You know you’re getting older when……

[Gloster]

When you realise that next time you fill in a form you will be ticking the box for the oldest age group that it lists.

 

[birchesgreen]

Must be really old if you can't understand designer jeans with holes in them considering they've been around since the 80s.

The holes in mine are purely down to wear and tear though not strategic design.

 

[pdeaves]

When you see stuff you use at home filling up museums.

 

[Loppylugs]

Must be really old if you can't understand designer jeans with holes in them considering they've been around since the 80s.

The holes in mine are purely down to wear and tear though not strategic design.

I am!!

Also can't get my head round people being covered head to foot in tattoos. Ok when young I suppose but when they go all wrinkly with age - ugh.
Worse now is seeing teenage girls with them - is this a turn-on for the lads ? Couldn't imagine taking a tattooed lady home to meet mum and dad. Tattooed ladies were a circus feature in days gone by.

 

[Pinza-C55]

If you remember the days when walking down an average street didn't involve avoiding people stumbling blindly towards you while looking down at their phones.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Must be really old if you can't understand designer jeans with holes in them considering they've been around since the 80s.

The holes in mine are purely down to wear and tear though not strategic design.

I’ve thrown jeans out for being worn out and having holes in them. Holes in the knees are irritating,how youngsters can wear them is beyond me.

 

[Busaholic]

When 'Desert Island Discs' features someone called Bradley Walsh who is, apparently, well-known in several fields. I asked my parrot if he'd heard of him, and he gave me a pitying look. At the end of the programme I am no nearer knowing what he's famous for, but I can say his taste in music is execrable, and my parrot agrees on that.

 

[32475]

When you’re on a train and you haven’t got a window seat and you feel annoyed at anyone with a window seat and doesn’t bother to enjoy the view, preferring instead to wear a ridiculously large pair of headphones with eyes closed throughout the journey.

 

[ChrisC]

When a mobile phone is just something you keep in your bag for an emergency like having to ring for a taxi or to inform a family member that you are going to be late home. Most of the time it is switched off and you only switch it on when you need to make that rare call. Also it only needs charging every few weeks.

 

[birchesgreen]

My 86 year old uncle sends me messages on whatsapp, glad to see there is a long time before i become old enough to old to only have a mobile phone for emergencies

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Getting on a 720 at Liverpool Street and saying 'it's not as nice as the quad art sets we used to have when I was young'.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Looking at a housing estate and remembering when it was all fields.

 

[Loppylugs]

Remembering when you used to your moneysworth at the local flea-pit with two films, a full Pathe News bulletin and a snog in the back row. Must admit though, didn't see that much of the films for some reason!

 

[birchesgreen]

When you plan a trip out and where to go to the toilet is a key item of concern

 

[Mcr Warrior]

When 'Desert Island Discs' features someone called Bradley Walsh who is, apparently, well-known in several fields. I asked my parrot if he'd heard of him, and he gave me a pitying look. At the end of the programme I am no nearer knowing what he's famous for, but I can say his taste in music is execrable, and my parrot agrees on that.

Host of various ITV1/BBC1 prime-time quiz shows, such as "The Chase" and a recent re-make of "Blankety Blank".

Adopts a "Cheeky Chappy" persona, a sort of latter day Bruce Forsyth, if you like, but maybe not so much of the dancing.

Has appeared in various supporting acting roles, such as on "Coronation Street" and on "Dr. Who" and was once a one-time professional footballer albeit only with Brentford FC, and not at first team level.

No idea about his taste in music though; he actually recorded/released two music albums which briefly nudged the UK top ten in the mid 2010s but reviews were decidedly mixed, so your parrot is quite possibly a good judge!

 

[DarloRich]

Or when players whom you remember watching their debut retire and become coaches.

Or when players whom you remember watching thier debuts retire and become coaches and then retire from being coaches/managers!

Having cabinet members (government) a good few years younger than you

Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service, is 43!

I am!!

Also can't get my head round people being covered head to foot in tattoos. Ok when young I suppose but when they go all wrinkly with age - ugh.
Worse now is seeing teenage girls with them - is this a turn-on for the lads ? Couldn't imagine taking a tattooed lady home to meet mum and dad. Tattooed ladies were a circus feature in days gone by.

