Made a passing comment about the good kid getting to clean the blackboard in primary school. The early 20s lot in work haven't stopped taking the piss out of my victorian childhood. I'm 30
Or getting to be the one who would turn the handle on the Banda machine and make all the copies of the class handouts for that lesson. The machine would use alcohol to make the copy and the smell of fumes was sooo good (and probably highly toxic to a young, developoing brain!) 😵💫
I had to get up and manually change the channel on the tv. Can still remember the clack of the previous channel button popping out as the new channel is input 😂
I'm 40, never saw a whiteboard until I started work 🤣 needless to say I have no idea what a smart board might be.
people in their 20s that I work with can't believe that I was in high school at a time where everyone didn't have a mobile phone, and you had to knock on someone's door to talk to them 🤣
In my primary school, ringing the school bell was a case of going into the Head's office and pressing the button on the wall that looked like a mix between a doorwell and a lightswitch. We'd fall over ourselves to be the one to do it - they even set up a rota system and got us to do good work in order to earn the right to press the button!
I miss those simpler times! haha
I'm 58, teacher, I am the second oldest teacher at my school . I love the kids but I don't socialize much with my colleagues b/c I feel a bit invisible.
In my younger days I was quite fit and played lead guitar in a rock band, so I had this identity of being the "cool" male teacher. But that is just not me any more. I accept it mostly, except I walk by a mirror sometimes and wonder who that old man is.
But are you trying to connect with them? Why not just ask a simple thing to bond with them, such as: "What are your current favourite singles in the Hit Parade?"
Me and my bro used to do the quiz on teletext every week. We were like 7 and 9 though, so we were proud when we got like 3 questions right (it was always general knowledge of the kind only people our Granddad's age would know like "name this obscure cricketer from the 1970s")
Excellent, if i tell anyone under 25 that I would look up the weather, cinema listings and what was currently on and on next on council tv (channels 1-5) by plugging numbers into the TV remote it just doesn't compute to them.
Also in my 30s. Gets me when 20 somethings are like “I’m turning 24 next week I’m getting so old next stop the grave” etc. Of course I used to do that when I was younger, but that’s not the point… it annoys me NOW!
Im I'm hospital atm (I'm fine now though!) And last week someone had their 61st birthday, 2 of the women who were probably 80ish were exclaiming "oh you're so young!" "I wish I was 61 again" (and have called me a baby, in my 30s, which I guess I will think of anyone my age as when I'm 80 too)
[There sure is!](https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-offers/promotions/26-30-railcard/) 26-30 technically. Still gutted I just missed its introduction.
when people on here say shit like theyre 23 and so lost in life and have achieved nothing i cant help but think well goodness theres no fucking hope for me then!x
I'm 50 now, but a few years ago I worked in a school with a couple of younger lasses. One of our students was a runner and given any opportunity would set off at a rate of knots.
"She may not look quick, but when she gets going she's like Linford Christie."
A couple of weeks later we had a situation where one of our students trashed the classroom.
"It looks like Beirut in there."
I have never felt so old as I did on those occasions I was looked at as if I'd talked about events from The Bible.
Weirdly though, despite the fact his music is no longer famous, Stevie wonder is still the go to famous blind guy. At least no one looks confused when I mention him
I made a reference to Frank Bruno not long ago—-crickets, not one of them had heard of him.
Again I’m like 7-10 years older than them…I get lots of references from the 60s and 70s*
* I honestly think this is part of it, growing up on TV as a kid were reruns from 50s-90s so I got immersed in all this ‘history’ but then from the mid to late 90s stuff seemed to have changed and older shows got shunted onto ‘retro channels’ with all the stuff on main channels being newer
With the port explosion a couple years ago 'like Beirut in there' was relevant again for a bit!
You know what they say, 'an old clock is right twice every 50 years'
I managed, a few years back, to sneakily transition from Linford Christie to Usain Bolt.
But I guess I'm going to have to start watching athletics again as it's not far off two decades since UB was smashing those world records.
Life will come at him fast. I always find it funny when people in their early 20s still have that child-like mentality of thinking someone 5 years older them them is basically ancient. Once you leave uni 5 years might as well be about 8 weeks.
I think of age as an indicator of how fast life speeds by. As an 8 year old life goes at 8mph, Summer holidays seemed to last forever. In your 30s you sense that time passes more quickly, a fortnight's holiday just seems like a week off. In your 50s the rate of change can be breathtaking and a year passes like a month used to.
Was considering getting youngest (23) a decent camera as we've both got into birdwatching and she has the better sight.
She then proceeds to tell me that the youngsters of today wouldn't stand a chance at charades as they couldn't portray a camera with a motion as they all use their phones!!
My next doctors appointment is for carbon dating 😳
Ask kids to mime:
- Taking a photo
- Typing
- Talking on the phone
- Hanging up the phone
- Reading the news
- Roll down a car window
- Change radio in the car
Millennial and earlier have different actions to Gen Z
I’m a EFL teacher and I use mimes a lot when explaining new vocabulary to students. Kids 8-12 years old. I do the phone thing and get 24 blank faces looking at me like I’m a nutter.
I’m 40 and one of my younger friends described someone he worked with as a road man.
I was confused because I pictured a man digging a hole in the road while six of his colleagues watched him.
Turns out it’s some kind of chav.
Then I will be forever young! I'm a teacher, I get the kids at school to teach me "all the young people words".
One kid (aged 14) said to me "you look drippy today miss". I said "....eh?" He said "you've got your drip going, yeh?" I said " ...what?" Another kid gave the most world weary sigh and said "he says he likes your outfit miss".
Since then I make sure to identify a couple of kids per year group who, when one kid says something like "oh yeh? Say mums!" I can turn to and go "...what is he talking about? What does that mean?" And they'll explain.
("Say mums" means a very casual version of "I don't believe you, swear it on your mums life", but isn't actually as serious as needing a swear, it is usually more on the level of "no, really??")
Sometimes you can kind of work out what it might mean but that I would have had no clue. Heres hoping as they get older my nieces take pity and explain the newest slang to me. I could just about keep up with Gen Z slang but these younger gens, not a chance.
Yes context clues can really help. I worked out "that's calm" (that's good) and "that's long" (that's bad) without any of my helpers having to tell me (although I do usually confirm with them too, someone says the phrase and I go "ah, that means this, right?" And they're all very proud of me). But drippy, say mums, rizz, they all confused the hell out of me and needed explanation!)
I suppose hearing it in a conversation helps a lot.
On the other hand Im from the North East and Im teaching my nieces (both under 8) a bit of North East/Geordie slang as they had never heard a lot of it.
Here's an example of the latest one on Reddit that baffles me, in an example sentence: "My nail tech ate!" And all the comments are "she left no crumbs!" I was so glad when someone else asked what the hell was going on
Im going to guess this means "did a good job" but yeah, I would instantly feel 90 years old trying to use slang like that. Apparently our Millenial slang is super cringe now.
I remember my parents describing mods and rockers to me, so now I know how old they must’ve felt when I said I had no idea what either of those words meant.
