Where Did That Go? Stuff You Don't See Anymore!

In this episode of The Big 6-Oh, Kayley and I take a nostalgic trip down memory lane, asking, Where Did That Go?! 

We reminisce about the everyday things that once filled our lives—rotary dial phones, backyard incinerators, the soft drink man, home-delivered milk and bread, and even the garbo running alongside the truck. 

From recording mix tapes off the radio to making do without Google, we explore the lost quirks of our youth and wonder if life was simpler — or just different.

Louis Carr Real Estate
With offices located in Castle Hill, Cherrybrook, and West Pennant Hills. Call +61 02 9480 1000

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Transcript

00:00
This episode of The Big Six-O brought to you by Louis Carr Real Estate, helping people in the Hills District find their dream home since 1992. Ready to buy, sell or rent? Check out louiscarr.com.au for all your property needs. If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold, then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Big Six-O with Kayleigh Harris and Guy Rawlison.

00:28
Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese?

00:52
Welcome to the Big  6O,  podcast where nostalgia,  unlike those of us who relive it,  never gets old. I'm Guy Rowlison, proud survivor of rotary dial phonierers, I guess, and joining me as always, my co-host, the brilliant and equally nostalgic, Kayley Harris. Didn't we survive a lot of stuff?

01:13
You've had a pretty hectic week, how are you?  Oh good, thank you. Yeah, yeah, still working, so working full time, so it's a bit busy, but  loving it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, like me, I've had a pretty hectic week. I actually even had to employ an airtasker stunt double to take a nap for me one afternoon. Can you believe that?  I might try that.  Hey, today we're asking the big questions.  Where did that go?

01:40
We're talking about all those everyday things that have vanished, like the milkman, the bread truck,  even the rotary dial phone,  basically, you know, even the phone book, the Google of its time, right? Yeah. Well, let's go back to the milkman. Now I remember obviously the milkman used to come and he'd bring you a bottle of milk when they had bottles and they had those like foil gold or silver lids.

02:04
and the birds would come around and pick the crap out of them and drink the and eat the cream on the top. Do you remember that? Yeah, it was the Magpies used to come on to the front verandah just like, you know, yeah. And and, I don't know that clever beasts, were they? Yeah. But before that, our grandparents used to have the Iceman used to come round and deliver big blocks of ice for the ice boxes. That's it. Because before refrigerators, gosh, we sound old, don't we? And you get a big block of ice that would go into your ice box to keep you.

02:32
your meat and stuff cold. That's right. I remember my grandmother had one. She was living over at Waitara in Sydney and she had an old chess sort of freezer thing that I had no idea. And I remember her telling me about it, but she never used it because it was, you know, she had an electric refrigerator by then, but I remember she kept it and yeah, they used to the ice man, like the rabbit man used to come around way back in the day, the rabbit-o.

03:01
And they used to sell rabbits at the back of the truck. I'd sell dead rabbits and they'd all be hanging up on the side of the truck. you could, cause back then rabbit meat  was, one of the cheapest sources of meat. it back in, the fifties, guess, and, earlier. Yeah. And if so, yeah, when you didn't have much money, you know, you ate rabbit. That's right. And that's where the South Sydney rabbit has actually got their name from because of  the old rabbit that used to come around the streets of

03:29
Redfern Surry Hills that way. you know, used to cry out, Rebiddo, Rebiddo. And that's where the  site actually got its name from. No wonder we're all scarred, gringing the little kiddies.  But to be able to at least get some of those stories retold to you,  you know,  I'm not sure how many of those stories get retold to kids and grandkids and  so forth these days, but so much has changed even in such a short period of time of our growing up.

03:57
hasn't it? Oh, definitely. And when you think about other things that used to come to your house, the obvious one, which still does, I think a lot of places, Mr. Whippy Truck, that still comes home. But do you remember back in the day when the encyclopedia salesman used to come in  on your door and try and flog your parents 24 encyclop world book encyclopedias? How many people bought them? And they're going to come to the door selling that the mums and the wives.

