Coffin Nails

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Inspired by a comment in the 1980s N Wales climbers thread. 

What events have been large coffin nails for you, have made you feel like you are from another era?

 For me it was discovering that my first real workplace, Templeborough Steel Works had become a museum. Quite a while ago now, but it made me feel like I was iron age man. 

In reply to Presley Whippet:

That the world's population has more than tripled in my lifetime!

Post edited at 00:08
 Cobra_Head 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Tabs aren't 19p for 20 any more; 20 Regal Kingsize £12.75.

Expensive coffin nails.

 Blue Straggler 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Failure to understand what Instagram is for 

 Greenbanks 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Failure to understand...

 john arran 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

My 7-year old daughter asked me recently at what age I was allowed to have my own phone.

 Tom Valentine 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Cobra_Head:

Tabs aren't 3s11d any more for twenty and I'm sure I had them for cheaper than that, even.

 Duncan Bourne 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I guess when the small child refers to the man whom I'm godfather to as grandad

 Graeme G 22 Jan 2021
In reply to john arran:

16 year old daughter asked did we use dating websites when we were young.......

 Tom Valentine 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Bacon Butty:

I actually preferred Woodbine to Park Drive.

Andy Gamisou 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Valentine:

> I actually preferred Woodbine to Park Drive.

Wills Whiffs were the smoke of choice in my area.  My grandad used to swear by them.  Or at them.  Can't quite recall which now.

 deepsoup 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

>  For me it was discovering that my first real workplace, Templeborough Steel Works had become a museum. Quite a while ago now..

When you say "quite a while ago now"..  you know you mean twenty years right?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/oct/21/arts.featuresreview

 rj_townsend 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Mine was interviewing candidates for our graduate scheme, and finding they were born in the year I myself graduated...

 nniff 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Finding out that the average age in my firm is 26.  It's probably less than that now.  My kids are older than that

 wintertree 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I had to stop teaching undergraduates because they were born after Jurassic Park and Armageddon, so my references for chaos theory and space-induced neuro-degeneration are no longer valid.

In reply to deepsoup:

> When you say "quite a while ago now"..  you know you mean twenty years right? https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/oct/21/arts.featuresreview

That's a mighty big nail right there, you going to need a heavy hammer. 😭

 Hat Dude 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Valentine:

> I actually preferred Woodbine to Park Drive.


But you could still get Park Drive in packs of 5 when I was a teenager

No 6 were my nails of choice and I collected the coupons

 Rob Exile Ward 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Hat Dude:

Of course, if you were skint, you could always fall back on No 10s, which were tiny.

When I went to university, lecturers routinely smoked through the lectures; one of them, Bob Looker, used to chain smoke, alternating between B&H and Gitanes. You could smoke in the top floor of the library. And the ground floor coffee bar, natch.

How come we're not all dead from cancer? 

 Bacon Butty 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Hat Dude:

1969/70 we'd get PDs in singles as well for pennies (old).

I first stopped smoking when I was 10.

 deepsoup 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Sorry.  Couldn't resist. 

I went back to do some freelance work at one of my old workplaces a couple of years ago, and there was a crew of about a dozen people there on the day doing the job I used to do.  I was chatting with one of them during a bit of a lull and it turned out there wasn't a single person on the crew that day who'd been born yet when I left.

In reply to Presley Whippet:

For me, the passage of time can be measured by parts of my body not functioning at 100% anymore, I'll spare you all the insalubrious details but as an example, I'm down to my last pair of molars with toothache in one of them, I'll be on wet food soon and I'm 45 😳

 Blue Straggler 22 Jan 2021
In reply to wintertree:

> I had to stop teaching undergraduates because they were born after Jurassic Park and Armageddon

Now they are born well after Jurassic Park III and at a pinch, just after The Core

 Graeme G 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Also......

A few years back the missus and I had a night out in Glasgow. Went to the bar we used to date in. Nobody there had even been born when we used to go. That included a 21st birthday party. 

 blurty 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

A building project I worked on in the 80s has since been demolished, and is now housing.

 Jim Lancs 22 Jan 2021

The new housing estate we moved into in the 60s and was central to my memories of a care free childhood full of freedom and adventures, is now a graffiti covered wasteland that's held up as the worst example of brutalist, oppressive architecture.

 Cobra_Head 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Valentine:

> Tabs aren't 3s11d any more for twenty and I'm sure I had them for cheaper than that, even.


You must have been on No.6 or Park Drive.

 Tom Valentine 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Cobra_Head:

Number 6 but when times were hard I had to scale down another 4 points....As Rob E W says.

Post edited at 15:22
 Michael Hood 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Doing Agony Crack (HVS 5a) in 1998 with a (young) partner - "I've done this before, must have been about 1977" - before he was born 🙄

 oldie 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Visited a country town museum. They had a school desk from bygone era with dipping ink well etc. Looked familiar, and indeed it was from my old primary school.

In reply to oldie:

Extra nail if it had you name scratched in it. 

 Lankyman 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

For me, the thing that emphasises the vast gulf between me and 'the kids' is the utter sh1te 'music' they listen to.

