Tell us your old without telling us you are old......

RadishRose said:
I remember the Rag Man.
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We had the Ragman too, they always called out some indecipherable expression.
Milk was delivered to the doorstep daily, in one pint glass bottles and you left the empty bottle on the step for collection.
A newspaper was delivered early in the morning, most households had a local, as opposed to a national, paper delivered every evening.
When you got on the bus, via the rear, you paid your fare to a bus conductor.
The only TV channel was the BBC, commercial TV started in the mid 1950's. The BBC started a second channel in the middle of the 1960's.
Car ownership was still rare, they didn't have seat belts, had crossply tyres and most had a direction intention device called a trafficator.
Trafficator.jpg
Telephone ownership was also rare, The UK had a state owned telephone network right up to the 1970's. They all had a rotary finger dial.
Central heating was unheard of, most families huddled around a coal fire. Bathtime hot water had to be shared among siblings.
The only fast food you could get in the UK was fish & chips. Burgers were available from mid 1950's but it would take another twenty years before the Big Mac made an appearance. The most popular burger brand in the UK was Wimpy.
Most kids had a bicycle, or could build one from bits of old bikes, we all played in the street and the school summer recess lasted forever.
 

Supernatural said:
I've received three compliments that made me feel very good lately.

A gentleman asked me out on a date. I had to turn him down gently after he told me his age and he couldn't believe that I was 20 years older than him. Made me feel very happy of my family's genes.

In the lineup at the coffee shop, the lady ahead of us, heard us talking. She began chatting and out of the blue, told me I was a spring chicken and not to worry that another soulmate was out there for me. I was gobsmacked, she said she was 95 years old.

Recently, someone wants to consider me their bonus daughter...

Next year will mark 50 years that I've lost my father. It would be nice to have someone being proud of what I've done and what I'm hoping to do in the next 40 years...

Hoping that explains it 🙃
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As long as you are proud of where you are in life, thats what matters.
 
caroln said:
I babysat kids for 50 cents an hour.
My first job I brought home $90 a week. That paid for my rent, food, and car payment every month. I had to have a supplemental job as a waitress at night to have money for clothes, etc. but still couldn't afford a phone!
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I babysat for 25 cents an hour.
We walked 4 miles to school and back everyday. We had a uniform for physical education. Bread was 15 cents a loaf.
We bought penny candy. We’d get a little brown paper bag full of candy for a nickel or dime.

My parents had an old Volvo, then a station wagon. We didn’t get many tv channels. My dad would always watch tennis and car racing on the tv on weekends. We had a zoo of animals. 6 cats and 3 dogs. We also had fish tanks. My mom wasn’t into housework.
At one time we had shag rug in the bathroom. it was disgusting. Eeewwww! Some styles just didn’t make sense. Do not try this in your home.

My mom wasn’t in to cleaning. My dad took care of the dishes and my mom hired a woman from around the corner to clean our house once a week. She stayed with my parents for about 30 years. We had a phone ☎️ from 1965 and the same number for about 30 years also. I liked our house and our neighbourhood.
 

OneEyedDiva said:
I remember riding in my father's car in back in the rumble seat.

Our washing machine had a wringer and looked similar to this. But I could swear my mother's machine was square and bigger.

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Do you know Diva, I have never seen one of those sort of washing machines, except perhaps in movies. At least you had a machine, my lot was to take the washing to the launderette where there was rows of washing machines.
laundry.jpgLaundrette2.jpg
 
Lawrence00 said:
I had this job, walking through dark streets in neighborhoods on Saturday nights, pulling a cart, yelling as loud as I could, the name of the local newspaper. Today's youth don't know what fun is.
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Most fun of all? My husband did that in Minnesota in the snow and the wheels of the wagon would stick and drag. After he got home, frozen and exhausted, he would go to bed for one hour and then his mom would get him up for Mass. Happy days.
 
Richard Tompkins was on a business trip to the USA, there he saw the Sperry & Hutchinson Green Stamps. On his return to the UK Tompkins introduced in 1956, a similar sales promotion calling it Green Shield Stamps. It proved a very successful incentive scheme designed to encourage shopping.

Sperry & Hutchinson arrived too late to the UK, Tompkins Green Shield Stamps had cornered the market. There is a post script to trading stamps. In 1973 UK motorists were issued with fuel ration books, it came close but they were never used. Trading stamps became almost obsolete, fuel in the tank being far more important. Green Shield changed their modus operandi, you could now go into their showrooms and buy their goods for cash. They had a name change too, they became, Argos.

Green Shield's success was due in part to their use in Tesco supermarkets. In fact Tesco overtook Sainsbury's who, at that time, was the biggest UK supermarket chain. Sainsbury's absolutely vilified Green Shield, calling them a blight on the retail trade. Fast forward to 2016 and Argos, who had been bought and sold a couple of times, was purchased at a price of £1.4 Billion in 2016, by.......................Sainsbury's.
 
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Della said:
I'm so old panty hose hadn't been invented, you wore a girdle or garter belt to hold up regular thigh high hose.
I'm so old I graduated high school the year MarciKs was born.
I'm so old I babysat for 35 cents an hour and took the bus to all my jobs until I was fifty and envied people like Caroln with car payments.
I'm so old I'm older than oldaunt.
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I even had to wear knee high panty hose with garter belt! OLD!
 