04:22
vacuum cleaners. Yeah. You see it on TV and I'm sure kids think it's a joke that, you know, you've got your  encyclopedia botanica or your funk and wagonals.  Um, or, or, or, know,  used to get even the Avon lady, I guess used to come door knocking before they had Avon parties on top of your parties, all those sort of things.  But they also, and we were never rich enough or lucky enough or one of them used to have the soft drink man used to come along as well.  Oh, did you ever, did you ever have that?

04:52
No, we never had that. there used to be the Swing soft drink man. And  that wasn't a persuasion. That was a brand of,  of, of soft drink,  the swing soft drink man. And, and I remember my, my  aunt at the time and she used to get them and oh, what a treat it was to go around to their place because the soft drink men would deliver the soft drink. They'll probably warm when they arrived in the wooden crate. But doesn't matter.

05:17
bucket loads of sugar and flavour. Yeah, keep any four year old pretty happy, wouldn't it? Definitely. Now I mentioned the rotary dial phone in the intro.  I still remember my phone number from back in the day when they used to have like  only six numbers sometimes and  usually seven  and even less if you're  living west of the divide, I'm guessing.  do you remember your phone number? 865464.  My mum like drilled it into my head when

05:46
before I went to like when we were going to school and stuff. Now, if you get lost and you need to ring home, this is the number 865464. They're the things that you used to have to learn your name and your phone number and your address, didn't you? Yeah. You know, and in spite of your probably limited linguistics, you knew it. You knew it. You know, do you remember yours? 8692681. Drilled, drilled into you. Drilled in. I'm wondering where the kids at school now would know their parents' mobile number.

06:15
probably not they'd just come up as mum and dad wouldn't they? guess they would like  I'm sure schools all have those numbers anyway and they probably had our numbers as well but yeah like I'd never thought of that until now until you sort of brought it up and I think wow. And it's funny I only got rid of a  um like the landline phone in my house about eight years ago because my mum lived with me for quite a while and she you know loved the old phone she'd get on the ring and ring the rellos and um

06:43
I finally got rid of thought, actually, we don't use this anymore. And I got rid of it. And I wonder how many people still have all style, whether it's the push button or the rotary, how many people still have an old landline phone in the house? Yeah. Um, I remember buying a couple of old rotary Bakelite rotary phones because I just loved it.  And I was absolutely distraught when  I was only a years ago when they changed the whole system to digital. So

07:11
You couldn't actually just plug in the old rotary phone and make the call anymore because it was an analog system in the phone and all that sort of thing. But I love the sound of the little bell and the thing, but, um, but there were so many incarnations of those rotary dial phones. And of course you couldn't have a secret conversation with your boyfriend or your girlfriend either, because it was only so long of a cord. And it's not like you could, you know, maybe hide in the laundry with the door half closed or something.

07:40
But yeah, nothing was too confidential when it came to the old phone, was it? No. And there'd be, and you'd fight with your siblings because they were waiting on a call, one of their friends. And you were, you want to stay on the phone for two hours and speak to your best friend from school who you just got home from seeing all day.  And you couldn't, and you had to wait till after six o'clock or something to make like long distance calls too, because it was four after eight o'clock or something. Cause STD rates were really expensive.  STD rates. Yes, they were common back

08:09
Then weren't they in many years? I'm sorry, I don't Yes, I think we're talking about the same thing, but I'm not sure. you talk about privacy on social media and whatnot these days. How private was the phone book? Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? So every house got a phone book and

08:32
growing up as kids like we did in Brisbane, it was a pretty thin phone book. But then remember when it went to two copies, there was A to K and L to Z. There were that many people and you'd, and the new one would come out every year and you would excite, excitedly look up your name.  See whether you'd,  you were in the book because that was the book for 12 months. That's right. And you actually, think you had to pay  not to be in the phone book to have a silent number. Otherwise it was just fair game. You could look up.

09:00
Kayleigh Harris and say, look, Kayleigh lives at number  XYZ in, you know, ABC street. Yep. Can you imagine these days?  I know, like that's just, who's,  did they get that from the electoral rolls? Where did they get all that? Gosh, probably from the old telecom PNG. Yeah, because  back in those days, I remember you used have to have a radio and a television license as well.

