I'm so old I remember my father coming home from a hunting trip with a deer strapped to the front passenger fender of our old Chevy Deluxe. When cars had fenders - something like this:
"...." that TVs and wireless sets used valves not semiconductors, and had simple controls on their fronts, not remote-control boxes needing a Degree in IT to use...
...... but can recall the "transistor radio" suddenly being among the Very Latest Things to buy!
.......
"...." that if you travelled by train (between "railway" not "train" stations) it was likely to be steam-hauled.
Actually that was not originally true for me. I am a 1950s-built native of South-East England, where most passenger trains were already electrically-powered, and had been for decades. The goods trains still used steam locomotives.
Steam traction on service trains in the UK ended in 1968. The modern passenger trains are all multiple-unit types, Diesel or electrically powered. Freight trains still have separate, Diesel locomotives.
.......
Yesterday I spotted a packet of Farley's Rusks, a brand of simple biscuit for very young children beginning to grow their teeth. I last saw them in the very early 1960s and had no idea they are still made.
Similarly I wonder if they still make Minadex and Virol? (Sweet, vitamins-fortified tonics primarily for children; respectively orange- and malt- based syrups.)
@ArishMell I too, enjoyed the taste of Minidex - I suspect it had a lot of sugar in it.
I am only surprised British Railways (or the government of the day) didn't work towards all-electric rather than a protracted, intervening Diesel era.
All down to money and of course, in the 60s, cheap oil. On the continent, many countries were able to invest in hydro-electricity, which swung the equations in a different direction. The capital outlay for electric traction with overhead wires is enormous and only pays back over an extended period (i.e. when another government gets the credit).
@FreddieUK {Scroll screen down a bit to hide another of those wretched 1-second video loops!}
It's only just occurred to me that the dex syllable might be short for dextrose - a type of sugar!
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As well as cost, we also have an odd legacy difficulty with electrifying the railways: two different systems. They use third-rail from London to the South-East and as far West from London (Waterloo) as Poole and Weymouth; the rest overhead wires.
Then to add to the expense, whoever was paid to design electrifying the lines NE from Bristol did not specify the tried and tested "scaffolding-tube" pattern overheads, but concocted massive fabricated-steel davits you could about suspend the train from!
I can recall the hybrid "electro-diesels" locomotives that served stations beyond Bournemouth when the electrified route ended there. These ran powered from the "mains" to Bournemouth then used their Diesel engines for the un-electrified 30 or 40 miles to Weymouth.
They could also take the boat-train services from London to the Channel Islands ferries based in Weymouth Harbour, as the short harbour branch-line ran through streets where a conductor rail might have been problematical anyway. (Usually the main-line loco was detached and a shunting-engine towed the train the mile or so to the ferry terminal.) It gave the tourists on the trains a rather unusual feature to their holidays!
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Bournemouth...
In keeping with this nostalgia thread generally, and still transport-related, Bournemouth and its neighbours occupy narrow, steep valleys, so never had trams.
They did though, have trolley buses.
Although our family never used them, I can just remember seeing them, resplendant in yellow livery complete with a council crest beyond the imagination of today's branding-consultants. That was in the early 1960s, and I think Bournemouth was the last British town to scrap theirs.
@Thodsis I'm so old, I needed to take a lot of photos, back when "say cheese" meant holding still for 20 minutes and hoping the sun didn’t set before the darn thing developed. My first selfie was a daguerreotype so heavy, it doubled as a doorstop and a mirror for checking my nonexistent hairline.
I'm so old tht my birth certificate is written in hieroglyphics, and the stork that delivered me still sends me Christmas cards asking for a raise. I predate dirt, used to be the guy who raked it! My first job was giving cavemen fashion tips, like, "Trust me, fur is in this season." And don’t even get me started on my social security number, it’s just the word “ancient” spelled out in Roman numerals.
Maybe your complexity is a temporary disarrangement of simplicities.
The phrase "a complexity is merely a disarrangement of simplicities" is a philosophical insight attributed to astronomer George O. Abell in Exploration of the Universe. It suggests that complex systems or problems are not inherently complex, but rather composed of many simple elements that are out of order, misaligned, or improperly structured.
@4thdimensiondream Oh yeah, even as a kid who thought everything was funny, those Joe comics just didn't cut it.
I remember hearing about Archie comics and since I never read them, I assumed it had to do with "All in the family." I wasn't into that show and thought, "Why would kids want to read a comic about old people?"
Ya know what is we*rd? O'Connor was in his late 40's to mid 50's on that show, yet looked way older than a typical man today in that age group.
I thought no one in the world was as old as Eisenhower when he was POTUS. Maybe if he wore makeup and dyed his hair like Reagan that would've made a big difference.
@JimboSaturn When I was a kid, there were a few around. I wondered why people didn't just go out to buy a color. I didn't understand that color TVs costed a fortune.
Funny how today, it is hard to even give away a TV set yet back then, even a 19 inch would set one back $300 to $400 in 1980's currency.
My friend had a car like that, and the curved fenders were perfect for rabbit-shining. One guy straddled one fender with a shotgun and another guy straddled the other fender holding a spotlight. Illegal, stupid, and no rabbits were in real danger.
