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Things you never see now

(37 Posts)
NanKate Sat 01-Aug-26 16:44:49

During my early years Mum would take us to the Botanical Gardens where there was a small machine that for a few pence you could type in your name and a piece of metal came out showing an imprint of your name. Don’t know what it was called.

Graphite Sat 01-Aug-26 17:37:36

Like this?

A metal label embossing machine. They were made by the British Automatic Company.

Oreo Sat 01-Aug-26 17:46:12

Those were the days, when kids were so easily pleased, I used to be so happy if Mum or Dad came home with a comic and a few sweets for me😃
I think I remember seeing one of those doodahs NanKate at a railway station platform.

Oreo Sat 01-Aug-26 17:46:55

It didn’t look as quaint as the pic above.

Oreo Sat 01-Aug-26 17:49:04

I used to like putting coins in the head of a model of a yellow Labrador with a bandaged paw RSPCA which stood outside a shop.

MissAdventure Sat 01-Aug-26 17:50:31

Me too.
smile

Casdon Sat 01-Aug-26 17:57:38

They are still around, I’ve seen a few of these machines recently, there is one at Cadbury World, and one at Crich Tramway museum that I know of, and I think I remember one at the Eden Project too, but I could be wrong there.

62Granny Sat 01-Aug-26 17:59:44

Vending machines on the railway platform for Fry's chocolate, there was one that was five different flavours.

Grammaretto Sat 01-Aug-26 18:03:27

Those machines in shoe shops which x-rayed our feet.

Grammaretto Sat 01-Aug-26 18:10:07

The x-ray machines were banned in the 1950s

Sunshinegirls Sat 01-Aug-26 18:18:10

Yes I remember going into the shoe shop and looking down at your feet in xray machine at least you could tell if your feet had plenty of room lol.

Grammaretto Sat 01-Aug-26 18:21:29

Our station vending machine had Cadbury's chocolate bars for 3d and 6d.

paddyann54 Sat 01-Aug-26 18:25:23

The day the trams stopped running in Glasgow in 1961? My dad put pennies on the track to be squashed …one for each of us.I still have mine .

Sunshinegirls Sat 01-Aug-26 18:26:41

I remember on the seaside pier a 'What the butler saw' wind up machine lol how tame compared to what's on offer now, a different world, a better one I think.

NotTooOld Sat 01-Aug-26 18:33:30

Little girls wearing summer dresses and sandals. At least, not often you don't. It's nearly all shorts and crocs now.

Petrina Sat 01-Aug-26 18:42:28

Oreo

I used to like putting coins in the head of a model of a yellow Labrador with a bandaged paw RSPCA which stood outside a shop.

There were slightly less cute ones which were models of a disabled boy wearing a caliper...

ferry23 Sat 01-Aug-26 18:42:49

sawdust on the butcher's shop floor

Grammaretto Sat 01-Aug-26 18:47:45

Animal carcasses hanging up in butcher's windows.
I remember c1975 a young American visitor was deeply shocked to see the raw meat. She had only ever seen wrapped meat in supermarkets.

Grandmama Sat 01-Aug-26 18:56:58

You could buy postage stamps from a box attached to the pillar box.
Looking at photographs from as late as the 1970s very few women were wearing trousers. They looked quite dressed up by today's standards.
Sometimes there would be a crowd outside a TV shop watching the football through the window.
I don't think there are any slipper baths these days.

Nell82 Sat 01-Aug-26 19:17:17

Hanging in shops - cardboard parrots impregnated with DDT to kill flies. Banned now.

midgey Sat 01-Aug-26 19:19:47

Children with the front cut off their sandals in the summer, so they would fit a bit longer!

SueDonim Sat 01-Aug-26 19:25:53

Grammaretto

Animal carcasses hanging up in butcher's windows.
I remember c1975 a young American visitor was deeply shocked to see the raw meat. She had only ever seen wrapped meat in supermarkets.

They have carcasses hanging up in the butchers dept at House of Bruar, Grammaretto.

You never see ashtrays nowadays, thank goodness.

Casdon Sat 01-Aug-26 19:29:25

Children’s sandals - remember the Clarks ones with crepe soles and cutouts, like this, my sisters and I all had a pair exactly the same every year, brown, red or navy. No longer seen I don’t think.

Shinamae Sat 01-Aug-26 19:37:07

Grammaretto

The x-ray machines were banned in the 1950s

I remember having mine done in a shop in Ilfracombe when I was about nine so that would’ve been 1962..
My aunt May used to buy me my shoes for some reason and she always took me to the store once a year at least to get my feet x-rayed
My feet are horrendous now, but nothing I can blame on the x-rays I don’t think 😁😂

Magenta8 Sat 01-Aug-26 19:53:04

Until relatively recently, there was a collection of moth eaten toy monkeys in a glass case on Worthing Pier. If you put 2p in the slot they jiggled about and 'played' "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert on various musical instruments.

Cigarette machines. They seemed to be everywhere at one time. Ashtrays on the seats in aeroplanes.