09:25
Oh, that's right. I do remember the television license. I don't remember the radio license. Yeah, used to have a,  I think that predated the TV license, but you had to have a radio license and you also had to have a TV license. And I could never understand other than revenue raising, why you had to have it and whether a man would come around and knock on your door to check whether you had your license for your TV. I don't know.  I've got it weird, isn't it? Well, my folks used to mention it to me and  you know, I thought

09:54
Wow. Do I live in fear that someone's going to knock on the door? And we still had a black and white TV up until about 1976 or something. Yeah, did as well. Yeah. yeah, it's, but if you've still got a Yellow Pages phone book, I think they're still out. Someone told me the other day, they're still out. I think there are still Yellow Pages out there. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you could use it for a booster seat anymore now for your grandkids or anything, could you though? Yeah. It's probably, it's probably a novel at its best. Yes.

10:25
So a Rolodex along the same lines. Did you, when you wanted to find a phone number, you just pulled that little... At work, yes. We didn't have one at home. But at work, you had Rolodexes with all the, you know, your business contacts or clients or whatever it was. When I started working in 1980 in an office, I remember the Rolodex and I thought it was so cool just to flick through all those. Yeah. Was it the Rolodex that one used to be a plastic thing?

10:50
bring the little slider down and it would open up. What was the rolling one then? Oh, no, I think that was the Rolodex.  I've probably given it the wrong name, but it was almost as magical as  the KTEL record selector back in the day.  Oh, how good was that thing? You start the first album and then they all start following and it was just this, I could never work out how the KTEL record selector worked. It was black magic.

11:16
It was, it was, it was Harry Potter before Harry Potter was a thing. was, um, and there was right up there. They're really expensive to buy. If you can find one online these days. Really? Yeah. Wow.  Wow. What about, was that right up there with Polaroid cameras? Remember that was, remember the technology when you could,  back in the day, when you had old film cameras and you would have to use the whole film cassette.

11:43
and all 12 or 24 photos, whatever you had, and then you had to finish it, then you'd take it to a shop, and then you'd wait a week for them to develop it, and then you'd come back and finally get your photos, only to find out they were crap. But then we had Polaroid cameras, and this instant photo would come out. It was next level. The Polaroid Instamatic, I remember getting one when I was 10 or 11 as a birthday present. And I remember taking it on a school excursion, and wasn't I just...

12:13
You would have been popular. I've still got the photograph that I took of the opera house. Oh, wow. But the technology was extreme. I think you could only get like eight or 10 shots and you'd the paper out and wait for it to, and then you'd peel it back. But you were so keen to peel it back that usually you. the photo in the process. But the way to check the light is you used to press a little thing on the top and a little checkerboard come up and it said, yes. And I'm Very high tech.

12:41
didn't stop a 10 or 11 year old from still peeling the backing off the photo paper and ruining the photograph anyway. Yes, so much. I don't even think about how many films I went through, particularly at the chemist where you'd like, you said you'd wait for a week to get your photographs only to find out your head's been cut off. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're just blurred. Next level. And what about floppy disks? Remember they, when they came in.

13:08
in that was that that would have been in the  80s the old flop we thought that was really cool stick that in the computer and you know you could store all your data on that but that takes me back to things like typewriters and manual typewriters were before my time but then  um electric typewriters when i started working in 1980 were the new thing and so hang on hang on hang on who are you kidding manual typewriters before i learned i learned on a manual typewriter yeah oh my gosh no i didn't

13:37
I don't, didn't, we had electric and we had self correcting Remington electric type, thank you very much. And you'd the little X button. would go back and wipe out the last letter that you typed. It was just, and you'd have to change the little pinwheel or the little pinwheel every now and then and put new carbon stuff in there to be able to type onto it. You work with a high class bunch of people, my friend. Oh yeah.

