Things your parents/grandparents wouldn’t understand, and what would they use in their place.

When I went to work as a 17 year old in a restaurant kitchen in Glasgow in 1969 there was a glass jam jar with a screw top lid that all nine women in the kitchen put a shilling into when we got our week's wages. Every ninth week it was my turn to clear the pot - it was called a menowsh - I have no idea how it was spelled, or whether it came as my father thought from the French word ménage - meaning household.

I doubt a similar system exists today.

Thanks for all the memories this thread brings back.

Surely you didn't 'clear the pot' though grandtante? Because that would leave nothing for the person who's turn it is the next week (except, of course, the nine shillings that have just been contributed).
Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding, and you took out 9/-d, leaving the rest for the others to take out their 9/-d on their ninth week?

Oh but yes, of course, every week the person who's turn it is would 'clear the pot', so there would only ever be the 9/- contributed that week, doh! Sorry, having a senior moment here

My Nana had a washhouse in the yard behind her house. She had an old fashioned dolly tub with all the tools, wash board, tongs, mangle etc. She also had a single electric washing machine. She would be delighted to see my utility room, actually in the house, where I have my automatic washing machine, tumble drier and iron.
The house my grandparents brought their children up in no longer exists. In its place is a supermarket, something my Nana had never experienced.

Home deliveries would be familiar as the milkman's and baker's carts went regularly and butchers and grocers bought telephoned orders.
They would not recognise the two/three car household, the lack of public transport - remember the railways pre Beeching? - and a nation perpetually grumbling about congestion on the roads and in city centres. Plain daft they would call it.

Home deliveries would be familiar
Corona and Beer at Home Means Davenports!

The weekly food order got taken into the Co-op (usually by me from the age of about 8) then everything was delivered.

Yes Jamila I too took my mum's Co-op order book in every week so mum could have her shopping delivered.

Menage were common around Glasgow and the West of Scotland ,neighbours and workmates would start a sheet and collect from everyone for a few weeks before the payouts started .I remember they used to draw tickets to take their turn at the money .Haven't heard of these for decades

Have never heard of "Menage" before but what a boost to the finances it would have given when it was your week to benefit - to have something spare was a rare occurence back in the sixties. In most households every penny was accounted for!

We use t'internet without a thought; my GPs would have used the library...

The only Ménage I had heard of is Ménage à trois

I lived in Hull and my mother in law belonged to a similar scheme, it was known colloquially as a 'diddlum'.

Menage is used in German to mean "cruet". Now that's something our grandchildren will have no concept of!

Central heating. Not my parents but my great grandparents.
It was just being rolled out towards the end of my grandparents life.

We had a menage ( pronounced menodge) in my last job. Everybody put in £20 on payday and the person whose ‘ turn’ it was got the money collected, ( £240, as it ran for a year). ‘Turns’ were allocated by drawing lots, and then swaps were arranged between members.

My granny, and then my mother, organised one years ago, and the ‘drawing of the menodge’ was a social occasion, with tea and cakes for all. When it was your ‘turn’ you gave the organiser one week’s contribution, so they got a free ‘turn’. ‘Couldnae run a menodge’ is still an expression used in these parts to describe a disorganised person.

Digital cameras and camera phones. My dad had one of the first Japanese cameras (Asahi Pentax) imported in the 50s. It took wonderful photographs and he loved to display the slides he took on his travels. And, of course, the younger generation wouldn't know about slides and the equipment needed to show them. I still possess my GF's lovely old German camera - the image is upside down on the viewfinder. I used it to take b&w pictures when my DSs were little. As for selfies! They would have been inconceivable even 25 years ago. My dad would have loved all these technological innovations!

annodomini, I’m reminded of taking my wee auntie to buy a mobile phone. Despite being told she only needed a very basic one, she chose a tiny cameraphone. On leaving the shop, she asked the salesman where she could ‘ buy the spools’ for it!

Of course, the phone was never used.

A loo which flushes - inside the house (my grandparents, not my parents!).
Theirs was down at the end of the garden.

My grandparents would be amazed at the ease of air travel, they went by boat to Africa and back. Grandma drove a dog cart on her rounds as a nurse and midwife. I think my grandfather would be astounded by modern policing, he was a policeman in the 1920s. Instead of computers he'd have used a notebook and paper filing system.

My mother would be absolutely appalled at the idea of sharing personal information, which we do so readily here.

She only died in 1992 but her unbendable rule was 'it stays in the house' - not even doctors were willingly given anything other than the strictly necessary information. Poor Mum, she must be whirling in her grace - or would be if she had one.

She would not have liked such flippancy either!

Oh dear, forgot to edit - 'grave'

My mother and both grandmothers would never have left the house without a headscarf on. Or a hat for church & weddings. A black mantilla veil for funerals.
I remember when our chimney caught fire and the roof caught and we had to flee the house in the middle of the night my mother had to be stopped from grabbing a scarf even though she was iin nightie and dressing gown!

Just seen mention of a mangle. One of my cousins came to stay and put all my school pencils through it! I was really upset to lose my lovely coloured pencils but my mum was livid that the mangle rollers were wrecked.

I know my mother would have benefited from the internet, especially face time. She missed her sister in Jersey terribly and they wrote to each other weekly. Imagine being able to see and talk with someone at no cost any time you liked!

She also would have benefitted from back up cameras in cars - enough said!

Mobile phones , computers and internet and even contact less paying . I think last of all self service tills . I think all of these would of frazzled my mum's brain .