My childhood has now become history
Danny_Girl
Posts: 2,763 Forum Member
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I was born in 1964. I realised the other day that the way of life in the 60s thru early 80s when I was growing up is now so radically different to how we live today that I think it has become history.
The following are examples of how we lived then that kids today would not understand:
1) Only 3 TV channels and they shut down for an hour or to in the afternoon.
2) Queuing for the public phone box to phone your boyfriend.
3) No microwaves, no ready meals so food was cooked from scratch.
4) Frequent trips to the shops as only a single freezer self in a fridge.
5) Taping the top 40 on your cassette recorder from the radio on Sunday evenings.
Anyone else want to add something?
The following are examples of how we lived then that kids today would not understand:
1) Only 3 TV channels and they shut down for an hour or to in the afternoon.
2) Queuing for the public phone box to phone your boyfriend.
3) No microwaves, no ready meals so food was cooked from scratch.
4) Frequent trips to the shops as only a single freezer self in a fridge.
5) Taping the top 40 on your cassette recorder from the radio on Sunday evenings.
Anyone else want to add something?
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Comments
Rationing.
Bomb sites.
No TV or record player.
One coal fire to heat the whole house.
No fridge
Walking 2 miles to school (and back)
Hardly any traffic
Record players weren't just for DJs. You'd save up for singles and LPs to play on them.
No computers. No Internet!
The first house I lived in had no hot water and no radiators. Just a fireplace in the front room, and if you wanted a bath, you'd have to boil water on the stove and mix it with cold water to get it to the right temperature. Because this was quite a hassle, daily baths definitely weren't the done thing.
I was born in 1974, by the way.
LOL - kids today don't know how lucky they are - it really is another world isn't it.
Oh, another one. Had my mouth washed out with soap and water (yes literally washed out) by my teacher when I was 6 years old for using the word "bloody" that I had heard my older sister saying. Did my parents contact the education authorities, media, headmaster, lawyers - no, they just told me to stop crying and not to use the word again at school. As I said a hole different world back then.
That reminds me of the dreadful feeling you'd get when your video player "ate" your video tape. This was especially dreadful if you'd rented it.
And the annoyance of renting a video and the previous renter hadn't bothered to rewind it >:(.
I remember the freedom you had as kids to go off anywhere you liked on your bike, as long as you were back for supper.
Plus I remember the rattly old school bus, that looked like it was built in the mid fifties (probably was).
No car,
no bathroom (we had a tin bath by the open fire),
toilet was outside and we had to tip a bucket of water down it after use,
No TV until I was four years old and then it was black and white and just one channel that was on at lunch time for Watch With Mother and then on again about 5 for children's hour and then evening programmes,
No Mums and tots groups or anything like that for small children,
No fridge, so only had ice cream occasionally,
Old wooden gramophone (that's what a record player was called then) with a few old breakable 78rpm records to play on it,
No central heating so the bedrooms were always cold,
sweets still on ration for the first few years of my life,
baby boys wearing dresses until they were about a year old,
no telephone,
no washing machine (mum had to use a boiler and a mangle),
no hot water from a tap, (a kettle had to be boiled for hot water),
photos all black and white.
Must be loads more, but it's late and time to go to bed now. No wonder my son says I was born in the middle ages!
Yes, remember that feeling. Do you also remember when how when you were taping the top 20 on a Sunday night on your cassette reorder from the radio, without fail your parents would come into your bedroom and have a pointless conversation just when the number 1 single was being played.
Haha yes! It was like they just knew, and you'd been waiting for it for ages!
Or just as the song came on that I'd been waiting to tape, the radio presenters would either start talking over it, or they'd fade it out early to go into a commercial/jingle.
Very similar to my childhood home except we were posh and had paraffin heaters for our house as well as the fireplace
Haha, you would sit there for aaaaages with your finger on the pause button ready to press it when they started talking!
Not having BBC 2.
Not having a telephone.
Going to the train station on the day, buying a ticket and getting to where you were going without having to do research first.
the good old days eh? ;-)
No bathroom when I was small, a tin bath was dragged in, and our toilet was in the kitchen! 4 of us lived in 3 rooms.kitchen, bedroom,lounge which doubled up as my parents bedroom. I loved it when we moved from there.
3 channels on the ( black and white)telly.
In our next home we had no central heating, in fact, hardly any heating at all, we would go to bed all dressed up and with out coats thrown on the bed , and had ice on the inside of the windows when we got up, it was a mad dash downstairs to huddle in front of the one ( gas) fire in the house.
We would go out to play and not come back until we were hungry, as we got older we would ride for miles on our bikes home made go carts that we steered down the steep road, to the bottom
Penny sweets, jamboree bags
These days the school is shut at the first hint of a snowflake.
Health and Safety would preclude these days I guess.
And kids today will be saying that about the next generation.
Yes, I was severely reprimanded for saying 'bum,' shut-up,' and 'idiot.' Soap wash or spoon of mustard.
A whole different world, also if a teacher told you off and you told your parents, parents were mortified by your behaviour, they didn't go to the DM.
We didn't get a landline put in until I was about 7 but our neighbours had one - I remember having to phone them and wait whilst they knocked on our door to get my mum or dad to the phone
When we did have a phone put it, whenever we went anywhere we had to give mum '2rings' to let her know we got there ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
No doubt you remember the Falkands war. That was 30 years ago. As you look back at that think about the fact that to your parents when you were at school they might have had similar memories about World War II.
Pubs shutting for longer in the afternoons on Sundays. 3-7pm.
Pubs shutting a bit on Bank Holidays too, especially Good Friday, which was 'Sunday hours'.
Shops shut on a Sunday and sometimes a Wednesday afternoon.
Also loved my portable record player that I could take to one room, play a record and then move it to another room to play another for no other reason than I could.