 Tom Valentine 22 Jan 2021
In reply to oldie:

Being ink monitor was a bit of a privilege......

 toad 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I struggle at rural museums.  Many of the exhibits are things me and my dad used every day. I still get quite het up at the sight of a massey ferguson 165

In the meantime

youtube.com/watch?v=Npo6OxLMpvI&

 Blue Straggler 22 Jan 2021
In reply to oldie:

I was in the "late 20th century consumer kitsch" part of of the Smithsonian museum in Washington DC and, under glass, they had a yellow Sony "Sports" Walkman. I was smiling at it and this chap in his early 60s saw this and murmured "man, a long time since I saw one of THOSE" so I put on my most proper English accent and said "what ho, I am only here on a short visit and I brought all my music here on tapes and I've got a player very similar to that" and pulled my yellow Sony Sports Walkman out of my bag as the old codger slowly backed away  

In fairness it was a stop-gap, as I was "between devices" and it was a lucky find in a charity shop.

Removed User 22 Jan 2021
In reply to toad:

> I struggle at rural museums.  Many of the exhibits are things me and my dad used every day. I still get quite het up at the sight of a massey ferguson 165

F***, I started on a 35x!

 Doug 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Removed User:

A few years ago I was at a conference at the University of Malaga, in the same building was a museum of computing & a few of us paid a visit during a coffee break. It was full of stuff many of us could remember using, from dial up modems, Comodore 64s, card readers & an original Macintosh. We all left feeling a bit older.

 Sealwife 22 Jan 2021
In reply to blurty:

The primary school, secondary school and college I attended have all been demolished. They were all cheaply built 60s and early 70s buildings but even so...

 toad 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Removed User:

Was that starting on TVO?

 oldie 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> ..... pulled my yellow Sony Sports Walkman out of my bag as the old codger slowly backed away   In fairness it was a stop-gap, as I was "between devices" and it was a lucky find in a charity shop. <

My wife still has, and occasionally uses her (non-sports) Walkman.   

Post edited at 21:02
 robate 22 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I was having this chat with my kids recently and I realised that when I was the age the youngest is now I helped gather reeds with a man born in 1889.

Removed User 23 Jan 2021
In reply to robate:

My Grandfather (not Great Grandfather) was born in 1879. He fathered my Mum when he was 60. Gives us all some hope

 oldie 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Sealwife:

Both my early schools were probably Victorian buildings, but still survive. My infant school became Cafe Rouge, Primary School became a Solicitors, then Zizzi I think.

 Dave Garnett 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Removed User:

> My Grandfather (not Great Grandfather) was born in 1879. He fathered my Mum when he was 60. Gives us all some hope

Or cause for concern!

 Dave Garnett 23 Jan 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

> When you say "quite a while ago now"..  you know you mean twenty years right? 

No, he's right. Twenty years ago is quite recent.   

 robate 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Dave Garnett:

I agree, 20 years ago is yesterday, but I reluctantly have to accept this point of view is a harbinger of doom...

 Dave Garnett 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

> Inspired by a comment in the 1980s N Wales climbers thread. 

> What events have been large coffin nails for you, have made you feel like you are from another era?

  • Seeing the growing disbelief on our kids' faces as I explained how pre-decimal currency worked.  And what a 'thruppeny bit' was, and that actually, even before them there were silver 3d coins that were saved for putting in Christmas puddings.
  • Going back to our old universities with our children as undergraduates.  There's nothing like having the next generation literally replacing you to make you face up to reality.  The generational shock first happened to me when I had brilliant day doing the full Idwal/Glyder Fach itinerary with a young guy from the club and then realising the last time I had done one of the routes was with his mum when we were both undergraduates. 
  • One weird weekend I went to a rather dismal school reunion.  It reminded me of everything I disliked about the school and quite a lot of the pupils.  On the other hand, I'm afraid was very  gratified to see how almost unrecognisably badly many of my contemporaries had aged and I treasure the image of the mouth of my pompous and condescending physics teacher falling  open when I told him what I was doing and how I had got there.   Earlier the same day, I had gone to see my first infant school just in time to see the rather splendid Victoria buildings being demolished...    
 Alkis 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I am young enough to have spent my teen years on the Internet, so I have fewer cultural differences to current, say, University students than previous generations, but when 00's kids hit uni age it was a bit of a shock. When I tell them that I came to the UK to study in 2004 and they respond that they were 2 at the time it does make me feel like a dinosaur. :-P

 wercat 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

probably being done away with at work in my late 50s after 6 months of horror from a hired Axeman, never recovered really

That's austerity for you - apparently it is supposed to make you a Brexiteer according to some aplologists here

Post edited at 12:11
 deepsoup 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> No, he's right. Twenty years ago is quite recent.   

I remember when I used to think it was ancient history, but you're right.
And it's only getting more recent, as the grave yawns ever wider.. 