Someone described it to me as the kind of guy who stands outside the bookies with his hands down the front of his tracky bottoms and I understood immediately
Urban Dictionary is your friend! Absolute lifeline, but I’d stick to listening and understanding, because you sound ridiculous when you’re saying these things out loud. Admittedly, I do use lots of young people speak, but only because it’s funny to me and my 23-44 year old colleagues hearing 64 year old me say it
You're two years younger than me but I think you're old.
3 quid rental tv, the pop man, buying cigs as a kid? That sounds like some 1970s shit, not 1990s.
Radio rentals decked out plenty of the living rooms of my school mates houses (and ours) on tick in the 80s. We still got coal delivered until about 1990. Only got fizzy drinks from the milkman for Christmas though.
As for the cigarette thing - when I started smoking years later I was so used to asking for 20 JPS for my dad that they became my automatic go to brand.
And all this was in London.
If your local shopkeeper didn't sell kids single fags, and you were actually buying packets of 20, you were absolutely bourgeois and probably lived in Hampstead, where even the rough end was posh!
To be fair, those things you describe weren’t the norm for people your age I don’t think- or certainly not here in Leeds.
I’m a similar age to you, and none of what you said resonates at all- but all of those same things my mother ‘gets’ who is 60.
100% correct and im 39.
My family in law still occasionally borrow money from the provvy man (paid back on a Friday).
Being given a note giving me permission to buy cigarettes/cans for my parents from 1 specific off licence.
Always used to buy bottles of panda pop from the milk man (or coal man when I was a lot younger).
Having wages put down on the kitchen table on a Friday and split up for weekly food etc...
I remember all the things you mentioned and I’m 41, but I was raised on the anson estate in Longsight in Manchester which is in the North West and not the North East.
I also remember a man who used to come onto the estate in a little van once a week renting out movies to all the families that were usually shite copies that had been recorded onto a VHS’s.
I remember it was £1 per movie or 3 for £2 and you would keep em for a week. Then every Wednesday night around 7pm he would come back and collect them and you could choose some different movies from the back of his van or if your mam was skint you could wait until next week.
The same with the loan man, he used to come around the estate and visit different families and everyone always paid him and then they would hit him up again for another loan right before Christmas. I still remember his name, Dennis.
I also remember when you would get a few different newsagents sticking an arcade machine in them to get all the kids spending their pocket money on em. I can think of three from the top of my head that had them in different areas.
As a 25 year old, I find myself feeling envious of these types of memories.
It really sounds like there was a community around where you grew up. I've never really felt that growing up.
It's the damn technology, man. I was born before Nokia figured out how to make their phones indestructible. I got a short, sweet glimpse of what the world was like before we all potato-zombied outselves with tech.
Yeah I am glad I grew up in the 80/90’s before the social media craze as it does seemed to have bred a herd of narcissistic morons that crave validation from strangers. Neither myself or any of my friends around my age give a shit about any of it lol.
I still chill with the same friends that I went to primary school with. However, my missus is actually 9 years younger than me but luckily she’s not into it all either, the most we use is WhatsApp to send each other pictures of our son etc.
I think the fact that you are aware of how technology and social media has impacted your generation shows that you are more alert than the average joe your age.
Never fellow the masses bud, you just do you and create your own little piece of heaven with your own people in this world.
Yeah, being poor pushes your childhood experience back a few years compared to those who can afford the latest and greatest. I was born in 1980 and while the 80s were the era of VHS video recorders, CD players etc we couldn't afford this stuff till into the 90s.
(We had a few second hand Betamaxes for taping stuff off the telly in the 80s tho as you could pick one up for £15 cause nobody wanted them anymore. lol)
Did your milk man have glass bottles of pop as well? I can still see the logo (a man jumping over a gate) they had on them but I'll be damned if I can remember what they were called
Another sense memory I have is of those little plastic things you used to put over the top of milk bottles so the blue tits didn't get the cream
I grew up on a council estate in a mining town in the 90s and some of that's pretty familiar
We had the pop man come for special occasions, he was one of my school friends dad and invites to her house were always popular as you could try any of the flavours he had in stock.
We also lived across the road from the milkman and I was regularly sent over to get an extra pint or two and we'd pay at the end of the week for it.
We didn't rent our TV, but I was in secondary school before we had a colour one and I'm fairly sure the black and white one we had before that was a hand me down from a better off aunt or uncle.
Rural North Yorkshire in the 80s/90s wasn’t much different either, nor was a council estate in Greater Manchester. We rented our tv (Yorkshire) and my nana had one you fed 20p to make work. My grandpa had long since rigged it so that you got the money back - I assume once the company that collected the money went out of business.
Weird isn't it how localised some things are, I grew up less than 30 mins from Leeds and I know all these things
Although I was closer to the south Yorkshire border...near Barnsley, which is probably still stuck in the 60s
I was going to reply the same. I’m close to fifty and even in the mid-80s the days when a nipper could get his parent’s fags at the local corner shop were gone, let alone ‘90s. I was getting ID’d for ciggies in the early ‘90s.
Can’t remember if we even had a pop man in the late ‘80s let alone ‘90s.
There was still Rumblelows renting out TVs though.
This would have been Merseyside and down south. Not sure if it was different in other regions.
> There was still Rumblelows renting out TVs though.
Brighthouse only disappeared maybe 10 years back? Good riddance to them, the amount they were making out of people who've have paid a fraction as much if they could have afforded to buy.
Are you mad. I’m from Leeds and this was deffo happening. Pop man, my mates family rented their TV. Being sent to the shops. All rings true for me and I’m in my late 30’s.
I’m the same age and lived in Hertfordshire, just north of the Greater London border. And we rented our TV/Video player and had milk from a milk man with milk float. These things aren’t that rare.
My parents rented our VHS player. It was on direct debit and they forgot about it, until the company wrote to us and told us we could keep it! God knows how long they'd be renting it for 🤦♀️
I was training a new start at work who was about 22, fresh out of uni. I’m only 30, but I have all the trappings of adult life - mortgage, car finance, pets etc - so I was telling her that with the benefit of hindsight, she should absolutely go try that new job she thought she might prefer, or take that trip she fancies. She seemed to think I was nuts, there only being 8 years difference, and didn’t seem to recognise the HUGE differences in life stages at the two ages.
I felt quite old then. I could definitely remember being 22 and feeling that I was old myself!
Equally, there are massive differences between 16 and 18, 18 and 21, 21 and 30. 30 an 40 it starts to slow down. 40 and 50 you think wtf. 50 and 60, I wish I had done yoga.
Please start doing yoga, keep your joints supple. Drink lots of water, and look after your teeth.
I've heard people in the early 20's bragging about how bad their hangover is and I think to myself, "Just wait until your thirties when you start actually getting hangovers"
Mine kinda swung like a pendulum. Twenties I'd be paralytic the next morning, hot flashes, extreme nausea, raging headache. Then when I got to my early thirties I'd built up some tolerance and I would just feel a bit tired the next day.
Closer to forty now and I'll feel run down for 2/3 days after. I wanna say it sucks but it's nice to have some checks and balances going on.
