I Remember When with Milton Rendell

“I Remember When” is a subject often talked about in the lunch room of our office, as is probably in most work places.

For someone like me in my 50s talking with staff who are in their early 20s and younger, it can be an interesting chat.

I am pretty sure they think my generation lived in a time unimaginable.

I watch them as they scan through their phones around the lunch table checking out what everyone is doing when in my time we would have been playing cards.

Only last week I was listening to something on the radio which was saying mental health issues are steadily on the increase and they believe more than one million people in Australia have mental health issues compared to three years ago.

If this was the flu you would declare it as an epidemic and how bad will it get?

Watching these young people around me, I wondered if all this information they are taking in unfiltered is always worthwhile and a benefit to them.

I reflect back on what our parents went through and the times they lived in.

My parents grew up in war times where things were hard to get such as basic food and clothes and children only had one or two pairs of shoes.

My mum could sew and make clothes so most of my sisters’ dresses were homemade.

Hot water was a luxury and our clothes sometimes were boiled in a copper heated over a fire which had to be stoked.

Fancy washing machines had a ringer that you had to hand feed the washing through which I got my hand caught in a few times.

We all had chores that had to be done after school and you had to eat what was put in front of you.

In our bathroom we had a rocket heater (named so because it was shaped like a rocket) that had a hose to fill the bath.

You had to get the fire going inside the heater before you could get any hot water, then it was too hot and I got burnt more than once.

I remember the day we got an electric hot water heater, it was so exciting because we could have a shower put in and for a teenage boy that meant long showers and huge power bills for the folks.

Imagine the faces of my staff when I tell them these things, I am sure they think I make it up and google it later.

In fact we were talking about old bands and I was asked if I had longer hair back in the day.

Well in the ‘70s most of us did with flare pants and body shirts, a pretty ugly scene if I put them on today.

Funny, no mobile phones and no internet yet we all survived and maybe I was lucky to not have the stresses of today.

It might have been simple but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Milton Rendell, chief executive officer Real Estate Plus