The Good(?) Old Days

[Andy Kirkham]

Things that have definitely got worse;

1. I was chatting last week with a recently retired postman who recalled that he had been able to buy a house on a postman's wage. Fat chance of that nowadays, I imagine.

2. There used to be final salary pensions (although i guess these were only affordable because most people only survived a few years past retirement)

3. Disappearance of "Merrymaker"-style BR excursions that offered a Sunday trip to somewhere 200 miles aways for a bit more than a quid. I particularly miss being able to vist the Talyllyn or Vale of Rheidol in a day trip from Bristol

 

This may be subjective but there are some things that used to seem so cheap that you could indulge in them with hardly a thought, which now occasion a sharp intake of breath: bus fares, cinema tickets, a pint of beer in a pub, fish & chips.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[Andy Kirkham]

I've just read the article. It has a nice list binmenist memories:

 

Who remembers a dripping sandwich? Who remembers rag and bone men? One pound notes. Drinking water from a hose. Choppers. The saying “act your age, not your shoe size”. Queueing to use a phone box. Playing in the street and yelling “car!”. French cricket. Jam sandwiches. Scabby knees. Skipping. Routemasters. Salt and vinegar Chipsticks. Hot chocolate from the vending machine after swimming lessons. Coal fires. The slipper. The cane. The ruler. Getting a thick ear. Concentrated orange juice. Cumbersome lawnmowers. Traditional drapers. Stand pumps. Ink wells. Duffle coats. Tin baths. Marbles. Jack Charlton. Stevie Nicks. Forgetting your PE kit. Bus conductors. Bob-a-job week. Wooden ice-cream spoons. Snakes and Ladders. Ponchos.

 

I think it's perfect;y possible to remember this sort of thing with a certain poignancy without necessarily supposing things were objectively better then, although It could be that they remind you of your childhood when you were shielded from most of the anxieties of the adult world.

[Ozexpatriate]

Millennials are already in their 30s and even early 40s. They are from a generation that remembers dial-up modems, movies on VHS cassettes that they watched so often that the tapes wore out, cathode-ray television sets, first generation console video games* and there were no smart 'phones when they were children.

 

* Think Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

They look back at these things with the same sort of nostalgia and pleasure.

[Hroth]

Or, looking at the list of "Binmenist memories", is it just some youngsters at the Grauniad smirking and sniping at the wrinklies? It looks pretty ageist to me...

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Hroth

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Reorte said:

Hello Marvin!

Brain the size of a planet and they tell me to open doors.  Open the door, Marvin, close the door, Marvin…

 

I’ve seen it; it’s rubbish…

[Reorte]

24 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Millennials are already in their 30s and even early 40s. They are from a generation that remembers dial-up modems, movies on VHS cassettes that they watched so often that the tapes wore out, cathode-ray television sets, first generation console video games* and there were no smart 'phones when they were children.

 

* Think Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

They look back at these things with the same sort of nostalgia and pleasure.

You also get some of them pointing at them and saying how terrible they were, having to put up with those - at any time you get those who look back and say it's great and those who say it's rubbish and terrible. As time goes by the latter group looks increasingly silly, but their existence does make me wonder how much the grumblers about the past before my time were accurate (they certainly where in some areas).

 

I think there's an important difference between nostalgia and genuine preference. I'm nostalgic for the sorts of sweets I used to have as a kid (and these days I don't live too far from the Swizzels factory, which certainly brings back memories when I walk past it) but I wouldn't say they're better - although I recently had a Cola bottle and to my great surprise it was actually better than I remember, and I liked them when I was small. I'm nostalgic for BR Blue, since that's what trains were in my childhood (only talking about the livery here, not ikmplying anything one way or the other about the rest of  my views on the railway with that!)  But that one is, I think, 100% nostalgia and not an actual preference. It just brings back memories of that time. I'm not actually that keen on it as a livery, some current ones are rather better (some, not all!)

 

On the other hand there have been a lot of changes I would genuinely love to be able to undo.

[eastglosmog]

Ah yes, the fun of country living in the 1950s.  Outside toilets at school, freezing up in winter.  The wonders of school dinners (yuk), bussed in from 5 miles away as our school had no kitchen.  Getting the cess pit pumped  out at home as no main sewerage system.  Still we did have hot and cold running water down in Hampshire, which was a sight better than some parts of rural Oxfordshire at that time,

Certainly the binmen were cheerful, but they still are round these parts!

What I do miss, though, are ships which looked like proper ships, not floating box carriers or floating hotels.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, eastglosmog said:

Ah yes, the fun of country living in the 1950s.  Outside toilets at school, freezing up in winter.  The wonders of school dinners (yuk), bussed in from 5 miles away as our school had no kitchen.  Getting the cess pit pumped  out at home as no main sewerage system.

The toilets where  I was at school in the 80s weren't quite that but they were in a separate from the rest of the building unheated block. Most of the classrooms were unheated too IIRC, although occasionally when it got really cold a portable gas heater was dragged in. Dinners varied from inedible to quite decent, but at least weren't bussed in.