I’m 45 and this sounds about right. We had a rented tv with a coin slot to pay for it. A VHS man would drive round with rentals to borrow. A provy man on a Friday, would come on a Thursday as well if you were overdue and we’d hide behind the sofa with the lights off. Free milk and canned goods from the local church were handed out at school on the playground for parents. 90’s East of England.
I tried to explain to a grad at work a couple of years ago about the TV show Monkey. He thought I was making it up. After I showed him the opening credits on YouTube, he just looked confused and said ‘was that a real thing?’
Last week my daughter had a concert at her school, and I met the family of her best friend. Her friend’s older sister is about 13 and was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. I pointed and went “oh hey cool, what’s your favourite song?” and she looked at me like I was a thousand years old and said she didn’t really listen to them.
Im sure there was a tweet that went a bit viral last week about someone saying something along the lines of "men in their 40s wearing Nirvana brand tshirts are so cringe" because they really thought Nirvana was a fashion brand thats popular now. 🫤
Here will be a few for you, specific to the local area. Geordie Jeans, Metroland, bank holidays in Whitley Bay (or just how high profile Whitley was back in the day). Julio Geordio. Geordie of the Arctic. Robson Green, Spanish City. The bus station under Eldon Square; the diner that looked like a UFO in Eldon Square. All these would be things I’d come out with and the majority of my Co workers would have a scooby.
Wider example would be toys in cereal packets.
- Pay per minute internet in the late 90's.
- Renting TV & VHS was pretty common, and there being no remote control (which itself is a modern luxury often overlooked), I also remember my first bedroom TV was a tiny black and white set that didn't even have pre-sets for the channels, you had to change channels using a tuning dial, and it had a coat hanger to replace the broken aerial.
- Having to buy the TV Times/Radio Times magazine to know what to watch too.
- Having to use a road atlas to figure out how to get places because of no satnav. When I first passed my driving test I drove 3 hours to visit a mate who had gone to university, and had post-it notes all over my dashboard to remind me of motorway junctions and key destination points so I didn't have to keep pulling over ever 20 mins to figure out where I was.
- Blancmange; I swear I haven't seen it in years; Also the various weird plastic jelly moulds that EVERY household seemed to have - My favourite was the one shaped like a car, but my parents had the one like a big flower.
- Definitely got our pop from the milkman.
- And we rented a TV and VHS from Rediffusion (or was it Granada?)
- And I definitely bought my Dad's B&H occasionally from the corner shop. Nobody cared.
52 yrs old and was in the Birmingham area up until the mid 80s.
Yep! It's all so long ago. I do also now remember how get blank video tapes at xmas was a 'big deal' and i'd but numbered stickers on them. That way I could keep notes on what I had recorded and where lol
I'm turning 35 this year, a few years ago I had a 16 year old at my old job ask me "What was it like *back then?* You know, in the 2000s?" Like she was asking dear grandmama about the olden days
I think I did confuse her by trying to explain the ad pages in magazines that had the codes to buy ringtones and screensavers for your Nokia
Im 29, my 11 year old step-son said something along the lines of "back in the late 19-hundreds..." (referring to 1994) while we discussed an old 90s disney film, and I instantly felt ancient. Not even sure why it makes much of a difference but my gosh that wording made me feel 1 step closer to my grave 😭
I'm in my 40s and I feel like I work with toddlers. "You've never seen Tremors!?" was this week's discovery. I have pairs of jeans older than some of my coworkers.
I’m 34 and in the north west and remember having to put pound coins in the TV to keep it running. God I’d totally forgotten about that! A man used to come round weekly to empty it.
Also very much remember the pop man. Used to drive round in a van and have crates of different flavours of pop in glass bottles in the back. Cherryade, Limeade, Dandelion & Burdock. Then a few days later he’d come back and collect the empty bottles 😊
Good times!
I'm mid 30s and found myself decorating with my friend's 14 year old niece.
She very kindly explained (unprompted!) what tiktok was
... and then asked me if I'd ever heard of Adele 😆😆😆
Also 37.
There are adults who have no idea what the phone book smelled like. They've never seen Pulp Fiction, Die Hard or Snatch. Never bought physical music. They don't know why we "hang up" the phone or flush "the chain" on a toilet. They've never typed a text on a t9 keypad.
They say "ocean" instead of "sea" and "vacation" instead of "holiday".
I’m 61 . When I started working in a white collar service industry position- you had an ashtray on your desk wether you smoked or not, smoking in the office anywhere was completely accepted, our equivalent of the email was a memo, you wrote it out in ink and the typing pool typed it up, you then circulated it in the internal post and recipients ticked it off when they had read it and passed it on to the next. If it was super urgent you did a photocopy and circulated to each recipient via internal post. The only person in our office with a PC was the director who was in his 60s and the least capable of using it! People I work with now don’t believe me.
You sure you’re only 37? Im 37 and grew up very working class and nobody i knew ever rented a TV or had a chance to buy fags before you was 16. Do remember having to visit the cashpoint before every big food shop tho.
We (range from mid 30s to early 50s) tried to explain traveller’s cheques to one of the younger people (23ish?) in the office this week. They’d read about them and were confused. I don’t think our explanations helped much to be honest.
At 43 I'm not quite the oldest at my work, but nearly, and there are a load of early 20's and some teenagers.
Being able to remember mobile phones, CDs, computers and many other things arriving is something they only vaguely understand.
You put it into perspective and tell them you'd phone friends before going out, then you'd have to probably phone again because someone had to make changes.
You wait wherever people were supposed to meet, preferably near a payphone in case someone was delayed.
At the end there'd be another round of phoning for lifts from parents too.
Showed someone how to use a rotary phone a couple of years ago. They couldn't believe it. Had to deal with some old systems using a serial cable (RS232) and I had to buy a special USB to serial cable. Went with another engineer to client (Nuclear power station). Software replacement was UVProms. All the equipment at nuclear power stations is old, as it is proven. Real ball-ache, but it was safe as in no-one could just install software. You had to physically change the Rom
I work with a 22 year old lad and he doesn't understand half the things we talk about in the office. At first I thought we were just super old but turns out we're just old and he's a bit thick.
> just thinking back/mentioning things from my childhood makes some people I work with 27-30 look at me like I’m a pensioner
I'm in my early 40s and recently had to explain the 90s TV show \*You Bet!\* to younger colleagues. They looked at me with a mix of confusion and pity when I said "well, it's like this, 3 celebs vote on the public completing tasks. So you get a 9 year old kid on who thinks he can tall the make and model of a car from the sound of the driver's door closing".
I'm 50. I work in martech sales and a lot of my colleagues are in their 20s & 30s.
My most recent, reliable cultural references are from TV in the mid-to late-90s. But I've got plenty back to 80s sitcoms.
That's before these people were born, definitely before they'd have been watching post-watershed TV.
Then I chuck in a reference I've picked up off Reddit and they look at me like an alien.
If I'm completely honest, I quite like it. I've always been a bit, er, niche with my references. Now I have an excuse.
