Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[Tester]

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

Related.....

God helps those who help themselves - We prosecute

 

[DelW]

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.)

A variant was "Bill posters will be prosecuted", which prompted the once quite common joke graffiti "Bill Posters is innocent".

 

[dangie]

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?

You went into TWO school dinners? We’d try our hardest to avoid going into one! Lumpy gravy & custard. Sago and semolina, both which I haven’t touched since. Can even remember caterpillars in the cabbage, and no, that wasn’t the meat option.

Got caned for being caught smoking in the toilets. I was only a keep up with everyone else smoker. I didn’t enjoy it. I soon realised that the cane was more painful than the ‘pleasure’ from smoking so I stopped, and thankfully haven’t smoked since. The cane did me a huge favour.

 

[AndrewE]

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

Wasn't there another humorous parody for toilets: "Please adjust your dress before leaving, a refusal often offends!"

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Wasn't there another humorous parody for toilets: "Please adjust your dress before leaving, a refusal often offends!"

Or in toilet graffiti (pencil maybe) - "Do not flush lavatory in stations (apart from at Esher)

 

[McRhu]

I remember some bona-fide "KILROY WOZ 'ERE" graffiti (although I doubt it was the handiwork of yer actual, authentic Kilroy), and (uniquely to the East End of Glasgow) "AL JOLSON" on quite a few walls that weren't already advertising the presence of the infamous TONGS.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Broken wooden mill bobbins used as kindling to help start a dometic coal fire, as there was varnish and paint applied to them during manufacture.

 

[AM9]

I remember some bona-fide "KILROY WOZ 'ERE" graffiti (although I doubt it was the handiwork of yer actual, authentic Kilroy), and (uniquely to the East End of Glasgow) "AL JOLSON" on quite a few walls that weren't already advertising the presence of the infamous TONGS.

Who remembers the infamous 'George Davis is innocent' campaign? Many of the rail bridges in London bore this claim.The whole saga reads like a Wednesday Play*. The Wikipedia page for George Davisgive a comprehensive account of Davis's life of crime. See here.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Dog Licences.

If you owned a dog you had to purchase a dog licence. When it was abolished I believe it cost the grand sum of 37.5p per annum.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Who remembers the infamous 'George Davis is innocent' campaign? Many of the rail bridges in London bore this claim.The whole saga reads like a Wednesday Play*. The Wikipedia page for George Davisgive a comprehensive account of Davis's life of crime. See here.

Didn’t that completely ruin an Australia England Test Match?

 

[GusB]

One I remember from my childhood in the 80s but haven't seen since, a coach/bus chassis sans bodywork and interior being driven along a motorway by a driver sat in open and usually wearing a motorcycle crash helmet.

I've read a few accounts where bare bus/coach chassis were tested with a temporary seat in place and nothing else. Alan Townsin in "Blue Triangle" and Doug Jack in "The Volvo Bus" both make comments about such practices. The books aren't to hand at the moment so I can't provide quotes, but current 'elf'n'safety' rules would no doubt kick in these days!

Ah! The days when we made bus chassis and bodywork. There were some lengthy journeys for these chassis delivery drivers, such as Bristol Commercial Vehicles at Brislington to Eastern Coach Works at Lowestoft. AEC at Southall to Alexanders in Scotland can't have been much fun either.

I don't think that there a any coaches made today that have complete separate chassis, - most seem to have monocoque bodies and front and rear subframes. In London, RTs had a full chassis but RMs had two subframes and they were designed and built from the mid '50s until the late '60s.

The coach market is one where, until fairly recently, there was still some scope to have distinct chassis and body manufacturers. However, they all seem to be going down the "vertically integrated" route these days. Some manufacturers still make "chassis", but they're entirely reliant on the bodywork for complete structural integrity. This would best be discussed in the Buses & Coaches section of the forum, however.

Still available in many rural areas. There's an equestrian centre up the hill from us and every Sunday morning a troop of horses and riders pass our house on a circuit of Hebden Bridge....pursued at a distance by keen gardeners equipped with buckets and spades.

Of course, nobody bats an eyelid when a horse drops its load in the middle of the street. If you happen to have a dog and you don't extract a bag from your pocket within five seconds of the event, there's hell to pay!

 

[AM9]

Of course, nobody bats an eyelid when a horse drops its load in the middle of the street. If you happen to have a dog and you don't extract a bag from your pocket within five seconds of the event, there's hell to pay!

