The years before you were born

[PeterY]

I was born in 1958, Hertfordshire. Growing up in the 60's was probably a lot more fun, especially being allowed to play outside. I lived next to the Nickey line (Hemel Hempstead to Harpenden) and we played on the cuttings and embankments, although the track had been lifted. There are quite a few disused railways in Hertfordshire that are now cycle routes. At 68 , I often wonder, in my mind, what it'd have been like with trains and track, when I'm cycling along them.

 

[swt_passenger]

Neil Armstrong landing on the moon; John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King being assassinated, devolution of the pound; Harold Wilson becoming UK prime minister and a rented black and white television where my parents had to get up and change channels on the wall by the window where the cable came in. I think we only had BBC1, 2 and ATV (later ITV?)

“Devaluation” of the pound, I think we called it at the time! Autocorrect strikes again?

 

[etr221]

While my 'living memory' was that we always (?) had TV - Black and White, with two channels (BBC and ITV - whichever regional company it was (and they did change over time)) - I do remember BBC2 coming in (still B&W, but on 625 rather than 405 lines), that we didn't have until we'd got a new TV.

One thing that always irked me was people expecting me to have a Coronation Mug, when I didn't have one (too young!) - it wasn't that I didn't have one, it was their expectation that I did.

 

[alex397]

I’ve only just seen this thread. It resonates a lot with me. I was born in the early 1990s, but there’s something about the 1980s that really appeals to me. Most of the music, TV and film I enjoy is from that era. There is still a lot from ‘my era’ I enjoy, but not to the same level as things from the 1980s.
I spent most of my formative years watching documentaries about that era.

I have no idea why I have such an interest in that era really. I wouldn’t say it was better than now either, especially as racism, sexism, ableism (well, all the isms!) would have been considerably worse then. It still love to get in a time machine though and go to that era, and talk to people and see how different they are from now. One thing I’ve noticed from 80s documentaries, is that people from all backgrounds spoke far more eloquently.

 

[scarby]

I’ve only just seen this thread. It resonates a lot with me. I was born in the early 1990s, but there’s something about the 1980s that really appeals to me. Most of the music, TV and film I enjoy is from that era. There is still a lot from ‘my era’ I enjoy, but not to the same level as things from the 1980s.
I spent most of my formative years watching documentaries about that era.

I have no idea why I have such an interest in that era really. I wouldn’t say it was better than now either, especially as racism, sexism, ableism (well, all the isms!) would have been considerably worse then. It still love to get in a time machine though and go to that era, and talk to people and see how different they are from now. One thing I’ve noticed from 80s documentaries, is that people from all backgrounds spoke far more eloquently.

This is how I feel but from an earlier era. I was born in the 1960s but there is something about the 1950s that strikes a chord.

Like you, I most certainly wouldn't say it was better. It wasn't. But I would still love to just be able to have a day in the 1950s. Just one day.

Realistically, I think that almost anyone who went back in time, once they had got over going up and down the ECML, staring at locos and stock and other experiences beyond the railways, would be quickly in a big hurry to get back.

 

[Oxfordblues]

When I started work in the late sixties, the computer took up half of the second floor. If you wanted any information from it you had to submit a request and you got it the next morning after the overnight run. You could submit a late request but you had to do your own punch card.There was big room with about hafl a dozen machines called "cardveyors" which had rotating trays full of index cards with customer details on

I was a TOPS clerk at Warrington Arpley 50 years ago and the system was based on punched-cards. A train would arrive in the yard with each wagon represented by a card which would be placed in racks in the same way as the wagons were shunted. When it came to dispatching a train the cards would be placed in a machine-reader and a train-list compiled. One day with the cards in my hand my elbow caught on a filing-cabinet (remember them?) and I dropped the cards on the floor. A member of the shunting-staff had to be sent out in the rain to write down all the wagon numbers so we could get the cards in the right order. Needless to say they weren't best-pleased!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Your anecdotal scenario @Oxfordblues is one I wondered about a few times!
I also, wickedly, wondered if shuffling the punched cards - akin to a deck of playing cards - was the early computer equivalent of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"


My earliest computer experience, was a BBC B computer in 1982 at my school; with a wholly underwhelming (to Young Chariot, at least) maths lesson, learning the basics of BASIC to plot and draw a circle on-screen.
Having decided that computers were not that exciting, I was mortified when my parents bought me a damned BBC B.

For younger readers:
Acorn's BBC model B personal computer was released 1981; boasting a 2 MHz processor and 32 KB RAM. Yes, really.

 

[Bald Rick]

Having decided that computers were not that exciting, I was mortified when my parents bought me a damned BBC B.

