Do you remember any of these? Part 1

Standing for God Save the Queen before the movie started when going to the cinema.

The above pic is of King’s Cinema, Ashfield, demolished in 1981 to make way for the office building Ashfield Court, corner Liverpool Road and Holden Street. One of the old style cinemas.

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Clunky telephones:

Like Henry Ford’s Model T, you could have any colour as long as it was black. They had letters and numbers on the dial and phone numbers consisted of 2 letters and 4 digits.

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Speaking of telephones, do you recall the red public telephone boxes?

The one above is in The Rocks and has a working telephone in it. In the UK, since 2009 more than 1,500 red phone boxes have been turned into grocery shops, florists, wildlife information centres and art galleries. One noteworthy use is as free libraries. Some are open 24 hours, others are locked at night.

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Fondue dinners:

Everyone dipping, eating, dipping, eating . . .

Does it remind anyone else of the Seinfeld episode where George Costenza is taken to task for double dipping at a wake?

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Cabbage Patch Dolls:

My daughter had one.  You didn’t buy a cabbage Patch kid (not doll), you adopted one. They came with papers and you had to send the adoption certificate in for registration. Creepy but nonetheless one of the most popular toy fads of the 1980s and one of the longest-running doll franchises in America.

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Tamagotchi:

Tamagotchi’s are digital pets that have to be continually cared for. Originally developed for teenage girls, to let them know what it would be like to take care of children, they start off as babies and have to be fed, changed, put to sleep etc. They age as they are looked after. Fail to look after them when due and they die. Some schools banned them, children were setting alarms to feed them or were needing counselling if they died. Welcome to life lessons. There is now a version to put on your mobile telephone.

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Newspaper cartoons:

Back in the 60’s when Sydney had two daily newspapers, the Daily Mirror and The Sun, the former was known inter alia for its page 3 swimsuit girl and for its Rigby cartoon:

Not only was Paul Rigby an insightful and very good cartoonist, he always hid a tiny little boy and a tiny dog somewhere in the cartoon. Every afternoon three quarters of the population of Sydney looked for them in that day’s cartoon.

These were the days of cartoonists such as Benier and Bruce Petty. Do you recall Eric Jolliffe who drew cartoons about the outback – Saltbush Bill, Witchetty’s Tribe, Jolliffe’s Outback and lots of art drawings of nubile indigenous women (google an image search to see). Not at all PC today.