The Good Old Days

woof woof said:
The 80's.... I was working for CDC then Systime Computers in Leeds before moving into field service with DPCE so my next addition to the good old days is 80's computers.

I hurt my back trying to pick up a CDC SMD drive. Only about 30mb too.
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I started working in a textile mil in 1971. It took three years before the company acquired a computer. It was the siz of a small car and had to be kept warm all the time. All it did was keep a tally of the 5,000 stock items against orders. Prior to that I had an arrangement with the Accounts department to borrow their calculator two afternoons a week when they wern't using it so I could do my production planning.
 
And not forgetting Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL5, Supercar. Joe 90, although I didn't like him :(
 
Norkie said:
And not forgetting Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL5, Supercar. Joe 90, although I didn't like him :(
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Don't forget The Eagle with Dan Dare and his arch enemy the Mekon.

Oh, Look & Learn IIRC it's title, was regular reading for me... .always loved science & technology and the world around 'me'.

I think "our generation" have lived through some quite momentous scientific & technological changes........and they haven't stopped yet :)

Looking ahead I think it would be great if I live to see man on Mars, let alone a return to the moon!
 
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Just remembered........

My first two singles I bought I think at the CoOp in Hammersmith to play on the Bush Record player my dad bought.

They were Peter and The Wolf (none too sure which orchestra & narration) and Good Golly Miss Molly by IIRC the Swinging Blue Jeans. In the store I listened to them in a "listening booth" before purchase.

Oh, somewhere in store I likely have them.....plus I have the old Bush player but I swapped the deck out of for a Garrard SP25 one but never got round to sorting out a preamp for it. I think that would be classed as 'vintage' now :LOL: a bit like me I suppose :ROFLMAO::runaway:
 
Box Brownie said:
Don't forget The Eagle with Dan Dare and his arch enemy the Mekon.

Oh, Look & Learn IIRC it's title, was regular reading for me... .always loved science & technology and the world around 'me'.

I think "our generation" have lived through some quite momentous scientific & technological changes........and they haven't stopped yet :)

Looking ahead I think it would be great if I live to see man on Mars, let alone a return to the moon!
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I too used to get Look and Learn and agree about momentous changes. From pre spaceage through Sputnik, Moon landings and the incredible images from Mars, Jupiter and other planets and their moons etc.

I remember an edition of Tomorrow's World with a prototype videophone, which was a sizeable bit desk kit. Who would have thought then that most of us would be carrying something that can do the same and better in our pockets?

Dave
 
When I was about 12, around 1968 an old lady across the road gave me some books that her father had been awarded with by his Sunday School. One was Triumphs of Invention and Discovery. It featured such ground breaking inventions as the Davy Lamp, Edistone Lighthouse and Undersea Telephone Cable. She also gave me his mint, boxed Kodak Vest Pocket Authographic Model B (I think). Wish I still had it.
 
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brand New TV. With half the street coming to see what it was like , massive big cabinet with a 12 inch B/ W screen
andy- pandy ,bill and Ben , the adventures of the buccaneer with Robert shaw .
going out with grandad after the coal man or milkman had been round to shoveL up horse Shiite for his prize roses
chickens in the Back garden ,fresh eggs daily
playing in the anson shelter at the back of the garden
single glazed windows with icicles inside in winter .
p*** pot under the bed reserved for any kids playing knock down ginger
best toilet paper was the news of the World , evening standard print came off on your bum
2 shilling gas meter in the bathroom to fill the bath from ascot water hotter

but yeah good old days
 
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the black fox said:
brand New TV. With half the street coming to see what it was like , massive big cabinet with a 12 inch B/ W screen
andy- pandy ,bill and Ben , the adventures of the buccaneer with Robert shaw .
going out with grandad after the coal man or milkman had been round to shoveL up horse Shiite for his prize roses
chickens in the Back garden ,fresh eggs daily
playing in the anson shelter at the back of the garden
single glazed windows with icicles inside in winter .
p*** pot under the bed reserved for any kids playing knock down ginger
best toilet paper was the news of the World , evening standard print came off on your bum
2 shilling gas meter in the bathroom to fill the bath from ascot water hotter

but yeah good old days
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It was worth it to have Pier Morgan's face in the NotW hanging off the nail in the outside khazi
 
Fruit Salads and Black Jacks being 4 a penny then the same a day later after decimalization...
 
Nod said:
Fruit Salads and Black Jacks being 4 a penny then the same a day later after decimalization...
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It should have been 9 or 10.
Its (not) surprising how quick the 1/2p disappeared and the way things quickly increased in price following decimalisation :rolleyes:
 
Nod said:
Fruit Salads and Black Jacks being 4 a penny then the same a day later after decimalization...
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I thought you quoting me there for a moment re Black Jacks & Fruit Salads post #38 but I am talking about before decimalisation ~ late 50's into 60's

NB I sometimes got a couple of farthings in my change .......a great coin with the Wren on the reverse side :)

Talking of decimalisation and sweets prices .......I am sure I recall a Mars bar cost 7d that then became 7p :(
 
woof woof said:
The 80's.... I was working for CDC then Systime Computers in Leeds before moving into field service with DPCE so my next addition to the good old days is 80's computers.