The difference being that dog faeces can be very toxic caring diseases that can kill or maim humans whereas horses, being vegetarians, produce nutrient-filled fertiliser which breaks down fairly quickly. Also, dogs tend to foul areas where humans walk whereas horse manure on roads that by and large are normally only used by motor vehicles.or open countryside.



of dog

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Who remembers the infamous 'George Davis is innocent' campaign? Many of the rail bridges in London bore this claim.The whole saga reads like a Wednesday Play*. The Wikipedia page for George Davisgive a comprehensive account of Davis's life of crime. See here.

It gave a boost I suppose to the media at the quiet time of year - aka "the silly season" - I think some of these wall paintings are still extant in parts of East London ........every now and then the media picks up on it.

 

[dangie]

….Also, dogs tend to foul areas where humans walk whereas horse manure on roads that by and large are normally only used by motor vehicles.or open countryside.

And let’s be honest, if you tread in horse sh*t you really need to visit an optician

 

[Harpo]

Putting a key into a car's door lock to get into it, then putting the same key into another lock in the steering column to start it. (Car thieves love the modern equivalent!)

 

[D6130]

And let’s be honest, if you tread in horse sh*t you really need to visit an optician

Unless it's after dark. A few years ago I had an unfortunate experience walking back from the pub on a winter's evening along our dimly-lit country lane. I'm certain to this day that it wasn't there when I went down into the town earlier in the evening. However my wife was not amused by the odour in the back porch for the following week or two....and she likes horses!

 

[PeterC]

You went into TWO school dinners? We’d try our hardest to avoid going into one! Lumpy gravy & custard. Sago and semolina, both which I haven’t touched since. Can even remember caterpillars in the cabbage, and no, that wasn’t the meat option.

We were issued with five "dinner tickets" when we paid our dinner money on Monday morning and had to write our name on the back if each one. At a random point in the term there would be a check to ensure that everybody booked for school dinners was turning up for them. The prefects collecting the tickets didn't care if you just handed one in and walked away.

The bogs had American style doors on the cubicles to catch smokers. I visited on an open day recently now they have full height doors and smoke detectors.

Corporal punishment of course. I got three from the head for bringing stink bombs into school. But some teachers also gave the slipper (actually a plimsoll) in class. The general feeling among pupils was that a slippering was over and done with while the cane meant a record in the punishment book.

 

[Bishopstone]

Putting a key into a car's door lock to get into it, then putting the same key into another lock in the steering column to start it. (Car thieves love the modern equivalent!)

I’ve heard it suggested that some manufacturers only had a dozen or so key patterns, therefore it was statistically plausible you could access someone else’s Cortina with your key. These stories may have been apocryphal or exaggerated, though.

 

[3141]

Corporal punishment of course. I got three from the head for bringing stink bombs into school. But some teachers also gave the slipper (actually a plimsoll) in class. The general feeling among pupils was that a slippering was over and done with while the cane meant a record in the punishment book.

In the Spring Term 1962 I did a teaching practise at a secondary modern school in Manchester. On my first day there, I sat beside the deputy in one of his classes. On the desk was a leather item, about twelve inches long, that looked like a strap for passengers to hang on to in a tram. "Can that really be..." I wondered. Yes it was. At some point during the lesson somebody misbehaved and was told "Come up here and hold out your hand," whereupon he got two strokes. I was told by another member of staff that on one occasion the deputy had found a class making a lot of noise while waiting for their teacher to arrive. Everyone got two strokes. That meant at least 70 in total. Towards the end the deputy was finding it hard going, but he had persisted so as to make sure they all got the message.

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I’ve heard it suggested that some manufacturers only had a dozen or so key patterns, therefore it was statistically plausible you could access someone else’s Cortina with your key. These stories may have been apocryphal or exaggerated, though.

Digging into my memory (or trying to!), I think I recall that up to the 1950s there was a pretty standard style of key, and if you needed a new one, or a replacement, you went to a spares establishment where a large range of them was hanging up, each with its own identifying number. Therefore a determined thief would have been able to buy the full range and then try each one on parked vehicles till he found one that fitted. But it might take a while before one did fit, and the sight of someone trying to fit a key into each car's door would have aroused suspicion.

 

[GordonT]

Supposed healthy dietary supplements assumed to be especially good for children. These included Haliborange tablets, malt extract and cod liver oil.
Vaguely remember my late mother in her younger years buying a pack of what looked like small squares of dairy fudge one of which was supposed to replace a light meal with a big reduction in calories.
Also remember doctors dispensing "polio sugar", a cube of raw sugar impregnated with anti polio chemicals.

