50s/60s Britain and Now

[St Enodoc]

7 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Agencies also not getting the message about when someone's got a job - I know someone who had his own CV sent to him for a job he was advertising...

He was lucky it hadn't been rejected.

[Nearholmer]

Worse still if he rejected himself during shortlisting (good practice being to blank the names from CVS to counter unconscious bias).

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Worse still if he rejected himself during shortlisting (good practice being to blank the names from CVS to counter unconscious bias).

Perhaps we should blank every piece of information so that there would be no unconscious bias towards anyone who might actually be capable of doing the job. Recruitment could then proceed under the total control of HR in a spirit of diversity and inclusion...

 

It would also save the cost, time and hassle of producing maintaining and submitting the CV in the first place.

[Nearholmer]

Aah, the hours I've spent tussling with HR about what should and should not be included on the shortlisting synopsis for each candidate when I was the Sponsor of a grad training scheme. Most of the things HR wanted to omit (names, which give clues, sometimes misleading, to race and/or gender; gender itself etc.) seemed sensible precautions, but we had a serious to-do about not including which Uni a person had attended, which I eventually won because even the university bodies are overt that exam grading is anything but directly comparable between institutions.

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Aah, the hours I've spent tussling with HR about what should and should not be included on the shortlisting synopsis for each candidate when I was the Sponsor of a grad training scheme. Most of the things HR wanted to omit (names, which give clues, sometimes misleading, to race and/or gender; gender itself etc.) seemed sensible precautions, but we had a serious to-do about not including which Uni a person had attended, which I eventually won because even the university bodies are overt that exam grading is anything but directly comparable between institutions.

True, and as you will know not all Universities' degrees are accredited by the relevant professional institution(s). The whole business is a farce. No wonder one of my very good friends refers to HR as Human Remains (he actually said that in a meeting once - unintentionally, he told me, although knowing him as I do I wouldn't be so sure...).

 

When I used to do the milk round for BR, one of the "red flags" was anyone who said they wanted to join the Personnel Management training scheme because they "wanted to work with people".

[Hroth]

We might as well say that the plonkers who advise job market hopefuls about the contents and structure of a CV don't Have A Clue about what employers are looking for.

[rockershovel]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Aah, the hours I've spent tussling with HR about what should and should not be included on the shortlisting synopsis for each candidate when I was the Sponsor of a grad training scheme. Most of the things HR wanted to omit (names, which give clues, sometimes misleading, to race and/or gender; gender itself etc.) seemed sensible precautions, but we had a serious to-do about not including which Uni a person had attended, which I eventually won because even the university bodies are overt that exam grading is anything but directly comparable between institutions.

 

This is a significant part of why HR has become so powerful in recruitment, whereas Personnel was simply an administrative function for the most part. 

 

A whole structure has been created over the years, containing numerous pitfalls for the would-be employer and bearing little, if any relevance to their actual business. HR have inserted themselves in the position of arbitrators of this tangled web.

 

A further complexity now, is the present lunatic business of “social distancing”. This actually poses the employer with the problem of a HAZARD which is strongly emphasised, together with little, or no information upon which to assess the RISK. However the employer DOES know that they have certain legal responsibilities, including insuring their risk and placating any malcontent or third party who might, at some indeterminate time, bring legal action (the former concept of “vexatious litigation” having been quite abandoned since the 1960s). 

 

The results are about what you might expect, and given the shift in public attitudes since the 1960s it will pose huge problems in terms of getting people back to work. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Apologies for returning the thread back on topic, but, anyone remember having "shots" at the petrol station when filling up?

 

Mike.

[Fat Controller]

1 minute ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Apologies for returning the thread back on topic, but, anyone remember having "shots" at the petrol station when filling up?

 

Mike.

Presumably something like Redex (senna for cars), leading to your departure being covered by a fug of exhaust fumes and smoke.

[Unicorn1]

5 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Apologies for returning the thread back on topic, but, anyone remember having "shots" at the petrol station when filling up?

 

Mike.

