You Know You Are Getting Old When...

[Poppy]

...you can remember....

Semaphore indicators and using hand signals.

Using a perforated lid on a lemonade bottle to do steam ironing...and a sheet of brown paper.

Father stood up for the National Anthem when telly closed down....oh, and the Epilogue...

A soldering iron was put on the gas burner.

Bicycle clips and the little leather pouch hung from the saddle with a puncture repair outfit (Dunlop), a spanner and tyre lever.

Buying flash bulbs and putting a roll of film in a Box Brownie under a blanket.

A pop gun with a cork on a string.

A home made catapult.

A throwing arrow with a length of string.

Sweet cigarettes.

The rag and bone man.

Milk delivered to the door instead of pizza.

A mangle in the outhouse.

Holding newspaper across the fire to make it draw....and pooing yourself when it caught light and got sucked up the chimney

Ice slides in the street.

Ignition on the dashboard and push button starter on the floor.

Carbolic soap and Vim.

The luxury of 3 speed gears on a bike.

The Rent Man.

A shilling for the meter.

Proper candles on the Christmas Tree and making coloured paper chains stuck together with wallpaper paste for decorations.

My first fishing rod, which screwed together because father made it from a WW11 tank whip aerial.

Cutting long grass with a push mower.

Ice on the inside of the bedroom windows.

Cider flagons for hot water bottles and burning your feet trying to get them warm.

A duvet was fathers' great or trench coat from the war.

And many many more....nostalgia 'aint what it used to be....

[Poppy]

When your wife says 'come upstairs and make love to me' and you can only manage one of those.

[Boaters]

Very interesting,we have three houses that have a pint of milk each maybe some eggs delivered ,from an open back milk float in our close ,don't know how he can make any money comes several times a week..

How about the big old mangle in the yard and scrubbing board .Roy

[stumpy]

Tin bath hung on the inside of the coal shed door that went in front of the fire on a Friday night?

[littlesprite]

Well, thanks for making me feel old.

 

You did forget the paraffin man,

A1 fish and chip van,

grocery van,

Pease pudding and ****** man,

The chap on the bike with the sand stone wheel for sharpening knifes, shears.

The Corona drink truck,

The provident man,

The pools collector,  

the list is endless.

[littlesprite]

OK.

why are the meaty balls eaten with Pease pudding censored?

 

they weren't that bad.

[Maxwellian]

I have driven a Corona drinks truck and I am not yet old enough to remember all of the others.

[grendel]

yes all of those, and the paraffin man, and the coal man bringing the sacks round and shooting the coal into the coal bunker.

Grendel

[Bonzo]

Poppy.

 

Stop it stop it! I remember all those things.

 

I realised I was getting on a bit when my, at that time, three year old nephew was sitting on my lap. he looked up at me and asked what all the little red lines were on my face. I told him that some people get that when they get older. He sat there and thought for a few seconds and then said "you are old aren't you".

 

The cheeky little blighter is now fourteen. A couple of years ago I took him to a museum. He said to me "I am not letting you go into the fossil room uncle, they might not let you out again". No respect for his elders and the trouble is that I can't run fast enough to catch him, and he knows it.

 

 

Bonzo. 

[Mowjo]

Saturday mornings being sent to the Ironmongers to get three new Gas Mantles, and getting a good hiding when I got home because I always managed to break one, Then off to the butchers to get a whole shoulder of lamb for Sunday 11 shillings and he used to throw in a few breast of lamb for free, Taking the Sunday roast over to the Bakers and he would cook it in his oven while Mum and Dad were in the pub, Sunday night in the tin bath, Dad first then Mum, my older brother then me and last my younger brother who I'm sure came out dirtier than he went in,

 

Frank,,,,

[VetChugger]

I can still make a cracking throwing arrow! What happened to kids imagination???  The things we used to make and do with cornflake packets and empty bog rolls!

Not to mention the two cocoa tins and string telephone!

[BroadScot]

Oh we had a briquette man who delivered them in wintertime. I was feeling a tad old today, now I am feeling ancient! Thanks you lot! Grrrrrrrr!

 

 

Iain.

[Poppy]

Ancient? Pah! I knew Pontious before he was a pilot.....

[unclemike]

Ancient? Pah! I knew Pontious before he was a pilot.....

and I went to school with methuselah

[BroadAmbition]

'You know when you are getting old when'  -

 

The bank seems farther away from the deck than it used to

 

Climbing onboard is obviously harder due to higher tides than normal

 

That wobbly dinghy doesn't seem so inviting anymore

 

Retreiving that lost thingymebob from the bilge is now the job of a junior crew member

 

Keeping warm on cold nights now afloat involves a hot water bottle

 

When it's easier to come about in front of a low bridge when it's blowing and cold rather than lower the canopy down

 

 

Griff

[Bonzo]

What about what we used to call "flying buzzers" They were three lolly sticks stuck together with a bit of tar from the road in a triangle. They used to fly when thrown a couple of hundred feet. The roofs and gutters of the houses in my street were littered with the lost ones and kids waited for the next ice cream man on his back to front tricycle thingy to get more lolly sticks.

[LizG]

We still have milk delivered but he only comes three days a week but I do remember it being delivered by a horse drawn float

 

I think Griff's wobbly dinghy quote is so very true!

[BroadScot]

and I went to school with methuselah

Really?

 

 

Iain

[ranworthbreeze]

Hi Bonzo,

 

I bet you also made rafts with those lolly stick, we used to. Also the pieces of cigarette packets mounted into the bike wheels.

 

Yes the milkman calls 4 days a week, we still have it, yes it is a lot dearer rather than the supermarkets, but it does employ someone and I tend to think of some of the older people on the estate who would really miss a milkman.

 

Regards

Alan

[Mowjo]

We were tough where I lived we used to put those brass dart barrels on the end of our throwing arrows,,

[Ebbtide]

  I remember all of the things mentioned. However I have decided to go into denial, and blame my age!!!

 

Maurice

[16E]

...when a couple of years ago a young lady offered me a seat on the underground.  I was only 60 at the time.

 

p.s. I remember most of the extensive list the others have offered.

[SteveO]

I remember the outside khazi.  You didn't linger there - if the cold didn't get you the spiders would.

 

 

Steve

[ZimbiIV]

well i can remember ? being no 1, hated it I was tooooooooo old to like it.

What about the thrill of opening presents THEN the bigger thrill of heat finally coming out of the fire and that first brotherly fight.

Now I can remember winding up the grand kids so much I get told off by their mother. ( just before we leave ).

Happy Christmas and a Boaty New Year.

paul

[SweetKingfisher1]

Ok, what about good old Woolworths? That was my first Saturday job in Sevenoaks, Kent. The one shop years ago, where you could buy anything from broken biscuits to nuts and screws. Also at a price everyone could afford  . The QD shops are nothing like good old Woolworths   .

 

Regards

Marina