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Wiring a plug , setting points TDC 😉, whacking the starter motor with a spanner when it jammed, crawling under to undo the sump nut , removing the oil filter great fun , clambering over a pile of scrap cars for spare parts , ah the good old days 😜
Holiday cottage owners had left us a pint of milk in the fridge - proper retro glass milk bottle with the foil lid. I had to show LittleMissMC how to open it.
To be fair, she's never had to deal with one before.
We get the in the office. About three people can open them properly.
I have presented a lunchtime cpd on the matter.
We quite often cycle under the "Great Train Robbery Bridge" was quite gob smacked when one of my 30yr + old kids asked me what the great train robbery was?
I hope you told them that was where they stole a whole train including 15 carriages and still no one knows how they did it to this day
What we grew up with no longer exists. Dry Stone Walling went out with my grandparents. Today
Perhaps where you live but my mates son is undergoing training by a local dyker and is also attending college for same thing.
Quite a demand for it up here in Galloway
Without needed to get into specifics and hand wringing too hard about lost skills, what I find fascinating is I can't imagine there has been a time in history with people two generations apart where the younger generation has lost skills the older generation take for granted and and the older generation been been so inadequately and ill prepared for current essential skills.
And yet, we are expecting people to have a longer working life than at any time in history.
This is true, but there are genuine cognitive and physiological reasons why many people struggle to cope with technological change as they reach old age. It's not an affectation or done to wind young people up.
Maybe if you are 90 but not many people are 9 are they. A 75 year old who doesn't have the internet, email address etc,. or know how to use it was only 55 when it was very widely used so what were they doing at 55, getting their excuses ready?
My mum is 69 this year yet she has no idea how to send an email nor really use the internet etc. She does use an iPad/iPhone and can use messenger/facebook/Whats app but that’s it, doesn’t use iPlayer or suchlike.
I do most of the online stuff for her
She can strip a chainsaw and replace piston/rings, chop logs/kindlers. Mix concrete, lay a dead square brick course. Frame a wall, skim plaster. Change a tyre. Bake/cook whatever you like from memory, curse you in fluent Gaelic
I'm often surprised at some of the comments on STW but then again I take a step back and realise it’s STW and it’s a rather amusing insular crowd that is not really representative of much
I can't imagine there has been a time in history with people two generations apart where the younger generation has lost skills the older generation take for granted and and the older generation been been so inadequately and ill prepared for current essential skills.
Oh I disagree. For most of human history the lives of the parents were pretty much exactly the same as those of the children. The stone age lasted for over three million years - where the main technology was stone tools.
She can strip a chainsaw and replace piston/rings, chop logs/kindlers. Mix concrete, lay a dead square brick course. Frame a wall, skim plaster. Change a tyre. Bake/cook whatever you like from memory, curse you in fluent Gaelic
The post wasn't about doing things, it was about learning things. How many genuinely new unrelated skills has your mum learned in the last 20 years?
Oh I disagree. For most of human history the lives of the parents were pretty much exactly the same as those of the children. The stone age lasted for over three million years - where the main technology was stone tools.
I'm often surprised at some of the comments on STW but then again I take a step back and realise it’s STW and it’s a rather amusing insular crowd that is not really representative of much
Same. It comes across as a hard faced contempt for anyone who struggles with stuff others find easy. An absence of empathy or compassion.
Thankfully people, (including those commenters probably) are generally kinder in real life.
The post wasn't about doing things, it was about learning things. How many genuinely new unrelated skills has your mum learned in the last 20 years?
I’ve been teaching her how to grind weed to a suitable consistency and roll a decent 3 skinner joint, she’s quite good at it now but still rolls a bit tight. Admittedly she’s had previous experiences with this back in the 70’s.
Also teaching her how to make a decent espresso/cappuccino as I’m going to lose the ability at some point. She’s learned how to prime machine/heat cup/portafilter. Use my grinder and declump the grinds with a needle tool for consistency, tamp down and brew for the correct extraction, steam milk to ensure a decent micro foam
She’s learning and can make a decent cappuccino, certainly up the standards of any cafe in town.
