Thursday, January 15, 2009

This is how old I am

When I watched Blue Peter, the presenters were called John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves.... and Shep was a puppy.

You had to get up out of your chair and fiddle with knobs to change channels.

I remember when getting money out of an ATM felt like engaging in a futuristic act.

Dials on telephones were the norm, buttons were new-fangled.

The first time I ever saw someone using a (gigantic) mobile phone — outside Marks & Spencers in Edinburgh — I did a triple take.

I wrote my MA dissertation on a typewriter.

I spent the first part of my life being driven around in cars with no seatbelts.

I remember when only people who wore Jesus sandals bought yoghurt - and it was all called Ski and came in waxed cardboard cartons.

In my young day, a packet of crips cost two and a half pence

I saw Jungle Book in the cinema when it first came out.

Our method of illegally copying music was to make copies of LPs on cassettes.

Pageboy haircuts were the height of chic when I was at school.

Everything was "magic" - as in "I've got a magic new pair of wedges".

I spent all night listening to Radio Luxembourg under my pillow the night Elvis Presley died.

How old are you?

(Thanks to Belgian Waffle for inspiration)

11 comments:

Le laquet said...

Lesley Judd took over and was more beautiful than Valerie because she was blonde and my mouse brown hair became DOOMED forever! That old :o(

Lesley said...

Le Laquet - and she had a pageboy haircut!

leon's life said...

Well how are are you - well probably about the same as me as I had a page but haircut that went with my Donny Osmond poster.

So let's sya born between 63 - 66

Graeme Swan said...

you had a pageboy - Barend

beaverboosh said...

wow, you're really old!

Lesley said...

I was more of a David Cassidy fan Pauline (and actually it was '62, you've made me feel even older than before)

breuil: I'm going to deny that flat out.

beaverboosh: older than you then?

Lucy said...

Ha, I raise you, I can remember Petra before Shep!

End of 61, I had my long hair cut into a pageboy when I was 11 and cried all the way home.

Our ellipsoid shaped telly had bits of brown fabric on it and those spindly black legs and the knob was 1 or 9 for BBC1 and ITV, no BBC2. But my brother was a cultural snob at the tender age of 9 and wouldn't let us watch ITV much.

God I must be old, blathering on about the old days like this...

Anonymous said...

Sadly and soberingly, these are my memories too. And I was feeling positively youthful when I sprung out of bed this morning...

materfamilias said...

I love this post -- I'm going to try doing one like it soon, meme-wise. Yes, cassette tapes, typewriters, rotary phones, transistor radios, the wee ones . . .

Lesley said...

Lucy: Actually, I remember Petra too.

Dick: Could be worse though - we could be talking about horses and carriages I suppose.

materfamilias: I still have boxes of cassette tapes. I can't bring myself to throw them out.

Neil said...

64 for me... I never liked Blue Peter much. Much better was classic school holiday fare... The Double Deckers, Robinson Crusoe, Belle & Sebastian, White Horses and (greatest ever dubbed adventure) The Flashing Blade. Altogether now... "you've got to fight for what you want, for all that you believe..."

PS I'll convert your tapes, hisses 'n all, to MP£s for you if you like?

Confinement

Being confined indoors most of the day, just the four of us, is reminding me of the days when my children were wee and most of our weekends ...