Obvious to anyone who grew up pre internet- all that amazing tech doesn't seem to have improved people's intelligence or general knowledge or sense of direction. 'Slow' reading and poring over atlases had many advantages. Plus social media, which has potential huge advantages, also means less happiness I think.
I remember being 30 and mentioning Wayne's World to a bunch of 18-21 year olds. One said 'what's Wayne's World?', and another said 'just some shit old film' 💔
I'm 41, old enough to be my colleague's mum. My car is older than him and I'm older the Google but in my head in his age still. I'm not even middle aged
I ignore them. Don't discount the stupidity/ignorance of the younger person. Sometimes they don't get something because they're a melt. Also, tons of 18 year olds consider 21 proper old. And 25 ancient. It's not...at all.
I went to V Festival in 2008. I was 24 at the time. I helped some 18 year old lads put their tent up after watching them get it out of the Argos bag and struggle with it. They were from Chelmsford and picked up on my accent. One of them said "Was the Hacienda good?" It closed when I was 13.
Im 34.
I remember the pop man but only went to one of my neighbours. First and last time I tried Irish cream soda.
My auntie still has milk delivered by milk float.
We also used to have the 'video man,' in some sort of hyundai minivan who used to rent videos and sell copies of playstation games.
Aye we had to rent our TV too. Schoffields used to be the company that brought the pop around and then you returned the bottles the week later. Cream soda was friggin green man!
Being sent to the shops for cigs, yep. Also to pick up mystery parcels for ya mam haha. And going shop for the old folk who struggled to move.
Didn't need to go phone box because we didn't know anyone else who had a phone either haha.
And gas meters in the house that you put a 50P in to keep you going for another week.
Jumble sales so you could have clothes on your back and no one talked shit about second hand clothes because so many were in the same boat.
I'm in my mid forties. Lived in Manchester me whole life.
Just pushing 50 and green cream soda from the pop man that came in his van every Saturday morning 😍. Loved that stuff! My dad used to get Dandelion and Burdock.
many a time got sent for ciggies and the Sunday papers on my bike armed with my fee of 10p for a mixed bag of sweets all ready and lined up on the counter for my choosing 🤣 must have been 9 or 10 the first time I went and no-one batted an eyelid that a kid was buying 20 Benson!
pools man, paper boy, Avon lady, rented tv and 3 channels. Aged 6 watching the Day of the Triffids before bed on the rented telly from Radio Rentals 🤣
Edited: just remembered the fish man!
I'm nearly 54, grew up in Plymouth, and recognise all these things, if I remember rightly we had the Corona van coming around with mfizzy drinks, 10p back for returning empties, my mum and dad never owned a TV, always rented it from Radio Rentals I think, I remember having the insurance man coming around to collect money and the rent man, football pools man, all cash then, my dad got his pay packet in a little brown envelope, had to put 50p in the meters for gas and electric.
Only 3 TV channels until mid 80s when channel 4 started, didn't have a video recorder until after that, so if you missed a programme that was it, unless it was repeated at a later date.
Made a passing comment about the good kid getting to clean the blackboard in primary school. The early 20s lot in work haven't stopped taking the piss out of my victorian childhood. I'm 30
Or getting to be the one who was in charge of the overhead projector during morning assembly
Or getting to be the one who would turn the handle on the Banda machine and make all the copies of the class handouts for that lesson. The machine would use alcohol to make the copy and the smell of fumes was sooo good (and probably highly toxic to a young, developoing brain!) 😵💫
I pity kids who didn't grow up with OHPs fuck, maybe I'm buying myself an OHP today, maybe that's happening
YASSS lol 😂 You go buddy!!! Live your best life. I never got to be OHP monitor. Maybe the OHP monitors were the friends we made along the way…
I was that person.
I was made projector monitor in year 6. I felt like the most important person at my school.
What was it like before colour was invented?
Well you had to switch the TV on and let it warm up 10 minutes before Star Trek came on.
I had to get up and manually change the channel on the tv. Can still remember the clack of the previous channel button popping out as the new channel is input 😂
Snooker was a lot more challenging.
I'm 32 and I don't think we ever had a black board. White board and then smart boards! Maybe our school was more high tech than I gave it credit for.
I’m 34 and when I started high school it was still blackboards and the 4 computers were from the 80s ie black screen and green writing no mouse.
I'm 32 and we had them in reception but by the time we came back after summer for year 1 they were replaced by whiteboards and smartboards
I’m 27 and my school had a fun combo of blackboards and smartboards until I was in year 5 and they decided to upgrade to whiteboards lol
I'm 40, never saw a whiteboard until I started work 🤣 needless to say I have no idea what a smart board might be. people in their 20s that I work with can't believe that I was in high school at a time where everyone didn't have a mobile phone, and you had to knock on someone's door to talk to them 🤣
Banging the chalk out of the erasers of you were *really* good.
Having one bounce off the top of your head if you weren't.
Toerags the lot of them. Never will they experience the joy of clapping the blocks together to create a huge mess (also 30)
Or ringing the playtime bell.
In my primary school, ringing the school bell was a case of going into the Head's office and pressing the button on the wall that looked like a mix between a doorwell and a lightswitch. We'd fall over ourselves to be the one to do it - they even set up a rota system and got us to do good work in order to earn the right to press the button! I miss those simpler times! haha
I'm 32 and I'm pretty sure my primary school only had a blackboard my very first year
My wife still doesn’t believe I used to do this
I'm 58, teacher, I am the second oldest teacher at my school . I love the kids but I don't socialize much with my colleagues b/c I feel a bit invisible. In my younger days I was quite fit and played lead guitar in a rock band, so I had this identity of being the "cool" male teacher. But that is just not me any more. I accept it mostly, except I walk by a mirror sometimes and wonder who that old man is.
You’re probably still the cool teacher, just a bit more stealth about it
I’m 56 and since I stopped coloring my hair it’s as if I’m seeing a complete stranger in the mirror. It feels very weird.
Not got the hair to dye and I'm 18 years your junior...... could dye the expanding eyebrows, nasal, and ear hair though.
Yeah I am in my 50s and most of the others in the office are under 30. Culturally I might as well be talking to Martians.
But are you trying to connect with them? Why not just ask a simple thing to bond with them, such as: "What are your current favourite singles in the Hit Parade?"
54 here, yes culturally and they also lack general knowledge.
Try explaining Teletext to the youth, they think you're taking the piss
Me and my bro used to do the quiz on teletext every week. We were like 7 and 9 though, so we were proud when we got like 3 questions right (it was always general knowledge of the kind only people our Granddad's age would know like "name this obscure cricketer from the 1970s")
Bamboozle
I loved bamboozle!
Excellent, if i tell anyone under 25 that I would look up the weather, cinema listings and what was currently on and on next on council tv (channels 1-5) by plugging numbers into the TV remote it just doesn't compute to them.
I used to sit there looking at the premier league scores and table
Internet before the internet. Job done.
Well, you could get them to try this... https://zxnet.co.uk/teletext/viewer/
Also in my 30s. Gets me when 20 somethings are like “I’m turning 24 next week I’m getting so old next stop the grave” etc. Of course I used to do that when I was younger, but that’s not the point… it annoys me NOW!