Well certainly for two-stroke bikes. With my first moped, an NSU Quickly, I would ask for half a gallon of '20:1'. However the tank only just held half a gallon so I would always have to instruct the attendant(!) not to fill it right up - or put the shot in first.

ELB 843C, and it wasn't particularly quick.

Les

[Nearholmer]

On employment and selection, the difference between the 60s and now can probably be summarised by saying that ‘then’ it was in practice quite ordinary to discriminate between candidates on the basis of race, gender, creed, ‘cut of your jib’, age, old school tie, and any number of other things that have nothing whatever to do with competence, whereas ‘now’ it isn’t, but that some of the people charged with making sure that it doesn’t happen get too carried-away with their own importance.

 

On balance, I think the current situation is probably the least bad of the two, although it can be tedious to operate.

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

On employment and selection, the difference between the 60s and now can probably be summarised by saying that ‘then’ it was in practice quite ordinary to discriminate between candidates on the basis of race, gender, creed, ‘cut of your jib’, age, old school tie, and any number of other things that have nothing whatever to do with competence, whereas ‘now’ it isn’t, but that some of the people charged with making sure that it doesn’t happen get too carried-away with their own importance.

 

On balance, I think the current situation is probably the least bad of the two, although it can be tedious to operate.

There's more to it than just competence though, Kevin. A big part of recruiting is finding someone who will "fit in" for want of a better term - not only that the rest of the team will be comfortable with the newcomer but that the newcomer will be comfortable with the rest of the team. Square pegs in round holes and all that. HR will probably have a polysyllabic word for that too.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

Personnel was simply an administrative function for the most part

Even better when it was just the Staff Office.

[Fat Controller]

17 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Even better when it was just the Staff Office.

Or 'The Welfare Office'

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Right, I'll have another attempt!

Shopping regularly at the local shops, for local people!, before the advent of supermarkets, Gowers and Burgons being the one I remember best, the square biscuit tins with glass lids at the entrance to trap the unwary parent into being pestered by their child, the massive block of butter on the counter with chunks hacked off and wrapped in greaseproof paper. It seemed like we used to .go down every day.

 

Mike.

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Apologies for returning the thread back on topic, but, anyone remember having "shots" at the petrol station when filling up?

 

Mike.

 

My BSA Bantam had a measure on the underneath of the filler cap, for ratios down to 16:1, no wonder two strokes smoked so much. There was the dispenser on the forecourt too. 

 

 

[Hroth]

6 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Presumably something like Redex (senna for cars), leading to your departure being covered by a fug of exhaust fumes and smoke.

 

I remember the Redex cans by the pumps, it was touted as "upper cylinder lubricant" for those who thought a magic potion would solve their vehicles mechanical ills.  I bet they were the same folk who put a couple of egg whites in the radiator when it started leaking....

 

Oh, the things people did to jolly along their failing wrecks!!!

 

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

My BSA Bantam had a measure on the underneath of the filler cap, for ratios down to 16:1, no wonder two strokes smoked so much. There was the dispenser on the forecourt too. 

 

 

The older seagull outboard was 10:1 unless you upgraded it with the 20:1 jets.  My seagull is sat in the shed.  It has other old ideas like the gearbox doesn't keep the water out.. It's designed to run with the oil turned to a watery sludgy mess. 

[F-UnitMad]

On 31/05/2020 at 15:44, rockershovel said:

The Dragon docking at the ISS being now well under way, here’s the 1960s version - Gemini in 1966

 

The manned Gemini missions flew between 1964 & 1966.

Meanwhile in Britain....

 

Just about sums it up, I think.....

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, TheQ said:

The older seagull outboard was 10:1 unless you upgraded it with the 20:1 jets.  My seagull is sat in the shed.  It has other old ideas like the gearbox doesn't keep the water out.. It's designed to run with the oil turned to a watery sludgy mess. 

And what buqqers they were to start.

[TheQ]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

And what buqqers they were to start.

Never had a problem with mine,  from cold

open fuel valve,  make sure clutch engaged ( silver century plus) , wind rope on. Throttle on full. Pull,

That gets the fuel through, half throttle wind rope on,  pull,  away it went. 

