Things you don’t see outside any more

[birchesgreen]

Well, Mercury no longer exists (even the parent company Cable and Wireless is long gone) so it would be very surprising to see any payphones (which are already an endangered species) with their branding. About the only thing that still remains to denote their existence is the Mercury Prize.

There are still some... whatever the telecoms equivalent of a manhole cover is around Birmingham with the Mercury logo on them.

 

[DelayRepay]

That is a good spot that I’d totally forgotten about. There were many pubs and cafes that had a sign indicating there was a pay phone inside. Indeed there cannot be many pay phones left. The last one I used was at Stalling Busk in a side valley of Wensleydale, where there was no reception for mobiles.

In our village, there is a red phone box that's been converted into a mini library. It no longer has a phone.

 

[sor]

Well, Mercury no longer exists (even the parent company Cable and Wireless is long gone) so it would be very surprising to see any payphones (which are already an endangered species) with their branding. About the only thing that still remains to denote their existence is the Mercury Prize.

Although C&W (UK division) still exists in spirit, since it was bought by Vodafone and their assets are part of Vodafone’s operations. They split in two some years before, UK and international. For some years you could still dial 132/131 to access the former Mercury network, until one day it was replaced by an Vodafone announcement to say that it had finally been discontinued.

You used to be able to get a payphone line installed (meter pulse facility for those in the know) so that you could install a private payphone. They were very common in pubs and clubs - usually charging an extortionate rate. I think BT has stopped new supply now so they'll be a dying breed these days.

Although that certainly delivered more accuracy, a lot of private payphones didn’t need (or could use) it, they’d use the dialled number to work out the charge & other ways to twig that the call had been answered. You could also get a meter installed in your premises at one point, it wasn’t necessary to have a payphone line or even a payphone. I suppose you’d want it if you were making serious numbers of calls, especially international or (at that time) long distance ones

IIRC the pulses were not compatible with ADSL broadband and presumably mass adoption of the latter spelled the end for the former - iit was also not something BT intended to support on the new 21CN voice network, though that upgrade never happened

 

[E27007]

Two connected with mains water.
A man from the water board patrol the residential streets checking the flow of mains water, the man would carry a wooden pole, lifting an inspection cover he would place the end of the stick to the water valve and the other to an ear, he could listen to the sound of water flowing through the valve, I suppose checking for blockages or leaks in the system.

Gulley cleaners, again a man with a small purpose built vehicle, would carry out maintenance on the drains, lifting the street drainage grill, vacuum pumping out the debris collected in the sump of drainage grill, then refilling the sump with fresh water, It was not only the drains in the roads abd residential streets which were cleaned out, even the small grill in the gutters of alleyways were cleaned out too

 

[Busaholic]

Two connected with mains water.
A man from the water board patrol the residential streets checking the flow of mains water, the man would carry a wooden pole, lifting an inspection cover he would place the end of the stick to the water valve and the other to an ear, he could listen to the sound of water flowing through the valve, I suppose checking for blockages or leaks in the system.

Don't the Fire Brigade carry out a version of this? Every summer around my town over consecutive days they arrive, do some sort of check after lifting the inspection covers (not involving a pole so far as I know) and then go away again to their next point or, on rare occasions, to a 'shout.' This year the process seems to have started a lot later as they've obviously been busy on more urgent matters.

 

[E27007]

Don't the Fire Brigade carry out a version of this? Every summer around my town over consecutive days they arrive, do some sort of check after lifting the inspection covers (not involving a pole so far as I know) and then go away again to their next point or, on rare occasions, to a 'shout.' This year the process seems to have started a lot later as they've obviously been busy on more urgent matters.

The Fire brigade do routinely lift the covers of below-pavement and below-street chambers to inspect hydrants and control valves , those chambers are access points for the erection of standpipe connections to the water mains when supplies are required for firefighting needs, not the same as the minor water valves or minor drains in the highways, streets and alleys I recall being attended to by the man with a sounding stick or a motorised gulley cleaner

 

[John Webb]

The Fire brigade do routinely lift the covers of below-pavement and below-street chambers to inspect hydrants and control valves , those chambers are access points for the erection of standpipe connections to the water mains when supplies are required for firefighting needs, not the same as the minor water valves or minor drains in the highways, streets and alleys I recall being attended to by the man with a sounding stick or a motorised gulley cleaner

Essentially they are checking that the hydrant is not buried in debris or plant or animal life and appears to be in working order. Also they can track down where perhaps road repairs or resurfacing have concealed a hydrant! (I used to do the hydrants once a year on my old works site when I was a member of our voluntary Works Fire Brigade.)

