quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
The date of the release of Disney's The Little Mermaid was closer to the moon landing than it is to today.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by St Everild:
Listening to someone complain (on Facebook) about being wolf-whistled in the street...and realising that I can't even remember the last time that happened to me...

---

And when it does happen, it's not a wolf-whistle, it's just that ringing noise you sometimes get in your ears.

I realised a few weeks ago that technically I'm old enough to be the grandfather of someone who'll go to university this year.
 

---

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :
 
It's not making me feeling particularly old, but I did realize the other day that on Tuesday (my birthday) I will have had a driver's license for exactly half of my life. (For anyone who is counting, that is 16 years, and I have still never been cited for a moving violation.)
 

---

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
My eldest son is just a year and a half younger than my wife was when we got married.

I work in IT. Nothing that I do or use was even thought about when I started.

I am nearly half as old as my house.
 

---

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
Mr Nen and I were married 27 years ago today and we were 25 and 26 when we married. This means we've been married for longer than we haven't been married.

Nen - amazed at her own staying power.
 

---

Posted by WearyPilgrim (# 14593) on :
 
I visited my home town not long ago and happened to meet an old high school acquaintance whom I hadn't seen in over forty years. The upshot was this dawning realization: You know you're old when you meet someone who looks old, who in fact is younger than you.
 

---

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I work in IT. Nothing that I do or use was even thought about when I started.

---

I worked in IT before I retired. Nothing I did or used is still done or used.
 

---

Posted by ChaliceGirl (# 13656) on :
 
Remembering the day Kurt Cobian died, and how he left behind his little toddler girl...

and then knowing she now looks like this.
 

---

Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
When I first started working, the Latest Thing in high-tec was the Gestetner duplicator and a word processor with the enormous floppy disk drives.

[ 01. March 2013, 18:10: Message edited by: Starbug ]
 

---

Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
I was at a meeting the other day, and the chairman asked us to 'put your cell phones on stun'.

He then had to explain the reference for the younger people in the room.
 

---

Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on :
 
On the upside, when I went to the orientation class for knee and hip replacements I was one of the youngest people there.
 

---

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
I felt old when the manager of the small store I worked at turned out to be the daughter of a friend I had in middle school and said manager had a little daughter. Which made my old chum a grandma. Which made me old enough to be a grandma.

And -wait for it- this took place twenty-five years ago. I'm officially old-as-dirt.
 

---

Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :
 
I was ordained 25 years ago, come December. I was sooooo young. Yet sometimes I think of myself as a relatively inexperienced minister.
Weird.
 

---

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
When I started work there were no calculators.


 

---

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
I watched last nights "Child of our time" earlier. There was a teenage mother there, whose mother was a teenager when she was pregnant. That means that the new grandmother was in her early thirties.

By the time she is my age, she will be a great grandparent.
 

---

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by St Everild:

Listening to someone complain (on Facebook) about being wolf-whistled in the street...and realising that I can't even remember the last time that happened to me...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
When I started work there were no calculators.

---

My Nan was pictured in the Daily Mail operating one of a batch of new calculators. I think that before she was married, so would be the mid 1930s. I'm not sure quite what was newsworthy - they had been around in some form or another since the 17th century.

TME
 

---

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The sheer number of funerals.... soon I'll know more people dead than alive.
 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
This may make me sound young to some of you...but I graduated from college 20 years ago this spring. Funnily, the year of my 20th high-school graduation anniversary, I was graduating from an MA program, so I've been in a PhD program now just as long as I was in college. Hardly seems the same length of time... you know how time seems much faster (and IME emptier - like less happens in the same length of time, even if that's not actually true) as you get older. Ah, what short and empty years I have to look forward to!
 

---

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Originally posted by St Everild:

quote:

---

Listening to someone complain (on Facebook) about being wolf-whistled in the street...and realising that I can't even remember the last time that happened to me...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:


My first school computing class c1978, involved knitting needles.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
I think you can be defined as Getting On A Bit, Middle-Aged or Really Quite Young by whether you remember where you were when you heard that ...

(a) Kennedy had been shot
(b) John Lennon had been shot
(c) Princess Diana had died

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I watched last nights "Child of our time" earlier. There was a teenage mother there, whose mother was a teenager when she was pregnant. That means that the new grandmother was in her early thirties.

By the time she is my age, she will be a great grandparent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The last Calvin and Hobbes strip was over seventeen years ago

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by St Everild:
Realising that I am nearly the same age now as my father was when he had to retire from work on health grounds...

---

I am nearly 20 years past that: I am looking forward to 60 the second day of next year! (Dad was forced into retirement at age 40...)
 

---

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
It's now 50 years since the Beatles' first recordings. At that time it was less than 40 years since the first Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five records--and they seemed so old-fashioned in 1963...

[ 02. March 2013, 05:38: Message edited by: Timothy the Obscure ]
 

---

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
My son is 40 today.

My eldest brother, were he alive, would be a great-grandfather.
 

---

Posted by Gussie (# 12271) on :
 
The girls at school are on a Scoobies kick at present. I was telling them how they come round every few years and that I was keen on making them when I was in the equivalent of Y7 too, then realised that was nearly 50 years ago!
 

---

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :
 
For me it was obvious that something was up when people refer to Iron Maiden and Metallica as being "old". Same when Public Enemy call themselves "old-school".

Most of my clients (from Germany) weren't alive when the Berlin wall came down. The same clients also don't know of the German team being hated for boring play.
 

---

Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
It makes me feel old when my Son stresses that he'll be 30 next year.

On the plus side, when I take his children (aged 3 & 1)out, quite a few people assume I'm their mother.
 

---

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
I think a big one was realising that I've been playing senior cricket for my club for longer than some of my teammates have been alive.
 

---

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I suppose it dawned on me that I was defintely middle-aged standing in the church at my son's wedding.

---

Indeed. Our daughter got married last year and I don't know how that happened - last time I looked she was playing with her toys on the floor. Mr Nen and I have been looking through our wedding photos this morning (27 years married, see above ) as we're going to a reunion of his youth group this weekend. It's sobering to see how many of our wedding guests are now no longer with us... the majority of the group, in some photos...

Nen - having a wobble.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
I suppose I tried very hard to banish from my mind, on my last birthday, that I was the age my Dad was when he retired. OK, that was from the Royal Air Force, but he joined before WW2 and served nearly 39 years!
 