14:05
Yeah, baby. remember  when I wanted to go into journalism and my mother had an old Imperial manual typewriter  and I had to learn to type on that. And when I got my first job after school, they're all manual typewriters and  invariably you'd have the black and red ribbon that you'd actually have to put in and it'd be upside down and you'd be tight,  put in the red side.

14:31
We had the white out, didn't have a self-correcting typewriter. Oh my gosh. When the white stuff came out and what was it called? What's that stuff called?  Liquid paper? How quickly we forget. Yeah, Kippex liquid paper. On typewriters and stuff like that, what about carbon copies? Because if you had to type multiple copies, you'd  have carbon paper in between bits of white paper and so you'd get three copies. But if you made a mistake on the first page...

14:57
All three of them would be stuffed. But they used to do that with invoices too. If the hand wrote invoices, they'd put the paper underneath it and away you go. I mean, gosh. Does anyone still use carbon paper? Probably not for any legal purposes. I'm thinking maybe for illicit purposes, there must be a reason for carbon paper. Or is that actually destroying the ozone as well? Why would it be called carbon? Just because it was carbon on it? Because it was just blue and I don't Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:27
I want to sort of move on. You're talking about carbon. Did you have an incinerator at the back of your house at any time?  Oh, have I got an incinerator story? Yeah, we had a big Bessa blocks, a big grey Bessa blocks. that is that what you're talking about? That's what I'm talking about. Yes, I had one down the bottom one day when we were living in,  we were renting this house and my mum decided it was a good idea to go down there and burn a whole stack of newspaper and stuff. So she shoved it all in there, set fire to it, and walked off.

15:55
it, some of it blew out and set fire to the back fence.  And so mom casual as you like the strolls on down with the hose.  Mind you this time it's like two meters high and about six meters long and she's standing there with the hose hosing it. And I'm thinking I went down I thought, Oh, this can't be good. I said, Mom, mom, know, like, do you want me to call the fire brigade? She said, don't be stupid. I've got it under control. But the guy with the back fence called the fire brigade. And next minute you can hear these sirens in the background  and these fire is

16:23
I'm flying down the driveway, get out of the way lady, shoved her out of the way and put the fire out and really gave it to mum and said, you could have burnt down your neighbour's house. What are you doing? she, oh, I I was, I had it under control with the hose. must be fairly sizable for the fireys to get involved. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was like, it was two or three metre high flames and about, you know, like

16:46
four or five metres long by the time the firees got there. And I was terrified, but mum's like, oh, don't be stupid, love, I've got it under control with the old hose.  Wow, that's extraordinary. But that started in the backyard incinerator. What did we actually use? Did we, what did we burn in there? What did you burn in yours?  Anything. Anything that didn't fit into like the tiny little metal garbage bin that you used to have once a week. But was it only paper meant to go, oh, only stuff that burnt, right?

17:15
What doesn't burn? If it's hot enough, it'll burn. Right. true. You know, um,  it's,  it could, there could have been nuclear reactions going on in some of those incinerators because  the things that kids probably put in there. remember if we were burning things and it could have been, you know, branches or leaves or  whatever,  whatever you would experiment, you know, you'd be throwing, you know, berries in there from something and it'll be going off like fireworks or whatever.

17:42
You just find out what wouldn't burn.  And that was just being a kid, wasn't it? But it was a place for conversations. remember I used to have umpteen conversations with dad, which at the time didn't mean anything to me,  but do now.  Because  I realize now some of those conversations he had with me were serious conversations, but in a lighthearted sort of

18:07
of manner that was very casual. at the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, nice. So it it certainly had its place but if you're not burning down fences why didn't people burn down more office buildings and it wasn't that long ago that cigarettes were allowed in the office? Oh yeah. Yeah I smoked at my desk in 1980. all had a we had an ashtray on our desk. Yes. And we would sit there and smoke away. Yeah. ashtrays in car like when was the last time you saw an ashtray in a car? Yeah haven't for a long time.

