Tomorrow's World

 Tomorrow's World

I remember sitting with my dad, watching this programme in the 80s. He was an old fashioned soul, just like me. When he bought things, he bought them to last. I have held onto lots of old fashioned notions and ways of life I was brought up with. Mainly, the connections of relationships, visiting people, sending cards and writing letters. The slowing down of life, to take more things in. 

We would watch this programme, Tomorrow's World, with the new, modern technology, promising a better, brighter future. And this has happened. Technology has helped us so much. But from it, we have also lost a few things. We have lost much of the simplicity of life and we have lost quite a bit of human connections. 

Yes, we needed technology to advance and my goodness, there have been some amazing progressions and inventions through the years, especially in science and medical areas. It's probably how fast the changes have been in such a short time with gadgets that sometimes we feel they are taking over us! Love this from Dr Suess!

My dad was of the vinyl and the radio generation. I would love to sit with him, listening to his Beatles albums, my favourite album cover being the colourful, busy Sargeant Pepper's. I always picked out the lovely Marilyn Monroe first. 

We'd play an assortment of singles from Fatz Domino to Buddy Holly and Leo Sayer. The good old fashioned vinyl and record players. Loved them! 

We always had the radio on in the kitchen too. Mum loved Terry Wogan and Ken Bruce mainly. I loved to hear Desert Island Discs, imagining being stranded on an island with my loved of the time: Madonna, T'Pau and Debbie Gibson.

Then video came along and 'killed the radio star'. Thing is, I feel the radio is making a comeback, especially in lockdown. I listen to it in my kitchen and find myself dancing along to the 90s dance tunes on Pulse. My daughter and I sing along to Heart radio in the car too. Soon as an 80s or 90s song comes on, anywhere, I am instantly transported back to the dancefloor or on holiday! As it goes in Hairspray, 

"You can't stop the beat!"

I love to remember the good old days. To me, these were the 80s and into the 90s. I remember doing my homework, listening to LPs such as Five Star and Gloria Estefan, then listening to tape cassettes like The Levellers and Mariah Carey. The best was taping the charts on a Sunday night and taping our best songs. It was such a skill taping the song at the right time! Oh my, I had so many mix tapes full of Genesis, Belinda Carlisle, Aha and loads more!

And Walkmans! I loved my Walkman so much. How cool were they? But how big were the headphones compared to now? 

When StarLord entered the first scene of Guardians of the Galaxy listening to a Walkman, I thought it was ace! I told my daughter of our experience of them in the 80s. You can even buy a Starlord Walkman now!

And when I inherited my brother's CD Discman and Hi Fi system, I thought I had been given the world! The Discman was mega but my fave was the cool Hi fi system with a double cassette to tape your songs! That record player got some use too! This was a bit like mine. 

One of the most famous techno products from the 90s was a ghetto blaster and I loved mine! It obviously wasn't as big as some but I was so proud of it!

I love how generations pass down their love of the music from their teens. In the same way, I've played the 80s and 90s tunes to my daughter. It has helped that films and programmes have incorporated 80s and 90s soundtracks, like Stranger Things and Glee. 

When it comes to music, I feel it isn't a Tomorrow's World, it's a reliving of the golden music of the past. The music we made dances to in the kitchen, then showed them to family. Whitney Houston's 'I wanna dance with somebody' comes to mind! The music we danced to at those brilliant school discos, 'Thriller' and 'Nothing's gonna stop us now!' Love this quote. It's good advice for now!

This meme made me laugh. Yes, I listened to them before. Loved Heart too!

Then there were the TV programmes I watched with my parents and grandparents. The comedies like The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise. We'd watch them on black and white at my grand parent's, then in colour. I gave many memories of us all sitting around the same telly, watching iconic comedies like 'Only Fools and Horses' and 'Open all Hours' and laughing together. Nowadays, there's probably a telly in each room with different programmes on. Folk even watching it on their phones! 

It was fab when we got our colour TVs and a portable for in the kitchen! I remember there being the BBC channels, then ITV and Channel 4. I remember Channel 5 coming in. Look at how many Channels are available now!And the video players! VHS and Betamax. We had VHS! Again, such skill in taping programmes and watching them back! Such fab memories of me and hubby, boyfriend then, going to the garage to hire videos on a weekend. Then Blockbusters! How exciting was it to go there on a weekend to pick a New Release and grab some popcorn and crisps? Choccy also! Again, progression lead on to the DVDs. I don't even think we've got a DVD player anymore! 

I've not even mentioned computers! My earliest memories are of the great, big BBC computer that we had at our Juniors. One computer to eight classes. Can you believe that? We all took it in turns for it to be rolled on a trolley outside our class and two of us would sit at it! Same with the TV. We had a TV room in the Infants, carpeted for us to sit on, and a thick curtain to cut out the light. I would await these sessions eagerly to watch 'Stig of the Dump' and 'How we used to live'.My brother was the computer whizz so I just used his. He had a Vic 20 first of all and we were so excited! Then a Commodore 64. It was a mega thing to own your own computer. I remember loving watching 'Electric Dreams' in the 80s and love the song, 'We'll always be together, together in Electric Dreams'. I actually watched it again, last year and I couldn't get over how old it was, and how technology had moved on!

Since then, we've now got much smaller, less bulky computers, laptops, notebooks and iPads. Technology has moved on so much when you look at things like this!

I didn't have a computer but I did have the most amazing typewriter. I would love to have it now still. I have always loved writing, always been scribbling stuff down in note pads but I felt really posh when I typed on my typewriter! This moved onto a word processor when I went to university and studied my English Degree. It had a massive screen, green background with orange writing and I printed every essay on that! It didn't last forever though, so I moved onto one with a fitted screen. Would love to have one now. Ooh. That's a thought! Or a typewriter. I have always wanted to be like Jessica Fletcher in 'Murder, she wrote'. 