---

Posted by nomadicgrl (# 7623) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
The date of the release of Disney's The Little Mermaid was closer to the moon landing than it is to today.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by nomadicgrl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
The date of the release of Disney's The Little Mermaid was closer to the moon landing than it is to today.

---

Little Mermaid was released 1989 - 24 years ago
Moon landing was 1969 30 years before the TLM was released.

I am very relieved that this wasn't true, as it made me feel very old indeed and now I feel less very old. (though the fact that in only 7 years it will be true isn't helpful).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I remember visiting some friends who had cable TV. . . . The general impression was that it would never take off.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
My aunt and uncle got a colour television to watch Princess Anne's wedding. My parents regarded this as wanton spendthiftness. At that point I had no expectation that I'd ever have a colour television.

---

I can remember when 'Tomorrows World' (that's enough to age me) experimented in colour transmission..
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I remember the first transmission of BBC2. Heck, I remember the first commercial TV programme (an episode of Robin Hood with Richard Greene).
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I comfort myself by remembering that Jesus, as far as his human nature goes, is about 2016 this year. So at least there's somebody around who could consider me a mere child.
 

---

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
Wasn't it Karl: Liberal Backslider who suggested there should be an acronym for There's an XKCD For That.
 

---

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
Our first telephone number was something like WOR 973. WOR stood for Wordsworth. All the telephone districts in my area of Middlesex were signified by poets.

And now it occurs to me that I remember Middlesex being a real county.
 

---

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Our first telephone number was something like WOR 973. WOR stood for Wordsworth. All the telephone districts in my area of Middlesex were signified by poets.

And now it occurs to me that I remember Middlesex being a real county.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:

quote:

---

Originally posted by nomadicgrl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
The date of the release of Disney's The Little Mermaid was closer to the moon landing than it is to today.

---

Little Mermaid was released 1989 - 24 years ago
Moon landing was 1969 30 years before the TLM was released.

I am very relieved that this wasn't true, as it made me feel very old indeed and now I feel less very old. (though the fact that in only 7 years it will be true isn't helpful).

---

Erm, sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but 1969 is only 20 years before 1989, so the original premise is true.

I am similarly unimpressed by it, but it is nevertheless accurate.

---

Wow, that was a dumb math mistake I made, somehow transposing 1989 to 1999 - maybe I was so in denial that my subconscious mind screwed up my math mind....yah....I'll go with that.
 

---

Posted by HenryT (# 3722) on :
 
We once had a three digit phone number when we lived in Linlithgow.

I remember an old BBC pop-science show called "How" transmitting a spinning disc image that made the illusion of colours on a B&W TV.

I just barely remember radio licenses. The transistor radio killed those, as no one would pay more than the price of a radio for a license.

I remember a Daimler car my father had with electromechanical turn signals-a lighted arm popped out of the B-pillar.
 

---

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
... my grandparents were born two centuries ago ...

---

I take it you mean the century before last, i.e. the 1800s, and not in 1812.

It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria.

When D. started teaching (in 1979) he felt old that some of the kids were too young to remember the Beatles.
 

---

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
For me it was obvious that something was up when people refer to Iron Maiden and Metallica as being "old". Same when Public Enemy call themselves "old-school".

---

Punk-rock (which, in some permutation, is still considered youth music, at least in some circles) is now older than rock & roll was when punk-rock was the latest thing. John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) is older than Mick Jagger was when the punks were calling the Stones "boring old farts."
 

---

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
I just came home from a wonderful concert by our Grammy-winning Phoenix Chorale -- when I was looking through the program before the concert started I noticed that almost all of the composers were younger than me!

 

---

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Boogie:
[QB] When I started work there were no calculators.

Well calculators do go back a while. My favorite was the
curta from the fifties.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:

It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
When D. started teaching (in 1979) he felt old that some of the kids were too young to remember the Beatles.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Boogie:
[QB] When I started work there were no calculators.

Well calculators do go back a while. My favorite was the
curta from the fifties.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
I think you can be defined as Getting On A Bit, Middle-Aged or Really Quite Young by whether you remember where you were when you heard that ...

(a) Kennedy had been shot (I don't - I was less than 2 years old)

(b) John Lennon had been shot (I was a student in Aberdeen)

(c) Princess Diana had died (I was on holiday in Orkney)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
I think you can be defined as Getting On A Bit, Middle-Aged or Really Quite Young by whether you remember where you were when you heard that ...

(a) Kennedy had been shot (I don't - I was less than 2 years old)

(b) John Lennon had been shot (I was a student in Aberdeen)

(c) Princess Diana had died (I was on holiday in Orkney)

---

a) wasn't born

b) no idea - I think I was 2 (I googled it, it was 1980, right?)

c) Was my first morning in a rented flat - just before starting my second year at music college (I'd lived in halls of residence in my first year). I heard about it in church.

Hmm, maybe I'm not as old as I feel
Thanks piglet.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I was an inkwell monitor at school.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
And now it occurs to me that I remember Middlesex being a real county.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
When D. started teaching (in 1979) he felt old that some of the kids were too young to remember the Beatles.

---

I recently cheered up the 20-somethings in the office (who were harking nostalgically back to the Nineties!) by saying that in just 3 years' time they may be working with people born this century.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is interesting to think that people retiring at the age of 65 this year ( and last year ) were all born after the end of the second world war.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
LC, born 1966.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

Sioni Sais, b. 1957.

---

Mere babes..
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Thank you
 

---

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Here is an interesting one. There was a time when I vaguely knew what would be on this list (it comes out every year), then there was a time when it felt wrong that I did not know what was on that list. Finally I have got to the stage where not knowing is the way I expect it to be. So I look at it and think "Oh I wonder who that was" when it mentions a pop start who died before they were born as I lost interest in pop music before that person made it big.

Jengie
 

---

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Palimpsest:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Boogie:
[QB] When I started work there were no calculators.

Well calculators do go back a while. My favorite was the
curta from the fifties.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Here is an interesting one. There was a time when I vaguely knew what would be on this list (it comes out every year), then there was a time when it felt wrong that I did not know what was on that list. Finally I have got to the stage where not knowing is the way I expect it to be. So I look at it and think "Oh I wonder who that was" when it mentions a pop start who died before they were born as I lost interest in pop music before that person made it big.

