What normal things did you not have or not have in your house growing up?

When did conditioner really become a thing as it seems lots of us didn’t have it? I was born at the very end of 1979 and I didn’t have it either although my parents were relatively well off.
We only had heating downstairs in two rooms, lounge and Dining room, and even that was tiny ineffective radiators, supplemented by a coal fire at weekends in the Lounge. My parents didn’t upgrade it until it literally gave up totally and their boiler was condemned due to antiquity and they got radiators upstairs as well as down, that worked, when I was 30. Their house is very cold as it’s built in a sort of linear fashion so all the rooms have at least two, often three outside walls and it has, still, single glazed metal windows. Even now it’s three degrees colder inside than it is outside at all times.
I was always very cold as a child and as such I’ve got a horror of not being warm enough now-I hate it when our boiler breaks down and we have wood stoves and such as a back up in a few rooms, (which we don’t honestly need and which rarely get used).

God, yes. Wore it mon-fri and then it got washed. And it wasn't about money (private school). Can't remember protesting or even thinking about it. Was is just the norm in the 80s / 90s?

This is a really interesting thread and makes me understand how much change has taken place in my lifetime (born 1971).

We were fairly comfortable financially so didn’t have to go without basics (heating etc) but there’s a lot of stuff my parents wouldn’t buy because they thought it was silly or unnecessary or self indulgent. Or because they were snobs and regarded as a bit lower middle class. I have spent a lifetime trying to shake off this sort of thing.

Conditioner we definitely didn’t have. My mum would have regarded that as ridiculous.

We didn’t have a microwave or a tumble dryer. We didn’t get a colour TV until I was 13 but I think that was tightness and reverse snobbery

Don’t get the doorbell being posh thing? My mum used to say they were naff. (But my mum was a roaring snob).

My mum was like this. She never spoke to me about periods in any way, shape or form. Long after I started periods I plucked up the courage to ask if she could pick up tampons as part of the weekly shop and started putting them on the list and she completely blanked me.

Also said I didn’t need a bra and wouldn’t buy me one.

I was pretty angry about this for a long time and think it was quite negligent but in recent years I have wondered if there was some sexual abuse in her family background and she found it really triggering. She’s dead so I can’t ask. It apparently isn’t that uncommon though.

This is so interesting as a thread. Kitchen roll is something that I still feel is fancy. We didn’t have it. And I never realised it but we didn’t have tissues either. It was always toilet roll. Now I’m awake at 4am thinking about what else there is!

What was the phrase from Caitlin Moran on begin again, the Davina Macall podcast recently. Socially middle class but working class origins, functionally middle class? Something around that. I’m working class origins and now living a middle class life…

Reading this and thinking how little my life has changed since childhood...

We are full time carers for our adult, profoundly disabled son. We are low income but do own our home due to decisions made before we found ourselves in this situation. Quite possiby bad decisions with hindsight, should we have known how our future lives would play out...

We have no heating other than a coal fire in the sitting room and a storage heater in my sons bedroom, where he spends a lot of his time. We are rural and not on the gas mains.

Emersion heater died several years ago, cannot afford to replace it so only hot water is via electric shower or kettle.

We have double glazing, but it is very old...several windows no longer close and are now pulled to and sealed with silicone to stop draughts.

We own our home, we kind of fall through the gaps for any help and can't afford our contribution to take up any grants for improving our home that I have seen.

Compared to my childhood (born 1970) we do have some improvements...double glazing, whilst iffy, means no ice on windows. We have an inside toilet and a shower, no more tin baths in front of the fire!

We also have a TV, doorbell and carpets, things which when I was a child I believed to be the height of luxury!