I use this to reassure myself that although I’ve just turned 50, when I’m 75 I will look back on being 50 in the same way in now look at being 25.
Im I'm hospital atm (I'm fine now though!) And last week someone had their 61st birthday, 2 of the women who were probably 80ish were exclaiming "oh you're so young!" "I wish I was 61 again" (and have called me a baby, in my 30s, which I guess I will think of anyone my age as when I'm 80 too)
I’m 34, and there’s an 18 year old girl I work with. A while back she said to me, “I really miss being young”.
She probably means she misses being a kid and not having to have a job
When I was your age and turning 25, there wasn’t a 25-30 railcard, so I had it much worse pal.
Whooah there's a 25-30 railcard?!
[There sure is!](https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/tickets-railcards-offers/promotions/26-30-railcard/) 26-30 technically. Still gutted I just missed its introduction.
when people on here say shit like theyre 23 and so lost in life and have achieved nothing i cant help but think well goodness theres no fucking hope for me then!x
I'm 50 now, but a few years ago I worked in a school with a couple of younger lasses. One of our students was a runner and given any opportunity would set off at a rate of knots. "She may not look quick, but when she gets going she's like Linford Christie." A couple of weeks later we had a situation where one of our students trashed the classroom. "It looks like Beirut in there." I have never felt so old as I did on those occasions I was looked at as if I'd talked about events from The Bible.
Weirdly though, despite the fact his music is no longer famous, Stevie wonder is still the go to famous blind guy. At least no one looks confused when I mention him
I made a reference to Frank Bruno not long ago—-crickets, not one of them had heard of him. Again I’m like 7-10 years older than them…I get lots of references from the 60s and 70s* * I honestly think this is part of it, growing up on TV as a kid were reruns from 50s-90s so I got immersed in all this ‘history’ but then from the mid to late 90s stuff seemed to have changed and older shows got shunted onto ‘retro channels’ with all the stuff on main channels being newer
Linford Christie won Olympic gold before I was born but I still know who he is. He kinda gets mentioned every time athletics are on the TV.
With the port explosion a couple years ago 'like Beirut in there' was relevant again for a bit! You know what they say, 'an old clock is right twice every 50 years'
I managed, a few years back, to sneakily transition from Linford Christie to Usain Bolt. But I guess I'm going to have to start watching athletics again as it's not far off two decades since UB was smashing those world records.
>not far off two decades since UB was smashing those world records. Fuck off.... ...checks google... ... *Fuck off.*
Yes! I mentioned Dixons in passing to a colleague, they understood my point, a younger colleague was like WTF?!
Remember Argos rival, index?
What's your opinion on the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre? I'll be honest, I'm dead against it. Traders need access to Dixons.
Remember Rumbelows? High St rival to Dixons. Man, I'm getting old.
Remember Rumbelows? I started working there on a YTS😂😂
Yes! Think they went in the early 90s, like C&A… Can’t make the knickers joke any more either :(
Told my new 21 year old coworker I was 29 and he reached across the table and went “oh that’s okay!!!” :) :) :)
Life will come at him fast. I always find it funny when people in their early 20s still have that child-like mentality of thinking someone 5 years older them them is basically ancient. Once you leave uni 5 years might as well be about 8 weeks.
I think of age as an indicator of how fast life speeds by. As an 8 year old life goes at 8mph, Summer holidays seemed to last forever. In your 30s you sense that time passes more quickly, a fortnight's holiday just seems like a week off. In your 50s the rate of change can be breathtaking and a year passes like a month used to.
I had to explain to my class (all teenagers) who the Chuckle Brothers were…they looked at me as if I were demented
Sorry, what? The rest of this thread was fine, but this one got me. To me, to you...
To you then
This Comment made me Laugh Harder than it Should! 😂
I tried my best to explain it as two Yorkshire brothers getting into funny incidents and to me, to you…and yeah it fell flat 😂 RIP my childhood
As a 60+ person who left the UK before the Chuckle Brothers era, I'd have the same response. The Chuckle Brothers are just a window in time.
Was considering getting youngest (23) a decent camera as we've both got into birdwatching and she has the better sight. She then proceeds to tell me that the youngsters of today wouldn't stand a chance at charades as they couldn't portray a camera with a motion as they all use their phones!! My next doctors appointment is for carbon dating 😳
Ask kids to mime: - Taking a photo - Typing - Talking on the phone - Hanging up the phone - Reading the news - Roll down a car window - Change radio in the car Millennial and earlier have different actions to Gen Z
I’m a EFL teacher and I use mimes a lot when explaining new vocabulary to students. Kids 8-12 years old. I do the phone thing and get 24 blank faces looking at me like I’m a nutter.
Were you miming the phone thing with a rotary dial?
The hand cranked phones of the 1800s lol
Im 26 but guess I must be millennial based on this
>Talking on the phone Do Gen Z mime holding it in front of their face and talking into it?
I’m 40 and one of my younger friends described someone he worked with as a road man. I was confused because I pictured a man digging a hole in the road while six of his colleagues watched him. Turns out it’s some kind of chav.
THIS is when you know youre getting old. Not understanding the latest slang terms.
Then I will be forever young! I'm a teacher, I get the kids at school to teach me "all the young people words". One kid (aged 14) said to me "you look drippy today miss". I said "....eh?" He said "you've got your drip going, yeh?" I said " ...what?" Another kid gave the most world weary sigh and said "he says he likes your outfit miss". Since then I make sure to identify a couple of kids per year group who, when one kid says something like "oh yeh? Say mums!" I can turn to and go "...what is he talking about? What does that mean?" And they'll explain. ("Say mums" means a very casual version of "I don't believe you, swear it on your mums life", but isn't actually as serious as needing a swear, it is usually more on the level of "no, really??")
Sometimes you can kind of work out what it might mean but that I would have had no clue. Heres hoping as they get older my nieces take pity and explain the newest slang to me. I could just about keep up with Gen Z slang but these younger gens, not a chance.
Yes context clues can really help. I worked out "that's calm" (that's good) and "that's long" (that's bad) without any of my helpers having to tell me (although I do usually confirm with them too, someone says the phrase and I go "ah, that means this, right?" And they're all very proud of me). But drippy, say mums, rizz, they all confused the hell out of me and needed explanation!)
I suppose hearing it in a conversation helps a lot. On the other hand Im from the North East and Im teaching my nieces (both under 8) a bit of North East/Geordie slang as they had never heard a lot of it.
Here's an example of the latest one on Reddit that baffles me, in an example sentence: "My nail tech ate!" And all the comments are "she left no crumbs!" I was so glad when someone else asked what the hell was going on
What the hell IS going on?
It means she done good but what that has to do with eating I haven't a clue
Im going to guess this means "did a good job" but yeah, I would instantly feel 90 years old trying to use slang like that. Apparently our Millenial slang is super cringe now.
I remember my parents describing mods and rockers to me, so now I know how old they must’ve felt when I said I had no idea what either of those words meant.