Jengie

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
Karl, if you really want to feel young, join me in my church on Sunday. I promise you will look round and realise you are one of the younger ones.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Pine Marten, born 1950.

---

The same year my father was born.

Sorry
 

---

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Jenny Ann (# 3131) on :
 
...and the year before my own parents.
 

---

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :
 
I had to explain to the receptionist at work today who John Peel was.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Meerkat:
Meerkat... who thinks of himself as being in his late 30's, until he actually thinks that he will become a great-uncle in a couple of months.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Some years back, when our office was putting up an exhibition to celebrate the anniversary of the Hit Parade, people were eagerly checking what was top of the charts when they were born. I eagerly checked, too, but was puzzled when I couldn't find it. Then it dawned on me - the Hit Parade started in 1952 ...

Pine Marten, born 1950.

---

• Music, Music Music
• Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)
• I Wanna Be Loved
• A Bushel and a Peck
• My Foolish Heart
• Play a Simple Melody
• The Cry of the Wild Goose
• All My Love
• Sentimental Me
• There's No Tomorrow
• I'll Never Be Free
• Harbor Lights
• Hoop-Dee-Doo
• I Can Dream, Can't I?
• Mona Lisa
• Nevertheless
• Goodnight Irene
• Bewitched
• Rag Mop
• Bonaparte's Retreat
• La Vie en Rose
• The Tennessee Waltz
• Dear Hearts and Gentle People
• It Isn't Fair

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Pine Marten, born 1950.

---

The same year my father was born.

Sorry

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Some years back, when our office was putting up an exhibition to celebrate the anniversary of the Hit Parade, people were eagerly checking what was top of the charts when they were born. I eagerly checked, too, but was puzzled when I couldn't find it. Then it dawned on me - the Hit Parade started in 1952 ...

Pine Marten, born 1950.

---

The Hit Parade started long before 1952. I have CDs of the hits of each year. My collection starts with 1941; I don't know whether that's when it started.

In 1950 the songs were

• Music, Music Music
• Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)
• I Wanna Be Loved
• A Bushel and a Peck
• My Foolish Heart
• Play a Simple Melody
• The Cry of the Wild Goose
• All My Love
• Sentimental Me
• There's No Tomorrow
• I'll Never Be Free
• Harbor Lights
• Hoop-Dee-Doo
• I Can Dream, Can't I?
• Mona Lisa
• Nevertheless
• Goodnight Irene
• Bewitched
• Rag Mop
• Bonaparte's Retreat
• La Vie en Rose
• The Tennessee Waltz
• Dear Hearts and Gentle People
• It Isn't Fair

Moo

---

Sorry, Moo, you're right - I wasn't clear. We were celebrating the anniversary of the first official UK Singles Chart that was started by the NME in 1952. The first no. 1 was Al Martino's Here in my Heart, which was there for about 9 weeks, I believe. Hence I couldn't find a no. 1 for 1950.
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
I'm older now than my father-in-law was when he passed away at age 56. I don't feel old. But I'm finding in increasingly irritating to try to keep up with technology, and extremely irritated with the cost cell phones, internet & cable TV, esp. in relation to what you actually get for those exorbitant prices. So I'm becoming ever more curmudgeonly.

Then like (I think) PeteC said: all new teenagers this year were born AFTER 2000. And the fact that my oldest granddaughter turns 16 this spring, and if she follows in the footsteps of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, I could be a great-grandfather before turning 60! And my mother-in-law, at a spry 76, could be a great-great grandmother before turning 80!

Where did the years go?
 

---

Posted by Surfing Madness (# 11087) on :
 
I had to explain to my flatmates last year, that Michael Palin was not just that bloke who does travel programs.
 

---

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :
 
I'm now older than my mother was when she died Mind, she was only 52 when cancer took her.
 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:
I'm older now than my father-in-law was when he passed away at age 56. I don't feel old. But I'm finding in increasingly irritating to try to keep up with technology, and extremely irritated with the cost cell phones, internet & cable TV, esp. in relation to what you actually get for those exorbitant prices. So I'm becoming ever more curmudgeonly.

Then like (I think) PeteC said: all new teenagers this year were born AFTER 2000. And the fact that my oldest granddaughter turns 16 this spring, and if she follows in the footsteps of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, I could be a great-grandfather before turning 60! And my mother-in-law, at a spry 76, could be a great-great grandmother before turning 80!

Where did the years go?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
... when I heard Elvis was dead ... I was 15 ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
As per XKCD, the one surefire way of making people feel old is to point out just how long ago something they remember from when they were young (probably about 12ish) really was.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
...
I had a few "old-making" moments last year: I turned 50, my mother died (the first of my parents or in-laws) and I became a great-aunt (although it must be said that my sister, the baby's grandmother, is 6½ years older than me).

---

I've just realised my eldest great-nephew must be 16 now! But I was first an aunty at age 6
It was losing both my parents that made me feel old, I was 29 when Dad died, Mum died 10 years later.
 

---

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:

I knew I was starting to get old when I had to work out my age from the year, rather than just knowing it. I even know someone who "celebrated" (if that's the right word) her 40th birthday a year early by mistake.

---

I have no idea of my age, I know the vague ball park figure, but not my actual age. I have to work it out from the year every time.

In denial, moi?
 

---

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
I have no problem remembering my age this year. Because this year I get the OAP!

I actually never have trouble remembering my age because Wodders, as he is constantly reminding me, is 7 months younger than me.

Also I have a 20-minutes-older twin sister!
 

---

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
I have to work it out from the year every time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
I have to work it out from the year every time.

---

Half the time I have to do that as well, and I'm 'only' 34.

(it may not sound old to some of you, but it's the oldest I've ever been in my entire life!)

---

I think the rot sets in some time in the twenties. You start off with every year, month and day being hugely significant, then by the time you're teenaged you know the only important thing is when you can legally do X, or Y, or possibly even Z if you're lucky enough. But once you've hit 21, what difference does it make? Who cares? There's no functional reason why you need to know.

(Of course, when you're really old, this works in reverse. A combination of last-in, first-out and a strange sense of pride means that doddery old ladies will instantly tell you their age loudly and at length, whether you ask or not. So if you have to work it out, I suppose that makes you middle aged. You're welcome.)
 

