It was about 10p a litre.
I'm so old I remember Page 6
Sweet shops with dozens of big glass jars filled with sweets that you bought by the 'quarter'.
The streets filled with dog shit, some of it white.
No central heating, ice on the inside of my bedroom window in the winter and a coal fire in the lounge. No such thing as duvets either, just blankets.
Decent music.
EVERYONE smoked EVERYWHERE. Parents smoked like chimneys in the living room, bedrooms etc. They smoked around their babies and kids and couldn't give a f**k. Countless kids developed asthma because of it. But the parents kept on smoking.
Three channels on the telly. BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And there was no round the clock TV, it switched off about 11 pm until about 9am the next morning. Before they switched off the announcer would terrify you by telling you to unplug the TV and switch off lights in case they caught fire and burned your house down.
The music charts meant something. To get into the top ten was a major achievement and you had to sell many thousands of singles to do it, unlike about 12 today. Manufactured pop bands were seen as a joke, rather than the norm.
Corporal punishment at school. Parents had to sign a waiver that basically said the teachers were allowed to hit their kids. And they did hit us with sticks or whatever came to hand. Back in the seventies it was perfectly acceptable for my headmaster to bend me over his desk, pull down my shorts and hit me several times with a slipper that - inexplicably - had the words "The Weinder" tippexed on the sole.
Fearsome dinnerladies who forced you to eat every last scrap on the plate. There was a girl called Irene Oxford who hated cabbage and one of the dinnerladies stood over her, screaming at her to eat it as the entire school dinner hall looked on. She ate some and promptly vomited all over the table, for which she was caned. Harsh.
Proper seasons. Boiling in the summer, proper snow in the winter. Not this everlasting grey nothingness that we have now.
People with limps. Every other person you saw seemed to have a limp or a squint or something wrong with them, especially the older generation. You'd never see a pensioner out jogging like you do now.
Town centres you could drive around. You could drive directly into the town centre and park in the road.
Toilet cisterns high up on the wall with about a thousand gallons of water in, with a big chain dangling down that when pulled cause a tsunami of water that could flush a baby hippo away. My environmentally-friendly cistern holds about three tablespoons of water and struggles to flush a plop the size of a chocolate button.
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 6 2013, 3:29 PM GMTBefore they switched off the announcer would terrify you by telling you to unplug the TV and switch off lights in case they caught fire and burned your house down.
Did they used to play the National Anthem? Or have I made that up...
Quote: zooo @ March 6 2013, 3:33 PM GMTDid they used to play the National Anthem? Or have I made that up...
Yeah that was after the announcer. With a big spinning globe.
Aw, fun.
I wonder if anyone stood up and saluted.
Quote: zooo @ March 6 2013, 3:37 PM GMTAw, fun.
I wonder if anyone stood up and saluted.
Alf Garnett did 
Good grief, a truck just came past loaded with scrap and a man yelled out of the window 'any old iron.' I haven't seen anything like that for about 30 years. Spooky.
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 6 2013, 3:40 PM GMTAlf Garnett did
Ah, that's probably where I got all that from, then!
Quote: Loopey @ March 6 2013, 3:43 PM GMTGood grief, a truck just came past loaded with scrap and a man yelled out of the window 'any old iron.' I haven't seen anything like that for about 30 years. Spooky.
We still have them around here.
Up until about 10 year ago we had rag and bone man who came round on a horse and cart, Steptoe style. Now we have the same guy in a van, but he has a PA system on the van that blares out the Steptoe theme tune to tell you he's there.
Growing up in Ireland we only had 2 channels RTE1 and RTE2. Similarly I remember they would play the Irish national anthem when the station closed. For some reason I remember cobwebs and gold colours in the video. Having BBC was very extravagant.
EDIT: Good lord I've found the video! And I was right cobwebs and gold! http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=wygzJtJwPnk&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwygzJtJwPnk&gl=GB
Quote: zooo @ March 6 2013, 3:37 PM GMTAw, fun.
I wonder if anyone stood up and saluted.
They stood up in the cinema, until the era of punk. It was ridiculous.
Woww.
When I went to our little local cinema (which closed when I was 7) they always played a little extra cartoon or something before the film. It was ace.
Quote: Loopey @ March 6 2013, 3:43 PM GMTGood grief, a truck just came past loaded with scrap and a man yelled out of the window 'any old iron.' I haven't seen anything like that for about 30 years. Spooky.
We have been getting that a lot recently, though when I was a kid they had wheelbarrows, 1989 seems so far away now
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 6 2013, 3:29 PM GMTManufactured pop bands were seen as a joke, rather than the norm.
Of course the Monkees were a manufactured band. So were the Beatles.