 

[Trackman]

Gulley cleaners, again a man with a small purpose built vehicle, would carry out maintenance on the drains, lifting the street drainage grill, vacuum pumping out the debris collected in the sump of drainage grill, then refilling the sump with fresh water, It was not only the drains in the roads and residential streets which were cleaned out, even the small grill in the gutters of alleyways were cleaned out too

Road sweepers in my day, they had a gulley tube sucker 'thingy' on them.
I saw one pre-Covid, not a road sweeper but a council one with a Gully 'thingy' tube thingy on them just for that purpose.
I think these days they only use gulley cleaners if the road or whatever flooded during autumn or whatever.

Don't the Fire Brigade carry out a version of this? Every summer around my town over consecutive days they arrive, do some sort of check after lifting the inspection covers (not involving a pole so far as I know) and then go away again to their next point or, on rare occasions, to a 'shout.' This year the process seems to have started a lot later as they've obviously been busy on more urgent matters.

Just made me think, are those little yellow H signs for water hydrants still a thing? .. I guess not.

 

[najaB]

Just made me think, are those little yellow H signs for water hydrants still a thing? .. I guess not.

I still see them around.

 

[Matey]

True "corner shops" in areas of Victorian/Edwardian housing.

 

[Matey]

Adverts for "Sun Blessed" Bread, Ilford and Kodak Films. TV "Interludes" when the programme failed. Holiday resort stickers on cars.

 

[Gloster]

I am not sure if it has been mentioned before, but those small, coat-of-arms shaped badges that you stuck or sewed on to anoraks to show where you had been.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Holiday resort stickers on cars

Hadn't realised those were a thing of the past until you mentioned it! Dads around the country can celebrate no longer having to drive around with faded "I've been to Diggerland!" stickers in the rear window of their Cavalier!

Those car stickers at the top of the windscreen with the name of the driver (usually Darren, stereotypically) and his current squeeze. Always wondered what the owners of those did if the relationship ended. Perhaps a lonely hearts ad in the local paper: "M, 22, own car seeks F 18-25. Must be named Joanne or willing to deed-poll".

 

[Gloster]

True "corner shops" in areas of Victorian/Edwardian housing.

Or in small villages, particularly those with plenty of weekenders or holiday lets. They load up at a supermarket on the way, but still expect the shop to keep a full range of goods so that can buy the odd item they forgot.

 

[Busaholic]

Or in small villages, particularly those with plenty of weekenders or holiday lets. They load up at a supermarket on the way, but still expect the shop to keep a full range of goods so that can buy the odd item they forgot.

And woe betide if they're not open at 7 on a Sunday evening for that pint of milk or an avocado, perfectly ripe but not overripe, of course!

 

[D6968]

Adverts for "Sun Blessed" Bread, Ilford and Kodak Films. TV "Interludes" when the programme failed. Holiday resort stickers on cars.

The A1A groups Class 31’s have a bunch of stickers in their engine room windows proudly displaying what railway’s they’ve visited.

 

[Trackman]

Adverts for "Sun Blessed" Bread, Ilford and Kodak Films. TV "Interludes" when the programme failed. Holiday resort stickers on cars.

I remember adverts for Turog bread, mainly on shop fronts from decades gone by.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Two connected with mains water.
A man from the water board patrol the residential streets checking the flow of mains water, the man would carry a wooden pole, lifting an inspection cover he would place the end of the stick to the water valve and the other to an ear, he could listen to the sound of water flowing through the valve, I suppose checking for blockages or leaks in the system.

Gulley cleaners, again a man with a small purpose built vehicle, would carry out maintenance on the drains, lifting the street drainage grill, vacuum pumping out the debris collected in the sump of drainage grill, then refilling the sump with fresh water, It was not only the drains in the roads abd residential streets which were cleaned out, even the small grill in the gutters of alleyways were cleaned out too

It was to check for leaks...these days an electronic gadget is attached to the mains and left for a few days then retrieved. The sound recording these sound loggers have made is then downloaded. The quietest periods (when least water is being used) is generally between 2-3am, checking the recordings at these times gives some indication of leaks, and the direction to the leak.