18:37
for ashtrays in car and wait go one further I can remember when you could smoke on planes I remember and this is this was  late 80s I went to the US on a United flight and there was smoking and non-smoking sections on the aircraft still still  and I thought what's the point right because if you're in the non-smoking you're still gonna smell it I couldn't see the point well there's a curtain there's a magic curtain that just blocks out everything wasn't on this aircraft all the people all the people who smoked all you scummy people like me

19:06
We're all down the back of the aircraft and all the non-smokers got to sit up the front. Wow. Is that because it was tilted and all the smoke had? I don't know. I think I wasn't, I was on a flight not that long ago and I think this non-smoking little light is still on a lot of those things. Yeah, it is. And they still do when they're doing the, your exits are here, here and here and your life jackets here. They still say there's no smoking on board any flight in Australia and there are smoke detectors fitted at the toilet. So.

19:35
which makes me wonder whether in other countries you are allowed to smoke on flights. Yeah, that's an interesting point. mean, it would have nothing to with people. People must still try. had nothing to do with these cigarettes because I mean, they've just never changed that little symbol on the aircraft. Right. Yeah. Well, you can't smoke any vapes either on sick on planes. can't anything electronic cigarettes, fakes, nothing. But it must be allowed on some airlines around the world because why would they still have that warning? Yeah,  I don't know. I often wondered why they've had it and

20:04
There must be good reason. They don't do things just because of the fun of it. So now can we move on to TV? Yep.  And the days of streaming, whether it's Netflix or Paramount or Binge or whoever it is these days. And if you're listening, we'd love a sponsor, by the way.  The days of television test patterns and  TV, you know, it would

20:33
closed down. Like come midnight or whatever time it was. That was it. All beds are off. And the test pattern had come up. All that hash. What was that where it would just be like a hash screen with lots of little moving nothings. We're talking the same thing. Yeah. gosh. think we are. I know how to describe it. know like um oh gosh. Somebody listening will know what I'm talking about.  Where the where the the TV channel went off and it just went to it didn't go blank.  went. I just had

21:01
Just had hash, right? Okay, I'm going to stop now. But as you know, I've got a background in radio and the same thing. You used to go and turn the radio station off at midnight, the last person, and then the breakfast person would come in at five o'clock in the morning and turn the radio station back on again. As a kid, I remember being really scared once because it must've been a party at our house or I don't know why I was up, but I remember watching channel seven back in the day when there was four television stations, by the way, I think there was seven, nine, 10 and two.

21:32
And there used to be a little kangaroo that come on and used to tuck its Joey into the Channel 7 logo bed. Really? And the TV would go off and I thought, this is like an apocalyptic scene because all of a sudden there's no television, there's nothing and it just went to static, which I assume is like hash. Static, that's what I'm talking about. Oh my gosh. That's the word. It was apocalyptic for like a little person because all of a sudden it seems like life as we know it's finished because this

22:01
this talking box. so mum or dad would turn the TV off and then you'd sit as close as you could to the tube TV because that little light would be in the middle and you'd see it. Do remember that? I do remember that. So many things like you say in radio have changed. I remember one of my jobs, used to work in one of the television stations in Sydney.

22:28
And they had teletext. This is more of a modern day phenomenon, teletext, which was a really rudimentary sort of, yeah, it's like a, before the internet, was, you have to key in a number and be able to read, you know, the news of the day. And I remember I worked on that for, was in the very early years and that was technology on a plate. But you know, I remember when fax machines were next level. That was pretty amazing.

22:57
Yeah, that was amazing. Because if we went back much further, you'd be into the Telegram boys and stuff like that that would... Well, how many people would have got Telegrams at weddings? Yeah. And which we should do another episode down the track on that. Do you remember singing Telegrams?  And stripper grams? Do you remember that from the  80s where someone would come around and sing a song or some bloke would come around and take his gear off at your hen's night and it was a stripper gram?  We don't see those anymore. No, I haven't had too many hen's nights in my sort of...

