You know you are old when....

[BusyLizzie]

I remember Mum collecting books of Green Shield Stamps to then exchange for a great number of things. Every Friday night we had a greengrocer's van doing the rounds and people queued to hop on board to pick their fruit and veg....no pre-packed stuff in those days. Same with a butcher too and also a bread van. All such happy childhood memories!

 

[loveallthingsitalian]

And cigarette coupons which were traded in for household goods. Very non PC now thank goodness but I got quite a few kitchen items courtesy of friends and family as it took an awful lot to get anything worthwhile.

 

[loveallthingsitalian]

Does anyone remember when National Insurance stamps were actual stamps. They were purchased by the employer, stuck into the employees card every week and when someone left the job they were given the card which is were the term given your cards comes from.

As a young wages clerk it was a blinking monotonous routine for a factory workforce.

 

[Bettyboo]

I feel old when I see an outfit in a store that I've had in my wardrobe since 1973. It's a sueude mini skirt and a fringe white top. I just can't part with it. I think that last remark shows how old I am lol.

 

[Julius]

I don't know about Green Shield stamps but I do remember the Co-op Divend stamps. You had to stick them in a book and you stuck either 5 x 40 stamps or 40 x 5 stamps on a page. A full book was worth £1! I used to get annoyed with my mother for sticking the stamps on upside-down.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3482/3733272840_3ff02c12ef.jpg

I miss the 80s!

 

[Brissles]

I am enjoying reading people's trips down memory lane. It's really got me thinking. When we first came back to his country we used to have things delivered by the milkman on a milk float. I'd never seen these funny little electric vans before. Sometimes if the milk was left early (5am) in the winter it would freeze and burst through the foil cap on the top of the bottle. I remember teletext. I also remember getting cable TV with a control box on the wall to change channels.

The 80s were brilliant years. I just wish I'd been a bit older. I'd like to have seen the 60s and 70s too.

Um, I still have my milk delivered Julius - it arrives in glass pint bottles ! always have done like my Mum did - she also had her bread delivered by the local bakery too.

 

[Brissles]

I remember the butchers with the sawdust on the floor, and the lady sat with the till in her little wooden kiosk. It was a co-op butcher and Mum had her divi number which I had to give, every time I ran an errand (18057) funny how numbers stick in your brain from childhood !! I also had to wear a liberty bodice with rubber buttons underneath my school blouse. Toothpaste we didn't see in tubes, it was a disgusting pink tablet in a tin. Deodorant didn't come in spray cans, it was Mum roll on, or talcum powder.

Oh, my driver's licence was 50 years old in February, - passed my driving test in 1966, in a very modern Ford Anglia !!!

 

[Turandot]

Um, I still have my milk delivered Julius - it arrives in glass pint bottles ! always have done like my Mum did - she also had her bread delivered by the local bakery too.

I still have my milk delivered too. Glass reuseable bottles. No cartons to recycle ! I also get eggs and bread from him .Its worth paying a little more to support a local business .

One of my sons did a milk round at the weekends for his pocket money .

Come to think of it I did a paper round for 3 years before school and 364 days a year from around age 12 yrs .I Got up at 5.30am every day and walked the streets delivering papers .Many people had them delivered in those days .I earned 15 shillings and sixpence a week.My own earned pocket money. 75p I think in today's money . I was so proud of myself that money went along way.I never lost the work ethic.

Nowadays it would be called child abuse or exploitation no doubt.

 

[historymystery]

I still use a set of Pyrex dishes that my Mum got with Green Shield stamps in the 1970's! They have a blue and white snowflake pattern on the outside, very pretty, and still in regular use - so much of the stuff bought then just goes on and on.

I remember Mum collecting books of Green Shield Stamps to then exchange for a great number of things. Every Friday night we had a greengrocer's van doing the rounds and people queued to hop on board to pick their fruit and veg....no pre-packed stuff in those days. Same with a butcher too and also a bread van. All such happy childhood memories!

 

[historymystery]

Lovely memories, brissles! I passed my test in 1970 in a Triumph Herald!! Like driving an army tank. My instructor was an old army pal of my Dad's and of course Dad had the obligatory joke that surfaced every time - "she's useless at driving a car, but you should see her operate a tank!" I could have strangled him each time he said it, bless him. Those were the days when you could arrange your driving test for the day after you turned 17 - nowadays I suppose you have to give 5 years advance notice.

I remember the butchers with the sawdust on the floor, and the lady sat with the till in her little wooden kiosk. It was a co-op butcher and Mum had her divi number which I had to give, every time I ran an errand (18057) funny how numbers stick in your brain from childhood !! I also had to wear a liberty bodice with rubber buttons underneath my school blouse. Toothpaste we didn't see in tubes, it was a disgusting pink tablet in a tin. Deodorant didn't come in spray cans, it was Mum roll on, or talcum powder.

Oh, my driver's licence was 50 years old in February, - passed my driving test in 1966, in a very modern Ford Anglia !!!

 

[historymystery]

Oh those horrible stamps that tore as you tried to separate them! Designed (by some sadist) to drive you crazy.

I don't know about Green Shield stamps but I do remember the Co-op Divend stamps. You had to stick them in a book and you stuck either 5 x 40 stamps or 40 x 5 stamps on a page. A full book was worth £1! I used to get annoyed with my mother for sticking the stamps on upside-down.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3482/3733272840_3ff02c12ef.jpg

I miss the 80s!

 

[shopperholic]

I still use a set of Pyrex dishes that my Mum got with Green Shield stamps in the 1970's! They have a blue and white snowflake pattern on the outside, very pretty, and still in regular use - so much of the stuff bought then just goes on and on.

