Of course there was no internet, no social media, no smartphones pinging with the latest news alerts. What was external rarely intruded. We mostly lived in our own local realities. Where was New York City anyway and did we really care?
Sometimes we waited at our village phone box to receive or make calls involving friends or sweethearts from other villages. It was hard to use the house phone because somebody else would surely be listening in.
Apart from word of mouth, there were no reviews of items or services we planned to buy. To a large extent, you simply had to dive in and hope for the best. This was true of lots of things from books to holidays and from new music to forthcoming television shows.
Nobody found boyfriends or girlfriends online because "online" meant on the washing line where underwear and football shirts fluttered in the breeze like flags. To acquire a new sweetheart you tended to use the grapevine along which secret messages were passed or you might visit a dance at local village halls and try to catch the eye of someone you fancied. It was like fishing for an elusive rainbow trout.
It's not that "Then" was better, it was just different and arguably more innocent, less exposed to the big wide world. The Media was in its kennel and generally obeyed honourable rules of engagement. Besides, it didn't matter all that much to us for we could generally hold it at arm's length.
And we didn't travel very much. Ordinary folk never rode upon aeroplanes or took foreign holidays. Many had never even been to London. And we were not in the habit of eating out anywhere. Pubs were for adults and rarely offered food menus. There were no Indian or Chinese takeaways. The best we could hope for, once in a while, was fish and chips doused with vinegar and swiftly wrapped in sheets of newspaper.
That was then but this is now.
Change can be good, and some change can be bad. It's up to us to determine which is which.
ReplyDeleteStuff was better made back then. There were only a fraction of the brands and there was real competition so things were of good quality. The world was more reliable as an effort was made to see that something was fact.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, that was then and this is now. A lot has changed in the few decades since I was born. The way I work today would have been unimaginable to me when I started out as an apprentice at my local library back in 1986. We still used cardboard cards where the date of return for each book was stamped on. Other than that, we had no way of checking who had checked out which book and when it was to be returned.
ReplyDeleteMy Mum would never have had all her shopping delivered to her 3rd floor flat after placing her order "online" - the only ordering and delivery system people used here during my childhood was drinks; crates of mineral water, apple juice and beer were ordered with your local merchant and brought once a week to your door, while you left the crates with the empty bottles outside for them to take away. I have no idea how those bills were paid; money order? cash?
Not long ago I asked my Mum how she found and booked the B&B for our holiday in the mountains when my sister and I were little (late 1970s). She said there'd been an advert in the paper and she called the phone number and talked to the owner, arranging for our dates of arrival, how many people and so on.
I think I prefer Then to Now, but Now is what we are stuck with so we make the best of it and just keep on keeping on.
ReplyDeleteI am just glad to still be here so I'll take Now, whatever it looks like.
ReplyDeleteYet we will be blamed by our grandchildren for the mess which is now. To answer the much harder question, was it our fault?
ReplyDeleteAnd we didn't take more than the earth could provide.
ReplyDeleteThe world was less intrusive back in those days, and most newspapers or TV news was fairly close to the truth with very little sensationalism. It was all low key.
ReplyDeleteAmerica could have been on a different planet for most of us, and we were fed a regular diet of romantic fictional nonsense - films with Doris Day and Rock Hudson or Cary Grant (that shows my age!). How far from the truth of American life those films were.
In my home town if you wanted to meet someone your parents would approve of, you joined the local youth club, and when you were too old for that you joined (dare I say it?) the Young Conservatives!
What reminiscences will your grandchildren have when they are your age YP, and what advances in technology, I wonder? Unlikely there will even be blogs to look back over!
Have a great holiday in Sicily - hope everything goes smoothly.
They were certainly more innocent times and it is nice to remember. It was rather more difficult for gay men to find someone at a dance hall, but I bet some occasionally did.
ReplyDeleteYes, nice to remember but I rather like our present more enlightened times and I like our modern tech, and that I have a blogmate in Yorkshire.
It is amazing how much change has happened in just 30 years, mind boggling what will happen in the next 30 - should we live that long.
ReplyDeleteSome things were better. Some things were worse. In my experience, at least. I am very grateful I got to be so thoroughly immersed in the better and, well- I survived the worse.
ReplyDeleteIt's tempting to look back at the past with rose-colored glasses. But there are a lot of advantages to the modern world, too -- being able to travel, for example. And the Internet, properly used, is pretty amazing!
ReplyDeleteI don't think the times were more innocent - I think we just did not hear about it when it wasn't. We were not given all the news and were taught a lot of stupid propaganda which as lately been discovered as we examine the historical facts...
ReplyDelete1966. You could finish up on Friday and start a new job on Monday.
ReplyDeleteThe Kardomah (designed by Misha Black) did poached eggs on toast.
Elvis & John Lennon were still alive; I was reading Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum.
The Danish Food Centre did great coffee and beer left foam in an empty glass.
Going down the London Tube escalator posters said: *Michael Caine is Alfie* .
Cher sang Burt Bacharach's song and so did Cilla. John Coltrane wasn't dead.
"The Media was in its kennel and generally obeyed honourable rules of engagement." That sure has changed, hasn't it? My father was a radio news broadcaster and I've often thought he'd be rolling in his grave over today's media.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd like to be about halfway between then and now.
ReplyDelete