For older readers... we had it tough!

[RJM Corbet]

Makes me think of a joke:

WIFE: You can no sleep? What the problem?

HUSBAND: Is big problem; I owe Mr David lot of money.

WIFE: You can't pay him?

HUSBAND: No, I can't pay him.

WIFE (opens window and shouts across the street): Mr David! Wake up!

OTHER MAN (opens window): What the problem?

WIFE: My husband owe you lot of money?

MAN: Yes. He owe me lot of money.

WIFE: He can't pay you!
(Closes window): Now is his problem. Go to sleep ...

[Abernovo]

Born in the 70s.

Had to walk two kilometres, maybe more to school, then the same journey home, on my own, when I was six years old. Nothing was thought of it. Then when I got home, there was probably a power cut, so it was sandwiches with leftover meat for dinner, which I thought was great as it allowed me to go and play with friends. Using sticks for swords, playing bulldog and other'dangerous' activities.

Cut myself open on occasion, once fell and partially bit through my tongue, got knocked unconscious a couple of times. My mother's reaction to all these episodes? A mixture of boredom and exasperation.

"What have you done now? Shut up, or I'll give you something to whine/cry about. It's not that bad, I'll bandage it up myself. It's only a scratch. Hospitals are for emergencies."

There were a lot of things that were wrong back then, but we weren't as risk averse as a society as we are now. Personally, I think it made us more willing to try different things and explore, which in turn built a sense of hope. Right, that's enough of my pseudo-philosophical ramblings.

[RJM Corbet]

MONTY PYTHON: Four Yorkshiremen ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

[Rosemary]

Thank you for the wonderful thread, Boneman!

Brings back so many lovely memories of childhood in Britain

Learning to read from a 'real' book; no television or telephone. Lots of real respect for our parents and other adults, as well as all of the freedom, imagination and fun which we had.

I feel sorry for some of the children of today. Many have no imagination; no safe places to play and very little discipline to help guide them.

Not sure about other countries but there is talk of teaching the children to read - using only the internet! How sad is that?

[David Evil Overlord]

Some children today would not recognise a "book".

They would probably search all over for the power button to turn the thing on.

Then, once you explain how this arcane piece of technology works (scroll down by turning page manually, words appear in static format on non-digital display media), they'll start searching for apps...

[Alex, The G and T]

Arf! My Dad enjoys having the neighborhood kids drop by for a swim, on a summer's afternoon. He keeps a rotary-dial, hard-wired, wall phone on the poolside fence.

He gets no end of amusement watching kids fail to understand how to operate the thing, when they want a ride home. They actually poke their fingers through the holes, expecting a beep from a hidden push-button.

Hah! In my day, I would have walked ten miles, in that neighborhood, for a free swim; and parental units were not available for an on-demand taxi ride home. We had bicycles... if we were lucky.

[David Evil Overlord]

We used to have a rotary-dial phone. But we had to get rid of it. Too many companies use those stupid automated "Your call is important to us, but not important enough to have a real person answer you. Press 1 if you want to hear how important you are to us. Press 2 if you want to be put on hold for an hour while we force-feed our advertising jingle into your ears..." And that doesn't work with rotary dial phones. Dial 1, and it doesn't register. So the system hangs up instead of putting you through to a real person.

I've heard that a local swimming had to replace its old round-dial clock, because kids couldn't read a clock that wasn't digital.

[Alex, The G and T]

And, yet, many rotary dial phones still function.

Six generations of digital phones have since fallen by the wayside: Pizzafied by sticky fingers. Fried by Electro-Magnetic Impulses, short circuited by immersion in a toilete, suffered fatal contusions from clumsy droppage, and failed to compensate for high-contrast lighting conditions against their LCD screens.

Their signal has dropped, their screens have faded, and the solar flares are currently in an exaggerated upswing.

Meanwhile, the rotaries have been dropped, sunken, buried and left in the dark. They've been weathered, washed up, and used to bludgeon burglars. And yet they continue to function like non-dismembered zombies.

When making an post-apocalyptic phone call; rest assured... the rotary phone shall outlive the cockroach. (Note: A little WD-40 might come in handy. Never attend an apocalypse without a spare can of WD-40)

[David Evil Overlord]

And perhaps a little something to dismember the zombies with.

[Geddon's Wall]

I remember the winter of '63. The school didn't close, the buses couldn't run, so i got on my bike and rode to school. 3 and a half miles using the ruts in the road, crossing 2 main roads and dodging traffic . Those were the days!

[The Ace]

Originally Posted by Jade44

Shoes? You had Shoes!

It's bl**dy cold in Scotland.

[Clansman]

Bikes. We'd be on our bikes from sun-up to sun-down, all summer long.

Now, I'd never think of letting my kids do the things that I did with impunity.

[Montero]

Really like this thread.

One tiny quibble

Originally Posted by Boneman

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla' and 'Chardonnay'.

Weird names for kids is so not new.

17th Century Puritans called their kids things like

Patience, Prudence, Chastity, Tacey (from the Latin for silence). Some names are now normal because we are used to them but they were new back then.

Sorry for Sin and Isaiah Nine* didn't catch on.

Florence Nightingale was called Florence because she was conceived in Florence. It wasn't a girl's name until she made it famous.

There were other made up names for various reasons, seem to remember hearing of a Ruperta who was Prince Rupert's illegitimate daughter.


* For unto us a son is born.

[Montero]

Other than that - well we had wholemeal bread and healthier eating than mentioned above but you had to finish your meat and two veg before you were allowed pudding, gristle had to be chewed, bones gnawed, spinach and broccoli were eaten and the idea of a mother cooking different meals for different members of the family - you what?

Pocket money was earned, TV rationed - and there was only one in the house, not one in every room. When calculators came out they were forbidden - arithmetic needed to be practised.

And my mother used to mourn all the things she wasn't teaching us, that her mother had taught her, but was no longer done. When she was a girl children stood up when an adult came in the room and there were other things which I've now forgotten.

There were no super stores. There was a Gateway but we usually used that for dried goods and occasionally the fancy meat counter (salami etc for a fancy dinner). We went into bakers, grocers, butchers and a Carwadines coffee shop to get the beans ground on the spot. My job was to run up the High Street for mother and come back with the price per pound on tomatoes, apples whatever she was buying and we'd shop for the cheapest at each shop.
Fruit and veg were seasonal - no all year round strawberries.

"Johnny Onion Men" used to come over from Brittany with strings of onions before the UK ones were ripe and stand at street corners with their bicycles draped in strings of onions, selling the onions.

When I was reaching 9/10 I used to occasionally be sent up the High Street on my own for a forgotten item so I can remember that 1/2lb of Cadbury's Milk Chocolate sold for 19p and half a pound of Mocca finely ground was 50p.

Milk came in glass bottles with foil caps and you left out used (clean) yoghurt pots for the milkman to put over the tops to foil blue tits.

Street lights were white and not orange.

Carol singers came round at Christmas with candle lanterns - and could actually sing!

Oh, and penny for the guy, not "trick or treat".

[J Riff]

...what do the spoiled youth culture of today know of the thrill of shooting rats in a grain silo with a pellet gun for ten cents a tail? Phwah, much harder to hit than video zombies.