My Darling Grandson,
Just thought I would re-introduce you to the delights of getting a surprise letter sent by snail-mail through the post and delivered straight to your door. My apologies for it being so long since I did this but with the invention of emails, and instant chat it is something that I have gotten out of the habit of doing for you.
Let me first say that I love you coming to visit, even if it is to just to be in the same room, as you sit plugged to your headphones while you play games with people from all around the world. It does make me smile when you occasionally ‘tut’ because my connection is slow, so the signal falters and you lose a vital few seconds of your life stuck in limbo.
It also amuses me that your portable gadgets allow you to continue uninterrupted while you raid the fridge for fizzy drinks, crank up the central heating if you are chilly, (rather than actually put on more than a T-shirt and boxer shorts) or fix yourself a snack. Out of interest, did you know that I was in my 20’s before microwaves were introduced in the 1980’s?
You have an innate understanding of uploading, downloading, chat sites, online banking, facetime and accessing at the touch of a button anything you so desire from the Internet of even out of the clouds … and you laugh, kindly I hope at me for not having a clue about most of it. You shake your head in disbelief that I don’t know how to access IPlayer or catch-up on past programmes on the fancy new television I got to appease you, and you throw your hands up in despair that I have shelves of DVD’s, and even some ancient technology called videos that are played on a chunky gizmo which, more often than not just chews the tape.
You do not understand how I could possibly struggle with things that are so simple to you, so let me take you on a trip down my memory lane.
It was way back in 1955 that television boxes first became commercially available, and even then, they were so expensive that most people couldn’t afford to buy them so rented a set, either paying monthly or putting coins in a little slot on the side to pay to make it work. Coronation Street (ask your mother) hit the small screen in 1960 and Thunderbirds at the beginning in 1969, with Dr Who starting twenty years before you were born, back in 1963. It wasn’t until 1967 that good old BBC2 began broadcasting in colour, with BBC1 and ITV following on in 1969. Back then punishment for getting into trouble, well getting caught anyway was to be sent to bed with no tea, and if that wasn’t bad enough it also meant that you’d miss your favourite programmes, because there were no video recorders, that’s what the chunky gizmo thing you laugh at was called, until the early 1980’s.
Throughout that decade the only entertainment most people had was from the radio. Not the little contraption that you listen to on your technology stuff, but a sturdy big wooden box that often commanded pride of place in the living room. The whole family would spend evenings together around the ‘wireless’, as it was known or listening to vinyl records on a gramophone (look it up on the Internet). That’s how we learnt to dance. Proper dancing like they do on Strictly. We’d roll back the rug and our grandparents would waltz, quick-step and cha-cha-cha us until we knew the steps by heart, then our parents would have us doing the likes of the jive and the twist until we couldn’t breathe.
In 1959, when I was born two thirds of homes didn’t even have a vacuum cleaner, you know one of those things that your mother tells you to lift your feet for when you’re slumped on the couch, and neither were there any fridges or washing machines. To be honest, not many homes could boast their own telephone and if they did have one it was just inside the front door shackled to the wall by a cable. The first mobile phone call to ever be made in this country wasn’t until 1985, I was twenty-six by then, and it would still be years before anyone actually owned one. Since the 19th century urgent messages had been delivered by hand in the form of telegrams, but you are mistaken if you think I can tell you how they worked either, you see technology baffled me even then. All I know is that to send one you had to go to the post office and the operator would wield some magic taps down the telegraph lines strung out across the country and then a nice lad, in a smart uniform at the other end would deliver it to your door (day or night) on a push bike. But because they were ever so expensive it was usually to send either bad news or some kind of congratulation. The Queen used to send one out to all her subjects that made it to their 100th birthday.
Talking about innovations did you know that the iconic red London buses, that you insisted that we went on whilst visiting the capital, was introduced in the year I was born, as was the mini car? Mind you only about 30% of households could afford a car. The average weekly wage was £14/2s/0d … let me explain. Before the monetary system that we have now there were pounds, shillings and pence. Coins were the half-penny, the three-penny piece, or three-bob-bit as they were known, the sixpence (also known as a tanner), the shilling, the two-bob-bit (2 shillings), the half-crown and the crown. Notes in common use were a bit simpler as there were only really three, the ten-bob note, the pound note and the five-pound note. Now there were 240 pennies in the pound, twelve pence to the shilling (or twenty-four half-pennies), and twenty shillings to each pound. As if that wasn’t complicated enough when it was all written down the pound sign was as we know it, the shilling was understandably marked with a little ‘s’, but the pennies were marked with a little ‘d’ … therefore if something was one pound, four shilling and 11 pence it would be written as £1/4s/11d. Thank goodness for the decimalisation system that came in 1971, when I was twelve. That said it did cause an uproar as for a while no one had any idea what the price of anything was, the right amount to offer, or if the correct change was returned.
In the early 1960’s tax cuts had helped to boost living standards and whilst the economy was strong it was considered an outrage that there were still approx. a quarter of a million unemployed, that figure is now around the 1.6 million mark.
Going back to your interconnectivity, it wasn’t until 1962, when I was three that the very first communications satellite was launched and in 1965, there were only 20,000 computers in the world, but to buy one for home use would set you back the equivalent of £67,000 in today’s money and they were the size of a small house.
So, my darling take pity on your poor old gran when she fails to grasp the technology that you have grown-up with, because my sell-by-date was well before most of it was even invented.
I hope you’ve enjoyed getting this and at least some of it has made you smile.
With all my love,
Gran (your very own personalised blast-from-the-past) xx
Ohh … by the way, 1959 was a great year not only because it saw the introduction of me to this world, but also your beloved Caramac chocolate and ready salted crisps (examples of both included … now you can’t do that over the airwaves). LOLOL