I grew up watching black and white television with two channels.
When I was a small child, married women were not allowed to work in the civil service or the banks.
I know what a soda stream is and I have tasted its products (not very nice, kids).
I watched the Berlin Wall fall and Nelson Mandela walk free (on the telly but live).
I saw “Who framed Roger Rabbit?” and was amazed and dazzled by the technology (it mixes real people and cartoons).
I watched the original series of Charlie’s Angels and was the proud owner of the 1977 annual.
I got Super Trouper the Album for Christmas when it was newly released.
I remember my cousins getting a video recorder and how we all marvelled at its miraculous, magical workings.
I didn’t use a computer when I was in college; there was no internet; there was no google.
I grew up without email. When I began my working life, everything came in and out by post.
I was once expert in the use of the dictaphone.
I used faxes every day. I remember when faxes were shiny new technology and they used shiny paper too from which, hilariously, the text faded away on the files where it was carefully kept.
I had a part share in the office mobile phone which was so heavy that you had to carry it around in its own special case.
I believed that Burlington socks, Benetton scarves, legwarmers, Adidas Roms, ankle boots (welcome back ankle boot – I see you have rejoined us in the new century) and parka jackets were very cool. Ideally all worn at the same time.
From an original idea by the ever estimable Finslippy. Tell me, how old (or young, if you really feel that’s appropriate and tactful, in the circumstances) are you?
-I viewed Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” music video as the height of animation technology.
-I owned a personally-dedicated, autographed poster of Shaun Cassidy that I got when I saw him in concert.
-Our first microwave oven, installed when I was ten, was as large as our regular oven.
-I got my first email address when I was 23 but always used the telephone to confirm any plans I’d made over email because it just didn’t seem real.
you and your modern faxes – we had telex
I think we must be the same age. Soda Streams! How disgusting were they?
Working on the NZ equivalent of civil service pension schemes:
I remember the excitement when the fax overtook sending telegrams for urgent work.
The letters we sent were put together by word processor operators.
The photocopier was the size of half a bus and had a fierce operator.
The new pensions were written in a huge leather bound register. When a pensioner later died this entry was then ruled through in red ink.
I’m still involved in the admin of these schemes – all computerised etc.
Thanks for a wonderful laugh, hope you’re keeping warm and cosy in your Dublin winter from Michelle in NZs summer.
Black and white TV, check. But we had more channels due to proximity to NI.
A high proportion of my clothes were made rather than bought.
We did get a computer when I was young – a ZX81 (my brothers and I bought it with our saved pocket money.)
I bought albums on cassette tape. In fact my christmas presents one year were a Walkman (the latest technology) and the first Now That’s What I Call Music album.
When I started work, there was one computer in the office so I used a typewriter for my letters.
I spent a summer in West Germany.
You could send real telegrams (not just a “telemessage” in the post) and I earned some extra money delivering a few of them on my bicycle.
As for the dictaphone, I still use one every working day.
Pretty much Snap!
Except I didn’t have the The Charlie’s Angels Annual or The Abba Album. Oh. I wasn’t wearing those clothes either, but I thought girls wearing them looked fit. (The word at the time.)
I think we must be of a similar vintage but across the Irish sea:
We wore clothkits clothes (this may just be a North London thing rather than an age thing).
I remember where I was when Thatcher resigned, but was not born for the JFK assassination
We loaded our computer games up using cassette tapes or typed them in ourselves from the back of magazines (this never worked)
I spent a whole summer walking around with my head on one side to keep my asymmetric carefully-touselled hairstyle in the right position.
I had a donkey jacket and pixie boots and I probably did wear them at the same time.
My Blue Peter dogs were Shep and Goldie
Our home movies were on super-8. Oh the excitement when someone turned up at a party with a video camera that RECORDED SOUND
Born in the summer of love and the Manson murders (what contrasts!), I don’t remember them, but they imprinted my childhood.
Too young for the JFK assasination, but I remember when John Lennon died.
ditto the airplane hijacking in Mogadishu.
Not old enough to remember Nixon resigning, but do remember the last troops being pulled out Vietnam.
My older brother’s Supertramp album was an object of desire and my first own LP’s (The Stones) were more precious than gold.
Was just the right childhood age for ET and Star Wars (my whole class went to see the first Star Ward together).
Copy machines? Bah! Long live the eery blue Ditto’ machine!
When I started work I had to type on a typewriter, but it was modern, it had a built in correction ribbon.
I worked for Telecom when it was a monopoly.
Each phone number had an index card which were stored on big round wheels called rotodecks.
We had to dial the phone with a dial.
When the number was busy, we had to start again.
If you didn’t get to the phone in time you wondered who it was because there were no answering machines.
We hand wrote our disconnection and connection orders and manually did the billing.
Photocopying happened with some smelly machine which you had to turn a big handle to operate.
When we finally got computers almost everyone over 50 took voluntary redundancy.
Our computer screens were orange writing on a black background. Within a year I had spectacles.
The cash truck came on payday and we were paid with cash.
When they started putting it in our bank accounts you had to go to the bank before the weekend and draw out enough money to last until Monday.
when you wanted to make a toll call, you had to phone the operator and ask them to put you through. The operator phoned the number you were looking for and if, after much hissing and beeping, the particular individual you wanted to speak to was there, they connected you (a person to person call, I believe).
no photocopies – you wrote things on a carbon paper thingy, clipped it into the Gestetner machine turned the handle and it ran off pages written in smelly purple ink.
my ma made my clothes (using natty patterns bought in a haberdasher) and knitted my jumpers
computer games? I do not understand the significance of this. Could they mean the tv tennis machine with the two white lines hitting a white dot back and forth on the black and white telly?
Oh and I liked soda stream. Free fizzy! (at my posh friend’s house, anyway)
FYI adidas Rom are STILL the height of fashion 🙂
I’m with H. AND I learned to type on manual typewriter.
love,
Pog (aged 143 1/2)
Ugh.
Learned to type on an IBM Selectric 2 Typewriter.
Cell phones had a hand carry bag with a huge antenni sticking out of it.
In elementary/middle school, all of our worksheets were purple and if they were just ran off. they were slighty damp, with a wonderful smell..
I can remember Green Stamps
Power steering was an option/luxary item on cars.
Gas cost .69 gal. and you could choose between leaded and unleaded?????
My firt car was brand new with only twelve miles on it, and there were no airbag(s).
I remember pull top beer tabs.. remember making necklace….???
ooohh too old…
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