The other thing I didn’t have was bras as a teenager. I used my sisters hand downs which didn’t fit as she’s a much bigger build..but nobody ever got me new underwear come to think of it.
i remember wearing socks in the winter to school while alll unfriendly had tights. I felt super embarrassed because my white legs ruined the school photo when everyone else was in black

We never had new clothes or even clean clothes most of the time (probably neglect over money)
We never had holidays
We had one pair of school shoes we wore with everything that we kept the whole year
Never saw a dentist or optician
We never had access to fresh fruit or a fruit bowl. The only day we had veg was Sunday and it was boiled to mush
80s baby

Boomer55 - your life growing up sounds exactly like mine. Nil new clothes, everything was passed around among cousins, with hems taken up and down depending on whose turn it was to ‘own’ that particular garment.
No TV or telephone. No car, it was walk there or catch a bus.
i small sachet of shampoo did for all 5 kids when we washed our hair once a week.
First holiday I ever had was a week camping with 2 friends when we were 15.
We grew up having lots of fun, we had heaps of kids in street to play with and people looked out for each other. Everyone was in the same boat, nil money to spare.
I also remember scraping the ice off the inside of the window in the bedroom I shared with my two sisters.

I grew up in the 80s/ early 90s and have realised reading this thread just how privileged my life was, but i didn't know it at the time. My parents weren't loaded, but the only thing we really went without was expensive gifts and expensive clothes. I remember vividly being bullied at school because I didn't have the expensive trainers everyone else had, but what I had was clean and functional. And when I wanted a games console, the whole family clubbed together to pay for it and it was my only gift - which was absolutely fine with me! No bank of mum and dad. My dad loaned me the money for my first car and I paid back every last penny. We always had one long holiday abroad, and some weekends away too. Both my parents are from very working class backgrounds, left school at 15, but we never really wanted for anything. We weren't allowed TVs or tech in our bedrooms, but we each had a sink in our bedrooms (me and my 2 sisters) because my dad built our house.

I don't recall ever having any kitchen roll.

Sadly they are out of stock but brilliant to know.

No bathroom and the loo half way down the garden until early 70's.

The most useful reply I have ever received, thank you!

apparently now unbanned! https://www.bramblebeefarms.co.uk/products/pork-chops-with-kidneys?srsltid=AfmBOoqKtUAw2rQHaUxLBYW89e0f_Uw2_xNDJnbC0z8VCGoJ26uhMpSw
I guess after brexit?

Why have chops with kidney been banned? After all, you can still buy both of them separately.

Agree, for spillages of water and Juice etc I just use a washable cloth.

And chickens with giblets!

Just checked, it was 1993 they were banned!

I used to love a pork chop with a piece of kidney still attached until 'they' banned them. Before we moved the butcher we used would always keep some 'under the counter' for those of us who liked them and wouldn't report him! That was probably in the late 1990s.

Kitchen roll is pretty unnecessary, we grew up with it but then I wondered why I don't just use a teatowel to mop up spillages then wash it. I keep some kitchen roll in, but only for very occasional things like wiping oil etc

Rereading through this thread and it seems those of us growing up in the 60's/70's experienced similar upbringings. Lack of modern day comforts and hygiene products was, with hindsight, difficult as a growing teen.

All this has made we wonder how we all are now. Are we more resilient? Resourceful? How did we do career wise?

I went on to university and had a professional job. Own my own home etc. I am however, resilient and hate to waste food. I repair our clothes if possible and batch cook to save food waste.

Yes. I worked in an independent high street chemist's (not part of a chain) and my boss rigged up a car battery and headlight to illuminate the shop. The till, of course, was manual; so we could still trade.

The letting fresh bread get stale thing, I think came from the war. It might have been presented then as a healthier option. Bread bought unsliced was (is) very difficult to slice thinly and can produce a lot of waste in the form of crumbs. Its much easier to slice if its kept for a day or so so the loaf goes further. This was particularly true of the National Loaf. Bakers were actually not allowed to sell it on the day it had been baked. https://www.farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk/ration-book-cooking-tuesday-6th-november/

I made the same concious choice not to ask my single parent mum for things - my sister was quite the opposite.

the tragic thing for me is that this stayed with me in adult hood and I couldnt even ask my husabnd for thigns I needed - and thought of our money as his money. i didnt ned to ask him - it was my money too. I ended up in psychosis from stress when I didnt have thigns I desperately needed to finish my PhD.

We didn’t have tissues, either. I can’t remember anyone using them, and my social circle was quite varied. My own grandmother used cotton handkerchiefs always, which I recoiled from.