 Dave Garnett 23 Jan 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

I've been climbing since the 70s so I tend to think of memorable routes that I did, say when I was working on the Roaches guide, as being fairly recent, not in my ancient history.  So, just from memory, Old Man of Hoy, Vector, la Rencontre... ancient history.  Checking my log; Predator, Hot Tin Roof, la Snoopy, Climber's Club Direct, Bachelor's Left Hand, my ridiculous attempt to do a direct start to Entropy's Jaw - all in the modern era... and all in 2000.

Post edited at 12:37
 Tom Valentine 23 Jan 2021
In reply to toad:

I can remember my dad cutting the meadow I now look after with a scythe and my friend Bill cutting his dad's fields with a horse drawn cutter which was driven by the wheels and worked like hedge shears. When helping out we used to rake it into windrows with a  wooden tooth rake and later pitchfork it onto haystacks built around interlocked A frames made from timber.

 Bacon Butty 23 Jan 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

> And it's only getting more recent, as the grave yawns ever wider.. 

I don't want to be buried.
I prefer: as the furnace door (be it Hell or the crematorium) creaks ever wider open.

 toad 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Valentine:

Oddly enough, I still use a scythe occasionally- a modern austrian one- its good for small patches and i quite enjoy it. 

I've just finished a 250m hedgelaying project down an old suburban railway line- just me and a billhook. Not how I expected to spend lockdown, but at least I was working.

 Tom Valentine 23 Jan 2021
In reply to toad:

Yes, I've got one of those modern ones and have tried to emulate my dad on a tiny part of the same piece of land - I lasted about ten minutes.  I've still got the one he used ( in bits) and it's a different tool altogether.

 hang_about 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Explaining to my PhD students that I wrote my own graphing package to drive a pen plotter (and then explaining what a pen plotter is)

 Rob Exile Ward 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Bacon Butty:

Funny that - by any rationale I shouldn't care but I've made it quite clear I don't want cremation, I want a natural burial in a wood somewhere. 

I want someone to dig me up in 5,000 years and ponder, as well as saying 'Teeth were a bit naff, weren't they primitive in those days?'

 wercat 23 Jan 2021
In reply to hang_about:

About 10 years ago I was asking for an audio DIN plug in a shop in Penrith.  The gentleman serving me said "I think what you are asking for is a thing of the past ...".

 Pete Pozman 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Sealwife:

My primary school is under the inner ring road, no trace is left of my parish church, my secondary school is flats, my hall of residence is flats, the hospital where I trained is flats, my teacher training college is going to be flats, the school where I was deputy head has been airbrushed out of history, and the den I built in the woods... gone!

Ou sont les neiges d'antan? 

 EdS 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

When you read and Internet thread about getting old..... Then find yourself nodding in agreement and muttering "yeh sound familiar" 

In reply to EdS:

Best yet

 ThunderCat 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I mentioned that Nichola Sturgeon looked a bit like jimmie krankie, and both my daughter and son in law didn't have a clue who I was talking about. 

1
 balmybaldwin 23 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

My older brother has bought himself a fancy E-MTB instead of scoffing at him, I find myself a little bit jealous

 elsewhere 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Berlin Wall has been gone for more than thirty years.

 deepsoup 24 Jan 2021
In reply to elsewhere:

> Berlin Wall has been gone for more than thirty years.

Oof!  That one hit the spot.

 smithg 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

The closest 'Summer of '69' is the next one.

cb294 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Doug:

I still have a Commodore VC20 (the smaller version of the C64, but only 3.5k RAM) and a Macintosh SE sitting in the cupboard in my old bedroom at my parents'  place.

Do I feel old.....

CB

cb294 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Never mind 1980s tech, many of the places that are now memorials for the iron curtain along the Bavaria/Czech border were artillery targets for me back when I was doing my military service. My children cannot believe how close to total annihilation we were throughout the 1980s!

CB

 Clarence 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I found an old diary last year, from 1987, and there was an entry which read:

 "found a fiver on the way to lectures yesterday morning. Used it to drink in The Pomona until I could barely walk." 

I know, back in the day there used to be pubs!

 john arran 24 Jan 2021
In reply to Clarence:

The most disturbing thing about that anecdote is your choice of watering hole!

 Dave Garnett 25 Jan 2021
In reply to elsewhere:

> Berlin Wall has been gone for more than thirty years.

And more than a quarter of a century since majority rule in South Africa.  Hard to believe, especially since I have the photographs I took of the queues at the polling stations that rainy morning in Cape Town...

 EdS 25 Jan 2021
In reply to Dave Garnett:

One of my fellow MSc students flew back to SA for that day --- he was a mature student and it was the first time in his life he had been allowed to vote. 

 That hit home at the time - and ensured I use my vote every time

 Blue Straggler 25 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I felt old in 2007 when I realised that it was the twentieth anniversary of the release of Robocop. 

Now that I actually AM "middle aged", and proportionally x number of years (where x<10) seems like "nothing", it struck me that we are a "mere" 6.5 years away from the fortieth anniversary of the release of Robocop. 

 sbc23 25 Jan 2021
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Apollo 13, the Tom Hanks movie is now 25 years old. 

It was released on the 25th Anniversary of Apollo 13. 


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