---

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Of course, when you're really old, this works in reverse. A combination of last-in, first-out and a strange sense of pride means that doddery old ladies will instantly tell you their age loudly and at length, whether you ask or not.

---

Yes - my Grandma was very proud of her age and often would add a year or two
 

---

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :
 
Our new Vicar starts next week. He's 9 years younger than me
 

---

Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :
 
The Liverpool manager is a year older than me. I have never had a manager who's younger than myself. I mean, when the King was our manager first time he was younger than I am now, but still, that's a milestone I haven't passed yet.

Saying that, it's looking more and more unlikely that I'll be discovered playing football in the local park and thrown into a game against the mancs where I come on and score a late winner i front of the Kop.
 

---

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:
Our new Vicar starts next week. He's 9 years younger than me

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PeteC:
I have no problem remembering my age this year. Because this year I get the OAP!

I actually never have trouble remembering my age because Wodders, as he is constantly reminding me, is 7 months younger than me.

Also I have a 20-minutes-older twin sister!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
... I have to work it out from the year every time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:
Our new Vicar starts next week. He's 9 years younger than me

---

Shortly after I moved here, we got a new Dean who's less than a year older than me.

He took evil delight in announcing my 50th birthday to the congregation* and on my birthday this year he came up to me, gave me a hug and said, "you've caught up with me again".

* I produce the Cathedral weekly bulletin - revenge will be mine one day.
 

---

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I heard Rag Mop done by the late Allen Sherman: what a stupid song, but his version was almost entertaining.

First popular song I ever heard was The Witch Doctor (1959) which Nanny taught us when she was 17: I remember all of the lines but especially the refrain. Oo Ee, ah ah ah. Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang! [repeat with different notes]

We are once again in communication after several decades when she was married to a Scottish football player and lived on the west coast of England: Oh to be in Land's End again, particularly in Sennen Cove where I went surfing for the first time in the Atlantic! She has now returned to Northern Ireland, but not Portadown in the war-torn County Armagh!
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Traveller:

I got a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator as a 21st birthday present. It was an amazing device for size and practicality, even though it got confused if you tried to divide by zero.

---

I got a Sinclair Scientific in 1975 (because it was cheap, but capable) that I joyfully lent to friends. They were soon back asking "Where's the equals sign?", because it used Reversed Polish Notation, and the natural (rather than base 10) logarithms baffled them too.
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
I still keep a couple of slide rules around, and to mess with the newly-hired folks, I even have one that works on my computer screen.

I've had older calculators, but my trusty HP-15C is still on the road - purchased 1986.
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
Dang it, missed the edit window and didn't read very well, Sioni-

RPN forever! It saved my hide on many a thermodynamics test.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I had a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator too - loved it. Until then we'd been using tables of logarithms and doing calculations by hand.

I was particularly thrilled to discover that if you keyed in 07734 and turned the calculator upside down the display said hello.
 

---

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
More than fifty years ago, computers were the size of a Buick (or Ford Transit) and Dad designed something for Burroughs called an information drum which was the size of a washing machine.

My wife's university used to have a gorgeous and massive Cray Supercomputer and then replaced it with a series of dreary interconnected microcomputers.
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
I don't go back quite that far, but my first programming was in octal code on a Litton/Monroe programmable calculator - you had to punch out these "chads" to represent your instruction. When I started engineering school, the interface to the mainframe was either keypunch/card reader or, for some things, a teletype terminal.

I wasn't quite 14 when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. Back then, it was REALLY COOL! I had my 3 ft tall Saturn V model, and the larger scale command/service & lunar lander models so I could simulate every step of the way.

Then, a few years ago, I was flying up the Florida Coast on a clear day, when I looked 'way down there and saw the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, looking very small indeed from 35000 ft. Then I looked 'way up into the deep blue above and thought...
 

---

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
When kids you taught at high school reach 65 and retire...

On the other hand, people say they can't believe I'm 80.

GG
 

---

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :
 
On the other hand, one of the sudents we have with our team at the moment was impressed when I, the oldest member of the team, described something as being "TMI".
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
A former rector at my church was surprised to learn that I knew what ROTFLMAO meant.

I've learned a lot on the ship.

Moo
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Hearing about people in quite grown-up jobs- professors, government ministers, vicars- having GCSEs. (I don't think anyone got a proper education after O levels were abolished- although no doubt people said something similar after the School Cert., or whatever it was called, went out.)
 

---

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:
I don't go back quite that far, but my first programming was in octal code on a Litton/Monroe programmable calculator - you had to punch out these "chads" to represent your instruction. When I started engineering school, the interface to the mainframe was either keypunch/card reader or, for some things, a teletype terminal.

I wasn't quite 14 when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. Back then, it was REALLY COOL!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I had a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator too - loved it. Until then we'd been using tables of logarithms and doing calculations by hand.

I was particularly thrilled to discover that if you keyed in 07734 and turned the calculator upside down the display said hello.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I had a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator too - loved it. Until then we'd been using tables of logarithms and doing calculations by hand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carex:
Whereas for precise field work where a slide rule wasn't accurate enough, we used a handheld mechanical Curta calculator along with a book of trig tables.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I had a Sinclair Cambridge pocket calculator too - loved it. Until then we'd been using tables of logarithms and doing calculations by hand.

I was particularly thrilled to discover that if you keyed in 07734 and turned the calculator upside down the display said hello.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carex:
Whereas for precise field work where a slide rule wasn't accurate enough, we used a handheld mechanical Curta calculator along with a book of trig tables.

---

Googled them and they are brilliant! But a grand or better for something my phone can beat?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
My father was born in 1899.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
But were we ever TEENAGERS? We didn't disappear from 12 to 20, but the Teenage Culture wasn't really under way, and Mum and I were immersed in classical music, so the names of pop performers don't ring many bells.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Surfing Madness:
I'd forgotten about my very first calculator (which I gained to play with from my Dad.) It plugged in to the mains, it might have at some point been able to charge and not need the mains, but it might not!

---

You could charge yours? Luxury!

Mine had small vacuum tubes with number shaped filaments. And it was large, and I do mean large. It had a larger footprint on the desk than a 1990's computer.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
I'm doing a teaching degree and today we had student teachers "teaching" us for 10 minutes.

One young bloke (bout 20?) was doing a mini lecture on solids, gases and liquids.

