My like-dislike relationship with technology and social media started me thinking about how much easier it was ‘back in the day’ when we didn’t have mobile phones. Obviously, there are times I’m so glad we do, but, more often than not, I can’t help but wonder how on earth we coped before.

I then went on to think about some of the things I miss from the past.

Like a rotary dial phone.

Rotary dial phone (Wikipedia - ‘Diamondmagna’)

Push-button phones are great for when you’re in a hurry, but, for me, nothing replaces the satisfaction of placing your finger or pen or whatever implement in the circular space, dialling it around and watching/listening to it clickety-clicking back to its space. Another bonus of a rotary dial phone – no pre-recorded message telling you to press different numbers for different options.

When I first watched ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ in the cinema, the thing that gave me such an intense rush of nostalgia – apart from the great music – was Peter Quill’s cassette deck!

Sony Walkman (Wikipedia - ‘Binarysequence’)

Way back, before children, I had a Walkman when they were the in-thing and it accompanied me on my walks to and from work. Even after CDs were replacing cassettes, I hung on to my cassette collection as long as I could. To be honest, I still have some of them. And I still have an old radio/cassette player which still works.

Some evenings, when I park myself in front of the TV, scrolling through Netflix or catch-up TV, I yearn for the days when we had limited channels. When I first came to the UK, in 1980, there was only terrestrial TV and only 3 channels! Gasp!! The 4th channel didn’t come along until 1982. Having such limited choice, we didn’t spend up to half an hour just trying to decide what to watch. It was either whatever was on TV or rent a video.

One thing I missed very much but I’m so glad is making a comeback is vinyl records. There’s a record store on the high street in town, and another one in the next town. I haven’t bought any yet, but it’s just so nice to browse through the collection.

What about you? I guess you have to be of a certain age, but what things do you miss from back in the day?

Things I Miss From The Past