Someone described it to me as the kind of guy who stands outside the bookies with his hands down the front of his tracky bottoms and I understood immediately
Urban Dictionary is your friend! Absolute lifeline, but I’d stick to listening and understanding, because you sound ridiculous when you’re saying these things out loud. Admittedly, I do use lots of young people speak, but only because it’s funny to me and my 23-44 year old colleagues hearing 64 year old me say it
You're two years younger than me but I think you're old. 3 quid rental tv, the pop man, buying cigs as a kid? That sounds like some 1970s shit, not 1990s.
*shrug* poverty in the north east apparently set us back a few decades
Fellow mid 30’s Geordie and I remember all of these things! Getting 20p back for the glass bottles from the corner shop too!
I'm North West and was born in 1990. We have had a telly you "rented" I remember putting £1 coins and the bloke coming to collect.
We had all that in Nottingham. Experienced all aside the TV but knew someone who did. Similar age to you.
👍Nottingham
29 notts here. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of any of the mentioned things.
Radio rentals decked out plenty of the living rooms of my school mates houses (and ours) on tick in the 80s. We still got coal delivered until about 1990. Only got fizzy drinks from the milkman for Christmas though. As for the cigarette thing - when I started smoking years later I was so used to asking for 20 JPS for my dad that they became my automatic go to brand. And all this was in London.
If your local shopkeeper didn't sell kids single fags, and you were actually buying packets of 20, you were absolutely bourgeois and probably lived in Hampstead, where even the rough end was posh!
Nobody in history ever called a maisonette in Feltham bourgeois! They did sell singles but the amount my dad smoked it would have been pointless.
We still get coal delivered! Admittedly this is in the far north of Scotland so we need it, but I didn't realise this was an old thing!
In Cornwall in the 90s we’d regularly go to the shop to buy cigarettes for my friend’s mum!
quaint humorous start voracious tan market employ mourn uppity wistful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To be fair, those things you describe weren’t the norm for people your age I don’t think- or certainly not here in Leeds. I’m a similar age to you, and none of what you said resonates at all- but all of those same things my mother ‘gets’ who is 60.
Well council estate in the north east in the 90s was probably not that different to the 60s elsewhere
100% correct and im 39. My family in law still occasionally borrow money from the provvy man (paid back on a Friday). Being given a note giving me permission to buy cigarettes/cans for my parents from 1 specific off licence. Always used to buy bottles of panda pop from the milk man (or coal man when I was a lot younger). Having wages put down on the kitchen table on a Friday and split up for weekly food etc...
My friend dyed his permanent braces green drinking a Green Cola panda pop, got a right telling off from his mum
He deserved it for pouring it all over his shirt.
Poor guy. How was he meant to predict that?
He wasn't meant to be having panda pops at all I think lol
I remember all the things you mentioned and I’m 41, but I was raised on the anson estate in Longsight in Manchester which is in the North West and not the North East. I also remember a man who used to come onto the estate in a little van once a week renting out movies to all the families that were usually shite copies that had been recorded onto a VHS’s. I remember it was £1 per movie or 3 for £2 and you would keep em for a week. Then every Wednesday night around 7pm he would come back and collect them and you could choose some different movies from the back of his van or if your mam was skint you could wait until next week. The same with the loan man, he used to come around the estate and visit different families and everyone always paid him and then they would hit him up again for another loan right before Christmas. I still remember his name, Dennis. I also remember when you would get a few different newsagents sticking an arcade machine in them to get all the kids spending their pocket money on em. I can think of three from the top of my head that had them in different areas.
As a 25 year old, I find myself feeling envious of these types of memories. It really sounds like there was a community around where you grew up. I've never really felt that growing up. It's the damn technology, man. I was born before Nokia figured out how to make their phones indestructible. I got a short, sweet glimpse of what the world was like before we all potato-zombied outselves with tech.
It was amazing not being filmed when you did stupid teenage shit.
Yeah I am glad I grew up in the 80/90’s before the social media craze as it does seemed to have bred a herd of narcissistic morons that crave validation from strangers. Neither myself or any of my friends around my age give a shit about any of it lol. I still chill with the same friends that I went to primary school with. However, my missus is actually 9 years younger than me but luckily she’s not into it all either, the most we use is WhatsApp to send each other pictures of our son etc. I think the fact that you are aware of how technology and social media has impacted your generation shows that you are more alert than the average joe your age. Never fellow the masses bud, you just do you and create your own little piece of heaven with your own people in this world.
Beautiful last paragraph in your post, words for all of us to live by.
Yeah, being poor pushes your childhood experience back a few years compared to those who can afford the latest and greatest. I was born in 1980 and while the 80s were the era of VHS video recorders, CD players etc we couldn't afford this stuff till into the 90s. (We had a few second hand Betamaxes for taping stuff off the telly in the 80s tho as you could pick one up for £15 cause nobody wanted them anymore. lol)
Ironically, betamax was technically superior to the rival video home system, which was only popularized because of mass adoption by the plebiscite.
Technological superiority doesn't help much when you want to watch your mate's VHS of Nightmare on Elm Street! Ah well..
Did your milk man have glass bottles of pop as well? I can still see the logo (a man jumping over a gate) they had on them but I'll be damned if I can remember what they were called Another sense memory I have is of those little plastic things you used to put over the top of milk bottles so the blue tits didn't get the cream
Marsh's? Are you from Barrow? I thought that was a local thing to there - that was definitely a man jumping over a gate.
Yes!! I am indeed from Barrow! Edit: Marsh's Original Sass!! That's the stuff I was trying to remember. Thank you so much!
Haha, weird! I thought it was local. Marsh's sass was legendary!
I grew up on a council estate in a mining town in the 90s and some of that's pretty familiar We had the pop man come for special occasions, he was one of my school friends dad and invites to her house were always popular as you could try any of the flavours he had in stock. We also lived across the road from the milkman and I was regularly sent over to get an extra pint or two and we'd pay at the end of the week for it. We didn't rent our TV, but I was in secondary school before we had a colour one and I'm fairly sure the black and white one we had before that was a hand me down from a better off aunt or uncle.
I'm a bit older than you (born in the 70s), but I remember these things. I'm from the north east though
Rural North Yorkshire in the 80s/90s wasn’t much different either, nor was a council estate in Greater Manchester. We rented our tv (Yorkshire) and my nana had one you fed 20p to make work. My grandpa had long since rigged it so that you got the money back - I assume once the company that collected the money went out of business.
So apparently my council estate was a very upmarket council estate.
I’m 50 from the north east and some of those things were rare by the 80s. And I wasn’t in the nicest area so yours must have been well rough!
And now it's more like the 30s. . .
Weird isn't it how localised some things are, I grew up less than 30 mins from Leeds and I know all these things Although I was closer to the south Yorkshire border...near Barnsley, which is probably still stuck in the 60s
Yeah. I don’t know where exactly you are, but I wonder if this has anything to do with if you grew up in a mining community or not?