I can vaguely remember my first phone, or brick! Can you believe there were phones with no cameras? I use my camera on my phone more than I ring people! I still have a Samsung, not gone to a iPhone yet. It's what you get used to. My phone broke the other day and I was beside myself. I'm like, Get a grip! You can cope one day without it! We used to manage, didn't we? Back in the 90s, we'd make arrangements to meet outside BHS or Littlewoods at half ten and we'd just wait. There was no checking your phone or messaging them. Love this quote. We would just get on our bikes, or roller boots and go and find our friends! 

My friends and I would wait till after 6pm to ring each other on the house phone. Or, we'd take our 10ps and 20ps to the nearest telephone box and ring each other! We thought getting our first mobile phones was amazing! I can't imagine them without cameras on them! This is amazing, showing how big the first mobile phones were! 

In fact, one way of communicating with friends that I loved was writing notes and letters. And not just in class! My sister in law and myself lived next door to each other and passed notes by pushing them through each others letter boxes! I loved the ceremony of letter writing, from choosing my letter writing sets, writing them, sending them and receiving them. We were probably the last generation of penpals. I still write the odd letter now, but need to write more. 

Our cameras were cameras! I had a long, thin blue camera that went everywhere!  We'd eagerly await the photos being developed at Klick or Max Spielman, then go have a drink and laugh over all the photos. Some were of feet, thumbs, ears or just strangers as we'd zoomed into the background by mistake! Now, with the cameras on our phones, we can add a filter, edit or just delete! And selfies were much different in the 80s and 90s! More real! 

This quote made me laugh! I loved opening these envelopes! 

Life was different back when I was a kid. And a teenager. Technology was steadily moving on. Our parents probably saw the biggest changes but it takes doing things the harder way to maybe appreciate the newer, faster ways.

I loved this quote of comparisons. We thought we had the world!

As I was going through pinterest, I saw other photos of things from the past that brought back fab memories. I loved playing with these View Masters. 

I loved my label maker and must have made thousands of labels using different colours. I used to put them on notebooks and my diaries.

These games brought back lovely memories too, of a more simple time. I'm not sure I ever put the numbers in order! 

It took ages to get the hoops on the stands but I loved playing it. Hours of fun!

As a teacher, I saw technology move on. I loved my blackboard days, especially writing the handwriting lessons on it. I hugged it before it went in the skip! I love this photo of an old, sliding blackboard so you could write up three lessons on it. The videos on the bookshelves too! 

But, even though I reluctantly took to the Smartboard, it has made learning more interactive, and you don't go home with chalk all over your hands and clothes! The overhead projector too! My goodness. I'd put the acetates on and they'd be upside down! 

I loved my school days and was emotional visiting the 1970s classroom exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I walked in and was transported back to my lovely primary school classroom in the last year. The piano, the pot plants, the paintings and nature table. I'm so glad I did my schooling in the 80s, when it was more creative and there was more time for long projects and researching.

I also found this slide on pinterest from the brilliant Instant Display for making displays. It made me feel quite old, that you can make a historical display about the decade I grew up in!

So yes, I and other people my age, miss the 80s and 90s. Folk tend to miss the era they grew up in. We mainly remember them as a more simple time. A slower time. It felt like summer went on forever. Full of endless, sunny days. Now, time rushes on. People are rushing more. There is less time to relax with family and friends. Things are enjoyed, but sometimes they can be quickly enjoyed, for us to be ready to move onto the next thing in our busy schedules. People, looking at their watches as they need to be elsewhere in 5. I've been there, done that. 

There is this feeling of impatience in this era now. Folk want things and want them now. One example is the way we watch telly now. We are so used to being able to binge watch on Netflix and catch up, that we aren't watching things in real time, with the adverts where we'd click the kettle on and run to the loo. We don't need to wait till the week after to find out who someone is having an affair with. And who would be able to keep who shot JR going for so long? It's kind of spoiled the suspense for us. We are a nation of expecting things now, always on a catch up with life. We do need to slow down more. I am terrible at saying, 'One more episode', just as I say, 'One more chapter'! I cram episodes in, like 'The Blacklist' and 'White Collar' then regret it when the series is over quickly.

We do need to slow down a bit more. Even just once a week. Set aside a half hour to just sit and listen to music. As I'm writing this last part, I'm listening to The Lumineers and The Cranberries. Set aside time to just be. Get lost in the music. Get lost in that book. Be at one with the notes and the beats and the words on the pages.

There is so much good that has come from technology. It needed to happen. We needed to move forward; you can't go backwards. We just need to be careful that we still take the values of those simpler times with us. Again, we don't always sit at the table for tea but we still do this. We eat together, phones put aside. We converse. One of my pet hates is seeing young children in high chairs with an iPad in front of them, normally playing Peppa Pig. For the whole meal! I'm not a judging person but this really upsets me. Children need to be part of the conversations, they need to hear conversations being modelled to them. And as much as I loved Peppa Pig and Daddy Pig's big tummy, there's a time and a place. 

One of the main things for me, is family. Unfortunately, as times have progressed and folk are busier, or time poor, visiting people has warned. I love my mum telling me of how, before mobile phones, her and dadgot in their car and turned up to my aunt and uncle's. The kettle would be put on, biscuits put out and a lovely, spontaneous visit had. Of course, this was maybe once a month, not every day! And we would go off on day trips. Just wake up that weekend morning, or school holiday and go to the coast. Perhaps what we have gained in technology, we have lost in creativity and spontaneity and I for one am holding onto both. This quote says it all. 

I'm trying also, to balance the uncertainity and promise of tomorrow's world with the nostalgia and longing of yesterday's world. There is a happy medium here. Enjoy the blessings of the present.