 

My grandparents weren't on mains sewerage in to this century. The place (well the one that got built on it after they died and the buyer knocked it down and built another house on it) still probably doesn't, since it's a house on its own in the Lakes. I've lived in a place that got ice on the inside of the windows in winter, I really rather liked that house. The unpleasant bit wasn't that, it was the dead rats stuck somewhere unremoveable.

[Mike 84C]

Country living, I remember it well! Looks like most of Oxfordshire was still in the Middle Ages Post WW2. In our bit of North Oxfordshire our house had no leccy, Tilley lamps/Calor gas but only downstairs! No running water ,,till about 1957, pump in the kitchen, so strip washing was deriguer I had 2 brothers , And oh joy a bucket Elsan down the garden so in summer tomatoes grew all over the veg patch. 

We didnt ever get get mains drainage. my younger brother and I dug the hole for the septic tank when we came back from work (me) and him from school.  Also got the electric then but that was about 1964 when parents had bought the house from the landlord. Never had central heating so b cold upstairs in winter!

   One's twenty's were rather happy days being mischevious . one little incident may make you smile. Local wood seller had a ex wd Hillman pickup, parked outside one of the village pubs, so a couple of us got some logs out of the back lifted it put, logs under the axle so the wheels were just off the ground and waited behind a low wall. The woodman got into top gear before the penny dropped!  How he never heard us laughing I shall never know!.

  Country living ,village life Character forming!

[tigerburnie]

16 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

I've just read the article. It has a nice list binmenist memories:

 

Who remembers a dripping sandwich? Who remembers rag and bone men? One pound notes. Drinking water from a hose. Choppers. The saying “act your age, not your shoe size”. Queueing to use a phone box. Playing in the street and yelling “car!”. French cricket. Jam sandwiches. Scabby knees. Skipping. Routemasters. Salt and vinegar Chipsticks. Hot chocolate from the vending machine after swimming lessons. Coal fires. The slipper. The cane. The ruler. Getting a thick ear. Concentrated orange juice. Cumbersome lawnmowers. Traditional drapers. Stand pumps. Ink wells. Duffle coats. Tin baths. Marbles. Jack Charlton. Stevie Nicks. Forgetting your PE kit. Bus conductors. Bob-a-job week. Wooden ice-cream spoons. Snakes and Ladders. Ponchos.

 

I think it's perfect;y possible to remember this sort of thing with a certain poignancy without necessarily supposing things were objectively better then, although It could be that they remind you of your childhood when you were shielded from most of the anxieties of the adult world.

Stevie Nicks??

[tigerburnie]

I still have VHS player/recorder and tapes, still have a cassette player in my hifi stack and tapes to play in them, still have a coal fire, recently binned a duffle coat, pound note, yep I have one, I think they are still legal tender in Scotland, they were around a decade ago. Been playing French Cricket with the grandkids, have regular picnics with jam sarnies and we play snakes and ladders, am a time traveller?

[Reorte]

10 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I still have VHS player/recorder and tapes, still have a cassette player in my hifi stack and tapes to play in them, still have a coal fire, recently binned a duffle coat, pound note, yep I have one, I think they are still legal tender in Scotland, they were around a decade ago. Been playing French Cricket with the grandkids, have regular picnics with jam sarnies and we play snakes and ladders, am a time traveller?

Nothing's legal tender in Scotland. A quick Google suggests that some of the Scottish banks still issue pound notes but it seems to be contradicted by some other sources (and it seems far more likely that they don't). As far as I can tell they just circulate until they end up in the bank and the bank withdraws them, so theoretically they might still be out there but they'll be pretty rare by now. Probably a side effect of not having legal tender in Scotland, means they don't cease to be since they weren't in the first place.

 

English banks will still accept old notes, including pound notes. I found some old (well previous to current generation, the last paper ones) ten pound notes in a cupboard a little while back and the bank was happy enough to take them. I didn't ask if they'd still take old white £5 notes!

[KeithMacdonald]

Like wot he said:

 

On 22/11/2022 at 13:31, Nearholmer said:

Some things were definitely better.

Some things were definitely worse.

 

I too remember the ice on the inside of the single-glazed windows, and no heating.  I don't miss that, and don't want it back.

 

Oh wait ...

 

Gas and electricity x3 or x4 what it was a few months ago, a lot of people aren't heating their homes anymore, we're heading into winter ... doom mongers are predicting deaths from the cold ...  it's just like the old days!

 

Have been WFH for two years, now glad to go to the office, because it's warm and dry, and we don't have to worry about using the electric...

 

[Nearholmer]

It might be interesting to see if we can agree between us five things that are definitely better now than c50 years ago, and five things that we can agree are definitely worse, the trouble with c50 years ago being that it puts us in a famously not-good decade. 
 

Anyway, here is my bid to start the listings.

 

Definitely better:

 

- home insulation and heating (provided you can afford to turn it on);

 

- rustproofing and general reliability/longevity of cars;

 

- healthcare treatments (when you can get them);

 

- that several things are no longer normal, such as casual homophobia, racism and sexism, and smoking;

 

- that nobody in the world expects you to sleep on nylon sheets or wear nylon shirts.