Tattoos are fine when you are 23 and young and fit but what happens when you are 56 and have, erm, swollen?

My 86 year old uncle sends me messages on whatsapp, glad to see there is a long time before i become old enough to old to only have a mobile phone for emergencies

mf Gf's mum ( age not to be discussed but " considerable" ) uses what's app and twitter ( mainly to abuse the bus company! )

 

[nw1]

Here's another one.

When the first year on Pick of the Pops (Radio 2, Paul Gambaccini, Saturday 13:00 - basically old top 20s) is within your teenage years.

They have two charts, one per hour, separated by 10-20 years typically. The first hour is the oldest chart.

It really seems not long ago at all, perhaps only 5 years, when the first year was usually either before I was born or in the first few years of my life, and the second year within either my teens or early 20s, so it looks like there has been a change of policy with what years are selected, rather than it just being the passage of time.

 

[Mag_seven]

When you mention "Tommy Cooper" (or others from that era) to someone and you are met with a blank expression.

 

[nw1]

I have already experienced 2 Prime Ministers in office younger than me: Cameron and Johnson. I think Starmer fits this category too.

Cameron and Blair in particular were incredibly young when they became PM. Anyone born in 1965 or 1952 (respectively) at the time of their elections must have felt seriously old!

Of course had Hague become PM in 2001 (very unlikely of course knowing how unpopular the Tories were in this era) then that would have trumped either! We'd have narrowly, by a couple of months, missed having a thirty-something PM.

 

[Gloster]

I don’t listen to Radio 2 (never have) as I went from 1 to 3: the tuning is permanently on 3 as I can’t work out how to alter it (and more importantly alter it back to 3). I have noticed in shops etc. that when they have two different years of ‘Golden Oldies’ set several years apart, both are often from the time after my interest in pop and rock music declined.

 

[gg1]

Must be really old if you can't understand designer jeans with holes in them considering they've been around since the 80s.

The holes in mine are purely down to wear and tear though not strategic design.

But in the 80s and 90s we did it properly. The holes were actually rips, tears or wear then, none of this cutting out chunks of fabric silliness

 

[nw1]

When you mention "Tommy Cooper" (or others from that era) to someone and you are met with a blank expression.

Also from the world of entertainment, and significantly more recently, I have mentioned the Pet Shop Boys to people currently in their 20s and got a blank expression. Slightly less well known, but New Order also.

 

[Western Lord]

When I was 11 in 1959 I saw the liner Windsor Castle launched at Birkenhead; In the 1970s, I read a newspaper article which said that "the old liner Windsor Castle" was being scrapped. I felt "it can't be that old if I saw it launched".

The RMS Windsor Castle was indeed withdrawn from the Southampton-Cape Town-Durban mail service in 1977, but she wasn't scrapped, she was sold to Greek shipowner "John" Latsis, an inveterate buyer of old British liners, and spent the next 28 years as an accomodation ship (named the Margarita L) before being broken up at Alang in India in 2005.

I was somewhat disconcerted over the weekend when Channel 4 showed Kenneth Branagh's film "Thor", which I remember him promoting, as I thought, a few years ago. It turns out it was released in 2011, 11 years ago for goodness sake!

 

[nw1]

When you think back to the occasion when you first used a train, and think that if you go back the same number of years in the other direction, you end up in WWII.

Looking at a housing estate and remembering when it was all fields.

First happened to me when I was 21!

Admittedly these were the fields behind the estate which I lived in during my schooldays, and admittedly the new estate was pretty small. It was enough to upset my dad though and cause us to move. Nowadays though, significant areas of green - some in obvious 'green belt' areas, sadly - that I remember throughout my adult life are now concreted over, and that's much harder to get my head round.

You know you're really old when the ones that replaced them are withdrawn. Might be coming up for me when 465s that replaced CEPs and BEPs go.

Indeed. Not quite the same (as I don't remember the CIGs and VEPs being introduced) but I'm guessing, on balance, I will probably outlive the 444s and 450s, which replaced the mainline trains of my youth, the CIGs and VEPs. When that happens (admittedly not for perhaps another 20 years or so) I will feel seriously, seriously old.

