Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[OhNoAPacer]

Slide rules and log tables. Indeed maths tables in general, if you needed a sine etc you needed a book of tables.

 

[PeterC]

Sweets being “on rations”, who remembers ration books.

there must be someone on this forum older than me

Somewhere among the old family photos is my sweet ration card. I was just old enough to have one but ration ended so soon after that it still has all the coupons.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Those red-coloured covers on ruled exercise books that on the back cover had really strange information tabular details on matters such as "rod, pole and perch"

 

[PeterC]

I think it was only on the owner’s death that a more normal method of payment was introduced. Why Foyles didn’t go bust because of the system, I don’t know - perhaps because it held better stock of books than its obvious competitor (Dillons), indeed Dillons eventually went bust and was taken over, in the end by Waterstone’s I believe.

Foyles was the goto bookshop for my degree textbooks. I remember telling my mother that I just wanted book tokens (do they still exist?) for my birthday and the clerk in W H Smith persuaded her to buy a WHS gift token instead.

 

[billh]

Backing school exercise and text books with brown paper, nothing fancy like wallpaper offcuts were allowed. Anyone still do that?

 

[AndyPJG]

The original cash point machine were you had a number of cards to use and the machine kept the card. They were then posted back to you to use again.

I can also remember Match of The Day with unbiased commentators.......

Surely commentator-singular? Ken Woolstenholme?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Lyons Tea Rooms.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Supermarkets having items individually priced. If prices had gone up then the staff had to use their sticky price label gun to amend them all.

 

[Bishopstone]

Beadles’s About

‘Mrs Smith has a new car. Let’s see how she reacts when we crush it with a skip.’

Killed-off (and similar shows) by changing perceptions of good taste, probable altercations between the actors and angry subjects that would be difficult to underwrite with the insurers, and shrinking commercial television budgets.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Beadles’s About

‘Mrs Smith has a new car. Let’s see how she reacts when we crush it with a skip.’

Killed-off (and similar shows) by changing perceptions of good taste, probable altercations between the actors and angry subjects that would be difficult to underwrite with the insurers, and shrinking commercial television budgets.

The original series, the name of which I can't recall, was generally warm and good-natured I thought. But some of the Beadle tricks seemed quite nasty to me; a particular example when someone watched while their van (containing all the tools he needed to make a living) was driven into a dock. He looked on the verge of having a serioius medical incident. And the use of the very over-weight family....

 

[Busaholic]

Yes, I remember those but haven't seen one for at least 20 years. In my early days when offices had real typists, carbon was everywhere, (foolscap of course) and depending on how low down the distribution one was, determined how legible the message was on 'flimsies'.

I bought a small receipt book yesterday, but sans carbon, as I don't need my own copy.

 

[Trackman]

The original series, the name of which I can't recall, was generally warm and good-natured I thought....

Game for a Laugh

 

[AM9]

Beadles’s About

‘Mrs Smith has a new car. Let’s see how she reacts when we crush it with a skip.’

Killed-off (and similar shows) by changing perceptions of good taste, probable altercations between the actors and angry subjects that would be difficult to underwrite with the insurers, and shrinking commercial television budgets.

I did like the Not The Nine O'clock News spoof of Game For A Laugh though:

(link to You Tube clip of the Not The Nine O'clock News spoof.)

 

[Bishopstone]

The original series, the name of which I can't recall, was generally warm and good-natured I thought. But some of the Beadle tricks seemed quite nasty to me; a particular example when someone watched while their van (containing all the tools he needed to make a living) was driven into a dock. He looked on the verge of having a serioius medical incident. And the use of the very over-weight family....

I think the concept started as a feature on Game for a Laugh, and was then spun-off as a show in it’s own right.

I remember the ‘van in the dock’ prank, and also the Golightly family (ha!) breaking bedsteads and tearing wedding dresses with their weight.

Popular family viewing at the time, but it played into a nasty, bullying corner of the mind that lies dormant in most of us but shouldn’t be encouraged. That said, some of the non-destructive pranks involving haunted undertaker’s premises etc I continue to find funny.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Pensioners having to collect their pension from the post office.
You knew not to bother going to the post office on pension day, the queue stretched all the way down Egremont main street.

Also the post office being the only place you could buy postage stamps.