 

Definitely worse:

 

- housing costs compared with incomes;

 

- that both parents almost certainly have to work full-time in order to afford to bring up children;

 

- that most small towns in England are no longer proper places with varied employment, a good range of locally-run shops, and a sense of local identity; 

 

- that cars have come to dominate our lives and become a nearly absolute necessity to most households;

 

- the mentally-intrusive proliferation of smart-phones and all that goes with them (says he while typing on one).

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Definitely worse:

- housing costs compared with incomes;

 

When my Mum and Dad bought their first home in 1952, dad was earning about £40 a week, so c. £2,000 a year.

His older brother Arthur said he was mad to have paid as much as he did for the house.

It was £2,400.

 

That's stuck strongly in my memory because of in the 1990's while I was IT Contracting, and for a while Dad looked after some of the paperwork. His reaction on seeing £40+ as the hourly rate was priceless (sic)

[Hroth]

15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

the mentally-intrusive proliferation of smart-phones and all that goes with them

 

And the constant ads for them, especially with Christmas coming up.

 

Want a folding phone?  Just bring your current "smart"phone over to my 6" vice and......

 

 

[C126]

To add a railway theme to this thread, and taking pre-Covid services as the measure :

 

Good: more frequent clock-face passenger services (I know, there are many exceptions!).

Bad: very much less comfortable stock.  Has anyone fallen asleep (while sober) in the corner window seat of an Electrostar, compared to a 4CIG?

 

Or perhaps not.  I await the brick-bats...

[jjb1970]

It's very telling that much of Asia is very forward looking and doesn't really look backwards that much. Sometimes this can be sad as people often show little interest in their heritage, but the upside is neither do they wallow in the past in quite the way of much of the western world. I'm pretty sure it is a combination of what the past means to people, and what they anticipate for the future.

If we look at the past, whereas Europe, America and that small group of countries which are part of that bubble look back to imperial glories and being great powers, scientific and economic achievement, a perceived cultural golden age etc etc much of the rest of the world looks backwards and sees external exploitation, poverty, death and destruction wrought by outsiders fighting over colonial spoils and such like.

If we look towards the future, people in the western bubble see an era of dominance ending, uncertainty, a multi-polar world, increased competition, declining opportunities, political and media establishments increasingly seen as detached and/or unfit for their roles and such like. On the other hand people in Asia have seen a steady increase in opportunities, wealth, the status of their countries and a global tilt towards Asia.

Whereas many in the western world see a glorious past and an uncertain future, people on the side of the world see a rather negative past and a bright future. So in that sense I guess it's not a surprise that Asian people are a lot less interested in 'binnmenism' or whatever the current term is.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

first generation console video games*

 

* Think Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

Bloody millenial!

Pong!

Then Space Invaders before you get anywhere near Mario.

[jjb1970]

On smartphones, I'll be the exception and say I think these are a brilliant technology. Like anything they can be misused and people can become dependent on them, but they're a staggeringly powerful tool that has transformed daily existence in ways so fundamental that many can no longer imagine being without a phone. Now I see why some see that as a negative, but I prefer to see the enabling power of the things. And I am a technophobe and get really, really ****** off at people who walk down the street staring at their phone relying on everyone else to get out of their way.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

- the mentally-intrusive proliferation of smart-phones and all that goes with them (says he while typing on one).

 

Smart phones are a great example of how the ways things are used change over time.

If I had a time machine I'd go back and tell Alexander Graham Bell how his marvelous invention helps me pick up dog turds in the dark.

[jjb1970]

18 hours ago, Hroth said:

Or, looking at the list of "Binmenist memories", is it just some youngsters at the Grauniad smirking and sniping at the wrinklies? It looks pretty ageist to me...

 

 

 

They are providing what their readership wants. As with all of the media they have their own niche providing the confirmation bias their readers want. 

[Nearholmer]

I put mobile phones, as a proxy for super-duper clever information and communications technology in general, on the “worse” part of my list because I honestly believe that that technology has detracted from the sum of human happiness more than it has added to it.
 

Imagine a big balance scale, with the things they facilitate that promote happiness in one pan, and the things they facilitate that promote unhappiness in the other, both pans will be heavily loaded, but I feel that the latter is heavier.

 

The deep penetration of cars into our culture/lives falls into the same bracket, simultaneously enabling and destructive, but probably net destructive of human happiness.

[D860 VICTORIOUS]

A generalisation here,but maybe the perception of what it takes to be content in life and not always wanting more has changed dramatically.

Consumerism seems to be almost overwhelming,but I personally couldn't care less that I don't have the latest TV with all the features,or that my smartphone is rather out of date,and I'm relieved not to be loaned up to the eyeballs just so I can drive around in (what I consider to be) a pointless SUV.

The good old days?

Going to Old Oak Common and almost certainly seeing  a Warship...

[APOLLO]

I miss dry, flaky white dog poo !!

 

https://www.jugdog.co.uk/what-happened-to-white-dog-poo/

 

Todays stuff is slimy and nasty !!!!!

 

Brit15