One of the questions he posed was:

"What is matter made out of"?

This ex biological sciences buff (first degree 20 years ago) piped up:

"Atoms"

The kid looked at me blankly.

He turned to the class and said:

"I'm thinking of something starting with a P"

Apparently particles was the correct answer.


 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I take it the answer 'stuff' wouldn't have passed either?
 

---

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
We had a retired minister doing pulpit supply, and his children's address was illustrated with a nappy pin. None of the children knew what it was, but one speculated that it was "some sort of carabiner." But the retired minister didn't know what a carabiner was. By the time nappy pins and carabiners had been explained satisfactorily to both sides, the point of the children's address had been totally lost.
 

---

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
I was reminded of my youth today when the 80's children show My Secret Identity suddenly and inexplicably came to mind. For some reason the memory of this show causes me a lot of pleasure. It was about a 14-year-old boy that gets hit by a scientist's "photon beam" and gains super speed, invulnerability, and the ability to float. Since he can only float, and not fly, he uses aerosol cans to propel himself forward. Oh, the 80's!
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
So that's why we have global warming.
 

---

Posted by The Machine Elf (# 1622) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
We had a retired minister doing pulpit supply, and his children's address was illustrated with a nappy pin. None of the children knew what it was, but one speculated that it was "some sort of carabiner." But the retired minister didn't know what a carabiner was. By the time nappy pins and carabiners had been explained satisfactorily to both sides, the point of the children's address had been totally lost.

---

The Lass and I were visiting an Anglican church where the treasurer started his slot with something like 'Some of you must see me as some kind of beast with the letters L.S.D. written across my forehead'. Despite being older than me, the Lass didn't make the connection with pre-decimalisation currency until I explained it.
 

---

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
Ahem. Less of the old, please.
 

---

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
Hey! I remember the old money. My family travelled to the UK in 1970. It was easy to convert $ to £: £1 was worth $2.40 so British pence were the same as US cents! It was transparent to do the maths and I could have 50p (fifty New Pence) in one trouser pocket and 10 shillings in the other. Guineas were weird - I think that they were a £1 and a shilling. Is that correct?

I am old enough to remember when gum machines sold you a gum ball for a penny...


 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
In the late Sixties Britain's' primary schools went OTT teaching kids about the new decimal currency. I think they missed the point that most kids got the idea faster than the teachers! I recall doing everything three times with our (frankly quite stupid and nasty) top year primary teacher, who thought the removal of £sd was another indication that sin had taken a hold of the country.

Many years later I saw a COBOL computer program that had been used in banking systems with £sd: no wonder we changed! I think the routine was to turn everything into pennies, do the sums, then everything back to £sd.
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
I am just too young to remember LSD, though some of my contemporaries say they do, and I have no reason to doubt them (they'd have been about 4 at the time, so it's just possible). But I do remember some brand of breakfast cereal in the early 70s (possibly Co-op own brand, it's the kind of thing they'd do) which had little metrication rhymes on the packets:

quote:

---

A metre measures three foot three
It's longer than a yard, you see

---

quote:

---

A litre of water's a pint and three quarters

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
In the late Sixties Britain's' primary schools went OTT teaching kids about the new decimal currency. I think they missed the point that most kids got the idea faster than the teachers! I recall doing everything three times with our (frankly quite stupid and nasty) top year primary teacher, who thought the removal of £sd was another indication that sin had taken a hold of the country.

Many years later I saw a COBOL computer program that had been used in banking systems with £sd: no wonder we changed! I think the routine was to turn everything into pennies, do the sums, then everything back to £sd.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
I am just too young to remember LSD, though some of my contemporaries say they do, and I have no reason to doubt them (they'd have been about 4 at the time, so it's just possible). But I do remember some brand of breakfast cereal in the early 70s (possibly Co-op own brand, it's the kind of thing they'd do) which had little metrication rhymes on the packets:

quote:

---

A metre measures three foot three
It's longer than a yard, you see

---

and

quote:

---

A litre of water's a pint and three quarters

---

I do still use these from time to time!

---

quote:

---

ATwo and a quarter pounds of jam, weigh about a kilogram

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:

Heck, when I first went to college, I used a slide rule! (linked because even when I returned to engineering school in 1985, many of the "kids" had no idea what a slide rule was...)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I measure myself in feet and inches, I weigh myself in stones and pounds, my car does miles to the gallon, rough distances are always in yards, and so on.

---

People are measured in stones and feet, beer and milk come in pints, distances travelled by bicycle or car can be in either miles or kilometres, hills and mountains can be in either feet or metres though feet is still slightly more familiar-feeling, but everything else is metric for me.

Old money was fun but decimal is just a lot easier. The conversion came a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday, so I think I must be about one of the youngest people who ever bought a pint of beer in a pub in old money - not that it was exactly legal.

All weights except human are in metric/SI. I remember being mildly amused and ever so slightly worried about ten years ago when I realised I could no longer remember how many ounces there are in a pound. I got it back again after about ten minutes, but it was an odd glitch.

Temperatures are C for normal life and K for science, again, since I was at school. If I ever had a feel for Farenheit I lost it in the 1970s.

Short distances, other than human measurements, have been metric since the late 60s, long ones have been moving to metric in my mind slowly over my entire adult life. The last straw of non-SI units for me might be when I stop thinking of astronomical distances in lightyears and AU and stick to mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-, and so on. But as I'm not an astronomer I don't think of such distances much. I have been a biologist so I got used to thinking about small distances so everything less than a metre is SI (I would have said except for my waist measurement but it probably isn't less than a metre now) SI units are actually quite convenient for astronomical distances. A light year is about ten petametres. Our whole galaxy is about a zottametre across and ten exametres thick

[ 19. March 2013, 20:09: Message edited by: ken ]
 

---

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I'm unrepentantly still using imperial measurements for everything.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
I measure myself in feet and inches, I weigh myself in stones and pounds, my car does miles to the gallon, rough distances are always in yards, and so on.

---

People are measured in stones and feet, beer and milk come in pints, distances travelled by bicycle or car can be in either miles or kilometres, hills and mountains can be in either feet or metres though feet is still slightly more familiar-feeling, but everything else is metric for me.

Old money was fun but decimal is just a lot easier. The conversion came a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday, so I think I must be about one of the youngest people who ever bought a pint of beer in a pub in old money - not that it was exactly legal.

