Things You Never See Anymore Countdown
Fifteen Objects That Were in Every House and Are Now in Almost None
Not antiques. Ordinary things, so common that nobody photographed them, which is exactly why they are so hard to picture now.
Old photographs are unreliable guides to ordinary life, because people photographed occasions rather than Tuesdays. The result is that the objects most common in a house are often the hardest ones to find pictures of.
That is why lists like this produce such a specific feeling. You cannot picture the object in the abstract, but the moment it is described, the exact one from your own childhood appears — its colour, its weight, where it lived.
Here are fifteen of them, counting up to the one that has survived in a completely different form.
-
Number 15: The telephone directory
Illustration: World of Curious Two thick books, delivered free, holding every listed number in the area. They doubled as a booster seat, a doorstop and something to press flowers in.
-
Number 14: The ashtray in every room
James St. John — CC BY 2.0 — Wikimedia Commons Including rooms where nobody smoked, because visitors might. Glass, ceramic or metal, often free from a pub or an airline.
-
Number 13: The change dish by the front door
Illustration: World of Curious Coins, buttons, a spare key, a battery of unknown charge. It existed because everyone carried cash and nobody wanted it in their pocket at home.
-
Number 12: The shoe-cleaning box
Illustration: World of Curious Brushes, tins of polish in black and brown, and a cloth that had been the same cloth for a decade. Shoes were repaired and maintained rather than replaced.
-
Number 11: The sewing tin that used to hold biscuits
Illustration: World of Curious An almost universal object: a decorative tin, repurposed, containing threads, a tape measure, mismatched buttons and a pincushion. Opening it expecting biscuits was a childhood rite of passage.
-
Number 10: The trouser press
Avron — CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons A wardrobe-sized appliance for putting a crease back into trousers overnight. It survived longest in hotel rooms, where a few still hang on.
-
Number 9: The bedside water carafe with a glass on top
Illustration: World of Curious A small jug with a matching tumbler that sat upside down over the neck as a lid. It was a standard guest-room object and has almost entirely disappeared.
-
Number 8: The bureau with a drop-down writing surface
Typography — CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons A piece of furniture dedicated to letters: paper, envelopes, stamps and a pen, behind a lid that closed on the mess. Correspondence used to need somewhere to live.
-
Number 7: The clothes horse in front of the fire
Hong Kong Free Press — CC BY 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons A wooden or metal frame, unfolded in the evening, blocking the heat for everyone else. Tumble dryers and better heating did for it, although it is quietly coming back.
-
Number 6: The airing cupboard with slatted shelves
Illustration: World of Curious A warm cupboard around the hot water tank, used to finish drying linen and to keep towels warm. Combi boilers removed the tank, and the cupboard went with it.
-
Number 5: The paper spike
Published by: Thomas McLean Printed by: Charles Motte — Public domain — Wikimedia Commons A sharpened metal point on a base, for receipts and bills. Genuinely dangerous, present in millions of homes and offices, and now more or less unavailable.
-
Number 4: The knife with a bone handle and no edge
Illustration: World of Curious Every cutlery drawer had one, kept for reasons nobody could explain, blunt beyond repair and never thrown away.
-
Number 3: The television aerial on the roof
Daniel Christensen — CC BY 3.0 — Wikimedia Commons Every roofline in the country carried one, pointed in the same direction as its neighbours. Digital switchover, satellite and streaming have thinned them out, and the skyline has quietly changed.
-
Number 2: The chequebook and the cheque book holder
State Government Photographer — CC0 — Wikimedia Commons A stub for every payment, written by hand, with a leather or vinyl cover. Whole shopping trips were conducted this way, at a pace that seems unimaginable now.
-
And the strangest one of the lot
Number 1: The drawer of instruction manuals and spare parts
Illustration: World of Curious The one object on this list that was really a system. Every household had a drawer holding the manual for a boiler that had been replaced twice, the warranty for a toaster that no longer existed, a bag of screws from an unidentified flat pack, and three remote controls for nothing. It existed because appliances were repaired rather than replaced, because manuals were printed and posted, and because nobody was ever confident enough to throw any of it away. The drawer is still there in most houses; the contents have changed completely.
_(~1935).jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
The common thread is repair. Most of these objects existed because things were mended, maintained and expected to last.
Where this came from
- Domestic life collections — Museums Victoria
- Household technology collections — Science Museum Group
Read next
Countdown 15 Things From a 1970s Kitchen Younger People Might Not Recognise
Fifteen objects that sat on the bench, in the drawer or under the sink of an ordinary 1970s kitchen, and what each one was actually for.
Countdown Twelve Things That Lived in an Ordinary 1980s Bedroom
The poster, the radio-cassette, the pencil case with a combination lock: twelve objects that were in almost every 1980s bedroom and are now in almost none.
Countdown Ten Things Everybody Did Online in 2004 That Nobody Does Now
Burned CDs, away messages and the family computer in the hallway: ten online habits from the mid-2000s that have disappeared completely.