Gully cleaning is a bugbear of mine...ours fill up with blown sand. The council say they are cleaned regularly: I say that the foliage growing out of the gullies suggests otherwise...

 

[Ediswan]

Gully cleaning is a bugbear of mine...ours fill up with blown sand. The council say they are cleaned regularly: I say that the foliage growing out of the gullies suggests otherwise...

Weasel word. Halley's comet appears regularly.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Adverts for "Sun Blessed" Bread, Ilford and Kodak Films. TV "Interludes" when the programme failed. Holiday resort stickers on cars.

I used to make Sunblest bread!

Road sweepers in my day, they had a gulley tube sucker 'thingy' on them.
I saw one pre-Covid, not a road sweeper but a council one with a Gully 'thingy' tube thingy on them just for that purpose.
I think these days they only use gulley cleaners if the road or whatever flooded during autumn or whatever.


Just made me think, are those little yellow H signs for water hydrants still a thing? .. I guess not.

Our wonderful MSM have been syndicating a stupid 'story' about H signs only this week!

MSN

 

[Bletchleyite]

Our wonderful MSM have been syndicating a stupid 'story' about H signs only this week!

MSN

I'm not sure I'd call the clickbait purveyors mainstream media*, to be honest But I've known what they were since I was very young and my parents told me!

* I was briefly wondering what "men who have sex with men", an abbreviation that came up recently due to Monkeypox so I had it in mind rather than mainstream media, had to do with hydrant signage!

 

[Lloyds siding]

I'm not sure I'd call the clickbait purveyors mainstream media*, to be honest But I've known what they were since I was very young and my parents told me!

* I was briefly wondering what "men who have sex with men", an abbreviation that came up recently due to Monkeypox so I had it in mind rather than mainstream media, had to do with hydrant signage!

The Mirror, Express and Sun have carried the story...mainstream if only on sales figures!

 

[Ediswan]

I'm not sure I'd call the clickbait purveyors mainstream media*, to be honest But I've known what they were since I was very young and my parents told me!

We had one in the front garden, stuck in the ground rather like a giant plant label. I see on Google that it is still there.

 

[AY1975]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned but attended service petrol stations, where the attendant filled your car up for you rather than you having to do it yourself, were still quite common in the 1980s but had largely gone by the '90s as I recall, although even today the Shell website still says attended service is available at some of their petrol stations. Of course at one time, probably until about the 1970s, attended service was the norm.

And petrol stations offering leaded petrol - I think unleaded was first introduced in the UK in about 1986 or 1987 and available almost everywhere by about 1989, and leaded was outlawed by the EU in about 2000. Also until about the late 1980s or early '90s there were at least two and sometimes three different varieties of leaded: 4-star was the most common but there was also 2-star and even 3-star. 3-star was much less common as I recall, though.

 

[najaB]

And petrol stations offering leaded petrol - I think unleaded was first introduced in the UK in about 1986 or 1987 and available almost everywhere by about 1989, and leaded was outlawed by the EU in about 2000.

And good riddance! Leaded petrol was probably the worst hidden health scandal in history.

 

[DelW]

Related to the two posts above, but something you don't *smell* any more - the smell of unburnt petrol coming into your car when driving.

A little while ago I caught up with a short queue of traffic when driving on a rural A road, and immediately picked up a petrol smell strong enough to make me switch to air recirculation. When the road opened out and traffic dispersed, I saw that we'd been following a late 1960s Ferrari. I don't know if it was out of tune (I imagine keeping the carburettors balanced is tricky) but it certainly looked well kept. I think it was just that that smell used to be everywhere until electronic fuel injection virtually eliminated unburnt petrol from vehicle exhausts (which was necessary in order to use catalytic converters).

Also until about the late 1980s or early '90s there were at least two and sometimes three different varieties of leaded: 4-star was the most common but there was also 2-star and even 3-star. 3-star was much less common as I recall, though.

There was 5-star as well, though IIRC it was rare after about the 1970s; I don't think there was ever a 1-star though. They related to different octane levels.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Related to the two posts above, but something you don't *smell* any more - the smell of unburnt petrol coming into your car when driving.

Closely related to that, though, is something I always noticed after filling up ( and still notice when my dad is driving me somewhere ): Filling up at a BP garage invariably results in a much stronger smell of petrol afterwards than filling up at a Shell garage does.