I hurt my back trying to pick up a CDC SMD drive. Only about 30mb too.
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Hah same with TV sets, used to take 2 of us to lift a 26" TV, you could do it with 2 fingers now.
 
Norkie said:
I took wifey out for lunch last week and we got to talking about things that we had or saw or did when we were younger.

Like...

A man used to come round on his bicycle and ring a bell. People would come out with garden shears or carving knives. He would turn his bike upside down and attach a leather strap type affair to the pedals and a grindstone at the rear. He would then sharpen them for a penny or whatever each.

The baker would come round with a tray of bread rolls and cakes on a large wooden tray on his head. He would try to tempt mum into buying more that she could afford!

Remember the Corona truck with all the bottles of pop on the back. The crates, wooden crates, were angled inward as they were stacked one upon the other! 3d a bottle refund when you took them back as well!

The road sweeper man had a battery powered truck drawn behind him. He would sweep up and shovel the sweeping into the little truck.

I remember our local council, we lived in social housing back then (1960's) they sent a man who painted the timber effect pattern on the front door. I watched him with wide eyes as he did his work.

What about you?
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Only the mid '80s but vans coming 'round selling smoked fish out of the back of them, New Years Eve when everyone left their door open all night and you were expected to go in for a drink, galas with coconut shys and goldfish prizes, fish shops when they only sold fish and chips and nothing else, professional football when the game was about smashing into a centre half in the first minute to let them know they were in a match (and the referee was fine with that, all part of the game), I was 14/15 during the miners' strike in County Durham: community spirit, golden age of television: Spitting Image, Blackadder, Tenko, Not the Nine O'Clock News, darts and snooker professionals half cut.
 
Norkie said:
The Dandy, the Beano, Beezer, Topper, TV21, all my favourite comics.
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It was Dandy and Buster for me, my brother would get Whizzer and Chips and the Beano :)

I remember half-penny sweets too! There was only the one kind in our local, little chocolate covered toffee drops, most other single sweets [pear, apple drops etc] were 1p, that was just before the ha'penny dissappeared from Ireland. We'd go in turns to the counter and give our order "can I have 10 golf balls, 12 pear drops, 6 cough drops and ummm ... *checks change* a cocolate mouse and 14 half penny choc drops" :ROFLMAO: we used to drive the shop keepers mad

I started smoking at 11, could get 10 John player blue and a box of matches for £1, some of the dodgier shops would sell you single cig's and none of them ever questioned us 11/12yr olds buying them
 
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I started work in the June of 84, just as the miners strike was getting going. I remember we had 5 supermarkets in out large village/small town. We had a wet fish shop, that only sold fresh fish, and a separate fish and chip shop that didn't open until 7.30pm and for a couple of hours at lunch time.

We had a bus every 15mins into the big city until 11.30pm every night, and the last bust at 11.45pm only went halfway as it returned to the depot.

We also had cable television in those days, it was the Rediffusion system so you could listen to the radio all day through the tv when it was switched off.
 
There's a lot of stuff been covered.

Growing up in sowf eeist Lundun there were always reminders of WWII all over the place. Local factories used an air raid siren to signal lunch break, garden sheds still had gas masks hanging in them, many houses had bomb shelters in the back garden and there were gaps between houses where bombs had fallen, army surplus stores still sold real army surplus and being in the TA was a big deal. There were several large pieces of wasteland, each of which had a selection of pill boxes and the remains of training areas that we played in as kids - these were all landscaped about 20 or 30 years ago, if they didn't have houses built on them.

Anything else?

The unique sensation you get from an open fire that is the sole heat source - hot at the front and cold at the back, and also all the other rooms in a house were completely freezing during the winter! We had a major update in the early 70s when my father piped gas around the house and fitted a gas fire in each room - amazing! And in those days doing plumbing, electrics, even gas was all fine and completely legal with no need for testing and certificates. Our school also had coal-fired heating, and sometimes there would be enormous piles of coal dumped in the playground.

Travelling across Europe to visit family in Austria on a sleeper train, the journey took 2 days each way from Oostend to Vienna. Also seeing working steam trains in Austria as part of the normal locomotive stock.

Holidays: staying at Mrs Terrible's B&B, where you had to vacate the room between 9am and 5pm, internal combustion engine powered boats on a boating lake, "dancing" fountains with coloured lights and music as an attraction (I know they still do this at scale in Tivoli etc, but not Hasting!).

Almost everyone smoking.

