Yes if I could pick and choose I would definitely have liked the ability to take HD quality vids and pics on a small pocket device stored to a tiny memory card i.e. no need for tapes and film. Other than that, I'm quite happy my youth was pre Internet, pre smartphones etc.
This is like the opening line in an intriguing novel or narration at the start of a movie ...
My father (along with his Mayfair and his Playboy magazines) kept a well-fingered Freemans Catalogue in his council flat balcony shed. Clearing these out after his death, the corset pages were definitely more thumbed than the Y- fronts section!!For a dead (ok, 'temporarily suspended') IW TV shopping channel, this forum/thread is doing quite well!!!
I too have a waterproof watch.
It doesn't let a drop of water out.
The old ones are the best.
Your collective memories of, basically, the 70s/80s all strike a chord. My Mum collecting green shield stamps, and the rolls/lines of stamps being issued. I often had the job of sticking them in the book. Can't remember what she spent them on, just discounts off her next shop I think, in the Co-op or Happy Shopper it may have been. Not a TV!
All the mention of catalogues made me think of many an adolescent boy's first eye-opening foray into the ladies underwear section of the Grattan / Littlewoods type catalogues...But we won't go there....
Surely a right of passage for many? Now, like many things, replaced by t'internet.
There's a saying of nothing new, just reinvented. Clubcard points, Nectar, Avios, loyalty/reward points, cashback etc., all owe something to green shield stamps and similar!
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I've got a Routemaster model but regret NOT buying a very large scale RM (from memory about 18 inches long) that I once saw in a shop. At the time I thought it was too expensive to justify, but they are worth far more now. BTW it was a green one, had it been a red LT then I WOULD have bought it! It was in the IOW bus museum.
I meant RM in my post, not LT, don't know why I typed that.
I have to say I prefer progress. But I agree the limitations and lifestyle of earlier times was no big deal, we were used to it after all and, as you say, we're very adaptable to our changing conditions.
Wow. That is a lot of money And that particular made model and kit also make seems to fetch much more also. I think the Sunstar 1:24 scale buses and the EFE Gilbow DMS, with the movable route blinds, are more than good enough for most people. Not the most robust of models in certain places, but convincing enough as display pieces. I remember when I was in the BTP, we went out to LT’s Chiswick Works (where the Cliff Richard skid pan scenes for Summer Holiday were shot) for something or other. There was some amazing standard large RT replicas in display cases made, I presume, by the bus engineering staff there. Going back to that £850 model - I think I’d want the actual bus for that price!!
I have a fantasy dream of going back in time about 60 years and taking some modern gadgets back with me to astound people, particularly HiFiI have to say I prefer progress. But I agree the limitations and lifestyle of earlier times was no big deal, we were used to it after all and, as you say, we're very adaptable to our changing conditions.
I'm not one of those who thinks the past was better or preferable. Some things are best left unchanged however.
For me, the technological progress of the past few decades is astonishing and worth any perceived loss of privacy (delete your cookies and turn off GPS/location, use an alias!) or loss of quality time or dealing with the logistics of a faster-changing world.
For years, one ambition of mine was to be able to watch TV or video anywhere on a device. Not stuck to a TV. When that started to become a reality with early smartphones playing low quality video, the wait for quality improvement was interesting and it got to the point with 3G then 4G+, WiFi and Cloud and 'suddenly', my handheld device can play HD+ quality live video streams.
When I was on a bus and able to watch a live sports event coming home about a decade+ ago, before it became commonplace, it was really impressive.
So now I can play IW/QVC/C&C/TJC anywhere now! Lol.
That's when I thought, wow, now we've achieved it.
So the Internet is our window on the world and nearly any info, media, communication is accessible at a touch of a button. I think we really don't appreciate what a resource it is and its potential and how we take it for granted. And we whinge if it goes offline for 2mins now!
Some things were better or need changing. Think these education grades and grading needs sorting. A/A*/AA/Distinction or 1-9. Prefer simple to understand A-E and U!
But each generation adapts to their lot and overall, progress is better. If it improves. Not change for change sake.
For instance, imho, we do need to modernise our government and many state and other institutions to make them fit for purpose. Fear we are still in the 50s post-war mentality in many of our Gov and state institutions, and their systems and processes need much improvement.
If I want to reminisce, then slow TV (a canal barge journey, reindeer trek, postal route through Scottish countryside, bus journey around Yorkshire) is a way to relax!
You can watch it on BBC4 iPlayer!
Just clarifying for others, 1/12 means 1/12th scale, so the model will be 1 inch for each foot of the real bus, so would be about 2 1/2 ft long,
Yes. If you follow internet conspiracy theory nuts who show an old photo from the past and say it's a time traveller using a mobile phone... There were no mobile phone masts or infrastructure to use it!
I remember catweazel and his electrickerry. It would be brilliant to take things back in time
I tried to get into bus/train collecting/hobbyist-ing but I don't seem to be that way inclined for details or interest!
I love these old films and the lack of traffic. One cyclist seemed to be holding on to the entrance pole to get a pull along.