I looooove Pyrex! The set I use most I got from Argos a while back, set of three with the new handles (easy grip) for £10 beauty is you can use the lids too, I wouldn't use anything else. I remember in the seventies my nan had smoked glass Pyrex tea cups, oh the retroness of it all. :mysmilie_14:

 

[Maisie]

I think we oldies are the lucky ones because life was much easier in those days. We played outside until bedtime making our own fun with skipping ropes, playing with a tennis racquet and ball against a neighbour's gable wall (and running off when she came out to chase us away) hopskotch, and climbing walls to see into backyards!! Enid Blyton's books were brilliant when the weather was bad we were never bored always found something to do.

Parents were stricter too I think, well in my case they were, even at the age of 16 or 17 I had to be home by 10 0'clock or suffer the consequences. Our role model was Twiggy we all wanted to look like her and paint eyelashes below our eyes. The Kardashian look of today would have horrified us (I'm still horrified - grotesque) we all wanted to be skinny but never really achieved it.

So I have come the conclusion that us baby boomers, who grew up with less that the kids of today, are the lucky ones and lived to tell the tale.

 

[BusyLizzie]

We all knew the decor in other people's houses didn't we because we had to cover our school books in left-over wallpaper? None of today's lamination!

Anyone else remember the Red Cardinal for steps, etc.?

 

[shopperholic]

Oh my word, I've just remembered my "Birmingham Bags" (trousers) I'm ashamed to say at aged eight I had a dark cobalt coloured pair, they had pockets by the knees that were so big if I wore them today I could carry a weeks worth of shopping home in them, the flares were huge too, they had to issue weather warnings because a strong gust of wind could carry you off for miles (ok they didn't issue one but they should've :mysmilie_17

 

[merryone]

I'm another one who's grateful for living through being able to play outside, making our own games with simple things like a ball. Not having mobile phones, computers and social media to contend with. What makes me feel old is probably preferring to listen to classical music than what's in the charts, still not being able to get my head around what for years now has been known as a nightclub being anything other than a working men's club/strip joint - In my day we went to discos!

I think the biggest shift for me is dressing for comfort as opposed to what's "in" especially when it comes to shoes - stilettos? How the f did I walk in them? I couldn't do 5 minutes in a pair now!!! Also I'm totally not bothered about buying new clothes, back in the day I'd live for it and would need something new nearly every week, even if it was just a t shirt! Couldn't care less now, as long as my clothes fit properly, look clean and presentable, then I'm good to go!

 

[Kathy]

This has got to be one of the best threads ever on ST, unfortunately I can remember most of the things/times mentioned. One of my great memories was collecting green shield stamps until I had enough for a matching tea/dinner service... I felt like a millionaire.

 

[Anna]

So many happy memories reading all these posts.

Playing out till it went dark, hopscotch, French skipping, playing jacks, skipping, hula hoops, riding my bike up and down the road at speed, falling off - still got the scars on my knees, my scooter, my go kart that my Dad made for me, roller skates, reading Enid Blyton, the Jackie magazine, the Mandy, the Judy, The Bunty, Lady Bird Books, playing 'What's the Time Mr Wolf', going to the youth club disco with my best friend both of us in long skirts that touched the floor, hers was blue denim and mine had flowers on it, we thought we looked the bees knees, but I have a feeling we didn't! Mum knitting my sister and I gloves with matching woolly hats in royal blue wool - everyone's mum in school seemed to have owned the same knitting pattern - they were not top fashion lets put it that way.

My parents were really strict as well - when I started going out to proper discos I had to be home by 11. They were only just getting started then! Eventually, when I was about 19/20, I was allowed to come home at 1, even though they shut at 2, and my Dad would be waiting up for me - and I would be in big trouble if I came home later than one o'clock.

 

[Vienna]

We had a hairdressers at the end of our street and it was called Madame Ediths. Madame Edith was the daughter of a local family, she spoke with the broadest Lancashire accent ever and the nearest she`d been to Paris was her perfume. She wore flowery nylon overalls with tail combs poking out of the pocket and metal hair clips fastened to the lapel. Her salon had 3 sit under hairdryers, plastic chairs, one sink and a glass coffee table with copies of Womans Own, My Weekly and Peoples friend on it and they were well thumbed, curly at the edges and months out of date.
My Mum, along with lots of other women would go for her weekly wash and set. They`d have their hair washed, it would be soaked in setting lotion and then have prickly rollers put in their hair, pink or blue hairnets over the top and would be plonked under the dryer to cook. The shop was so small and so hot with the heat from the dryers, not to mention the noise from them, that Mum and her fellow customers would be shouting whilst trying to hold a conversation with each other. It was a hive of gossip, new pregnancies would be mentioned, who was marrying who or knocking about with each other as they called it, illnesses were put to rights, husbands were criticised up hill and down dale, nights out were discussed and deaths were analysed. No subject was sacred.
Once dried they`d exit the dryer, pink faced and ready for the torturous combing out. Rollers pulled from their hair and let back combing commence. The finished article would then be glued into place with so much laquer it wouldn`t budge until the following week`s repeat episode. Once every few months my Mum would disappear for half a day into the bowels of Madame Ediths for her perm which would take hours and some customers were there for such a long time, the apprentice would be dispatched to make " butties " for the customers.
I loved that shop and in Summer days and at quiet times, the hairdresser and her apprentice would sit outside the doorway, smoking No 6 cigarettes and have a small transistor radio perched on the doorstep. Women would pass by on the way to the butcher`s or corner shop, would stop to show off a new baby in the family, and pass on any new bits of gossip. It was a male free zone and the customers were treated like Queens and acted like Queens.

 

[stratobuddy]

Men's barbers were completely women-free zones.

My mum would take me there, then virtually push me through the door to avoid breaking the no-women taboo.