For the over 30's (Or the young at heart)

rondetto

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious tales about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of rubbish like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!
But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the darn library and look it up ourselves.
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the postbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 pence!
Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butts! Nowhere was safe!
There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car... We'd play our favourite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!
There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a darn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOODNESS !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!
There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little beegars!
And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!
And car seats - oh, please! Mum threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!
See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards
One old Arthritic bugger to another. xxx :oops:

stickywicket

I remember it well, But that was my sons' generation. For those of us over 60….

Stamps were tuppence ha’penny.

We didn’t have the car, let alone the tape deck in it.

Our phones didn’t have buttons or dials. We had people called telephonists who connected your call and sometimes chatted to you while they did it.

No Cartoon Network? No TVs for many of us. It was Saturday morning at the flicks.

rondetto

Yep, same here, the fleapit we called the cinema. Saturday mornings was The three Stooges followed by a western.

joanlawson

My grandchildren look incredulous when I tell them that we couldn't afford to have a phone in the house until about 1972. Before that, it was a case of having to use the phone- box at the end of the street, and people had to get in touch with us by letter.
Now my eldest grand-daugher is completely lost if she doesn't have her mobile phone with her. I've told her that she will get repetitive strain injury from the amount of texting etc. she does.

Ron, I remember the Saturday morning films at the flea-pit cinema ( or 'the pictures', as we called it ) I loved the Laurel and Hardy films the best.

rondetto

Ah yes, those were the days Joan. Do you remember the days before we had fridges? We had a "cold" slab under the stairs, but if you didn't use stuff like bacon the same days you bought it, it was off.

barbara12

Oh Ron I love your thread
Like Joan, my Grandchildren wonder how on earth we managed without mobiles...never mind we didnt have an house phone....I used to to have people ringing our nearest phone box...then whoever answered would come and get me....can you imagine them doing that now.
And another thing I cant get over to them is how much £1 was worth...a note that is....I always tell them the story of me with a ten shilling note under my pillow....could not believe how rich I was...
I would have changed my childhood for the world
See you have got me going now....

stickywicket

Yes, Ron, I remember keeping cheese and milk in a place above the cellar steps. Poor Mum! There was never any cheese left when she wanted some as we kept breaking a bit off every time we went down there for coal. Remember coal? And pea-soupers which meant that, when you took your hand over your hair, it came away wet and filthy. And scraping the winter frost off the inside of the bedroom windows.

barbara12

Having a bath in the tin tub in front of the fire.... my brother was quite chubby and he got stuck in it....but the lard got him out...

stickywicket

Earlier this year I was visiting an old ranch in LA which had been turned into a museum. It was a bit like being in my Granny’s kitchen. I knew more about what the things were for than the woman explaining it all. At least she now knows what a posser is for and how you used it in conjunction with Dolly Blue.

frogmorton

Fantastic thread Ron

I so agree! I remember life before mobile phones. When I drove a way away I had to stop at a payhone to ring my Mum

My Mum had an indoor toilet for her birthday one year

No central heating and ice inside the windows. Getting dressed for school in front of the fire. 'Best' clothes.

Pudding basin haircuts....me with a patch on my John lennon specs :oops:

Eeeeh! them were t'days

Love

Toni xxx

valval

well this fetches back some amazing memories
not we did not have a phone, but we did have sandwich toaster that went in coal fire and toasting fork. also a gass poker to light it with black and white telly, lino on floors second hand bikes space hooper, going miles with group of friends getting to go open air baths and breaking ice on top. getting threpeny bit for birthday we did not have much but we had loads of friends to play with never was there a time when we were lonely sweets were a treat the ice cream van such a treat val

Numptydumpty

We had a cold slab in the pantry, with a meat- safe underneath it.
Mum used to get us to help with the housework by making it fun. I remember polishing the red quarry tiled floor, with dusters tied around my feet and pretending I was an Ice skater.
Mum would put the tin bath outside, filled with soapy water. She would put blankets in it, and tell me to pretend I was treading grapes. (that one wasn't so much fun).
I used to go out to play with my friends, we would leave after breakfast, taking a bottle of sweet milky tea and sandwiches. We would climb trees and build camps in the woods, and paddle and fish in the brook. We would go home happy but exhausted, in time for tea. Imagine children doing that now!

rondetto

Wow!!!! Isn't it amazing what memories we all have? Do you know, I remember going to Blackpool for a day with a school pal. I suppose it was 1963 and I had 10 shillings to spend. Mum and Dad had paid the fare for the bus, so after a nice day out I had this thing in mind that I wanted to get my Mum and Dad a present. When we were dropped off by the bus I bought 10 Woodbines each for Mum and dad at the local shop. And even though we had had food in Blackpool, maybe just a bag of chips we still had enough left for the presents for Mum and Dad. Strangely enough, 47 years later I was sitting outside a bar in Benidorm when I saw this familiar face walking down the street. It was the lad I went to Blackpool with in 1963, and I hadn't seen him for maybe 40 years.

joanlawson

rondetto wrote:

Ah yes, those were the days Joan. Do you remember the days before we had fridges? We had a "cold" slab under the stairs, but if you didn't use stuff like bacon the same days you bought it, it was off.