For younger readers:
Acorn's BBC model B personal computer was released 1981; boasting a 2 MHz processor and 32 KB RAM. Yes, really.

Evidently, you didn’ have ELITE…

 

[Sun Chariot]

Evidently, you didn’ have ELITE…

I had ELITE on 5 1/4" floppy (disk drive which made as much noise as a cold-starting class 37).
When I started playing, I thought its monochrome pixellated graphics so utterly $h!te that I gave up. Total playing time: a mere 10 minites.

 

[Bald Rick]

I had ELITE on 5 1/4" floppy (disk drive which made as much noise as a cold-starting class 37).
When I started playing, I thought its monochrome pixellated graphics so utterly $h!te that I gave up. Total playing time: a mere 10 minites.

I had it on cassette. took ages to load, and it had a bug. but was fab.

 

[PeterC]

I was a TOPS clerk at Warrington Arpley 50 years ago and the system was based on punched-cards. A train would arrive in the yard with each wagon represented by a card which would be placed in racks in the same way as the wagons were shunted. When it came to dispatching a train the cards would be placed in a machine-reader and a train-list compiled. One day with the cards in my hand my elbow caught on a filing-cabinet (remember them?) and I dropped the cards on the floor. A member of the shunting-staff had to be sent out in the rain to write down all the wagon numbers so we could get the cards in the right order. Needless to say they weren't best-pleased!

In my early IT days that was called an IBM floor sort

 

[Cambus731]

I was born when the 1970s began, so my earliest still-recollectable memories are of:
- 1974-1978 sights of monastral blue Peaks and Duffs on the Midland Main Line.
- 1976 summer heatwave (parents made a "garden den", for my brother and I to sleep outside on several nights),
- 1977 the late Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebrations, primary school gift of a suitably-decorated HB pencil (with rubber at top) and Royal Blue notebook. Oh and a birthday gift of a silver London Transport Leyland Atlantean (Corgi or Dinky, I cannot recall).

I have no concept of "before this life"; my wife, however, has for decades felt a very strong sense of a previous life - and very palpable fear of crossing the River Itchen bridge (she has no ties to Southampton).

That sounds like it was almost certainly the Matchbox Silver Jubilee model of a London Transport Daimler Fleetline dubbed ‘the Londoner’.

 

[Sun Chariot]

No, it was the Dinky model, I've done a quick images search

 

[Cambus731]

No, it was the Dinky model, I've done a quick images search

Interesting. Are you sure it was in LT livery? As always I’ll be quite happy to be corrected, but if it’s the model I’m thinking of, I thought it was usually only available in orange or in a Yellow Pages livery. Do you possibly have a link?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Aug 2026 ==

Looks like I was wrong. I didn’t realise this even existed. Interesting.

https://ebay.io/m/ZX3YOb

 

[Sun Chariot]

That's the one, @Cambus731 - apologies for the London Transport comment, as it was marked National Coaches. The one I had, sported diecast unpainted interior & clear plastic windows. I think a version is out there, with blue-tint plastic windows.

I'm no model bus connoisseur; although I laid hands on (by chance) what seems a manufacturing error: Corgi OC42904 LT marked Daimler Utility lower, mated to OC43921 LT route 97 marked Bristol Utility upper. No marks, no signs of body-swaps post purchase.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Not going to so into an L P Hartley odyssey ("the past is a different country" etc) , have always had a strong interest in social and economic history and have always enjoyed talking about it. Born 1958 in South West Wales - an area rich in fascinating history and all sorts of interesting people. I used to do Saturday chores for a local lady (coal bucket filling etc) , and she was always keen to talk about here life in Edwardian Forest Gate - her father was one of the senior engineers involved in the Elan Valley dam construction and was then headhunted to work on the modernisation of the LCC electric tramways. As a young girl she was taken to tea with George Bernard Shaw and as a young adult she worked at the London Hospital and became one of the first registered midwives , working in the challenging areas of Whitechapel etc right through WW2 and beyond. I loved quizzing her - but she was not positive about the steam suburban trains in the local area , and seemingly everyone refered to the LNER as "late - never early" and avoided it if the could ! - my own father - born 1923 was sent as a miner assistant in 1939 (they desperately needed the cash in semi rural Carmarthenshire) , not allowed to join the RAF in WW2 and were forced to work a 6 day week with attempts in 1944 to work "Coal Sunday for the National Effort. Unsuprisingly they refused ! - not thinking much of the early days of the local Home Guard , they formed an unofficial group at the bleak years of 1940 when invasion was feared with access to colliery available explosives and plenty of local (hunting) shotguns available they would have done their very best but there of course would have been brutal reprisals on the local population. My mother - born 1927 - had the local signalman as a neighbour and she used to take his hot meal to the box of an evening , and while he ate his probably not-much-meat dinner , she would "work" the box only to be "caught" by the local station master on an out of hours visit - he of course turned a diplomatic blind eye and came back later. All the unsold stocks of 1930''s mined coal went into the war effort so the GWR was very busy down there - very interesting conversations which I am so glad I was able to have.

