You know you are getting old when you remember thread

Blacktemplar

Vesta meals (followed by an MSG high) and garlic were exotic substances
Cremola Foam was a new-fangled product
Real Spangles lacerated the inside of your mouth
Crisps were 2d
You could leave the house at 9am and return at dusk, and your parents didn't send out the Coastguard
You regularly got head injuries from mounting a kerb on a chopper
You played rugby on a frozen pitch and the match wasn't called off
Power cuts were fun
Only toffs had a colour TV
There weren't 200 channels that weren't worth watching - just three. And they closed down at 10pm
The Generation Game wasn't utter shoite (oh wait.....)
Policemen were men, not boys
We had respect for Doctors, Bank managers and Teachers. Okay, well maybe not teachers
Nothing was divisible by 10, except in Science
Sunday lunch was a family affair

RDW

This excellent video covers about 90% of what I remember from the 70s and 80s - well worth a watch:

'We didn't own an Ipad': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeEWtNaW6KE

rhext

Blacktemplar wrote:

....You played rugby on a frozen pitch and the match wasn't called off
...

Well, to be fair, the pitches have to be pretty solidly frozen these days before the matches are called off.

CHRISNOIR

I remember being handed flyers for club-nights during freshers week despite being a member of staff in his thirties. It hasn't happened once this year. Not once.

seanoconn

When school footballs were made of material that absorbed water and a thunderous sodden smack, on a skinny frozen thigh, in the middle of winter ,would almost bring a tear to the eye.

mogrigg

Pacers sweets
Top Deck
1/2 pennies and sweets
5p bags of crisps
Packets of crisps which were actually full and not full of trapped air!
Fake Cigarette sweets
Roller skates you attached to your normal shoes!!!

spen666

laurentian wrote:

Pogles Wood
Nationwide
4 points for a trysweet tobacco
sheath knives
deposits on bottles
George Best as a player
FA Cup Final being the most special day

What about 3points for a try?


In fact what about the days when there were no points

john_kline

Cresta
Cheese Cloth shirts
TV going off just after midnight following "Night Thoughts"
Two Tone trousers
Watneys Party Sevens
Top of The Pops records recorded by other musicians and bearing only a faint similarity to the original recording
Funny Face Ice lollies

greasedscotsman

Blacktemplar wrote:

You played rugby on a frozen pitch and the match wasn't called off

Used to do rugby practice on a concrete playground for the first 2 years of secondary school...

glenwatt

Real toys for boys....

simonhead

When British Bulldog was an acceptable lunch time activity

Pross

Milk came in glass bottles (the more pointed version not the later rounded one)
You could get money back for returning a pop bottle
You had puddings that came in tin cans that had to be heated as a treat (after the main course of a Vesta Chow Mein)
You could get a decent bag full of sweets in a 10p mix
You had to ask a shop keeper for anything you wanted (except in 'supermarkets' which were then about the size of a modern Tesco express)
The bloke at a petrol station put the fuel in for you and checked your oil if you asked plus they offered a choice of four star or two star.
I could go out on a 60 mile bike ride and not see anyone else on a bike plus people were amazed that it was possible to ride that far.
Your parents let you walk the mile to school on your own at 8 years of age without worrying about social services paying a visit.
You did all your playing in the street.
You dreamed of owning a computer with 64k ram and whenever you played a game it took about 10 minutes for the cassette to run and then hit a syntax error at the end and crashed or you spent days typing basic in from a magazine and got a few dots on the screen on the rare occassions it didn't crash.
If you wanted to watch TV on a different region you had to hold an aerial up in the air (first time I watched Zulu my dad had to do this for hours ). Only posh kids had a TV in their bedroom and those were black and white.
You can remember everyone getting excited about this new way of playing music - the indestructable CD, smear jam on it and it would still work etc.

Pross

GlenWatt wrote:

Real toys for boys....

Did you ever see one of those actually work? I never had one but whenever I played with one at a friends house it just fell over.

Pross

I forgot - Salt n Shake crisps where the biggest thrill was counting how many salt bags they put in.

crumbschief

Pross wrote:

You dreamed of owning a computer with 64k ram and whenever you played a game it took about 10 minutes for the cassette to run and then hit a syntax error at the end and crashed or you spent days typing basic in from a magazine and got a few dots on the screen on the rare occassions it didn't crash.

Haha some good ones there Pross,typing in that basic code was frustrating but it was early days,it made me think of these two magazines i used to read.

crispybug2

John Kline wrote:

Cresta
Cheese Cloth shirts
TV going off just after midnight following "Night Thoughts"
Two Tone trousers
Watneys Party Sevens
Top of The Pops records recorded by other musicians and bearing only a faint similarity to the original recording
Funny Face Ice lollies

My annual xmas present from my nan.

I definitely remember owning this one..

Mikey23

Eagle annual for Christmas
Airfix kits all over the ceiling on wires... Spitfire, hurricane and Messerschmidt cost 2 shillings, Lancaster was 7/6 and short Sunderland flying boat was top of the range at 10/6

crumbschief

Ha that's made me think of holding a tape recorder to the tv to record Top Of The Pops,Community centre discos with tip tops and going to the pub to get smokes for my parents,you didn't go in the bars you just rang a bell and a little window opened and you got served,anyone remember that?

andy_f

Woolworths(winfield) football boots because your parents couldn't afford the more exotic Adidas or Gola ones.
The local chippy giving away chips at the end of dinner opening hour.
"If your good you can stay up and watch Starskey & Hutch"
Being able to ride your bike up and down the street(visited my parents today and its like a fooking slalom with all the cars parked on the footpaths).
Curley wurleys you could scale a wall with.
Packets of Monster munch that you needed a flat bed truck to bring home.
Walking through Sutton Coldfields Sainsburys and seeing the Villa players(Little, Mortimer & Andy Gray) doing their shopping.

daviesee

cornerblock

The inner tube of a cycle

verylonglegs

Calling someone on the phone meant putting your finger in a dial and pushing it round.
The only shop open on a Sunday was the local newsagents for a few hours in the morning.
You remember what a pound note looked like. (decimal that is, I'm not that fookin' old )
Fat people were a minority.
There were adverts on TV about wearing seatbelts as if it was a new concept.
Teachers could give pupils a bloody good hiding with impunity.

city_boy

Swap Shop OR Tiswas on Saturday mornings.

I was a Tiswas man (boy!) myself. Sally James being a particular highlight

Ian_d

Lucky bags
Jubley orange juice/frozen jubley(in the summer)
Beano/Dandy
Knitted swimming trunks

cornerblock

Anyone remember Everest? The pyramid shaped fondant ice cream, not the double glazing endorsed by Ted 'ok Reg let her go' Moult. Really delicious it was.

Mikey23

Listening to radio London on a small crackly transistor radio late at night under the bedclothes...

Mikey23

The end of rationing.... I was 3

crumbschief

A few sweet treats

DrKJM

laurentian wrote:

sweet tobacco

One of the people I go cycling with runs one of the two remaining companies in England that make this.

thomthom

These are quite cool. Very well edited together;

1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDOF4WER5ag
1990: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCeESZhmHsM
1997: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFtmGwxbIq0
1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glM0LgjCOY
2002: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bORRM0LNa6s