All weights except human are in metric/SI. I remember being mildly amused and ever so slightly worried about ten years ago when I realised I could no longer remember how many ounces there are in a pound. I got it back again after about ten minutes, but it was an odd glitch.

Temperatures are C for normal life and K for science, again, since I was at school. If I ever had a feel for Farenheit I lost it in the 1970s.

Short distances, other than human measurements, have been metric since the late 60s, long ones have been moving to metric in my mind slowly over my entire adult life. The last straw of non-SI units for me might be when I stop thinking of astronomical distances in lightyears and AU and stick to mega-, giga-, tera-, peta-, and so on. But as I'm not an astronomer I don't think of such distances much. I have been a biologist so I got used to thinking about small distances so everything less than a metre is SI (I would have said except for my waist measurement but it probably isn't less than a metre now) SI units are actually quite convenient for astronomical distances. A light year is about ten petametres. Our whole galaxy is about a zottametre across and ten exametres thick

---

A late friend of mine who was a science master when units were being switched in the 60s and 70s told me he got fed up with the whole business and ied to promote the hundredweight-furlong-firkin-fortnight system. (The speed of light is I think about 1784787 furlongs per micro-fortnight).
 

---

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
A metre used to be a yard plus VAT, but with VAT now at 20% ...
 

---

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :
 
All four of my mother's children are over 60. She thinks it's funny.

Anyone remember those X-ray machines in shoe shops for shoe fitting? Must have been 1950s. Our daughters refused to believe it.

Then there was one of the first tele-facsimile machines in our lab at Ferranti in Edinburgh in the early 1970s. You had to call to the other end, and the when you were ready, yell "Go!"; press the keys simultaneously, and if you were lucky you got a smeary copy of something five minutes later. Now the fax machine will soon be a memory.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I'm unrepentantly still using imperial measurements for everything.

---

Me too.

I find shopping difficult when all the labels are metric.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
Anyone remember those X-ray machines in shoe shops for shoe fitting? Must have been 1950s. Our daughters refused to believe it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
... Now the fax machine will soon be a memory.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
... Now the fax machine will soon be a memory.

---

Not necessarily

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
... Now the fax machine will soon be a memory.

---

Not necessarily

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

---

I never use those. I always convert them. And I give up when a recipe calls for cups, it's going to take too long to figure out and then work out proportional quantities so that it's a recipe suitable for one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
Anyone remember those X-ray machines in shoe shops for shoe fitting? Must have been 1950s. Our daughters refused to believe it.

---

I remember those. Here is a picture of one.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

---

I never use those. I always convert them. And I give up when a recipe calls for cups, it's going to take too long to figure out and then work out proportional quantities so that it's a recipe suitable for one.

---

Y'could, y'know, just buy a measuring cup. It's not what they call a significant outlay.

I usually use a scale for flour (1 cup=130 grams), but most other stuff it's way easier to level a measuring cup than haul out the scale and a separate container for weighing each ingredient.
 

---

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
They were just giving up the pretense of a US conversion to metrics when I was learning to measure in the early 80's. I can still distantly remember the highways signs listing both miles and kilometers, and weather forecasts listing both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

What can I say, I just plain like imperial measurements more. If you can't do fractions then stay in France!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

---

I never use those. I always convert them. And I give up when a recipe calls for cups, it's going to take too long to figure out and then work out proportional quantities so that it's a recipe suitable for one.

---

Y'could, y'know, just buy a measuring cup. It's not what they call a significant outlay.

I usually use a scale for flour (1 cup=130 grams), but most other stuff it's way easier to level a measuring cup than haul out the scale and a separate container for weighing each ingredient.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but yours are wrong. Your pint is too small, which also shafts your gallon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but yours are wrong. Your pint is too small, which also shafts your gallon.

---

It doesn't matter for cooking, so long as you keep everything in proportion by using the same measurements.

---

quote:

---

It does if you are using half a pint of milk, say, against a pound of say flour. One of the measures differs, the other doesn't.

---

Good Lord, what are you making?
 

---

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :
 
The midwife who delivered my second baby told me her weight in metric.
I asked for conversion into English.

Also makes me feel old that she will be 30 this year.
 

---

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

It does if you are using half a pint of milk, say, against a pound of say flour. One of the measures differs, the other doesn't.

---

Good Lord, what are you making?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Random example to make the point that your liquid measures are different but your dry weight measures are the same. Except you measure dry ingredients by volume, of course.

---

I know. I was just being difficult.
 

---

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:
Any more the only time I use metrics is when foreign recipes use grams.

---

I never use those. I always convert them. And I give up when a recipe calls for cups, it's going to take too long to figure out and then work out proportional quantities so that it's a recipe suitable for one.

---

Y'could, y'know, just buy a measuring cup. It's not what they call a significant outlay.

I usually use a scale for flour (1 cup=130 grams), but most other stuff it's way easier to level a measuring cup than haul out the scale and a separate container for weighing each ingredient.

---

IME, measuring cups have only recently become available in the UK, probably as a result of demand from people trying to follow recipes from colonials.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Here's a better picture and a description of a shoe fluoroscope.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HenryT:
The major business of my employer and my previous employer is "electronic fax"- fax to email and email to fax machines.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
When my physics teacher told us of the move from c.g.s (Centimetre, gram, second) to M.K.s (Metre, kilogram, second) he jokingly threatened to introduce the M.T.F. (Mile, Ton, Fortnight) system.

---

There must be something about physics teachers! We used m.k.s (this was the early 'seventies) but he had us work out the acceleration due to gravity in furlongs/fortnight^2.

He had to explain "furlong" to some of the class
 

---

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:

At least cricket pitches are still 1 Chain long.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tree Bee:
The midwife who delivered my second baby told me her weight in metric.
I asked for conversion into English.

Also makes me feel old that she will be 30 this year.

---

The midwife or the baby?
 

---

Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

I usually use a scale for flour (1 cup=130 grams), but most other stuff it's way easier to level a measuring cup than haul out the scale and a separate container for weighing each ingredient.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zach82:

I usually use a scale for flour (1 cup=130 grams), but most other stuff it's way easier to level a measuring cup than haul out the scale and a separate container for weighing each ingredient.