23:27
No. you might've had a Bucks night with a stripper gram girlie. I don't know. That must've been pretty memorable because it's not, look, I'm sure I've been to one or two and they've probably turned up and, but they had a lot of very inappropriate grams as well because they had fat-o-grams and all those sort of things.  know? And like, I do remember being somewhere, were, a bloke was singing, this is going to be great because I know what's been organized for me. And I thought, oh my gosh.

23:56
this. Yeah. He's going to be so disappointed. I forgot about the fat a gram. That's going to be a really big fat girl and she'd come and start stripping off. And we're we're not body shaming at all because times have changed but that's that was the deal. How did we get away with that? How did that was oh my gosh. That again the again 70s and 80s. Yeah. Yeah. And beepers and pages when we talk about technology. Yes.

24:20
Um, doctors, mean, that was, wow. I've got a beeper or a part. And even when you used to watch some of those shows  with McDreamy on it, what was that? Uh, uh, channels say, I kind of remember those  hospital medical TV shows and they're in the eighties and they'd have a pager and you think, Oh my gosh. Yeah. This, this special people. Well, with a pager, when I, when I met my husband,

24:46
this was just before mobile phones came in in the, and it was in the, I think very late eighties,  he gave me a pager so he could stay in touch with me because he had a business that used pages. And he said, here's a pager for you so that you know, you, can stay in touch with you and send you messages. And I was like, oh, wow, this is really cool. And I slung it on the belt and  you just shown off and it would go beep, beep, beep and everyone, Oh, who's that? And I go, Oh, that's my boyfriend.

25:12
And yeah, turned out to be my husband and there you go. But nothing was quite as cool as a breaker breaker. Did you have a Subaru radio? 10-4 big buddy.  Oh, that's a boy thing. That's a boy thing. That was very mid to late. Did you have one? No, I didn't. I went around to a mate's place that had one  and I thought it was just the coolest thing ever. We had walkie talkies. My sister and I were given walkie talkies one  Christmas.

25:41
Nice. And they were pretty, that was pretty cool. They didn't go very far, but you could still, you should get out of the backyard and I'd be in the house and we could, you know, shout, that. very special. At least it wasn't two tins with a piece of string between them. And mum would wonder where her string was because all of a sudden your brother has gone all the way down the backyard.

26:07
where are those tins? Oh, I had to empty them because we needed to use it for a phone. That's right, stick it up against your ear and  talk into the other end.  Hey, you don't remember something else that was very inappropriate back in the 70s and every woman wanted one? Mink coats.  Oh, Mink coats were,  if you had a mink coat in your wardrobe, you had absolutely made it  in the world.  the, you know, you were somebody and women  lived to, know, Jacques Gabor and women like that and Hollywood women all had

26:36
mink coats and we all wanted them but can you imagine now thank goodness that we woke up to ourselves with animal rights and that all stopped and the faux fur came in. But you're right. At the time that was a huge thing. Yeah mink stoles and mink coats and anyone on the Hollywood red carpet. exactly, exactly. In the mean while the poor minks. Oh well. Oh my gosh. I think some people have been called cheeky minks in their time but I don't know that it's same sort.

27:06
But going back to school,  and that can be filled with drama. There were so many things you just don't say and kids wouldn't get, like library cards. I don't think there's still library cards where you'd have to write your name on and the date. Well, I've got a library card for my local library.

27:24
here that I can go on just get books out and stuff. like, it looks like a credit card, obviously. It's not like the old fashioned library cards you're talking about where you'd actually write the name of the book. Yeah, it used to be on the inside of your book and you'd write your name on the thing and then you'd give that card to someone. And then when you returned the book, they'd mark your name off or something and put the card back in the little sleeve and then put the book back on the,  the,  on the bench, the, whatever it is on the shelf.  So,  yeah, I just don't know. And it's, it's, it's like when you used to have your books at school.

27:54
and you'd read all the list of the kids that had your textbook for the last 10 years written  in, you know, maybe you went to a more, you know, a better school than I did,  it would have, like you'd get handed your textbook and it would have.