She’ll be picking me some mushrooms next month, I’ll be showing her how to make a decent long steeped brew 😉
She’ll be picking me some mushrooms next month, I’ll be showing her how to make a decent long steeped brew
Can you run a webinar?
When was the last time anyone actually put a stamp on an envelope and posted it though?
It kinda blew my mind that I could wipe a tiny bit of shit on a tiny little plastic stick, pop it in a bottle in a sealed bag and post that in the letterbox.
No stamp required as prepaid by NHS.
Feel for the postman though, they'll know what it is, hoping the person posting it had good hygiene standards.
Escape Rooms are my jam. There is a concept here where Outside Knowledge shouldn't be required because if you're faced with a puzzle and - say - don't know what the capital of Egypt is then you're knackered, there's no way of deducing that.
This has led to industry conversations around what exactly is "outside knowledge." There has to be a degree where common sense offsets the absurd, right? Do we assume that we can't use words in case there's an illiterate / foreign player? Some people are bad at maths. Others present accessibility issues, scent-based puzzles are a non-starter for those with anosmia.
What's been interesting in the discussions here is how much "obvious" knowledge is actually dead. Like, why would a Gen Z innately understand how to operate a landline? A game I played last week had a VCR in it. Wildly, the ability to read an analogue clock is now considered a lost skill, because when would a teenager ever need to do that? Right between calculating using a slide rule and wiring a plug?
What we grew up with no longer exists. Dry Stone Walling went out with my grandparents. Today a SNES is the realm of TikTok reaction videos. The old "3D printed save icon" floppy disk gag is... hey wait, some people still save things manually rather than it just happening automatically? You'll be telling me next that you once had to hurry home to catch a TV programme.
It is by turns exciting, fascinating and terrifying. Or maybe that's just what A.I. wanted me to say.
This is sort of adjacent to the conversations about what to write on the door of a bunker full of nuclear waste - when the contents are destined to remain dangerous for longer than the existence of any current written language or our ideas of nations and governments and regulation. Even the idea of putting a skull and crossbones on the door doesn't work - it used to denote 'poison' at the start of the 20th Century - but you now get little pirate themed onesies for toddlers with the same symbol on them now - and they're not poisonous, even if you eat a whole one. Even then, it was originally it was a symbol of resurrection rather than death so has already done a complete 180 in terms of meaning. Personally I'm tending towards Ray Cats as the best solution.
Unless the lost learning we are talking about is the art of English comprehension
Ah no, I have lost the art of reading properly 🙂 I concede.
Very good 👍🏻edit - I appear to have lost the ability to left align.
That tends to happen as people get older
Really? They still exist and are repaired. I'll bet there is plenty of work out there for people with these skills.
It was a random example. They do still exist of course, there was a course being run near me not so long ago. I would have signed up but for calendar clashes. Point was, it's not something I would expect to be common knowledge (which is why I wanted to do the course, I don't like not knowing things).
Maybe if you are 90 but not many people are 9 are they. A 75 year old who doesn't have the internet, email address etc,. or know how to use it was only 55 when it was very widely used so what were they doing at 55, getting their excuses ready?
I overheard a conversation with my pensioner neighbour discussing a guttering repair, the tradesman said "I can only buy gutters in 5m lengths" and he replied "I don't know what that is."
I get that change is scary, but christ. Even if we bounce over the notion that metres and yards are broadly interchangeable, you've had half a century to grasp this. There has to be a point where you're just being wilfully ignorant.
I have presented a lunchtime cpd on the matter.
A what now?
No one under 55 gets to touch my Rega
No-one under 55 wants to.
when the contents are destined to remain dangerous for longer than the existence of any current written language or our ideas of nations and governments and regulation.
If you put it in a steel and concrete vault 100m underground in solid rock and seal it with concrete, anyone with the technology to dig it up should be able to figure out that they need to be very cautious about opening it.
