Taxi Driver Online

im old, i remember pound shillings and pence, feet and inches, cars had points not my licence, banana's sold in lbs, petrol in gallons, radio licences, dog licences, round metal dustbins, shops that shut on sundays, getting double time on sundays, it cost 2+6 to go to the pictures, you could park in the high street, a wee was what 5 pints made you do (not a games console), (the 5 pints still make you wee), McDonalds was a Scottish clan, you never heard Polish/Bulgarian spoken in your local shops, Asylum was for nutters not immigrants, teachers had a cane - and used it - you left school at 15 (not 25) and started work the next monday, if you ******* about in town your mum+dad knew by the next day and a belt+buckle woke you up.....

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

all TV's were Phillips or Decca, you never saw a BMW or Toyota car, you could still buy a BRITISH motorbike (and Mike Hailwood ruled the TT races), kids walked to school and had their shirts tucked in, pop bottles went back to the shop for 3d refund, you had granny smith apples or no apples, you didnt take calculators into exams cos they hadnt been invented, we wore shoes or pumps, trainers were blokes who trained football players, some of us got "baseball boots" though, £1 was a note, not a coin, as was ten shilling, you never saw a twenty pound note, local buses were rickety old bangers with a handrail at the back of each seat (still are), school pens had ink in them, real runny blue Quill ink (from an inkwell in your desk) , the smart lads had cartridge pens

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

On the individual points you make, yeah you are right, but these were far from halcyon days. The world was in turmoil. Injustice was rife and people were still being displaced by natural disasters, wars and famine, much as it is today. It's only that things appeared to move at a slower pace because now the news media reports on everything almost as it happens. I don't think these bygone times were that much different from what they are today, it's just that we were more insular with living on an island.

And we all look back with some fondness to a time when we were physically fit, youthful in spirit and dreamed about making our mark on the world. Life was more of an adventure, instead of grinding out what little time you have left before shedding your mortal coil.

I think you are looking to the past and seeing things through the prism of youthful ignorance and comparing it to a world you feel has passed you by, and you would like to go back there. I think there comes a time in everyone's life, where this is something we all wish we could do.

Yeah, things could have been oh-so-different, but if I had the chance to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing, not if it meant losing the appreciation and wonder of life, I now have. Personally, I feel lucky to have made it this far. As for all these changes, you keep pointing to, in the greater scheme of things. I don't think they really matter.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

I think the world is still in turmoil....Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt....

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Unfortunately, I think war is a part of the human condition. I'm not sure whether mankind will ever free itself from the killing.

However, here's a piece I read in Wired Magazine, a number of years back, on what the future might hold. It makes you feel lucky...

And what's even more interesting is who wrote, The New Luddite Challenge.

A scary piece of writing indeed.

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

we played knock door run,hedge hopped gardens,made swings from trees,made our own go carts from old prams, rode our bikes.
if we did wrong we would have a clip of the earhole from the local copper, if at school the cane on the back of the hand
no computers to help you do your homework
no mobile phones just 2 or 5p in your pocket to call home
we had friends, real frends who we talked to
i would hate to be a kid today

daz

Black jacks were 8 for a penny (1d).

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Grandad,

And there's me thinking you was old, or it could be inflation, I got 10

Never mind 10 for a penny!

"Best Northern Accent"...........When I was lad and started work - unemployment was less than 500,000 in U.K

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Bloody hell, that was December 1966!!!

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Grandad,

1962 actually. I believe it was 400 and odd thousand unemployed, they were basically hardcore/would not work. You could finish in a job on a Friday, and find a start elsewhere in 7 days.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

or start straight away, my town was like that, 3 hat factories. 2 or 3 shoe factories, every shop busy, a pit and no interwebbyney

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I was looking at the annual figures. In October 1966 unemployment was 468,100. That was the last time it was under 500,000. in 1962, when you started work the average figure was even higher with the lowest figure for the year being in June at 431,900. Mind you back then most women stayed at home and looked after the kids and didn't claim unemployment benefit.

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Grandad,

now we have 2 million EU immigrants and 2 million extra unemplyoyed, you dont have to carol vorderman to work that one out do you

Vote UKIP, dump the EU

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most