28:11
Johnny Smith, know, 1967 had this book and then Kayleigh Harris, 68 and then everyone who had that book before you. you obviously had much. I don't think I've visited the library much. You must have had a much better education. I don't think I did. What about the drive-in? There's only one left in Sydney. You've probably been to the drive-in one or two times in your life. One or two times in my life I've been to the drive-in, not for many years, obviously, but we used to go and

28:40
depending on what kind of car you had, if your boyfriend had a panel van, you would turn it around and face it the other way so that the back of the van would open up and look at the screen and who knows what got on happened in the back of there.  But it was fun, wasn't it? And the old really heavy speaker used to sit on your window and it weighed a ton before we got the one that used to attach to your aerial and you could tune in your radio. I might have one or two of those speakers.

29:07
Really? I might have one. I don't know how they found their way into my possession, but  I might have one or two.  It was all fun. Yeah. Until it rained. Yeah, that's right. That's right.  Or as you were leaving,  you forgot you had the speaker on the window and you drive off and all of sudden there goes your window.  Or you had a flat battery. How many times  you have a flat battery because you'd

29:32
had the radio on or something or the heater or the mister or something on. Yeah, something. Yeah. And, there's only, unfortunately there's only one drive in left in Sydney that's still operating. Where is it? So for Blacktown. Oh, Blacktown's still operating. Yeah, Blacktown Twin.  I think in,  when I was a kid, there must've been almost a dozen. There was one at Parklea, one at Chalora, one at Bass Hill, one at Forestville, one at Dundas, one at North Road. They were  everywhere, but

29:59
It's all been taken over now by either commercial or retail development. So it's just the way that was fun though. The days though, weren't they? They were the days, weren't they?  go and pass your boyfriend in the back of the  panel van and  then you'd be queued up for hours trying to get out onto the street again. can't believe you went out with a boy with a panel van. That's  once briefly.  Hello, Ken.  Did you ever used to tune in?

30:27
uh try and make your mixtapes  from the radio as well?  Oh yeah of course yeah music was a really always been a really big part of my life but I yeah I used to put um put the cassette in  and then I'd have it on 2SM all the time in the late 70s I'd wait for 2SM to play a song oh and it'd hit record. Did you ever listen to Casey Kasem on a? I love Casey Kasem  loved it and I was lucky enough to work for the radio station in Sydney that had the rights to it. No way. And a funny story and so we used to get the they

30:56
They would,  Casey Kasem's company would send over four albums, vinyl albums every week to us, which was the countdown.  And so we had a panel operator in the studio and it was his job to play the album. So there was two turntables. So when one was about to finish, he'd go to an ad break and the next, and then start the next vinyl record. So the countdown sounds seamless on air until this one fateful night when he fell asleep and the record ran out.

31:26
And that was the end of his very short radio career that young man. Great story. So did he go into a career, probably not involving. don't know what happened. Yeah, think he's in radio. That's one of those mistakes. I mean, I'm sure the phone rang very, very quickly. Ooh yeah. Yeah. So between everything we've talked about, I think we've missed out on everything from outdoor toilets, which. Oh, yes.

31:55
really existed. Everyone's granny had one of those didn't they? Did you have one at your house because we didn't? At our first at our first house we did and the the second house we moved to they converted it into a little shed.  Uh but they're still they're they're still out there. They're still out there. Thanks to the song we were all terrified of redbacks out in the toilet seat and.  Oh  I was actually somewhere today where that is actually featured in a display. The red back on the toilet seat. Really? Oh my gosh. I'll tell you about it later but.

32:24
Like the TV station at midnight,  our time's pretty much come up and the test pattern's about to come on, so it's time to go, I reckon.  So I hope you'll be back. Are you to be back? I'll be back. I'll talk to you next week. OK, I'll see you later. Bye. Bye.  The views and opinions expressed on the Big  6O are personal and reflect those of the hosts and guests. They do not represent the views or positions of any affiliated organisations  or companies.

32:52
This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance on any personal matters.

33:05
Ah, and before we go, let's give credit where credit is due.  Kaylee Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode.  Our producer,  Nick Abood,  well he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. thanks for keeping us on track, Nick.  Nick?  Nick?