Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now

[dcbwhaley]

And some places only accept cards / apple pay etc. Most of the cafes and restaurants I go to are in this camp, as are many other retailers, especially indepedents.

My favourite pub eatery has a notice saying. "We prefer payment by cash. That way we get to keep it all"

Also the last time I saw anyone paying for drinks in a pub by cash was last year, and that was the local travelling community‘s Christmas night out that I happened to stumble upon.

You haven't been to my local on a Wednesday night

 

[cool110]

My favourite pub eatery has a notice saying. "We prefer payment by cash. That way we get to keep it all"

Can't be having HMRC collecting all that VAT after all

 

[75A]

Lots of Shops Pubs etc around here have a sign saying Cash is King.

 

[GordonT]

Lots of Shops Pubs etc around here have a sign saying Cash is King.

Local Chinese takeaway is nominally "Cash Only" but I noticed that they allowed a cashless customer who was collecting at their premises to pay by bank transfer.
"Premises" feels as if it deserves to be an anachronistic word despite me having just used it.

 

[3141]

Whatever happened to National Savings stamps?

I had a book for them and there were 2 different stamps. Memory going back to the early 1950s recalls there was a 2/6 with a squirrel and a 1/- stamp with an acorn. Seems I may be wrong about the acorn as all I can find is a 6d with Britannias' head. That ties in with the 1951 Festival of Britain.

I lost enthusiasm when Prince Charles replaced the squirrel on the 2/6 and Princess Anne appeared on the 6d in 1953.


View attachment 185748

When I was in junior school (1946-50) many of us bought savings stamps from the class teacher at the same time as we paid in our dinner money, and stuck the stamps on our savings cards.

 

[simonw]

Blimey, is it 25 years already. Time certainly flies!

As it happens, I still have a nice St Michael suit somewhere at the back of the wardrobe. Bought when visiting for my sister's wedding in 1996 with a thick wedge of £20 notes from the central Manchester branch of M&S - just a couple of weeks before the IRA 'remodelled' that store.

Despite the quality of the M&S schmutter back then, I suspect the jacket and trousers may have 'shrunk' over the past three decades and might no-longer button up properly around my belly.

Yep, I'm surprised there isn't a body of research on the tendency of clothes to shrink over the years of left. Or maybe there is and it's suppressed by 'big wardrobe '

 

[dcbwhaley]

Can't be having HMRC collecting all that VAT after all

I think that they are referring to the credit card commission not VAT

 

[Mag_seven]

I remember when hotels would put a paper copy of your bill under your door in the middle of the night. Also they on request would leave a newspaper either on the floor outside your room or in a bag hung on the door handle.

 

[Djgr]

My favourite pub eatery has a notice saying. "We prefer payment by cash. That way we get to keep it all"

Well until they pay it into a bank and the bank charges them for processing the cash...

 

[Killingworth]

I remember when hotels would put a paper copy of your bill under your door in the middle of the night. Also they on request would leave a newspaper either on the floor outside your room or in a bag hung on the door handle.

A Holiday Inn we use still does.

My father used to leave his shoes outside the door and they'd be polished for the morning. That was the norm in most good hotels in the 1950s, probably into the 60s and maybe in some a ltlle later. We stayed in a hotel in Oslo last year that had a shoe cleaning machine near the lift, beside one offering iced water.

 

[GordonT]

I remember when hotels would put a paper copy of your bill under your door in the middle of the night. Also they on request would leave a newspaper either on the floor outside your room or in a bag hung on the door handle.

Former Stagecoach chief, Sir Brian Souter, having just stepped out of a hotel shower whilst on a business trip heard the "thwack" of his Financial Times being dropped outside his room door. Grabbing a towel to drape around his lower half he opened the door into the corridor, stepped outside to retrieve his newspaper and as he bent down to pick it up he heard the "gedunk" of his door, which was on a quick spring, closing behind him locking him out of his room.
The incident added to his collection of self-deprecating stories which he liked to include when invited to give talks.

 

[52290]

My favourite pub eatery has a notice saying. "We prefer payment by cash. That way we get to keep it all"

Perhaps the customers should wear T-shirts saying "We prefer lined glasses. That way we get to drink it all".

 

[Merle Haggard]

On the subject of services no longer provided by hotels has the Corby Trouser Press been mentioned? (can't find it on a thread search) , once to be found in every hotel bedroom. Presumably no longer offered because modern ones are so tiny.
When staying at hotels I always intended to bring along a few crumpled trousers to make the most of my stay, never actually did so.

Having known Corby in the 1960s I did wonder why a marketing person chose that town to be associated with an up-market product...

 

[Lloyds siding]

Made by John Corby of Windsor, who started off making valet stands. Peter Corby (son of the founder) designed the trouser press.

 

[dangie]

Perhaps the customers should wear T-shirts saying "We prefer lined glasses. That way we get to drink it all".

Years ago Banks’s Brewery in Wolverhampton used to serve their beer in oversized pint glasses with the pint line printed on it. Then they changed to the smaller standard conventional pint glasses, saying that was what the public wanted. No it wasn’t, it was what the accountants wanted.

 

[PeterC]

Years ago Banks’s Brewery in Wolverhampton used to serve their beer in oversized pint glasses with the pint line printed on it. Then they changed to the smaller standard conventional pint glasses, saying that was what the public wanted. No it wasn’t, it was what the accountants wanted.

I have also started seeing the occasional southern pub using sparklers on their pumps.