In theory, I guess, someone could have commuted to school or work on the SWD in three generations of units (full life, not premature withdrawals such as the 442s). If they were say 11 in 1964 and starting secondary school, they would have used CORs, BILs and the like for a good few years; they'd have used the CIGs and VEPs for their entire lifespan; and by 2004 with the Desiros coming in, they would still only be 51 and have several years of commuting left.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Here's another one.

When the first year on Pick of the Pops (Radio 2, Paul Gambaccini, Saturday 13:00 - basically old top 20s) is within your teenage years.

They have two charts, one per hour, separated by 10-20 years typically. The first hour is the oldest chart.

It really seems not long ago at all, perhaps only 5 years, when the first year was usually either before I was born or in the first few years of my life, and the second year within either my teens or early 20s, so it looks like there has been a change of policy with what years are selected, rather than it just being the passage of time.

I have some cassettes recorded from the radio about 1983 when Jimmy Savile did the Double Top Ten on a Sunday. It's like a window into another universe.

 

[nw1]

I have some cassettes recorded from the radio about 1983 when Jimmy Savile did the Double Top Ten on a Sunday. It's like a window into another universe.

Don't remember that, and given the presenter, perhaps just as well!

However I do remember Alan "Fluff" Freeman do Pick of the Pops in the late 80s, early 90s. I distinctly remember him doing 1988 in 1989, and 1989 in 1990 - so just one year ago in both cases at the time.

At the age I was then, I was fine with that, but if they did 2021 nowadays I think I'd turn straight off!

 

[contrex]

When you think back to the occasion when you first used a train, and think that if you go back the same number of years in the other direction, you end up in WWII.

In theory, I guess, someone could have commuted to school or work on the SWD in three generations of units (full life, not premature withdrawals such as the 442s). If they were say 11 in 1964 and starting secondary school, they would have used CORs, BILs and the like for a good few years; they'd have used the CIGs and VEPs for their entire lifespan; and by 2004 with the Desiros coming in, they would still only be 51 and have several years of commuting left.

If I think when I first used a train (any train) (that I remember) and count backwards the number of years since then, I go back to 1888.

I am one year older than your theoretical 1964 schoolboy. I distinctly remember the Southern railway 1925 type SUBs that passed my house and took me to Auntie's in Orpington vanishing when I was around 7 or 8 and EPBs replacing them. They went in 1995 when I was 43 and I believe some of the Networkers that took over their duties won't be around much longer.

Also from the world of entertainment, and significantly more recently, I have mentioned the Pet Shop Boys to people currently in their 20s and got a blank expression. Slightly less well known, but New Order also.

I was really flattered when one of my son's friends said, very respectfully, 'I'm so impressed you actually saw the Kinks!'

 

[nw1]

If I think when I first used a train (any train) (that I remember) and count backwards the number of years since then, I go back to 1888.

Actually if we're talking about "any train", in my case we could say 1930-32, for I occasionally travelled in what must have been 304s in around 1976 or 1977. However I discounted that as I don't remember it well and had no interest in trains at the time; the example I quoted was my first "regular" and well-remembered train journey, and start of school commute, in the early 80s.

 

[contrex]

Actually if we're talking about "any train", in my case we could say 1930-32, for I occasionally travelled in what must have been 304s in around 1976 or 1977. However I discounted that as I don't remember it well and had no interest in trains at the time; the example I quoted was my first "regular" and well-remembered train journey, and start of school commute, in the early 80s.

Well, the first week in July every year from 1952 to 1964 or so we went from St Pancras to Derby en route to Grandma at Castle Donington usually behind a Stanier Black Five and in LMS coaches, and every Saturday we went from Herne Hill to Orpington in suburban units, firstly SR types and then EPBs. Bank holidays to Margate first behind SR steam and then CEP/BEPs. I was mad about railways from about when I learned to speak. The Herne Hill - Tulse Hill spur was right over the fence from our back garden.

 

[Busaholic]

I was really flattered when one of my son's friends said, very respectfully, 'I'm so impressed you actually saw the Kinks!'

I saw the Kinks perform at a church hall off the A2 Rochester Way in SE London the week their first record ''You Really Got Me'' entered the charts. About two dozen of us there iirc. Dave Davies impressed me, can't say I recollect Ray.