---

But you don't need any separate containers or measuring cups if you have electronic scales. You can weigh all the ingredients directly into the mixing bowl/saucepan or whatever, and zero it off after each addition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
Anyone remember those X-ray machines in shoe shops for shoe fitting? Must have been 1950s. Our daughters refused to believe it.

---

I remember those. Here is a picture of one.

Moo

---

We had one just like that in the shoe-shop in town in the 70s, perhaps very early 80s.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starbug:
When I first started working, the Latest Thing in high-tec was the Gestetner duplicator and a word processor with the enormous floppy disk drives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
When I started work there were no calculators.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
The Liverpool manager is a year older than me.

---

I went to primary and secondary schools (he was a year ahead) with the guy who recently sold LFC.
 

---

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
Who remembers those jingles on the TV that taught us about decimalisation or The New Money as it was called?

"Sixpence is two and a half new pence."

"One pound is a hundred new pennies
A hundred new pence to the pound."

"Decimal point is small and round
Decimal point is funny.
They divide the pence from the pounds
When you're writing in money."

Nen - who has only herself to blame for today's earworms.
 

---

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nenya:
Who remembers those jingles on the TV that taught us about decimalisation or The New Money as it was called?

"Sixpence is two and a half new pence."

"One pound is a hundred new pennies
A hundred new pence to the pound."

"Decimal point is small and round
Decimal point is funny.
They divide the pence from the pounds
When you're writing in money."

Nen - who has only herself to blame for today's earworms.

---

quote:

---

I greatly fear that Lord Orr-Ewing/ Does not know what the hell he's doing!

---

Lord Orr-Ewing was chairman of the Metrication Board.
 

---

Posted by Oferyas (# 14031) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Our first telephone number was something like WOR 973.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oferyas:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Our first telephone number was something like WOR 973.

---

We could only phone my grandfather via the operator when I was a child. Mind you, the outer London operators even then were a bit incredulous at being asked to connect to 'Bishops Castle Three'!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Metapelagius:
... I clearly recall my first three transactions in funny money. All involved a near doubling in price - from 7d to the equivalent of 1/-. Bernard Levin got it about right with his couplet

quote:

---

I greatly fear that Lord Orr-Ewing/ Does not know what the hell he's doing!

---

Lord Orr-Ewing was chairman of the Metrication Board.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
My mum went to her grave (nearly thirty years after decimalisation) holding that we should have decimalised on the basis of 8s.4d. == "New Pound". That looks odd at first sight, but 8s.4d is 100d (old pennies) so the existing coins could have been used alongside the new ones, and cheating shopkeepers could have been spotted more easily.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
The conversion came a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday

---

Which means we would have been in the same class at school... and you're an Anglican Bishop, aren't you? How bloody old do you think that makes me feel?
 

---

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ondergard:

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria..

---

All of my grandparents were born in the reign of Queen Victoria... my maternals in 1885 and 1890 respectively, and my paternals in 1882 and 1891.

Both my parents were the youngest in their families, born 1920 and 1921, and didn't marry until they were twenty nine, and I was their youngest child, born 1957.

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You're a similar age to me and my father, who would be 100 if he were alive, was the second-youngest of 9 children. A couple of my uncles were killed in the First World War.

Nen - who is off to work today, with workmates who are mostly young enough to be her children.

[ 25. March 2013, 06:59: Message edited by: Nenya ]
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nenya:

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Originally posted by Ondergard:

quote:

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Originally posted by piglet:
It makes me feel quite old knowing that two of my grandparents were born during the reign of Queen Victoria..

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All of my grandparents were born in the reign of Queen Victoria... my maternals in 1885 and 1890 respectively, and my paternals in 1882 and 1891.

Both my parents were the youngest in their families, born 1920 and 1921, and didn't marry until they were twenty nine, and I was their youngest child, born 1957.

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You're a similar age to me and my father, who would be 100 if he were alive, was the second-youngest of 9 children. A couple of my uncles were killed in the First World War.

Nen - who is off to work today, with workmates who are mostly young enough to be her children.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ondergard:

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Originally posted by ken:
The conversion came a few weeks after my fourteenth birthday

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Which means we would have been in the same class at school... and you're an Anglican Bishop, aren't you? How bloody old do you think that makes me feel?

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Don't give him ideas, Ondergard- AFAIK he's just a Reader
 

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Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
I have a photo of my grandmother holding my mother as a baby. It was taken in 1914.
 

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Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
One of my grandfathers lost his law office in San Francisco in the Quake and Fire of 1906.

While I'm still younger than some of the others posting here by a couple decades or so, my other grandfather was born in 1861 - during the American Civil War.
 

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Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :
 
It's a few years ago now - early 80s, I think - but we remember my wife's grandmother from Montana telling about her uncle who had been in the American civil war, but refused to go back later to follow that crazy soldier, Custer. It wasn't history as far as she was concerned - just another piece of family folklore.
 

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Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Yes, really makes you realise that in some ways it's actually not all that long ago, doesn't it?
My godfather (b 1928, and whose eldest daughter is my age) was researching his family history a few years ago but ran into problems with information about his grandfather, because he was was born just before registration of births came in in 1837.

[ 28. March 2013, 13:25: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 

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Posted by Oferyas (# 14031) on :
 
Someone once congratulated my father on living long enough both to see Bleriot fly the English Channel and to use his own laptop, but he thought that his father (my grandfather) had witnessed greater changes in his lifetime, having lived long enough to see both the first steam traction engine in Shropshire and the advent of manned space flight.

Our family are bad news for pension funds!
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
My paternal grandmother lived through the Spanish-American war, the assassination of McKinley and the end of the Vietnam conflict!

Granddad lived through two World Wars and fought with the US Navy in the first one, aka The Great War.

One of the most impressive people I ever met was a former Tuskegee Airman : a brave black fighter pilot who saved many white pilot's lives in The Last War and gave me a guided tour of the museum at the Santa Monica Airport, a general aviation facility near LA about eleven years ago.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Albertus:
Yes, really makes you realise that in some ways it's actually not all that long ago, doesn't it?
My godfather (b 1928, and whose eldest daughter is my age) was researching his family history a few years ago but ran into problems with information about his grandfather, because he was was born just before registration of births came in in 1837.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Albertus:
... born just before registration of births came in in 1837.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
The funny thing is how I was born after decimalisation, and was always taught metric instead of imperial measurements at school, but a lifetime of talking to people who didn't understand that modern-fangled stuff has caused me to think in imperial for many purposes*. Now my children are having the same problem understanding me as I did with my parents.

