

I miss the way life was in general, people were more responsible, more friendly, and would take responsibility for their own actions.  I miss having a large manufacturing industry which employed many thousands of people. I miss all the British makes of car, i miss the milkman, travelling grocery van, mobile butchers van, the shell fish man in the pubs. I miss the uncrowded roads, the ability as a child to ride a pushbike around the woods without somebody being offended, or thrown off for health and safety. I miss the fact that many years ago, it was`nt a crime to make a mistake. I miss the fact i could roam around this beautiful country WITHOUT being watched by sneaky cameras all the time. I miss the police actually being there for the public, and upholding British law, instead of doing their best to nick you when you HAVE`NT actually broken any laws, it`s very convincing when they say you`ve committed a "public order offence" then see you in court for nothing.  I miss the village shops, and the local shops in walking distance from your front door. I miss when parents walked their kids to school, and in all weathers. I miss haveing the freedom to choose, instead of being told "you have to". I miss the chance to say or do anything, or tell a joke etc, without some halfwit being professionally offended, and when men were men, women were women, and girls and boys enjoyed their innocence without wierd parents making them mentally f....d.

Generally, i miss a much more fun life, where you could live normally, and with very little stress. I never had to work 50+ hours every week just to pay the bills.

Modern life just sucks, that`s why it`s good to be a luddite.

I miss disagreeing with SPEEDTRIPLE.

[TheQ]

Working on a archealogical excavation during the summer Holidays, Mind you, I'd have difficultly getting back off of the ground now...

I miss being able to get back off the ground without pain..

I miss not having to wear glasses to read.

I miss not buying a bag of chips for 6d on the way back from cubs / scouts...

I miss being able to eat or drink with out having to consider the sugar / carbohydrate content.

I miss Pounds, Shillings and Pence..

I miss being able to buy a car and not worry that some council might decide to ban it from entering next, day/ week / year / 2035.

I miss my grandparents.

[hazelgirl]

Another thing I miss about being a kid was when my Dad had me at a weekend he used to work overtime on a Saturday morning, I was trusted from around 9/10 years old to get myself up, get a bowl of cereal and watch my morning cartoons, he was usually home for around half 12. Or I used to get dressed, grab my bike, lock the door and go and call on for a friend and we went on bike rides through the woods.

No mobile phones to tell Dad that I was going out, I never left a note I don't recall and there was never any panic I just came back when I wanted, he was either in or he was having a pint at the local boozer 100 yards away. Maybe it was then he decided to distract me by getting me my first Pony at 11  at least then he knew for sure I'd be at the farm 

[Minigem]

Gobstoppers!

We had an English teacher in the fairly rough school I went to in Dagenham. However he had a way with the fairly unruly lads in my class and we loved him for it. We tended to behave for him and lovingly knew him as Jim.

Eating sweets during lessons was a capital offence and he caught me with a freshly loaded gobstopper in my mouth. He called me out to the front of the class and said "what are you eating". After unloading my gobstopper I said "its a gobstopper sir" "hmm" he said "and how much do they cost" I told him that you could buy them for a penny each which he probably knew anyway. There was another hmmm and he said "that is good, for three shillings I could keep you lot quiet for a whole lesson".

The whole class erupted in laughter. What a wonderful teacher, no wonder we usually behaved for him.

Other things were everlasting toffee strips, Jubbly orange drinks, liquorice sticks, Angel Delight, Heinz Vegetable Salad, mum's syrup suet pudding, Jamboree Bags, Enormous Wagon Wheel biscuits, arrowroot biscuits.

Funnily enough with all that grub inside me I was still like a rake and used to cycle four miles to school, four miles home for lunch (better than lunchtime in a playground full of yobbos), four miles back and four miles home every day rain snow or shine.

I never had much time for sport and when the sports master (known as Jughead) tackled me about being useless, despite running six miles during a sports lesion I told him about my cycling and he did not have an answer for that. I was the fittest kid in the class.

Happy days!

MG

[Lulu]

Club biscuits that had a good thick layer of chocolate that I would eat before eating the biscuit.  Im sure wagon wheels were enormous and not the teeny discs they are now. 

[YnysMon]

Today’s Club biscuits just don’t measure up. I used to love nibbling all the chocolate off first and then finish off eating the biscuit. Sadly you can’t quite do that anymore as the choc isn’t as thick.

Sigh.

[Minigem]

14 hours ago, Lulu said:

Club biscuits that had a good thick layer of chocolate that I would eat before eating the biscuit.  Im sure wagon wheels were enormous and not the teeny discs they are now. 

Yep, Wagon Wheels are a shadow of what they were today.

What about sherbet dips? I don't think you can get them any more.

[HEM]

On 02/02/2020 at 21:30, ZimbiIV said:

Sorry. this is not really for those that do not remember the years before computers/mobiles.

I remember when computers were only for universities & filled a room (Atlas, MU5) 

To quote Simon Lavington (one of my lecturers way back when) "now your washing machine has more computing power than Atlas did".

 

[Timbo]

1 hour ago, HEM said:

I remember when computers were only for universities & filled a room (Atlas, MU5) 

To quote Simon Lavington (one of my lecturers way back when) "now your washing machine has more computing power than Atlas did".

 

I can remember the Cray Origin 2000 arriving in 1997 and all the cosmologists walking funny for weeks! 

[vanessan]

I remember the first home computer we bought, it had 32mb of memory. 

[TheQ]

3 hours ago, HEM said:

I remember when computers were only for universities & filled a room (Atlas, MU5) 

To quote Simon Lavington (one of my lecturers way back when) "now your washing machine has more computing power than Atlas did".

 

I used to programme some test equipment in ATAL, Atlas Test Application Language.

My First computer, a  UK101, I had to solder something like 75 TTL chips to a board to build it.. 8Kb memory...

Later worked on 920B, that had a huge 4 K a side and was built mostly of transistors. But filled a room.

Later again worked  on the  920ATC that had 128K core store.. but that without PSU and cooling, fitted in your hand..

 

[stumpy]

Cod liver oil and malt - I loved that stuff!

[webntweb]

While most of the Broads is little changed from my first holiday over 60 years ago, I do miss all those tumble down corrugated boatsheds which made up a lot of the riverfront in Wroxham, Horning, Oulton etc.

Also all the wooden boats: all different (even differences in the same class), some absolutely immaculate, most presentable, some tired looking and others you wondered how they were still afloat.