I do remember the days before we had fridges, Ron.
I was about 12 when my parents bought our first fridge. I thought it was fantastic, and couldn't understand how the light came on when you opened the door. I invited some of my friends round to show it off, and they all stood in awe at this wonderful new invention. I thought it was a real status symbol, and decided that my parents must be quite rich ( they weren't at all!)

vwkamper

Great post,

I was born in 1966 but i too remember my saturday morning at the pictures
with my bag of everton mints and i always watched Jungle Book, or the laurel and hardy i loved those guys.
My son was born in 83,
My daughter in 89 and the evening at 11.30 pm i had to leave my son sleeping and in labour stumble to the phone box to ring my mum,
Who then phoned the ambulance and ran to my house to watch my son before my step-dad who was my driver carted me off at midnight!

My fridge was also a bucket of cold water under the stairs and i remember paying my bills with 50p's into the meter, many the time come sunday we were in darkness coz i ran out
Cor what lovely memories...

lexy

frogmorton

A lot of others' memories are mine too!

This is a great thread. I remember tour first colour TV, like Joan and the fridge, we were the first in our road (and it wasn't rented!), but weren't rich.

Ron - how amazing to meet that lad after all those years in in BENIDORM :shock:

Love

georgie66

oh ron what a good thread.
i remember so much of it..
cold slab in the pantry..no fridge
no tv but remember on old black and white one my parents got when i was a teenager..never a phone.. weren't that rich

going to visit my gran with an old gas light and i touched the mantel and it disintegrated and got a thick ear off my grandfather he was an old bu--ar.
mum up to her arms in flour baking .
my brother and i swimming in the river with our knitted swimming trunks on '
a site to behold when we came out of the water.

crabbing on the pier with our line and stale bread on the end..
giving our caught crabs to the fisherman for bate..

watching the men mend there fishing nets..one dear old gent with very arthritic hands did not know what it was at the time little did i know i would have the same old arthritics when i got older..

learning to swim with the old car inner tubes.
playing marbles in the street..

dad giving us a halfpenny to buy two blackjacks sweets..
when we went Saturday morning pictures to see the cartoons.
ah ron there are so many good memories and some bad..
georgie

rondetto

Hi Lexi, that brings back memories for me too. We used to be on a meter for gas and electric. It was great when they emptied the meter and gave you back a few quid.
Yes, running to the phone box on the corner was almost a daily thing. I doubt many people use them these days.

stickywicket

frogmorton wrote:

My Mum had an indoor toilet for her birthday one year

Wow! Your Dad must have been a real romantic, frog Was it gift-wrapped? (Oh no - we didn't do gift-wrap then, did we?)

rondetto

I remember going to see my old grandad, he lived on his own in a very old cottage with no electricity and he had an outside toilet. What I remember is just the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner and no other noise.
When he died they knocked down those old cottages and built a new estate there, but they had to put in electric pylons of course.

barbara12

rondetto wrote:

Wow!!!! Isn't it amazing what memories we all have? Do you know, I remember going to Blackpool for a day with a school pal. I suppose it was 1963 and I had 10 shillings to spend. Mum and Dad had paid the fare for the bus, so after a nice day out I had this thing in mind that I wanted to get my Mum and Dad a present. When we were dropped off by the bus I bought 10 Woodbines each for Mum and dad at the local shop. And even though we had had food in Blackpool, maybe just a bag of chips we still had enough left for the presents for Mum and Dad. Strangely enough, 47 years later I was sitting outside a bar in Benidorm when I saw this familiar face walking down the street. It was the lad I went to Blackpool with in 1963, and I hadn't seen him for maybe 40 years.

Ron how amazing is that, I am a great believer in things happening for a purpose...being in a certain place at a certain time ....

frogmorton

stickywicket wrote:

frogmorton wrote:

My Mum had an indoor toilet for her birthday one year

Wow! Your Dad must have been a real romantic, frog Was it gift-wrapped? (Oh no - we didn't do gift-wrap then, did we?)

I know I know

last of the old romantics my Dad :roll:

Always reckoned he was 'the one' who cleaned it too....

Toni xxx

PS Ron i think phone boxes are cards now not cash so no-one breaks in :roll:

rondetto

Really. I haven't used ion in many years.

stickywicket

When my brother was first married, in the early '60s their loo was in a block about 200 yards from the houses. At one point my sister-in-law had two little ones in nappies.

Whenever I found myself locked out, as a child, I slid down the coal in the coal hole.

Anyone remember that awful shared tin of toothpaste?

knuckleduster

Oh yes, the Sunday night bath in the tin bath in the kitchen with the gas oven alight during the winter months. We used the bathroom in the summer months where we had the most enormous gas geezer which would make the whole house shake when lit . Going to the off licence to buy a block of ice cream and wrapping it in newspaper to keep in almost solid when walking home. When staying at my aunts I would have to use the potty kept under the bed if I wanted to "go" during the night, even though there was a bathroom along the hallway. Waiting for the baker to call in the mornings with the most delicious fruit buns to have with our morning cocoa. Holding the kindly policeman's hand when crossing the main road to school (probably wouldn't be allowed now). Sugar sandwiches - delicious. No, no, no - the pudding basin look haircut :oops: . School medicals, fingernail and nit inspections .
Bars on the bedroom windows so we couldn't fall out and scrapping the ice off in the winter months. Being let out of school early when foggy and having to wrap our scarves around our faces. Cold disgusting outside toilets at school. Children have certainly got it easier today - but, and it's a big but, they won't find it easy to find jobs when leaving school. My two offspring have been lucky in that respect, but as to being able to afford a mortgage - not in the foreseeable future. And they have both started their working lives with university debts. So, have they got it easier?

rondetto

I can remember going to school with sugar butties one day and sauce butties on another.