Coming to a stop was fun, no reverse, just the clutch which lesser models didn't have. 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Never had a problem with mine,  from cold

open fuel valve,  make sure clutch engaged ( silver century plus) , wind rope on. Throttle on full. Pull,

That gets the fuel through, half throttle wind rope on,  pull,  away it went. 

Coming to a stop was fun, no reverse, just the clutch which lesser models didn't have. 

 

One thing I’ve often found with old motorcycles, especially large ones with kickstarters and magneto ignition, is that starting them from cold is relatively simple; when warm, that’s a different matter! 

 

Regarding oil/water emulsion lubrication, it’s common in mining equipment designed to work in flammable atmospheres, both as a lubricant and as a hydraulic fluid.

[Hroth]

15 hours ago, TheQ said:

The older seagull outboard was 10:1 unless you upgraded it with the 20:1 jets.  My seagull is sat in the shed.  It has other old ideas like the gearbox doesn't keep the water out.. It's designed to run with the oil turned to a watery sludgy mess. 

 

The Seagulls always appeared to be more reliable than their competitors, I would have liked one for my dinghy, but instead I had a Sea Bee 3hp.  It had a dodgy recoil starter, a kidney shaped fuel tank over the motor cooling fins and you had to rotate the whole motor to achieve reverse!  It was ok when running and at idle didn't have enough oomph to propel the boat* so the lack of a clutch wasn't a problem in normal use, though you had to be quick to throttle back when starting!  Mind you, sometimes when starting it wouldn't go at all, until you remembered to undo the vent screw on top of the fuel cap...

 

Some dinghy outboards back then were even stranger, like the small British Anzani Pilot.

 

* The 1.5hp variant barely had enough power to propel a boat at full throttle.

 

 

[TheQ]

33 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

The Seagulls always appeared to be more reliable than their competitors, I would have liked one for my dinghy, but instead I had a Sea Bee 3hp.  It had a dodgy recoil starter, a kidney shaped fuel tank over the motor cooling fins and you had to rotate the whole motor to achieve reverse!  It was ok when running and at idle didn't have enough oomph to propel the boat* so the lack of a clutch wasn't a problem in normal use, though you had to be quick to throttle back when starting!  Mind you, sometimes when starting it wouldn't go at all, until you remembered to undo the vent screw on top of the fuel cap...

 

Some dinghy outboards back then were even stranger, like the small British Anzani Pilot.

 

* The 1.5hp variant barely had enough power to propel a boat at full throttle.

 

 

Mine spent a couple of months under water after the Michael Fish gale. It was on the cabin floor, and the boat semi sank on it's moorings. the sailing club pumped it out, so it floated, But the cabin was locked so the deapest point in the cabin was still under water. When I got there I emptied it out, left it upside down for an hour to drain, refueled, it started second pull..

Edited June 4, 2020 by TheQ

[Poggy1165]

One big change has certainly been shopping habits. My grandmother would shop three or four times a week, going like a honey bee from one shop to another. There were a number of specialist shops - for example, I remember one that sold only biscuits. That I now find hard to imagine. She did this on her feet, in all weathers, carrying quite heavy bags, and the shops pretty well charged what they liked, as there was little competition.

 

Now women (and without being sexist it is mainly women) simply do not have the time to do that - even if they had the inclination - because most of them, under the age of 66, are too busy slogging their guts out earning the necessary crust. So much easier just to go to the supermarket, where everything is available in one place, and where there is a degree of choice that my grandmother - or even women of her time who were considerably richer - could not have dreamed of. In fact, you can just order the whole lot on the internet and have it delivered to the door for a modest charge. 

 

Remember also - and this directly impacted on model railways - there was the scandalous concept of retail price maintenance. This meant that if the manufacturer said a thing cost £5, it could not be sold for less. Hard to believe in an age of discounting, when we can go on the computer and look for the best price. 

 

Would I reverse either of these changes? Would I heck as like. I do miss the trolleybuses though. They were cool.