Not asked anymore 'Are you pregnant' before X rays

First wage was £7pw
(just converted that online - 1966 British Pound Sterling = 2,401 US Dollar)
 
From about age 7, kids were released to the great outdoors on weekends and vacation days. We were told, "Go out and play!" We were given boundaries of not going past certain busy streets or a particular neighbors' properties. As we got older the boundaries were extended.

Hung out with neighbor kids who ranged from about 3 years older to 3 years younger. Lots of sets of siblings. We learned early that crybabies, cheaters, tattle-tales and poor sports would be ostracized for the day or longer. The worst was to be told to go home, knowing unsympathetic parents would introduce you to a vacuum cleaner or dust rag to keep you busy. Bullies weren't tolerated because kids policed themselves. Older ones kept the younger ones in line and protected them.

Supervision, such as it was, came from various moms hanging laundry or weeding gardens, plus nosy neighbors peeping through their curtains. Enough adults were around to keep us relatively safe and on the straight and narrow.

Only came home for lunch or when we'd hear our parents' signature "come home now" sound. My folks whistled, a neighbor rang a cowbell for her kids. We didn't even come home to go to the bathroom - we'd go behind a tree in the woods and wipe with a leaf - better that than going home and finding ourselves pressed into a chore. Thirsty? Close neighbors were fine with you grabbing a drink from their hose.

A banner day was when we'd stumble over a few soda bottles. Turned them in for a few pennies at the general store and hit the penny candy counter.

That's how old I am.
 
StarSong said:
From about age 7, kids were released to the great outdoors on weekends and vacation days. We were told, "Go out and play!" We were given boundaries of not going past certain busy streets or a particular neighbors' properties. As we got older the boundaries were extended.

Hung out with neighbor kids who ranged from about 3 years older to 3 years younger. Lots of sets of siblings. We learned early that crybabies, cheaters, tattle-tales and poor sports would be ostracized for the day or longer. The worst was to be told to go home, knowing unsympathetic parents would introduce you to a vacuum cleaner or dust rag to keep you busy. Bullies weren't tolerated because kids policed themselves. Older ones kept the younger ones in line and protected them.

Supervision, such as it was, came from various moms hanging laundry or weeding gardens, plus nosy neighbors peeping through their curtains. Enough adults were around to keep us relatively safe and on the straight and narrow.

Only came home for lunch or when we'd hear our parents' signature "come home now" sound. My folks whistled, a neighbor rang a cowbell for her kids. We didn't even come home to go to the bathroom - we'd go behind a tree in the woods and wipe with a leaf - better that than going home and finding ourselves pressed into a chore. Thirsty? Close neighbors were fine with you grabbing a drink from their hose.

A banner day was when we'd stumble over a few soda bottles. Turned them in for a few pennies at the general store and hit the penny candy counter.

That's how old I am.
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@StarSong I love the way you wrote this, and sounds similar to my childhood.

The Whistle! That was my Dad's special call. You could probably hear it in France. :D
 
horseless carriage said:
Do you know Diva, I have never seen one of those sort of washing machines, except perhaps in movies. At least you had a machine, my lot was to take the washing to the launderette where there was rows of washing machines.
View attachment 311811View attachment 311812
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If I recall correctly, my mother didn't take that machine with us when we moved a half a block away to our cousin's house. We started using laundromats then. So I don't know if the machine belonged to the landlords or if Mama just left the machine there. Back then, all the laundromat machines were top loaders, not front loaders like in the picture you posted.
 
The year I was born:
Hill Gail won the Kentucky Derby
"The Greatest Show on Earth" was best picture at the Academy Awards
Then first hydrogen bomb was exploded
Queen Elizabeth II became queen of Great Britain
Ernest Hemingway publishes "The Old Man and the Sea"
The "Today" show debuted
 
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I babysat for .25¢ an hour
Glass bottles were the order of the day! 🍼
REAL OLD-FASHIONED cloth diapers with rubber pants were in vogue, and yes, with diaper pins! 🧷🧷 I folded and pinned many! No Pampers!
Stinky plastic diaper pails!
Baby cribs had drop-side railings
Fitted rubber crib sheets
Vinyl bibs
Homemade baby food and formula
Spanking
____________________________________________

Helped my mom with the care of baby siblings and helped her launder diapers in her old-fashioned wringer washing machine!
There was milk delivery service (door-to-door), and diaper service!
Everyone had an old-fashioned outdoor pulley clothesline, and everyone line-dried their washing!
Forget seatbelts, we kids rode in the back box of pickup trucks!
Penny candy was actually... PENNY CANDY!
Elementary school ground was segregated... boys on one side, girls on the other!
 
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Kadee said:
Yep…it was ridiculous we’d be asked if we wanted a non smoking or smoking seat in a plane / bus
so what difference did it make if you had a non smoking seat ? cause the transport would be full of smoke
and as a lifelong non smoker I avoided catching any public transport USER=8727]@Aunt Marg[/USER]
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ROFLMAO!

So true!!!
 

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