I can never understand why that would be the case, unless they use different additives and that has an effect on the smell?

 

[swt_passenger]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned but attended service petrol stations, where the attendant filled your car up for you rather than you having to do it yourself, were still quite common in the 1980s but had largely gone by the '90s as I recall, although even today the Shell website still says attended service is available at some of their petrol stations. Of course at one time, probably until about the 1970s, attended service was the norm.

And petrol stations offering leaded petrol - I think unleaded was first introduced in the UK in about 1986 or 1987 and available almost everywhere by about 1989, and leaded was outlawed by the EU in about 2000. Also until about the late 1980s or early '90s there were at least two and sometimes three different varieties of leaded: 4-star was the most common but there was also 2-star and even 3-star. 3-star was much less common as I recall, though.

My Saturday job as a 16 year old was on a staffed forecourt on the A1 north of Newcastle, a few of my school friends worked at the same place. We made a fair amount in tips cleaning front windows, of course most 60s cars didn’t have washer systems. It would possibly surprise modern drivers how much oil we sold as well, older engines seemed to use so much oil it was still fairly common to be asked to do an oil check during a fuel stop and stick a relatively small amount in the car, I expect the markup was huge, as we would sell at least the minimum bottle size, any left over went in a drum…

I also think in 1970 we had a strange setup on the pumps. The pump could deliver 5 different octane grades, but they were mixed depending on a rotary setting on the pump, which had 2 feeds from the tanks, 2-star and 4-star. So effectively if you wanted 3-star you got a 50/50 mix of 2 and 4 star. But the odd thing was you could also set up the other unlabelled mixes, ie 75/25 or 25/75. But they weren’t advertised. I remember getting warned by the grumpy sod behind the till after accidentally putting a wrong mix in someone’s tank, I suppose it was 3.5-star, that I’d have to pay if his engine was damaged. Total rubbish of course…

 

[E27007]

My Saturday job as a 16 year old was on a staffed forecourt on the A1 north of Newcastle, a few of my school friends worked at the same place. We made a fair amount in tips cleaning front windows, of course most 60s cars didn’t have washer systems. It would possibly surprise modern drivers how much oil we sold as well, older engines seemed to use so much oil it was still fairly common to be asked to do an oil check during a fuel stop and stick a relatively small amount in the car, I expect the markup was huge, as we would sell at least the minimum bottle size, any left over went in a drum…

I also think in 1970 we had a strange setup on the pumps. The pump could deliver 5 different octane grades, but they were mixed depending on a rotary setting on the pump, which had 2 feeds from the tanks, 2-star and 4-star. So effectively if you wanted 3-star you got a 50/50 mix of 2 and 4 star. But the odd thing was you could also set up the other unlabelled mixes, ie 75/25 or 25/75. But they weren’t advertised. I remember getting warned by the grumpy sod behind the till after accidentally putting a wrong mix in someone’s tank, I suppose it was 3.5-star, that I’d have to pay if his engine was damaged. Total rubbish of course…

There was a significant difference between the combustion of 2-Star and 4-Star, my local petrol station would regularly put the wrong grade into my nice new X-plate Ford Cortina, 2-Star gave terrific mis-fires at mid to high rpm and wide throttle openings, After a 100 miles ( half a tank) in those days of carburettors, then ready for top up with 4-Star to refresh the Octane rating of the fuel in the tank

 

[AY1975]

My Saturday job as a 16 year old was on a staffed forecourt on the A1 north of Newcastle, a few of my school friends worked at the same place. We made a fair amount in tips cleaning front windows, of course most 60s cars didn’t have washer systems. It would possibly surprise modern drivers how much oil we sold as well, older engines seemed to use so much oil it was still fairly common to be asked to do an oil check during a fuel stop and stick a relatively small amount in the car, I expect the markup was huge, as we would sell at least the minimum bottle size, any left over went in a drum…

I would guess that the diminishing need for oil checks and manual washing of windscreens (plus, of course, a desire to increase profits and reduce overheads) is part of the reason that attended service forecourts have largely died out in recent decades.

That brings me to another thing that was once the norm but is now much less common: counter service shops where everything was kept behind the counter and you had to ask for it, as opposed to self-service shops.

That said, certain items (such as tobacco products) still have to be kept behind the counter by law.