I don't think they would believe it nowadays?

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Right folks, if you want this thread to survive beyond this post there will be no more mention of Fox, race and associated words, concepts and whatever else.
And please do not discuss this warning.
 
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Quilts? What are they? How about those really itchy coarse blankets we used to have. An eiderdown on top and you were weighed down in bed.

When I was a kid our sheets and blankets had three blue lines down the middle. I had no idea why until I joined up and during basic training, had to make bedpacks with the three blue lines on each item all in a single vertical column. I then knew where my dad had got them from!

In the mid 60's my dad was posted to Aden, and we all lived there until the families were evacuated. I thought our school bus was great. It was an RAF bus with all the glass windows taken out. The sides and rear had very fine mesh in place of the glass, with larger mesh at the front so the driver could see. The door footwell always had an armed sentry stood in it, sometimes my dad! In front of the bus was a ferret armoured car with a machine gun in a turret. Behind were one or two landrovers containing armed soldiers. I thought it was all very exciting. Oh the ignorance and innocence of childhood....
 
I came to think of one thing....... how many people today know how to harvest grain with a sickle and tie it into bundles for hand threshing?
The old lady next doors often looked after me when my parents were away and every autumn she harvested some oats the old way to feed the birds in winter. In her youth in the late 1920-ies and 30-ies that way of harvesting was still fairly common on small less mechanized farms an even on larger farms as a way of cutting up room for the horse pulling the mower so it wouldn't trample any grain.
Anyway she still did it in the 1980-ies. One way of keeping me calm and in one place was to keep me busy learning things so I learned to use the sicle and how to tie the bundles together with straw and I still know it.
She was left handed and to this day I tend to tie left handed knots on the straw band if I try to do it.
 
A TV you had to go and change channel on the TV itself, or you had a bit of bamboo with something soft taped to the end so you didn't have to get up.
Oh and only 4 channels.


4? It was 3 for me. BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV. None of that new fangled Channel 4. I wonder how they came up with that name.
 
And ha'penny chews - don't exist, except in twos 🤣🤣

I hardly ever use cash these days. Much prefer contactless/ApplePay. Very rarely use a cashpoint these days. Can't even remember the card PINs because I'll always use Applepay if I can. I think that's why you can check your PIN on mobile/internet banking app.

Struggle to find enough to tip the takeaway delivery driver. Usually ask the wife and then wade through loads of coppers (coins that is) in her purse, looking for a coin of worthwhile value.

Can't be long before 1p and 2p coins are retired. 5p, 10p and 20p are pretty annoying too.
 
A TV you had to go and change channel on the TV itself, or you had a bit of bamboo with something soft taped to the end so you didn't have to get up.
Oh and only 4 channels.
4 channels luxury I remember when there were just 2 channels BBC and ITV and the ended at midnight with the national anthem.
 
I had heard it was quite common as a wedding present, yuck. I suppose at least you didn’t get your mouth filled with poisonous mercury which we are still suffering from now. I read somewhere not too long ago that in the heyday of adding lead to petrol there was a spike in criminal behaviour and general thuggery which has diminished dramatically since. I think in a few years time household chemicals that we consider commonplace will be looked at in a totally different light. Ian
Ps The chemist that came up with lead in petrol was also the same man who came up with CFCs in refrigerant. Makes you think doesn’t it
I remember life back pre 1980 when thuggery and general idiocy were a fraction of what they are today indeed a time when people left school at 15 and could read and write and tell the difference between right and wrong a time when we could buy 5 star petrol in fact a time when you could buy a gallon of petrol for less than 20pence.
 
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Wow 405 lines was a tough picture compared to 625.
 
Ice on the inside of your bedroom window in the morning when you woke up, and getting dressed in bed.
Repairing things, when the plastic casing on the kitchen scales broke I mounted the metal frame on four blocks of wood, my mum used it like that for years. Coming home from playing in the fields and ditches and making dens, so dirty that mum would strip me off by the back door and scrub me down in the Belfast sink in what I suppose we would call the utility room nowadays. Didn’t have any long trousers till I was about 12? It would’ve been pointless as the knees would’ve been through within a morning. Hell I had a wonderful childhood. Ian
I remember this so well no double glazing we had to get up and light the fire.
 