 

[The exile]

My earliest computer experience, was a BBC B computer in 1982 at my school; with a wholly underwhelming (to Young Chariot, at least) maths lesson, learning the basics of BASIC to plot and draw a circle on-screen.
Having decided that computers were not that exciting, I was mortified when my parents bought me a damned BBC B.

You got further than we did. The culmination of my school computing experience (probably the same year) was learning where the on/off switch was. Then the bell rang…

 

[DelW]

Like you, I most certainly wouldn't say it was better. It wasn't. But I would still love to just be able to have a day in the 1950s. Just one day.

Realistically, I think that almost anyone who went back in time, once they had got over going up and down the ECML, staring at locos and stock and other experiences beyond the railways, would be quickly in a big hurry to get back.

I agree, I think lots of aspects of life in the 1950s and early '60s would horrify many people aged under about thirty or so:

• The thick fug of cigarette and pipe smoke upstairs on buses, in most coaches of trains, in all rooms in pubs and even in cafés
• Pubs only open at lunchtimes and evenings (by law)
• Shops closed after about 5pm, all afternoon on "early closing day" and on Sundays
• Having to visit multiple shops to do a family food shop, and to do it once or twice a week as food would be stored in a larder not a fridge
• Two or later three TV channels, black and white only, very little on before 5pm, watch live only
• Home telephones being relatively rare, neighbours might take messages for phone-free households in an emergency
• The only portable audio being a newly available transistor radio, with just BBC channels and maybe Radio Luxembourg with lots of fading and interference
• Very few entertainment venues open on Sundays

IIRC there's a Hancock's Half Hour episode about the boredom of a 1950s Sunday with nothing to do, which might be an antidote to nostalgia for the era.

 

[Jon_jpwh]

I agree, I think lots of aspects of life in the 1950s and early '60s would horrify many people aged under about thirty or so:

• The thick fug of cigarette and pipe smoke upstairs on buses, in most coaches of trains, in all rooms in pubs and even in cafés
• Pubs only open at lunchtimes and evenings (by law)
• Shops closed after about 5pm, all afternoon on "early closing day" and on Sundays
• Having to visit multiple shops to do a family food shop, and to do it once or twice a week as food would be stored in a larder not a fridge
• Two or later three TV channels, black and white only, very little on before 5pm, watch live only
• Home telephones being relatively rare, neighbours might take messages for phone-free households in an emergency
• The only portable audio being a newly available transistor radio, with just BBC channels and maybe Radio Luxembourg with lots of fading and interference
• Very few entertainment venues open on Sundays

IIRC there's a Hancock's Half Hour episode about the boredom of a 1950s Sunday with nothing to do, which might be an antidote to nostalgia for the era.

Also cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke in offices.
Pubs not opening until 7pm on Sunday evenings after only opening 12 until 2 at lunch time.
I seem to remember shops also closing for an hour at lunch time.
Our first television was just after there were two channels but I only remember the BBC working properly.
Party line telephones where it was shared with a nearby household.

 

[Rover]

Party line telephones where it was shared with a nearby household.

Ah yes, the shared-line telephone where you had to press a little rectangular button before you dialled.

 

[GusB]

I seem to remember shops also closing for an hour at lunch time.

A practice that continued around here until relatively recently. The last shop in the village to close at lunchtime was the pharmacy; similarly, it was also the last to observe half-day closing on a Wednesday.

 

[contrex]

March 1959, aged 6, going to my cousin's wedding in Banstead (Surrey), LT trolleybus from Crystal Palace to Sutton where the wedding car picked up my mother, sister, and me. A Farina Morris Oxford with white ribbons. Later that year, having turned 7, seeing a huge blue spark from the current collector of a passing Derby Corporation trolleybus with OFFILER'S ALES on the side. My uncle Jack's favourite beer, he told me. In Derby for the day while visiting father's family in Castle Donington.

 

[Jon_jpwh]

A practice that continued around here until relatively recently. The last shop in the village to close at lunchtime was the pharmacy; similarly, it was also the last to observe half-day closing on a Wednesday.

Actually where I live Boots closes for an hour every day. Slightly oddly it's between 2 and 3.