When I were a lad

[8ob]

Anyway one thing i notice about times gone past, there was a sense of community. Everybody knew everybody else, people were always in and out of each others houses.

Very true Mr @ronan , and no one ever locked their doors.

Bob

 

[cumbriasteve]

Very true Mr @ronan , and no one ever locked their doors.

Bob

Because they had nothing worth stealing except the telly and that was too heavy to carry.

 

[brightspark]

Because they had nothing worth stealing except the telly and that was too heavy to carry.

so they robbed the gas meter

 

[ronan]

Another thing i dislike about the modern world is the prevalence of plastic. I hate the bloody stuff. I remember stamped sheet metal toys, indestructable they were. Proper valve radios made of ......yes thats right children.....wood and metal, maybe the knobs would be bakelite, but that would be about it. Everything now is disposable, no pride of ownership and getting things repaired anymore, and you have to pay to have things recycled.

 

[ronan]

so they robbed the gas meter

Aka, the family safe deposit box.

 

[8ob]

Just as well meters dont run on single shillings anymore, it would need a shovel and hopper now just to keep up with a light bulb.

Bob

 

[Robotstar5]

Most of the big names in truck tyres reuse the carcass, stripping off the old rubber and doing a complete remould. That's after the original tread has already been recut once or twice!
The tyres are first x-rayed to make sure the carcass is still sound, no kinked wires or wires touching... contrary to popular belief it's not incorrect inflation or 'normal' that causes those blown-out tyres you see on the road; it's deformation of the reinforcing plies caused by e.g. driving over kerbs, leading to friction between the wires which heats the tyre locally... or else debris such as bricks getting stuck between the inner sidewalls of a twin-wheel pair.
Or so my man at Michelin tyres Remix tells me...
Once the tyre's passed xray it goes into a machine that shreds the rubber off, it looks a bit like a planed Tarmac road awaiting a new topcoat.
A million miles or more is not unusual for a truck tyre, apparently.

West Mids travel (or whatever it's called now) used to lease the tyres on the buses, any problems and the garage would get the company in to swap the wheel/tyre.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Just an addition to 8obs mention of shillings in the meter, Around sixty five years back, we lived next door to my grand parents and I vividly remember the electric meter took Pennies,The meter was quite low in a little cupboard, and standing on top of the meter they had a jam jar half full of pennies ready for incertion, Don't even get me started on the wireless, that was i the living room and ran on glass cased batteries that I believe had to be charged, don't know where but I don't think that people had their own chargers,

 

[Wedg1e]

I think you took your Leyden jars to a local garage to get them recharged, Gordon

Wireless... not sure what happened to my grandparents pre-war one from which used to emanate that cheeky chap Jimmy Clitheroe on a Sunday afternoon, but we still have their cabinet gramophone complete with tin box of needles and records (78rpm, naturally) made from Shellac.

 

[gordon stephenson]

There was always a "whisker set" on a shelf at my grand parents, As about a 7 or 8 year old spent hours, with some Bakerlite ear phones. the ones with a twisted brown cord and fiddled with this whisker thing on a piece of I don't really know what it was, looked like a little piece of rock, Never did get even a squeek out of it, Also in the kitchen was a full size mangle, Massive wooden cracked rollers, Spent ages with that too, winding the handle watching the rollers go round and hearing the teeth of the gears rattle.

 

[MBB]

In 1947 we got a brand new council house, the back door key was the same for every backdoor in the street. I cant remember anyone who got burgled or anything stolen. Cant imagine that happening now.

 

[GW8IZR]

As recent as 1990 there were coin operated televisions Telebank had a nice business model but I suppose the cheap nature of modern TV's have impacted telly rental businesses

 

[CompoSimmonite]

As recent as 1990 there were coin operated televisions Telebank had a nice business model but I suppose the cheap nature of modern TV's have impacted telly rental businesses

I'd forgotten about them.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

In 1947 we got a brand new council house, the back door key was the same for every backdoor in the street. I cant remember anyone who got burgled or anything stolen. Cant imagine that happening now.

We moved into a new private house in 1963 and many years later found out all the front door Yale locks on the estate were the same !

 

[Cobbler]

A friend of mine moved into a new house about 15 years ago, fitted with one of the then new fangled wireless door bells. The onle thing was the whole estate seemed to be on the same frequency, ring one & you rang the lot. All the garages in the row could be opened with each other's keys.

 

[GW8IZR]

A friend of mine moved into a new house about 15 years ago, fitted with one of the then new fangled wireless door bells. The onle thing was the whole estate seemed to be on the same frequency, ring one & you rang the lot. All the garages in the row could be opened with each other's keys.

On the early ones, when the mains went off the bell part was reset, when the power was restored it listened for the first door press to learn its master, after that it was coded to that door press until the mains was removed and restored. Sooo.. if there was a power outage on an estate the first door press to be used became the master for everyone in range.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Does anybody remember Redifusion cable tv back in the sixties? Cable strung from house to house with a junction box dropping the cable down to your living room etc, I was an apprentice then and worked with a chap that had been a debt collector for Redifusion, He knocked on doors, but said often the people were at home but wouldn't answer the door, The high tech method of cutting off the tele was no more than while pretending to look around for the occupants he would push a dress making pin through the cable to short the screening wires to the core where the cable ran down the wall and in through, usually the corner of the living room window, they soon paid up thinking they had been cut off back at some control centre,
And on a security note, how many people had the door key dangling on a string behind the letterbox!!

 

[GW8IZR]

Does anybody remember Redifusion cable tv back in the sixties? Cable strung from house to house with a junction box dropping the cable down to your living room etc, I was an apprentice then and worked with a chap that had been a debt collector for Redifusion, He knocked on doors, but said often the people were at home but wouldn't answer the door, The high tech method of cutting off the tele was no more than while pretending to look around for the occupants he would push a dress macing pin through the cable to short the screening wires to the core where the cable ran down the wall and in through, usually the corner of the living room window, they soon paid up thinking they had been cut off back at some control centre,
And on a security note, how many people had the door key dangling on a string behind the letterbox!!

Sixties! Dublin had a similar cable network in 2012 as it used to interfere with some of our customers radio systems. It was almost impossible to tame due to the install quality. I haven't worked there in the last five years but it was extensive network and I'd expect its still there.

 

[GW8IZR]

I remember the outside toilet at my grandmothers terraced house - it was like all the others at the end of the yard. That little shed was facing the neighbours little shed and the door stopped 18 inches from the floor and roof. First thing in the mornings Granddad would discuss the racing with my uncle opposite with the Woodbine smoke pouring out of each door gap before they went to the pit. Grandma (mother we called her) would discuss Granddad and uncle with Aunty a little later on under similar circumstances. I remember the gap was big enough for the Alsation to get under whaen it wanted to join you for a fuss.

Paraffin lamp in winter hung from the high level cistern, come to think of it you dont see them often these days and hessian coal sack wrapped round the pipes for lagging.

All perfectly normal and acceptable back then.

 

[Cobbler]

We had Reddifusion 'piped' TV back in the sixties to mid 70s when a slave mast was erected to give service. It was very unreliable, it always broke down at weekends or Christmas when you couldn't get hold of anyone to get it repaired