'Stolen' from FaceBook, but fun....

[saundra]

Rented a black white tv and had to put coins in a slot at the back and turned the dial for 4hrs I think
Couldn't get anything on hire purchase with out husbands concent

[Kaz]

Oh I remember the 'husband's consent' stuff Saundra. When my first husband and I bought our first house they'd only just started taking wives' earnings into account!

[JoM]

Having to stand up, walk across the room and press a button to change the channel on the TV.

The first remote control we had was for a video recorder we had in 1983, it wasn't exactly remote though - there was a cable between that and the recorder.

[JoM]

How cold bedrooms could be, in houses without central heating. I've told my kids about scraping ice of the insides of windows, but I'm not sure they believed me! I didn't live in a house with CH until I was married.

Our house was a new build council house when we moved there in 1971, coal fired with radiators in the living room, hall and main bedroom. I lived there for 20 years and never had a radiator in my bedroom, despite my parents having gas central heating installed, and the house is on a hill so quite exposed (my room was on the front and you can see for miles from the window) and I remember iced up windows on the inside. I was allowed a fan heater in the mornings while I got ready. I'd put it on before going into the bathroom to warm the room up and would usually come back in to find that my Mom had been in and turned it off, because it was expensive to run for too long

[Workingman]

Party telephone lines, because they were so expensive. We 'shared' with Clare and Henry next door but one.

[TheOstrich]

"Stamp-impression" machines where you dialled a letter or a number and depressed a lever and it stamped the letter etc. on a metal strip which then came out of a slot in the side. So you could do a name tag or a message. Used to be one on the platform of Snow Hill Station back in the 1950's ......

Also those funfair arcade machines where you paid 1d and sent a ball-bearing whizzing round a circular track and hoped it would drop into one of the slots which won you a small 3d packet of Polo Mints .... used to spend all my pocket money on them when we were on holiday. That was well before shoot-em-ups and today's cash gaming slot-machines, of course ......

[miasmum]

Taking the can round to the machine in wall to buy paraffin for the heaters

Another one here with iced up windows, given that our main source of heat was a a gas fire and a paraffin heater its not surprising

[Ally]

Party telephone lines, because they were so expensive. We 'shared' with Clare and Henry next door but one.

OMG! Party lines!

Where we lived (on a very new estate in Muirhouse) mum was the first to get a telephone.

You know the proper dial ones. Mum used to answer the phone in her posh voice *Motherwell 66492*

The neighbours used to come to our house to make a call and leave 2p (yes, really! ) but I seem to remember that 2p lasted ages.

Anyway.....we were forever picking the phone up to make a call and two other people would be yakking away.

Great thread Ria.

[Diflower]

Another with icy Windows, God it was cold wasn't it

And a party line, think I was about 11 when we got a phone, I use the number as a password in various forms.

Oh, how about spotting car registration nos, and knowing where they came from because they had a list in the AA book
They still use DL for the Isle of Wight; my first proper boyfriend's car was YDL 51

[Kaz]

We didn't have a phone - again, the first time I lived in a house with a phone was when I married!

I remember those machines that stamped out letters and stuff Ossie

Ally you woz dead posh!