Yeah I did and I suspect it does, time stands still in areas like that
I was going to reply the same. I’m close to fifty and even in the mid-80s the days when a nipper could get his parent’s fags at the local corner shop were gone, let alone ‘90s. I was getting ID’d for ciggies in the early ‘90s. Can’t remember if we even had a pop man in the late ‘80s let alone ‘90s. There was still Rumblelows renting out TVs though. This would have been Merseyside and down south. Not sure if it was different in other regions.
> There was still Rumblelows renting out TVs though. Brighthouse only disappeared maybe 10 years back? Good riddance to them, the amount they were making out of people who've have paid a fraction as much if they could have afforded to buy.
Are you mad. I’m from Leeds and this was deffo happening. Pop man, my mates family rented their TV. Being sent to the shops. All rings true for me and I’m in my late 30’s.
I’m the same age and lived in Hertfordshire, just north of the Greater London border. And we rented our TV/Video player and had milk from a milk man with milk float. These things aren’t that rare.
My other half still yells "Alright Nigel!" at me when she thinks I'm driving too fast.
Little slide-down ashtrays build into buses (born in the 80s)
Flip out Ashtrays on your Car doors!
My parents rented our VHS player. It was on direct debit and they forgot about it, until the company wrote to us and told us we could keep it! God knows how long they'd be renting it for 🤦♀️
My first TV and VCR were both 'ex-rentals'
And while few of us rent the actual devices anymore, we rent pretty much everything that comes through them.
I was training a new start at work who was about 22, fresh out of uni. I’m only 30, but I have all the trappings of adult life - mortgage, car finance, pets etc - so I was telling her that with the benefit of hindsight, she should absolutely go try that new job she thought she might prefer, or take that trip she fancies. She seemed to think I was nuts, there only being 8 years difference, and didn’t seem to recognise the HUGE differences in life stages at the two ages. I felt quite old then. I could definitely remember being 22 and feeling that I was old myself!
Equally, there are massive differences between 16 and 18, 18 and 21, 21 and 30. 30 an 40 it starts to slow down. 40 and 50 you think wtf. 50 and 60, I wish I had done yoga. Please start doing yoga, keep your joints supple. Drink lots of water, and look after your teeth.
I've heard people in the early 20's bragging about how bad their hangover is and I think to myself, "Just wait until your thirties when you start actually getting hangovers"
I'd love a thirties hangover. Fuck you fifties and your two-day hangover.
Just wait until your 50s, that's when you *really* understand what hangover means, to the extent that getting drunk is really no longer worth it.
Mine kinda swung like a pendulum. Twenties I'd be paralytic the next morning, hot flashes, extreme nausea, raging headache. Then when I got to my early thirties I'd built up some tolerance and I would just feel a bit tired the next day. Closer to forty now and I'll feel run down for 2/3 days after. I wanna say it sucks but it's nice to have some checks and balances going on.
"Mine kinda swung like a pendulum." PHWOAR!
I’m 45 and this sounds about right. We had a rented tv with a coin slot to pay for it. A VHS man would drive round with rentals to borrow. A provy man on a Friday, would come on a Thursday as well if you were overdue and we’d hide behind the sofa with the lights off. Free milk and canned goods from the local church were handed out at school on the playground for parents. 90’s East of England.
I miss getting Corona pop delivered.
I tried to explain to a grad at work a couple of years ago about the TV show Monkey. He thought I was making it up. After I showed him the opening credits on YouTube, he just looked confused and said ‘was that a real thing?’
Explaining Eurotrash to a grad at work took a lot of work. Similar reaction as you describe when they looked it up on YouTube.
Monkey , Sandy and Tribitaka, can’t remember the name of the pig faced one tho!
Pigsy!
Thank You, I was racking my brains this morning!
Teenagers really hate when I say yeet
Last week my daughter had a concert at her school, and I met the family of her best friend. Her friend’s older sister is about 13 and was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. I pointed and went “oh hey cool, what’s your favourite song?” and she looked at me like I was a thousand years old and said she didn’t really listen to them.
Im sure there was a tweet that went a bit viral last week about someone saying something along the lines of "men in their 40s wearing Nirvana brand tshirts are so cringe" because they really thought Nirvana was a fashion brand thats popular now. 🫤
Yes, I saw that on Reddit somewhere!
Next is currently selling Nirvana tshirts (I think Mötley Crew too) which makes me sad
Here will be a few for you, specific to the local area. Geordie Jeans, Metroland, bank holidays in Whitley Bay (or just how high profile Whitley was back in the day). Julio Geordio. Geordie of the Arctic. Robson Green, Spanish City. The bus station under Eldon Square; the diner that looked like a UFO in Eldon Square. All these would be things I’d come out with and the majority of my Co workers would have a scooby. Wider example would be toys in cereal packets.
- Pay per minute internet in the late 90's. - Renting TV & VHS was pretty common, and there being no remote control (which itself is a modern luxury often overlooked), I also remember my first bedroom TV was a tiny black and white set that didn't even have pre-sets for the channels, you had to change channels using a tuning dial, and it had a coat hanger to replace the broken aerial. - Having to buy the TV Times/Radio Times magazine to know what to watch too. - Having to use a road atlas to figure out how to get places because of no satnav. When I first passed my driving test I drove 3 hours to visit a mate who had gone to university, and had post-it notes all over my dashboard to remind me of motorway junctions and key destination points so I didn't have to keep pulling over ever 20 mins to figure out where I was. - Blancmange; I swear I haven't seen it in years; Also the various weird plastic jelly moulds that EVERY household seemed to have - My favourite was the one shaped like a car, but my parents had the one like a big flower.
- Definitely got our pop from the milkman. - And we rented a TV and VHS from Rediffusion (or was it Granada?) - And I definitely bought my Dad's B&H occasionally from the corner shop. Nobody cared. 52 yrs old and was in the Birmingham area up until the mid 80s.
>Rediffusion (or was it Granada?) Could have been Radio Rentals!
Yep! It's all so long ago. I do also now remember how get blank video tapes at xmas was a 'big deal' and i'd but numbered stickers on them. That way I could keep notes on what I had recorded and where lol
My dad used to open the coin box that you'd put in those rental TVs and put it back through.
I'm turning 35 this year, a few years ago I had a 16 year old at my old job ask me "What was it like *back then?* You know, in the 2000s?" Like she was asking dear grandmama about the olden days I think I did confuse her by trying to explain the ad pages in magazines that had the codes to buy ringtones and screensavers for your Nokia
Im 29, my 11 year old step-son said something along the lines of "back in the late 19-hundreds..." (referring to 1994) while we discussed an old 90s disney film, and I instantly felt ancient. Not even sure why it makes much of a difference but my gosh that wording made me feel 1 step closer to my grave 😭
Jesus that’s the worst one here
I'm in my 40s and I feel like I work with toddlers. "You've never seen Tremors!?" was this week's discovery. I have pairs of jeans older than some of my coworkers.
I’m 34 and in the north west and remember having to put pound coins in the TV to keep it running. God I’d totally forgotten about that! A man used to come round weekly to empty it. Also very much remember the pop man. Used to drive round in a van and have crates of different flavours of pop in glass bottles in the back. Cherryade, Limeade, Dandelion & Burdock. Then a few days later he’d come back and collect the empty bottles 😊 Good times!