 

[PeterC]

I’ve heard it suggested that some manufacturers only had a dozen or so key patterns, therefore it was statistically plausible you could access someone else’s Cortina with your key. These stories may have been apocryphal or exaggerated, though.

One model of the Cortina was notorious for the limited set of keys. A colleague once parked his in a service road behind a shop. When he came back his car was gone. He asked in the shop if anybody had seen anything. He was told that it had been blocking a delivery and, as the manager also had a Cortina, he had moved it to the car park.

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Also remember doctors dispensing "polio sugar", a cube of raw sugar impregnated with anti polio chemicals.

It was still done with a needle in my day

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Women edging the flagged area outside the steps with donkey stones.

 

[contrex]

Making a journey on a trolleybus.

Rode in an LT route 654 aged 8 in 1960 to get to my cousin's wedding in Banstead. Trolleybus from West Croydon Station to Sutton High Street, where a pre-arranged wedding car (a Farina styled Riley 4/68) picked us up. All noted in my Letts diary.

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It was still done with a needle in my day

I got the sugar lump aged 9 in 1961. IPV (Salk vaccine, injected, from 1955) and OPV (Sabin, oral, from 1959) existed side by side for decades, but I think injected has been the main one since around 2000.

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I'd forgotten about that one, it was the norm in my first office job in 1998 but don't remember it at any job since then, I must have caught it just as the trend was dying out.

When I was an agency worker at a Civil Service office in Bristol, 2007 to 2009, next door to a Wetherspoons, you should have seen how comatose a lot of the staff (and managers!) got on Friday afternoons. Flexi 'core time' meant they had to be there from 14:00 to 15:00. It was at Temple Quay if that helps anyone guess where it was.

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As you can see in this image from the Olympics the other week, the test card is alive and well, it's just there's no time to broadcast it to homes as actual programmes are carried instead.

This is the test card

 

[Bishopstone]

Marking every domestic holiday with a small triangular car sticker - Cromer, Ilfracombe etc.

Acknowledging the poor state of your old banger with the ironic square car sticker in a jovial font:

My other car is a Porsche

 

[Ianigsy]

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.

My grandma was once caught out by the original Candid Camera at Chessington Zoo in the 1960s.

The setup was that there was a horizontally slatted bench with a wet paint sign attached to it, but a man was sitting on the bench reading the paper. After a minute or two, he stood up and walked away, but with vertical paint lines on his back….

 

[McRhu]

Broken wooden mill bobbins used as kindling to help start a dometic coal fire, as there was varnish and paint applied to them during manufacture.

I remember many a happy hour converting thread bobbins into self-propelled dealers of Airfix-scale death & destruction by means of an elastic band and a pencil (or was it a lollipop stick?), courtesy of The Queen of Children's TV - HM Valerie Singleton.

 

[D6130]

I remember many a happy hour converting thread bobbins into self-propelled dealers of Airfix-scale death & destruction by means of an elastic band and a pencil (or was it a lollipop stick?), courtesy of The Queen of Children's TV - HM Valerie Singleton.

Ms Singleton is still alive....and, I believe, enjoying a quiet retirement in the Cotswolds.

Which brings me on to another 'thing' ....sitting down eagerly to watch Blue Peter every Monday and Thursday teatime. (....or occasionally 'Magpie', which was the ITV equivalent).

 

[McRhu]

Ms Singleton is still alive....and, I believe, enjoying a quiet retirement in the Cotswolds.

Which brings me on to another 'thing' ....sitting down eagerly to watch Blue Peter every Monday and Thursday teatime. (....or occasionally 'Magpie', which was the ITV equivalent).

John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Christopher Trace (and then Peter Purves) putting the world to rights with sticky back plastic and cornflake boxes. And then Fireball XL5. for some real excitement.

 

[gswindale]

I’ve heard it suggested that some manufacturers only had a dozen or so key patterns, therefore it was statistically plausible you could access someone else’s Cortina with your key. These stories may have been apocryphal or exaggerated, though.

Definitely true, even in the 2000s.

We went to Homebase, did our shopping there and placed it on the back seat of our Ka. Went into town to get some other bits. Got home and found a basket of plants from Homebase in the boot!

 

[Ashley Hill]

This is the test card

And here is the IBA test card.


What appears in the original picture appears to be the SMPTE colour bars.