Of course there was a machine on the wall of the post office that issued stamps. You inserted a fixed amount of money and were issued with stamps of varying values that came to the price you paid, hence you ended up with loads of low value stamps until such time as they equalled a postage rate and you then sent your letter with more stamps on it than a philatelist had in their collection.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Game for a Laugh

No, much earlier than that, early 1960s. One prank was where the engine was removed from a car and it was coasted downhill into a petrol station. In those days there was an attendant to serve you, and he also, if asked, would check the old and water - which the driver did. The attendant opened the Bonet, looked puzzled. Went to the back and opened the boot. Looked even more puzzled. But harmless fun, really - difficult to imagine that the attendant would be highly stressed.

I'll have a look to see if there's anything on the web. The star was someone who never appeared on screen and his voice was distorted but those name was a household one (and I've forgotten it)

 

[OhNoAPacer]

No, much earlier than that, early 1960s. One prank was where the engine was removed from a car and it was coasted downhill into a petrol station. In those days there was an attendant to serve you, and he also, if asked, would check the old and water - which the driver did. The attendant opened the Bonet, looked puzzled. Went to the back and opened the boot. Looked even more puzzled. But harmless fun, really - difficult to imagine that the attendant would be highly stressed.

I'll have a look to see if there's anything on the web. The star was someone who never appeared on screen and his voice was distorted but those name was a household one (and I've forgotten it)

Candid Camera

Bob Monkhouse.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Candid Camera

Bob Monkhouse.I was trying to remember the name of the presenter and kept thing Jonathon .. Jonathon'' (and Ross kept intruding)

Thank you!

The web also came up with the answer, and as you say it was 'Candid Camera'. But the original presenter - who I described - was Jonathon Routh.

 

[McRhu]

Kids playing with tin drums (for hours on end).

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Kids playing with tin drums (for hours on end).

My tin drum went mysteriously missing.

I think now I know what happened to it

 

[eastwestdivide]

Kids playing with tin drums (for hours on end).

Flashbacks to studying German literature – aagh!

 

[D6130]

Those red-coloured covers on ruled exercise books that on the back cover had really strange information tabular details on matters such as "rod, pole and perch"

Angling instructions perhaps?

 

[Harvester]

Wooden school desks with inkwells (1950s). I learnt to write at school using a dip pen, inkwell and the necessary blotting paper, with a fountain pen only allowed once dip pen writing had been mastered.

 

[simonw]

Whenever I was in Guildford in the mid 80's I'd see Dennis Fire Engines driven like this, not sure where they were going.

Lasted until the 2000. They were heading for the midlands.

 

[Bishopstone]

No bill posting

On every utilities cabinet. Not seen this on new installations over the last twenty years. I assume bill posters have switched their content to Facebook groups and viral TikToks, saving glue.

(As a child, I interpreted this as a warning not to post a cheque to settle your BT bill through the doors of their cabinet. I was embarrassingly teenaged before realising I’d misunderstood.)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Signs in shops stating "Do not ask for credit, as a refusal often offends".

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Getting caned by the headmaster - 4 hard strokes across my backside - crime- getting caught going into school dinners (both sittings) twice on the same day. (In my defense it was fish and chips followed by fly pie and custard. )

Corporal punishment is long since banned isn't it?

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I've just found this credit card sized electronic mini calculator in the bottom of a drawer we're sorting out. The calculator app on my phone can do so much more than what this can.

View attachment 164109

I still have one like this - but the display is the old-fashioned light-emitting diode (LED) ! It still works....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Aug 2024 ==

Getting caned by the headmaster - 4 hard strokes across my backside - crime- getting caught going into school dinners (both sittings) twice on the same day.

Mine was for scrumping!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Aug 2024 ==

Foyles was the goto bookshop for my degree textbooks.

I think I got nearly all of my professional medical textbooks from the original Foyles in London - lots of "cosies" to sit in during the winter....

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Slide rules and log tables. Indeed maths tables in general, if you needed a sine etc you needed a book of tables.

Yes and blotters (large piece of blotting paper in exam room) and of course fountain pens and ink.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Signs in shops stating "Do not ask for credit, as a refusal often offends".

There was a humorous (??) variation of this, once it became familiar; 'Do not ask for credit, as a punch on the nose often offends'.