The only good thing about this is that I can remember most of the basic metric-imperial conversions and do the mental arithmetic well enough to act as a sort of intergenerational interpreter.

* - I measure myself in feet and inches, I weigh myself in stones and pounds, my car does miles to the gallon, rough distances are always in yards, and so on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Random example to make the point that your liquid measures are different but your dry weight measures are the same. Except you measure dry ingredients by volume, of course. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
... the system in department stores when your money was put in a little capsule with the salesperson's docket, and this either shot through a tube by compressed air, ...

GG

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quote:

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Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Modern electronic scales do away with measuring things in separate bowls. Weigh your bowl and return the reading to 0; weigh your butter and press the button again – and so on. I do enjoy being able to measure exactly,say, 125 grams of butter.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Galloping Granny:

Who remembers the system in department stores when your money was put in a little capsule with the salesperson's docket, and this either shot through a tube by compressed air, or was propelled on an overhead wire, to the cashier, who returned it with your change
GG

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quote:

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Who remembers the system in department stores when your money was put in a little capsule with the salesperson's docket, and this either shot through a tube by compressed air, or was propelled on an overhead wire, to the cashier, who returned it with your change and receipt?

There was always a chair for the customer to sit on while the sale was concluded.

Come on, there must be someone out there...

(That would be the shop that had one of two escalators in the city on which you got to go up if Mum had time.)

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Camerons in Inverness had the compressed air tubes. No escalator though; Inverness's single escalator was in Woolworths. Staff were constantly having to chase kids off it.

I have just had an advert in my e-mail for a 1990s "retro night."
 

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Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
We had em in Rhodesia once upon a time. Remember them well.
 

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Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
I remember the pneumatic payment and docket receipts too.

There used to be a large millinery shop in Sydney which sold complete hats but also the bare skeleton.

Customer chose trimming and ribbons and sat at a stool on revolving floor where possibly a dozen milliners trimmed the hats with chosen fripperies. June Millinery it was called. Free trimming.

It was unheard of to go to the city, even in 60s without a hat. I went by train once and a train passing in opposite direction created a suction which pulled my hat right out the window. My first stop in town was June Millinery to replace it.

[ 29. March 2013, 08:42: Message edited by: Lothlorien ]
 

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Posted by Polly Plummer (# 13354) on :
 
I loved the compressed air tubes: they seemed quite magical.

Another thing I miss is coloured bus tickets and the dinging machine with which the conductor would punch the right one for you. My little brother had a bus conductor's set which I envied greatly.
 

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Posted by Nikon User (# 5940) on :
 
My son's 21yr old girlfriend just described me as "sprightly".
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 

 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Modern electronic scales do away with measuring things in separate bowls. Weigh your bowl and return the reading to 0; weigh your butter and press the button again – and so on. I do enjoy being able to measure exactly,say, 125 grams of butter.

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Presumably they give you decimal points of ounces, though.

I can't visualize quantities in metric the way I can in imperial. I'd have to look up 125g of butter to see whether it was a lot or about what you might expect for that particular recipe. I was taught the metric system at school when I was about 12 and living outside England, but more as a "you might need to know this one of these days if you ever go abroad" sort of thing than a "this is what we're using from now on".

"Kilometre" wasn't a word any of us had heard used before and there were three different pronunciations going around in those days: killo-metre, killommetre, and kylo-metre.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo:
My mother was born in 1900. When she wanted to get a passport in 1950 there was a problem because she had no birth certificate. They didn't register births in Virginia in 1900.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
... I was born after decimalisation, and was always taught metric instead of imperial measurements at school, but ... think in imperial for many purposes ...

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I know what you mean. I was nine when decimal currency came in, so I was used to shillings, but at school maths and science were metric.

Having said that, like you I think for most practical purposes (cooking, height, weight, distances) in imperial.

And I'll never understand the North American habit of measuring everything, even butter, in cups.


 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Very few people, other than drug dealers, have small weight scales here.
 

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Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
This talk of birth records reminds me of a story that my wife told me. She was working for the county clerk/registrar, and someone came in for a marriage license. One of the lines was for place of birth, and wanted to know which state or country the person had been born in.

This person had been born in Danzig between the wars, and apparently had a great deal of trouble convincing Kristi's co-workers that the name of the city was all there was at that time.
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
Inverness's single escalator was in Woolworths. Staff were constantly having to chase kids off it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Galloping Granny:


Who remembers the system in department stores when your money was put in a little capsule with the salesperson's docket, and this either shot through a tube by compressed air, or was propelled on an overhead wire, to the cashier, who returned it with your change and receipt?


GG

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When I was a child, one of the shoe shops still had one in the children's department (it was in the basement), I remember being fascinated. I was going to say I'm not that old, but maybe that's not true anymore!

 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by piglet:
And I'll never understand the North American habit of measuring everything, even butter, in cups.

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The first "modern" American cookbook was by Fanny Farmer in the nineteenth century. This was the system used in that cookbook, and it has been copied ever since.

Moo
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
My sister and I were talking yesterday about our great-great aunt (Grandpa's aunt), and how much we enjoyed listening to her stories of growing up. They'd take the horse and wagon to town once a month to stock up on supplies. That mode of transportation isn't far removed from my life at all!

We also discussed how some young people roll their eyes when we tell them stories of our growing up.
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 

 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
What...one whole day younger than me, Balaam?
 

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Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
One of our ancestors (something like a great-great-aunt?) told wonderful stories about the family adventures traveling to California by wagon train in the 1850's, including attacks by Indians, etc. These were duly recorded by a younger generation and became part of the family lore. While my mother was doing some other work in the state archives, she looked up the newspaper report of the arrival of the wagon train and the only comment was "they had an uneventful journey". Apparently it was all in the imagination of a 16-year-old girl with nothing to do for 5 months in a wagon, since her sister (who had made the trip with her) never mentioned anything about them.
 

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Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
Silly aside, my wife, when a young child, asked her mother what it was like to ride in a wagon train -her mother, of course, was born in the late 1930's...
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
Another silly aside: When Daughter-Unit was wee, she asked me if I had recorded the TV shows I watched as a child. When I told her that we had no such devices, she asked me if we had mirrors.
 

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