I suppose it would be mostly practical skills, cooking, fixing things. Usually had to be done by people themselves.
Maybe also mental things like navigating (with or without paper map) and remembering their daily and weekly agendas.
What other things would be a big difference with the people today?
Actually a much better way was to use a street directory if you know your way around the town even a bit.
Better even, and how we actually did it was giving instructions. “200m after the large tree by the field, drive on for about 400m, there’s 2 junctions before and mines the third one.”
But I also know orienteering ofc as a Finn
“You wanna go down Three Oak lane, I forget what it’s ‘proper’ name is, but there used to be a farm there called Three Oak Farm, so that’s what we all call the lane round here. 'Course the farm’s gone. And so have the oaks. Anyway, go along there until you get to the field where the unexploded bomb was found back in '68, and turn right. Then left past the field where the cows got sick last year. If you reach shagger’s hill, you’ve gone too far. Now there’s a ford down that way, so you can’t miss it. Except, I suppose, in this weather since it hasn’t rained in a month and the ford’s probably dried up. Most important thing though, you don’t want to start from here.”
Swede here, how would using a street directory help you navigate without a map?
Sure, I know that at least here in Stockholm and it’s suburbs that when a new area is being developed, they name the streets after a similar theme.
But knowing that Sommarvägen in Täby is located within the district of Hägernäs doesn’t get you very far.
You look up a street name. That entry tells you which street it begins from. If you don’t know that, then you look up one further. And repeat until you get to such a main road you’d know it even after looking at a map.
So basically you’d look up the street and then browse back and after you’d have a sort of gps like instructions. “main road until you see X street, then turn there, then drive until you see Y road” etc.
I had several in the car I drove, for all the nearby cities/towns. Many in same covers. So it’d cover the main city and outlying towns. Never had to use a map. (Although again, I can if needed.)
I don’t think I have ever even seen a street directory like that, only a street register showing the placement on a map.
I hadn’t either before driving a taxi. (pre-gps)
Ugh I hate those new suburbs with themed street names. They are always a maze and I get turned around in them. My mate Martin used to live in one of those where all of the streets were some variation of grass. We would be in the car and ask amongst ourselves: “Where does Martin live again? What was the street? Wasn’t it grass something or other?”. Only to get to that suburb and get really confused as all of those streets were named grass something and then we really couldn’t remember.
But back then before GPS was a common thing and before we had cellphones, we had a sort of vibe navigation system. Getting to the correct city was easy, even if you didn’t know where it was, there would always be signs. But then when we got near our destination, you’d sorta drive in a direction that felt right. You’d be amazed how often we just found the right place like that. Only rarely did we have to check our navigation book tucked under the seat or fold out a big map on the dash. Never did we need to ask for directions, that simply wasn’t done.
You generally only had a street directory of your OWN town, outside of specific professional settings.