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Before the internet...


8 Hairy Feet

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10 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

I luuuuurved E and M I got it as a kid every week. Bought a fab microscope out of  it about 1965 and my stick insects that came live in a small cardboard box through the post.

Yes, but does anyone remember the Gamages  catalogue ? As I remember it was a gem (it was probably rubbish)

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12 hours ago, Peter X said:

What would really flummox the average young person today would be how we managed to meet up with people when out. Before mobile phones, it was necessary to arrange a time and place to meet and stick to it. If something went wrong, both parties could find a phone box (remember those?, there are still some about) and call a suitable intermediary such as a parent, secretary etc. to make a fresh arrangement, but this depended on both knowing or guessing who that suitable intermediary would be, it wasn't easy.

And if you were trying to meet a boat on the move, you pre-arranged the meeting point. If you got there first you just waited until the boat arrived. If the boat got there first one of the crew would hop off and chalk the time of passing on the coping under a bridge or on a balance beam. You when you arrived later, by car or bike, you knew roughly how far ahead the boat was , and where you might intercept it.

 

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12 hours ago, Tam & Di said:

Even in the 40s it was possible to send a postcard to make an arrangement with someone for the following day.

As a child (Mid 70's) I remember my parents regularly receiving a letter Saturday morning saying that my Grandparents (who lived ~40 miles away) would be round for lunch. It was taken for granted that a letter posted Friday would get there before 10:00 on Saturday in time for mum to pop round the greengrocers and get extra vegetables and the village butchers for some meat.

  • Greenie 1
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Because my grandparents were in america on boxing day as a child my parents used to ring them. They had to book the call, and once arranged the operator used to connect and call them both. 3 mins of hows the weather. Now i arrange work in australia with one click to my employer and talk face to face.

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20 hours ago, 8 Hairy Feet said:

Please could you tell me how you

would have received up to date information

before we had the internet.

Our first boating holiday was from Anderton. Planned to to go Llangollen.... got to Hurleston and found the canal was closed. Decided to do the Cheshire ring.... got to the top of Bosley and found that the canal was closed..

You just adapted and made things up as you went along.

Also no TV on the boat... only a car radio...

 

Edited by StephenA
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10 hours ago, sharpness said:

 I sent the girlfriend some flowers via Interflora (do they still exist?), 

Yes indeed they do - though they no longer use the famous "Say it with flowers" slogan.

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9 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

Telex machines were brilliant, weren't they? I can still remember the Telex IDs for the first two companies I worked for!

I worked in Oman in the mid 80s. Our office had a fax machine, the company next door had a telex. Both organisations quoted both numbers on their headed paper, and secretaries used to carry relevant messages between the offices.

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21 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I worked in Oman in the mid 80s. Our office had a fax machine, the company next door had a telex. Both organisations quoted both numbers on their headed paper, and secretaries used to carry relevant messages between the offices.

SNAP!!  I worked in Oman from 82 to 88.

 

TTI, PAWR, MDC, RDC .............. ring any bells?

Edited by Murflynn
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1 hour ago, StephenA said:

Our first boating holiday was from Anderton. Planned to to go Llangollen.... got to Hurleston and found the canal was closed. Decided to do the Cheshire ring.... got to the top of Bosley and found that the canal was closed..

You just adapted and made things up as you went along.

Also no TV on the boat... only a car radio...

 

This is the perfect example of pre-intertube days verses now. Almost exactly like back then, you can't go the direct route from Anderton to Llangollen, or do the Cheshire ring either. Except we now know about the Middlewhich breach and Marple lock collapse and their repair progress near instantly.

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18 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Does anyone remember what CWDF was like before the internet was invented?

When you joined you got a big set of box files for each section. One for General Boating, One for Newbies, etc. Inside each was a set of dividers for each topic and a printed sheet for each topic and reply. If you wanted to reply you had to type it out and post it to one of the moderators. They would then type it out with carbon paper, one for each member and post them all out. When you received a reply from the postie you  read it, then filed it in the appropriate box folder and topic section.

Jen

 

Of course it was even worse if you weren't a member of CWDF. To look up any information on it, you had to find a local library that kept a copy and get on the bus down there. It was likely that only the central library in the nearest big town would keep a set. The library copy box files were on long shelves deep in in a dusty corner of the reference section, well beyond the tramps snoozing out of the rain over the daily newspapers. You had to persuade a scary looking librarian that you needed to look something up, for example, how to bleed the high pressure fuel pump on a BMC 1.5. We complain about the current search engine on CWDF, but back then you had to look through the entire BMC file in the hope of finding what you wanted. If a previous enquirer had misfiled a topic, or reply sheet, then you had no chance of finding what you needed.

Jen

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I recall a trip up the Thames by canoes with a dozen senior scouts - no money in those days for a motor cruiser (or anything else - come to that) and taking a week from Hampton to Wargrave  and back down to Hampton taking another week. We were totally out of touch so to speak, and being the tail end of war time rationing, we also had to notify butchers and grocers ahead, to ensure they stocked up and ready to take  our Ration Books when we collected our food. Also we had to contact Post Offices en-route to nominate them as the address you would use for anybody who chose to write to us (always a disappointment if they didn't) - the letters and even phone messages to be collected - and telegrams (always associated with bad news).

I am not aware of any problems - it was the way we lived.

 

 

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On 4/17/2018 at 17:27, Murflynn said:

the worst part was making a date with a young lady and then waiting at the appointed place (usually a bus stop) and time, sometimes for an hour or more, not knowing if she was delayed or had stood you up  .........  it's a wonder that anyone ever got together at all.    Having a car helped 'cos you could go to her place to pick her up.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Jw9umemzg

I was stood up by a different Miss Shaw once:huh:

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On 4/17/2018 at 15:29, WotEver said:

So it wasn’t so much good at finding its way home as it was at finding police stations?

As a toddler I saw a cat that looked 'lost' (it was not one I recognised as local) - so  I followed it for ages to see if it went home.

A policeman on his beat saw me and asked what I was doing and where I lived ( I knew my address by heart because it had been drummed into me) and asked why I was so far from home. I explained I was worried the cat was lost. But instead of the cat, and ignoring my protests that I was not lost, it was me he took me to the police station. And much later in the day my Gran came and collected me. I have no idea of what happened to the cat.  But I was in trouble for bringing shame on the family as gossip got round that I had been 'locked up' for being naughty.

 

 

 

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