They've completely lost the art of taking a bowie knife into the woods, finding a nice stick, sharpening it into a spear - then chucking it at a mate! Great days!
We used to go one better than that, we’d cut a small groove about 2/3 of the way along, tie a knot in a piece of string, wrap the string around the groove and over the knot and use it like an aboriginal Woomera or throwing stick - we’d also cut cross slits in the end and fold square bits of card and slide them down into the slits for flights. We could get a fair distance from those, a basic arrow, but without a bow. Great fun!
^^ We used to do similar, it was called a Dutch Arrow down here in Kent anyway.
Those things used to go a bloody long way! Ridiculous the stupid things were used to do with them such as throwing them vertically and trying to dodge them as they came down. Harder said than done on a bright summer's day with a tiny cross section to try and make out. 😁
I overheard a conversation with my pensioner neighbour discussing a guttering repair, the tradesman said "I can only buy gutters in 5m lengths" and he replied "I don't know what that is."
I get that change is scary, but christ. Even if we bounce over the notion that metres and yards are broadly interchangeable, you've had half a century to grasp this. There has to be a point where you're just being wilfully ignorant.
This. We formally adopted the metric system in 1968. The fact that we didn’t finish the job is a national embarrassment.
Even if he doesn’t know what a metre is (and frankly how hard is it to know it’s 40”) then he should know it’s a bit more than a yard. No sympathy.
We definitely found an age cutoff at work where you did / didn't know what a 3 speed bicycle hub gear was.
Why would kids know how to do things when their parents won't let them. Did/does anyone on here let their kids out of the house with a dirty big knife. Many of my mates' parents did (but not mine). Do you let your five-years old out of the house after breakfast and not expect to see or hear of them till lunch time? (mine did). Were you given saws, planes, screws, lumps of wood at 7 and left to it? I was. By 8 I had explored just about everywhere within 5 miles of home - still exploring the same way today but walking and cycling further.
As for childhod memories I enjoyed this Guardian article till the final photo - that's not the same stone, not from any angle:
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/sep/11/standing-stone-childhood-photo-scottish-island-islay
Putting a thick blade of grass between your thumbs and blowing to make it whistle.
^^It should be part of the national curriculum, these things need to be passed on.
Along with :-
Making an owl noise.
Whistling with fingers ( extra marks if using only one hand).
Armpit fart noises.
😉 😜
The thrill of playing knock and run...
"Putting a thick blade of grass between your thumbs and blowing to make it whistle"
My boy was the epi-centre of the school playing field, for an after this past summer term, as he showed his class mates the above.
Proud moment.
Him being name school y10 rugby captain, yday, is almost as good .... 🙂
A song I wrote (about the joys of being a kid in the 60s and 70s) includes the line "you'd often find a Fiesta in a hedge". Blokes my age would smile, everyone else thinks it's about a car crash.
Oh, and I had to post a letter at the weekend. Most odd, and I found there was a letter box at the bottom of our road that I hadn't spotted before in the 3 years we've lived here.
^^ We used to do similar, it was called a Dutch Arrow down here in Kent anyway.
Those things used to go a bloody long way!
We used to make "scotch arrows" from real arrows. They could easily clear a football pitch.
when the contents are destined to remain dangerous for longer than the existence of any current written language or our ideas of nations and governments and regulation.
If you put it in a steel and concrete vault 100m underground in solid rock and seal it with concrete, anyone with the technology to dig it up should be able to figure out that they need to be very cautious about opening it.
Putting it like that you make it sound like an Egyptian pryramid - there must be treasure in there - we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams... if only we can get the this door with open!
But when they do finally prise the door open they find the desiccated remains of Cougar - turns out it was actually his ultimate and final escape room
Sewing, knitting, crotchet, weaving, darning (mend and re-purpose) are all things that granny taught us and no longer seem to be hobbies that youngsters want to do or know how to do.
I dunno, crochet/knitting seem to be really popular with 20somethings, especially those that commute by public transport rather than by car.