 

[route101]

I remember when hotels would put a paper copy of your bill under your door in the middle of the night. Also they on request would leave a newspaper either on the floor outside your room or in a bag hung on the door handle.

I remember that in the USA, there was a copy of USA Today left outside the room.

 

[GordonT]

The days before marketing departments used phraseology along the lines of:
"We are excited to share the latest edition of our client newsletter, which aims to provide you with valuable insights and inspiration going forward".
And folk somehow managed to contact you without "reaching out".

 

[3141]

The days before marketing departments used phraseology along the lines of:
"We are excited to share the latest edition of our client newsletter, which aims to provide you with valuable insights and inspiration going forward".
And folk somehow managed to contact you without "reaching out".

Brilliant! Related to that are the days before large numbers of people began to be described at "amazing". As in: "in the maternity ward I met some absolutely amazing babies" or "I would like to congratulate the amazing staff at our local rodent extermination centre".

 

[GordonT]

Brilliant! Related to that are the days before large numbers of people began to be described at "amazing". As in: "in the maternity ward I met some absolutely amazing babies" or "I would like to congratulate the amazing staff at our local rodent extermination centre".

Or the days when the word "awesome" was reserved for occasions like man venturing onto the moon for the first time.

 

[317 forever]

Former Stagecoach chief, Sir Brian Souter, having just stepped out of a hotel shower whilst on a business trip heard the "thwack" of his Financial Times being dropped outside his room door. Grabbing a towel to drape around his lower half he opened the door into the corridor, stepped outside to retrieve his newspaper and as he bent down to pick it up he heard the "gedunk" of his door, which was on a quick spring, closing behind him locking him out of his room.
The incident added to his collection of self-deprecating stories which he liked to include when invited to give talks.

I wonder whether the hotel was even in an area served by Stagecoach

 

[Bread & cheese]

Boot scrapers outside front doors. They can still be seen in some Victorian terraces but I doubt that many people now what they are, and even fewer know why they were required.

To this day, Earley station has a boot scraper.

Image shows a boot scraper set in an old brick wall, immediately to the left of the entrance to the ticket office at Earley.

 

[swt_passenger]

Brilliant! Related to that are the days before large numbers of people began to be described at "amazing". As in: "in the maternity ward I met some absolutely amazing babies" or "I would like to congratulate the amazing staff at our local rodent extermination centre".

Prefer something, eg a train seat type, it’s now ‘love’
Dislike something, eg a train seat type, and it’s now ‘hate’
But theres no sense of scale, ie nothing in between…

 

[GordonT]

Further thought on banking.
Convention at the bank I used in younger days was that small amounts were handed over on production of your cheque. They kept a list beside them of individuals who they would ask to "hold on one moment" while they went away to check your balance. "This overdraft has not been authorised, Mr Bloggs." Thankfully credit referencing was in its infancy then.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

IIRC the money (5 x £1) came in a sort of rigid plastic case. Remarkably, my Dad, who has never exactly been an early adopter of modern technology (think that’s polite enough!) used that service very early. I should imagine it was very quickly superseded by something more flexible and less wasteful.

I have a memory of the 1983 general election of trekking out on the bus from Birmingham into the wastes of the Black Country to hear leader of the opposition Michael Foot give a speech just before polling day. It was in something like a wooden Scout hut; there were a few TV cameras but no great security as I recall. We were just able to walk in off the street, there were no tickets or advance bookings.
After the event, we repaired to the Crooked House pub (somewhere else that is no longer functioning) for a few pints. Owing to my mate misreading the bus timetable, we thought we'd missed the last bus back to Birmingham (we hadn't, but we didn't know that at the time) so we walked the 12 miles home.
Recalling the episode years - decades - later, we asked ourselves: 'Why didn't we get a taxi?' (We were students, but not completely poverty-stricken; one of us was on secondment from London Transport and still getting a salary.) The answer, we eventually realised, was that we didn't have any cash on us. There were no ATMs in those days, minicab firms probably wouldn't accept cheques, so without folding readies, you were stuck.
I too remember a very primitive bank card - a piece of plastic with holes punched into it that you fed into a slot in a machine on the one and only bank in Birmingham that had one. After a few mechanical rumblings and creakings, it spat out a tenner (you had no choice as to the amount) and a few days later you got the card back in the post.

​

 

[PG]

Shops that opened half an hour or an hour later one day, e.g. Wednesday, a week for staff training. I seem to recall this was particularly a thing with shoe shops for some reason?

 

[GordonT]

The days when packing for family holidays involved minimal concern regarding different specs of appliance cables and associated plugs etc.

 

[AM9]

The days when packing for family holidays involved minimal concern regarding different specs of appliance cables and associated plugs etc.

It still can if the plethora of 'essential' devices is brought back to what was taken in the halcyon days when there wasn't a problem. in other words, it's a self-generated problem.

 

[cool110]

The days when packing for family holidays involved minimal concern regarding different specs of appliance cables and associated plugs etc.

It still can if the plethora of 'essential' devices is brought back to what was taken in the halcyon days when there wasn't a problem. in other words, it's a self-generated problem.

It's going back to those days anyway now that everything charges with USB-C, didn't need anything other than a 3-port charger on the holiday I just came back from.

 

[GordonT]

It still can if the plethora of 'essential' devices is brought back to what was taken in the halcyon days when there wasn't a problem. in other words, it's a self-generated problem.

Absolutely. But I suspect it is still within the context of the thread topic for many, self-generation notwithstanding.