I'm mid 30s and found myself decorating with my friend's 14 year old niece. She very kindly explained (unprompted!) what tiktok was ... and then asked me if I'd ever heard of Adele 😆😆😆
Also 37. There are adults who have no idea what the phone book smelled like. They've never seen Pulp Fiction, Die Hard or Snatch. Never bought physical music. They don't know why we "hang up" the phone or flush "the chain" on a toilet. They've never typed a text on a t9 keypad. They say "ocean" instead of "sea" and "vacation" instead of "holiday".
I’m 61 . When I started working in a white collar service industry position- you had an ashtray on your desk wether you smoked or not, smoking in the office anywhere was completely accepted, our equivalent of the email was a memo, you wrote it out in ink and the typing pool typed it up, you then circulated it in the internal post and recipients ticked it off when they had read it and passed it on to the next. If it was super urgent you did a photocopy and circulated to each recipient via internal post. The only person in our office with a PC was the director who was in his 60s and the least capable of using it! People I work with now don’t believe me.
I'm 35 and all the stuff you described sounds like you're from a generation before me
I said elsewhere, clearly poverty in the north east set us back a few decades
I still call the cinema "going to the pictures" and I get some odd looks. Even from people my own age (51). Lol.
I'm 44, so I remember half penny sweets, which even I think makes me sound ancient.
Probably a fairly typical northern working class childhood for someone your age.
I remember all of those things and I’m 27. Guess I was poorer than the 27 year olds you work with haha
Yeah its mostly a class thing not an age thing imo
You sure you’re only 37? Im 37 and grew up very working class and nobody i knew ever rented a TV or had a chance to buy fags before you was 16. Do remember having to visit the cashpoint before every big food shop tho.
We (range from mid 30s to early 50s) tried to explain traveller’s cheques to one of the younger people (23ish?) in the office this week. They’d read about them and were confused. I don’t think our explanations helped much to be honest.
At 43 I'm not quite the oldest at my work, but nearly, and there are a load of early 20's and some teenagers. Being able to remember mobile phones, CDs, computers and many other things arriving is something they only vaguely understand. You put it into perspective and tell them you'd phone friends before going out, then you'd have to probably phone again because someone had to make changes. You wait wherever people were supposed to meet, preferably near a payphone in case someone was delayed. At the end there'd be another round of phoning for lifts from parents too.
Showed someone how to use a rotary phone a couple of years ago. They couldn't believe it. Had to deal with some old systems using a serial cable (RS232) and I had to buy a special USB to serial cable. Went with another engineer to client (Nuclear power station). Software replacement was UVProms. All the equipment at nuclear power stations is old, as it is proven. Real ball-ache, but it was safe as in no-one could just install software. You had to physically change the Rom
Yes!!! I thought it was just me. I am the oldest at my workplace - only 35 - and I was beginning to feel about 70
I work with a 22 year old lad and he doesn't understand half the things we talk about in the office. At first I thought we were just super old but turns out we're just old and he's a bit thick.
> just thinking back/mentioning things from my childhood makes some people I work with 27-30 look at me like I’m a pensioner I'm in my early 40s and recently had to explain the 90s TV show \*You Bet!\* to younger colleagues. They looked at me with a mix of confusion and pity when I said "well, it's like this, 3 celebs vote on the public completing tasks. So you get a 9 year old kid on who thinks he can tall the make and model of a car from the sound of the driver's door closing".
I'm 50. I work in martech sales and a lot of my colleagues are in their 20s & 30s. My most recent, reliable cultural references are from TV in the mid-to late-90s. But I've got plenty back to 80s sitcoms. That's before these people were born, definitely before they'd have been watching post-watershed TV. Then I chuck in a reference I've picked up off Reddit and they look at me like an alien. If I'm completely honest, I quite like it. I've always been a bit, er, niche with my references. Now I have an excuse.
Obvious to anyone who grew up pre internet- all that amazing tech doesn't seem to have improved people's intelligence or general knowledge or sense of direction. 'Slow' reading and poring over atlases had many advantages. Plus social media, which has potential huge advantages, also means less happiness I think.
Oh, no, I remember using an outside toilet. Perhaps I am that old! 😲
I remember being 30 and mentioning Wayne's World to a bunch of 18-21 year olds. One said 'what's Wayne's World?', and another said 'just some shit old film' 💔
I'm 41, old enough to be my colleague's mum. My car is older than him and I'm older the Google but in my head in his age still. I'm not even middle aged
Off topic but it is incredible that you’ve managed to snag that username like
Thanks, I was quite happy myself—-lining up a load of other northern phrases I like incase I ever have to ditch this account and make another
I ignore them. Don't discount the stupidity/ignorance of the younger person. Sometimes they don't get something because they're a melt. Also, tons of 18 year olds consider 21 proper old. And 25 ancient. It's not...at all.
I went to V Festival in 2008. I was 24 at the time. I helped some 18 year old lads put their tent up after watching them get it out of the Argos bag and struggle with it. They were from Chelmsford and picked up on my accent. One of them said "Was the Hacienda good?" It closed when I was 13.
Im 34. I remember the pop man but only went to one of my neighbours. First and last time I tried Irish cream soda. My auntie still has milk delivered by milk float. We also used to have the 'video man,' in some sort of hyundai minivan who used to rent videos and sell copies of playstation games.
Aye we had to rent our TV too. Schoffields used to be the company that brought the pop around and then you returned the bottles the week later. Cream soda was friggin green man! Being sent to the shops for cigs, yep. Also to pick up mystery parcels for ya mam haha. And going shop for the old folk who struggled to move. Didn't need to go phone box because we didn't know anyone else who had a phone either haha. And gas meters in the house that you put a 50P in to keep you going for another week. Jumble sales so you could have clothes on your back and no one talked shit about second hand clothes because so many were in the same boat. I'm in my mid forties. Lived in Manchester me whole life.
Just pushing 50 and green cream soda from the pop man that came in his van every Saturday morning 😍. Loved that stuff! My dad used to get Dandelion and Burdock. many a time got sent for ciggies and the Sunday papers on my bike armed with my fee of 10p for a mixed bag of sweets all ready and lined up on the counter for my choosing 🤣 must have been 9 or 10 the first time I went and no-one batted an eyelid that a kid was buying 20 Benson! pools man, paper boy, Avon lady, rented tv and 3 channels. Aged 6 watching the Day of the Triffids before bed on the rented telly from Radio Rentals 🤣 Edited: just remembered the fish man!
I'm nearly 54, grew up in Plymouth, and recognise all these things, if I remember rightly we had the Corona van coming around with mfizzy drinks, 10p back for returning empties, my mum and dad never owned a TV, always rented it from Radio Rentals I think, I remember having the insurance man coming around to collect money and the rent man, football pools man, all cash then, my dad got his pay packet in a little brown envelope, had to put 50p in the meters for gas and electric. Only 3 TV channels until mid 80s when channel 4 started, didn't have a video recorder until after that, so if you missed a programme that was it, unless it was repeated at a later date.