Hi all

From these post it does seem that it is the older generation that like to be hands on and have real interest like woodworking with fewer youngsters getting involved. I don't think they do metal work, technical drawing or woodwork in schools anymore as it has been combined into something like material studies.

What about the fact kids were tougher in those days, we still had to walk to school in our shorts even if the snow was over our knees and were still sent outside during breaktimes what ever the weather, if the lead paint had not killed us a little rain or snow was not going to. We had smaller class sizes and real teachers, not so called teaching assistants.

Then we also had the scabby knees which never seemed to heal, always in the rough and tumble and playing in the dirtiest of places, our mums never reached for the spray that kills 99.9% of bacteria apart from the fact it did not exist they knew we would develop our own immunity and could that be an issue today? How do children develop strong immune systems without the exposure.

We used to put asbestos onto bonfires and watch it go bang, explore derelict buildings and get a nail in the foot or fall through a roof but it was all fun and life experiences, in short we had real childhoods and were shielded from many adult topics.

Children now do not have a childhood, they have to grow up faster and are exposed to an adult world in which they cannot explore because of all the sicko's, weirdo's and pedos that are now free to roam. Then they seem to think they can escape the world of having to work by becoming "Famous" and become addicted to false images that lead to facial disfigurement, often refered to as plastic surgery or as I call it the sink plunger look.

Yes life might well have been harder in the sixties and our parents had more of a struggle but from that came appreciation, we valued what we had and could entertain ourselves without having to buy things, I spent hours dismantling Tv's and old radios for fun. Our dads would show us how they decoked the family saloon by removing the cylinder head, we had a Rover 110 with freewheel and how to repair our bikes, now it is a buy a new one.

I look at the later generations and feel sorry for them, they may have the latest in technology but oh what a mess everything is in, the planet is dying, greed is openly accepted and no one has time for others and they face higher health risk because of all the pollution from the past like radiation from bomb testing and accidents. They have a tougher time finding work because so many industries are gone and the system fails them, and the cost of living is higher.

Does everyone really need to go to university, in our days engineering apprenticeships were the big objective, universities were for the academics from high schools not us from the local secondary school, mine was in Hornchurch.

So would we have wanted to grow up in todays world, no way because there is so much wrong with society these days and I loved my childhood, so much freedom to explore, we had chemistry sets that would now be banned under the terrorism act, remember the Jetex engines we put in model planes and boats again HSE would have something to say about those and we grew up with an awareness of danger, not wrapped up in cotton wool.
I was realy sad when looking at my old school for my youngest son I almost ran to the old metalwork room only to find that it was now an art room no woodworking either.
 
Shops closing early on a Wednesday.

Chap selling matches and laces down the high street.

50p in the electric meter.

Butchers having saw dust on the floor.

Black and white tv with a dial that you turned to tune a channel.

Having a physical lock on the telephone dial.

Bin men coming round the back of the house to pick up the bin bags.

BBC showing government guidance programs, one was the bed time routine showing a couple putting out pipe, fire guard in front of the open fire, switching off plug sockets etc...
My mum had a tin of shillings for the electric meter bin men used to come up the drive for the bin coalman used to deliver in sacks from the road into our coal hole we used to get maggots from the butcher for fishing in the mill dams.
Tufty used to tell us how to cross the roads and we also had watch with mother with captain pugwash, bill and Ben, Andy Pandy, anybody remember spotty dog.
 
aint it funny listening to all the old codgers wax lyrical 🤪 :ROFLMAO: 😛

but i do agree with some things.

you arnt allowed to buy a butter knife untill you are 18 these days...... (eh hem. hiding my mates air gun behind my back🙃)

as as for air rifles, if you look at them and you are under 18, you end up in care courtesy of HMP

and you arnt legal on *ANY* tools until you are 16. thats right, not even a blummin drill. but i dowt that the powers that be will stop you.......
I was told at work some time back now that apprentices are only allowed to watch me not touch untill they are 18 . makes me laugh I started work at 15 could use a lathe forge welding gear and lug stuff about in fact we could pretty much use lathes etc from about 13 on at school by 18 I was fairly proficient so kids today start with a handicap.
 
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