Anything else? Jumble sales were an essential source of clothes and also provided the odd item that could be auctioned to supplement income. Children were effectively banned from entering banks. The sight of live eels and crabs in a fishmongers, rabbit for sale in the butchers and supermarkets. Being slippered and caned at school. The availability of industrial 'blank' cartridges at school one year, that could be set off explosively with a hammer. The availability of chemicals to 'O' level schoolboys with which you could make fireworks and bombs (and did!). Bikes with only 5 gears, and then finding that real racing bakes had 6! The smell of Galoise and cigars at the cycling club I first joined in 1976 and learning to ride on rollers (no turbo-trainers then). Elasticated clothing before lycra, that never returned once it was stretched. :p

The first chinese restaurant opening in our town, and also proper transport cafes.

And... Having depression without knowing really what it was or why the world was caving in, as a 16 year old.
 
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Cagey75 said:
could get 10 John player blue and a box of matches for £1
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You could also get some varieties in packs of 5. ( cadets were one, iirc) a lot cheaper than £1.
Lots of people saying if they ever hit £1 I'll stop smoking !
Now its only 20's apparently to reduce smoking :D
 
I gave up when a pack of (20) Bennie Hedgehogs (Benson and Hedges) hit £2.50 in a budget. Gave the remainder of the pack (only 2 fags!) to the chap I was working with and haven't had a ciggie since!
 
Cobra said:
You could also get some varieties in packs of 5. ( cadets were one, iirc) a lot cheaper than £1.
Lots of people saying if they ever hit £1 I'll stop smoking !
Now its only 20's apparently to reduce smoking :D
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I remember that! and then a bit later it was "if they ever go over a fiver ..." It's crazy how fast they shot up over the past couple of decades, when I quit it was €12-13 for a pack of 20, that was 10 years ago, it's doubled since then.
 
Cagey75 said:
when I quit it was €12-13 for a pack of 20, that was 10 years ago, it's doubled since then.
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Depends on the brand, but generally its around the £11-£12 mark for the average ones, over here.
 
My father, aged 9, had been introduced to smoking by his sister. I was grateful he showed my how much tar etc came from a cigarette when I was still quite young, and I never once wanted to try them.
 
the black fox said:
brand New TV. With half the street coming to see what it was like , massive big cabinet with a 12 inch B/ W screen
andy- pandy ,bill and Ben , the adventures of the buccaneer with Robert shaw .
going out with grandad after the coal man or milkman had been round to shoveL up horse Shiite for his prize roses
chickens in the Back garden ,fresh eggs daily
playing in the anson shelter at the back of the garden
single glazed windows with icicles inside in winter .
p*** pot under the bed reserved for any kids playing knock down ginger
best toilet paper was the news of the World , evening standard print came off on your bum
2 shilling gas meter in the bathroom to fill the bath from ascot water hotter

but yeah good old days
Click to expand...

My grandparents had an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden, made of corrugated metal of some sort.

Anderson Shelters – All about Britain's WW2 Anderson Shelters

andersonshelters.org.uk andersonshelters.org.uk
 
I’m old enough to remember packs of two wills whiffs ciggies , used to get them in exchange for returned pop bottles .. we was under age but the owner of the off licence didn’t care ..
he later ( few years) got arrested for counterfeiting fivers in his cellar a skill he picked up in a p.o.w camp
 
Then along came the Swingin’ Sixties (I left school in 1961) and the pirate radio stations - my favourite was Radio London.
Top of the Pops on TV started as well
but best of all was Ready Steady Go on early Friday evenings with its 5 4 3 2 1 signature tune by Manfred Mann and ‘You’re weekend starts here !’
 
Immediately after decimalisation in 1971 we could get a pint for 13p, so you could have a good night out and a packet of peanuts for less than £1.

Dave
 
Only 2 or 3 TV channels and no reality shows of any kind.
 
Can you remember when Health & Safety was called common sense?
 
All the mentions of elf & safety......

We moved onto a new (still being constructed) estate in south west London when I was 4. Lots of families with children of various ages........of course the building materials areas were not fenced off and were 'our playground'.

There was one section of stacked up timbers.......it tumbled, I broke my leg and another (older than me) lad had one land on his back.

My leg was in plaster from foot to hip. I spent Christmas in hospital and missed my first year of primary school because of that .

Certainly memorable.....as was the itching under the plaster and the relief when the plaster cast was removed.
 
Wasn't there something about Muffin the Mule, or am I getting mixed up with the sexual offences register? And as for Captain Pugwash, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy o_O

The innocence of youth.
 
vintageman said:
Nobody has mentioned placing pennies (1d) on the railway tracks for the loco to squash them flat, or
making marble guns from ½inch tube with bangers as the explosive
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yeah done that but we also broke into a railway hut going across hackney marshes and laid a load of fog warning cartridges along the track . sounded like a machine gun going off when the train ran over them :eek: plus a few other illegal schoolboy pranks sshhhhh
was gonna ??/better not :pompous:
 
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