Same. It comes across as a hard faced contempt for anyone who struggles with stuff others find easy. An absence of empathy or compassion.
I am one of those people who are not technically minded, I hardly use a computer in day to day life. I can just about manage an i-phone (my screen time is short compared to most). Also many of my older friends are similar.
As written by Blokeuptheroad, we need to be more understanding.
My pal Jim is a drystane dyker. He's getting close to 80 now. Does mostly ornamental work now works when he wants, stops when he wants.Cash only. I hope my retirement is quite like his
Correction he is a mere child of 72
You don't need to be technically minded to use a computer these days though. My dad spent quite a few years being willfully ignorant of this stuff but even he is doing online banking and will finally use WhatsApp. He has no interest in being able to do anything else - they are just tools to achieve what you need. We spent quite a bit of time showing him how to do stuff.
As written by Blokeuptheroad, we need to be more understanding.
I have zero issues with people not being technically minded. Some people just aren't wired that way, and this is fine. I live with a technophobe, put a keyboard in front of her and she's an exercise in patience / frustration, but she has skills in other areas that I can only dream of.
Rather, what grips my shit is those who boast about it. "I don't understand this crap, obviously it's all just beneath me really and it's someone else's fault, ho ho!" Ho ho no no, we aren't living in the 1900s. It's OK to be uneducated with something, it's not fine to wear that as a badge of pride. Own it. It wouldn't be considered acceptable to stuff a car into a lamppost for the 7th time and just laugh it off, "well, you know me and cars...!" You'd be considered to be a sociopath if you bragged about being a crap parent. So why does IT get special dispensation? For all that I may be a prolific gobshite keyboard warrior there's plenty of stuff I can't do - I'm useless with a guitar for instance, they make no sense to me - but I'm not proud of that. The artistic gene skipped me, doubly annoying because my dad was a naturally brilliant sketch artist who simply couldn't be arsed with it and in my lifetime filled maybe four pages of an A3 sketchbook. But (aside from this comment) I'm not sitting here going "yay look at me, I'm rubbish!!"
It's alright to be crap and we absolutely should be normalising this, you're bang on the money here. I've forged a career out of teaching people. But it's not alright to think that being crap is a desirable quality.
Using your scrunched up tops for goal posts, peeing in the hole where the goal post was inserted at the weekend as there were no trees to hide behind
Drinking water from the water spout next to the naval mine , now most kids have to have fizzy juice or go thirsty
Wearing your school shoe sole through to the sock slidin on the white pavement
Rather, what grips my shit is those who boast about it. "I don't understand this crap, obviously it's all just beneath me really and it's someone else's fault, ho ho!"
I've had managers like that. IT seems to get a special pass for "reasons". People earning 4-5x what I'm on and they can't save as a pdf, can't find the printer, can't share a document...
Not so much "lost knowledge" as "we never bothered / can't be arsed to learn the basics, even though it's a basic tenet of the job".
I sometimes wonder if there were similar situations in the past - some people in a Stone Age tribe going "well all this stone stuff is a bit beyond me, haha!"
In my experience, some good managers are honest about not understanding technical details so they delegate people with expertise to appropriate jobs, but that requires trusting people to handle things you don't understand and hiring people who can be trusted. Others are lazy or incompetent and ask for impossible things or, in the worst cases, try to sabotage anything they don't understand out of insecurity.
Really - the crows here will still burst it and even have a good try with bursting plastic bottles!Yup, the blue tits around here have long since forgotten how to do that.
That's because birds are lactose intolerant and homogenised milk made them stop. They only wanted the cream!
I sometimes wonder if there were similar situations in the past - some people in a Stone Age tribe going "well all this stone stuff is a bit beyond me, haha!"
Fun fact for the patriots:
We "The British" didn't build Stonehenge, the Bronze Age wasn't something Stone Aged Britons ascended into, it was immigrants with better skills (or more specifically weapons).
So it's not so much that they refused to adopt this new technology, they just got bludgeoned over the head with it like you might want to sometimes do with your keyboard and manager....