Could you do what this family did?

[luckystar112]

It''s part of a new reality TV show in the UK. A family is forced to live just as a family in the 70s, which meant no freezer, central heat, internet, etc. Then as they progressed through the decades for the show they slowly started to gain back technology until they made it all the way to the 90s.

The show went all out--even redecorating their home to reflect the era.

I think the project seems SO COOL. I would love to try it. What I thought was most interesting about it is the way that everyone agreed the 70s were the best. They had more time to talk to eachother and spent more time together as a family. As technology kept on being introduced to them, they felt themselves drifting apart.

Very interesting...
What do you think?

Here is the link:
Family challenged to live in 1970s time warp

 

[radiantquest]

I would do it. I didn''t know that there weren''t freezers in the 70''s???!!! How can that be true. No freezers?

 

[Octavia]

There were definitely freezers in the ''70s -- my grandma still has hers, circa 1972 (back then, they built things to last...).

Cool experiment, though! I''d do it as long as I wasn''t still in law school, life pre-Westlaw/Lexis would probably kill me if I tried it now!

 

[radiantquest]

I thought so. That seemed a little much.

 

[luckystar112]

It says in the article that they got their freezer toward the mid-70s. They probably started without it for emphasis on how it was still new technology.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi All,
We had central heat for many yrs before the 70,s. We had dryers in the 50''s, i had a color tv in the 70''s. People regularly used planes for trips and most people had cars. It was a good time. Fashion was short and long and while not quite like anything goes did have innovation. Bell bottom jeans, tie-dyed jeans, big fur collars on coats, and microwaves were just coming in. Boots were popular.
What we did not have was closets full of shoes and clothes I had two winter coats and a jacket. If the church had a rummage sale we liked to get extra things that way. Its the scale of things now compared to then. Most of us have so much stuff. We had a nice house(in the city), but we didn''t have much junk.
I only had one phone.
I could do without these new gadgets. I like cable tv because I can tape shows and block the ads. I don''t think we had as many ads as we do now. I hate advertising, really hate it. To me its one of the most destructive elements in our culture and is an overpowering part of the culture. I was living in the UK in the late seventies and they did not have this to the extent it was in the US. (That was my rant.

Thanks,
Annette

 

[lyra]

I lived through that time once, if there''s a prize involved, I don''t see why it would be hard to live through again.

We had a freezer too. But I also lived through outhouses, wringer washers, chamber pots

, generators for electricity but kerosene lamps at night when the generator was shut down and wood stoves for cooking and heat. Piece of cake! Except for shag carpeting. I could never do shag carpeting ever again!

 

[LadyBlue]

I''m not sure if I could live with out internet

 

[marcy]

The only thing they didn''t have in the 70''s on their list was internet. I have to live without it about a week every year and it is rough. No PRISESCOPE!

 

[asscherisme]

Uh, as a child of the 70''s we definately had a freezer and central heat.

 

[ckrickett]

I would definitely do it... seems really neat

 

[perry]

There is a big difference between the UK (and Europe) and the US.

Within the US - almost all building built since about 1880 has central heat.

I Europe - central heat is a relative recent thing. Most houses only heated a few rooms.

I would expect that any new construction in 1970 had central heat - but almost all old construction did not.


In the US - Freezers started appearing by 1950 - and almost everyone had one as part of a refriderator by the mid 1960''s. Stand alone freezers started to appear in the mid 60''s, and many families had them by the mid 70''s.

In Europe - and many US towns and Cities; you had central "locker plants" which had a commercial refrideraton system to keep your food frozen. You rented a locker - that you could access anyting during business hours. Locker plants often did butchering as well. You could buy a quarter, a side, or a full pig, cow, or a dozzen chicken, ducks, etc. The plant would butcher, dress, and wrap and lable your purchase and put it into your locker. Obviously, you needed a larger locker to buy a full side or full cow.

The locker plant in my US town (population 1900) closed in the late 1970s as people purchased stand alone freezers and stopped renting lockers.

The key modern conviences we have now is the fax machine, internet, cell phones, and a vast improvement in medical options.

Automobiles are much more reliable. Food selection at your grocery store is much greater. (previously you canned a lot of fresh food during the summer months - which means that people no longer generally have to plan where certain kinds of food is coming from 6-12 months in advance)

I could go back to the 1970''s; but, I prefer to stay here.

Perry

 

[purrfectpear]

Unless they mean the 1870''s, totally bogus. We had central air, freezer, microwave, VCR, and color TV in the 70''s. Who thought up this crap?

 

[Lorelei]

Yes there were freezers, central heating, colour TV''s - all kinds of mod cons in the English seventies.

 

[luckystar112]

Thanks Perry for the extra information about the differences in America and Europe!

Sorry to get the rest of you worked up. So does that mean you WOULD participate in the 70s though 90s project?

 

[luckystar112]

I found a more thorough site by the BBC and it appears that this is not supposed to represent when things were invented, but when they became widespread in households.

Freezer-1975
Chest freezers were marketed for homegrown fruit, vegetables and meat. The first five years of the decade ownership went from 3 percent to 50 percent of households.

Color TV-Early 70s
According to the BBC, at the start of the 70s most households had black and white TVs (275,000 color tvs), but by the end of the decade there were more that 12 MILLION color TVs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricdreams/index.shtml

 

[charbie]

it would be fun today to see people''s cell phones taken away...

my blackberry has been lost for a total of 5 hours today and i''m about to lose my mind. no texting???

 

[VRBeauty]

I lived in Europe until 1960. We had a cellar to keep things cold; there was one family that had a television on the street, and think there was just one car on the street. A "supermarket" had just opened, but we still bought much of our food from specialty stores. Some things like dairy and vegetable were delivered or sold from horse-drawn carts. Shortly before we left, one family member bought a refrigerator/freezer. We went to visit and she gave us a a bowl with frozen cubes of juice to take home... they were in pretty sorry shape by the time we got home, as I recall.

Some of my fondest memories of that time were of when we went to visit other people in the evening. My brother and I would be in kiddie seats on either Mom or Dad''s bicycle, and I loved looking up to watch the stars as we went home. I was always amazed that the moon followed us all the way home!

Back to topic -- that''s an interesting premise for a show. I think I''d have the hardest time adjusting to the lack of internet access and instant communications.