What do you remember- seems impossible now

[jaybelnz]

I'm sure that the naughty corner is overflowing right now xin!  I join you in the fun involved in what we called "tapping" phones in public  boxes!  Hitting the pins quickly to make the number dialled up to 10?  You had to work very quickly though if you were dialling lower numbers!   

Does that sound familiar? LOL 

Jeanne 😀😀😀😀😀😀

[jaybelnz]

I just remembered another one!  At the wee corner shop where we lived, they sold soft drinks in returnable glass bottles. I think the drinks cost about ninepence to buy.  When you took the empties back, the shop owner would refund threepence per bottle. The went back to the manufacturer for re-use.  He stored the empties in his yard at the back of the shop, and a truck would collect them once a week!

My brothers and their mates, and doubtless all the other lads in the neighbourhood, would sneak down the to the back yard, climb the fence, nick a few empties, then take them back into the shop for a refund!  And doubtless it was a never ending cycle!  A profitable method of recycling in the 50's, at least for the kids!

Poor man, I don't know if he ever found out, or whether my parents did either. If they had, I'm sure they would have got a roasting!  Mmmm. - I must ask my brothers!

Jeanne 😃

[KGarrad]

Still happens in the Netherlands!
All plastic fizzy pop bottles have a statutory deposit, as do glass beer bottles.

You take them back to the suermarket, place them (one-by-one) into a machine, which reads the barcodes, and then generates a coupon for you.

The bottles disappear into the warehouse/stock-room; so presumably not so easy to "borrow" them for re-use?

[starcat]

This thread is brilliant and has made me remember many things from when i was young, some of the best memories have got to be christmas, a pillowcase at the end of the bed which always included a selection box and 2 christmas annuals, possibly dandy and beano but im not sure now, at the bottom was always an apple and an orange, on reflection they seem a bit odd, but then i dont ever remember a fruit bowl in the house, was fruit in those days a luxury that you only got at christmas, this would be early 60s ,I also remember the tree with  delicate glass ornaments,but  the best were chocolate ornaments.

[Jomot]

All the posts about telephones bring back memories of Dial-a-Disc where you would call and listen to the latest hit record.  Just goes to show that music on phones is nothing new

[Winterbloom21]

Oh I remember the pillowcase, Starcat.    As you say, annuals, selection boxes.  I also remember embroidered hankies!    But the comment you made about the fruit actually went back a generation in my family.    My father would regularly exclaim at the outrageous amount of stuff we got at Christmas, asserting that when he was a kid all they got was 'an apple, an orange and a penny whistle'.

[Finley 1]

I'm sure that the naughty corner is overflowing right now xin!  I join you in the fun involved in what we called "tapping" phones in public  boxes!  Hitting the pins quickly to make the number dialled up to 10?  You had to work very quickly though if you were dialling lower numbers!   

Does that sound familiar? LOL 

Jeanne

Oh   lovely you have made me feel better   mischievious days - but good memories

Some marvellous memories on these pages.

xin

[ThrelfallYorky]

A teenager, after a good moan about her life generally, to me, asked me "Did you used to get on with your Social Worker when you were my age, Miss?" - and was incredulous when I said I'd not had one. Hmmm - she thought everyone had one, not sure she believed me, so I added "I don't think they'd invented them back then!" - which she happily accepted with "Oh yes, that was in the olden days" .....!!!!

[Deb D]

Just been reminded that when payphones were still around, local wiseguys would jam crumpled paper up the change chute. Anyone who made a call that didn't collect would wonder why the phone gave no change, usually shrug or curse, and wander off a few cents poorer.  Said local wiseguys would saunter by, later, and pull out the crumpled paper, and accumulated coins - which sometimes amounted to a dollar or two.

The practise seemed to cease after the local wiseguys finally realised a couple of schoolkids had spotted what was going on, and were cleaning out the loot ahead of them!