Comments on: What my parents did, and what my children don’t

By: Alastair

Alastair — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:35:39 +0000

And whilst on dining table finesse: paper doilies. Sugar tongs really don’t work well with the golden granulated, so perhaps that is why we don’t use the so much. But we still have napkins in daily use. I say we – they are on the table, and the parents in this house use them, and some of the children might, sometimes.

By: Jill Daniels

Jill Daniels — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:02:51 +0000

What a great idea! yes we always had napkins in individual napkin rings. Now, at Christmas I always put neatly ironed napkins around the table and they either end up on the floor or remain unused, the children just can’t see the point of them, but for us, as children, they were essential. I now have a collection of (inherited) napkin rings cluttering up a drawer. Charity shop here I come. Oh and talking about unused items, what about sugar tongs? Apparently tea time wasn’t acceptable unless you had a bowl of sugar lumps and some silver tongs to get the sugar safely to the cup. I feel there is a history thesis bumping around in this thought provoking blog.

By: Alastair

Alastair — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:51:42 +0000

Good additions, both of you.

Shoe polish? – it seems most shoes these days are not ‘polish’ ones; and people seem to throw them out when they get dirty… Yep, twin-tubs.

Typewriters, I think, live on evolved as keyboards, so can’t count that. Now if you had said carbon paper; or gestetner wax skins, or pink correction fluid!

Slide cartridges and carousels? How very modern! What about the side-to-side slide shift?

And, who irons underwear? I think we know the answer to that…

By: rachel

rachel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:14:44 +0000

Slide shows – these were great, all sitting around as a family whilst dad put up the screen and mum put all the slides the right way up into the cartridge, the laughter when we turned out upside down. Somehow it’s not quite the same anymore, the gratification is all too instant and there aren’t the same ‘ahhs’ and ‘oohs’ because they are so available, we don’t have the same sense of the forgotten memory resurfacing because slide shows didn’t happen very often in the good old days when it was a real event to have one and enough time has elapsed for memories to become faded.

By: Catriona Allen

Catriona Allen — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:53:11 +0000

Interesting thoughts…. Mind you….I claim I was pushed – and it was an accident! Honest! I see I still haven’t lived it down probably almost 40 years later.

Interestingly, my 16yr old daughter still uses a fountain pen almost all the time as her prefered writing implement.

And I would love the time to use dress-making patterns…. and I did teach two of my daughters how to use them! If only wish there were more hours in the day!

By the way, what do you use if not shoe polish?

To add to your list…. typewriters, twin tubs, and who has time to iron underwear these days???