Things you thought were fancy when you were young but perhaps were not!

[ThunderOnlyHappens]

I'll start:

Vienetta's especially mint
Viscount biscuits
Nesquik milkshake

I had a childhood apparently obsessed by foods my parents declared not for daily consumption!

Kunzle. Grr.

The Argos catalogue.

I used to spend hours and hours deciding what I'd buy when I had my own money & house. When I first had my own place, I bought a few bits of furniture from there because it was cheap and it was useless, fell apart within a year!

Ikea- closest one was about a 5 hour drive

Food- tinned cream, prawn anything, squash in a jug, Vienetta, garlic bread and branded anything as we always had the cheapest version

Indoor toilet
Central heating
Wearing clothes that fitted now instead of having ""Room to grow into"
Not having a clothes horse around the fire
Baths with more than 3" of tepid water in them (it came out of the tap - hot..briefly - but the iron bath sucked the heat out of it straight away)
Automatic washing machines
Cars
Push Bikes with gears
Meals that were not 50% bread and butter

Oddly I think if you guessed my age from that you would be wrong by quite a few years.

There was an Italian restaurant in my (small market) town which had a very exotic dish- Spaghetti Pesto! I was vegetarian in those days and thought I was so sophisticated having pesto. This was in about 1994 when I was a teenager.

All the talk of Eternal Beau reminds me of my DM. Growing up in the 70's, we had everyday crockery, which was made up of stuff from several sets. All mismatched patterns.
And then there was the 'best ' China which was a full dinner service, with matching accessories etc, which was only brought out when we had guests about 3 or 4 times a year.
She still has her 'best ' china now which lives in the sideboard.

People down the road from us had a Saab. That was apparently very posh.

Im going to guess that there are very few people posting here born after the mid 80s, and most before the 80s began. I wonder what a thread from those born post 2000 would look like.

Yoyos (similar to viscount)
Angel delight
Jam roly poly
Fish & chip tea

I decided that Eternal Beau was a bit naff once it made it into the Argos catalogue.

Viscounts were for special occasions we knew my nana was brining her sister to our house when mum bought mint Viscounts

Sliced Bread. I went to tea with a school friend and was most impressed that they had ready sliced bread. I begged my Mum to buy it instead of our usual loaf.

Coffee. We only had tea at home but the elderly couple next door gave me some milky coffee made with Camp coffee essence. I thought that was the height of sophistication.

It's funny because I suppose growing up we were the 'sophisticated' family as we are M&S microwave meals every week night for dinner but I always had a pang of envy when I went to a friends house after school and got Findus Crispy Pancakes or a pasty and chips (deep fat fried) and wished we could have 'posh' meals like that. Once I went to a friends and her mum served Angel Delight in a drinking glass and I could have cried at how envious I was

Rum and raisin choc ices. They were my mums and were not for children!!!

I see them as a real treat now even though they are about £1 a box

Sometimes my mum would buy a bottle of Lambrusco and have a glass or two with Sunday lunch. I thought that was VERY fancy.

Urm Rum and Rasin choc ices tell me more !

@hmmwhatatodo I was born between the mid 80s and 2000 (1990) and top of my list is Ready Brek (full marks for the chocolate one) and Tropicana OJ. I once had a sleepover at a friends house (who now, looking back, was a snob even at 12), who laughed at my excitement over ready brek.

My mum also told me I didn't like honey, because she didn't want to buy it. Honey on rye bread is now my staple breakfast.

Avocados were her special grown up treat. Now of course, as a millennial, I have avos coming out of my ears...

Growing up in the 70's, we had everyday crockery, which was made up of stuff from several sets. All mismatched patterns

I've still got mismatched crockery - a belfast sink, a slate kitchen floor and children are not a good combination for crockery 🤣

Hummus
Packaged salad
Vienetta
Sarah Lee
Avacado
Prawn cocktail
Smoked salmon
Pizza restaurants
Any takeaway!

I worked in the Co-Op when Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady became popular.

Bedding, curtains, tie backs, stationery, you name it, there was a version.

Poppies or honeysuckle.

I loved the poppies, but gradually, the honeysuckle version won out and it was all you could buy.

Fitted carpet.
Double glazing and Central Heating. (Double posh points for central heating a mere child was permitted to switch on). Or heating of any kind in more than one room.
Toilet Roll with flowers on it.
A shower. And/or being allowed to have a bath or wash your hair more than once a week.
Ironing clothes.
Curtains that closed.
Venetian Blinds.
Rooms where you could see both the walls and the floors.
Brushed flannel sheets with flowers on.
Blankets that felt soft.
Flowers and plants in the house.
Lampshades.
A room with musical instruments (especially a piano) and bookcases filled with books.
Mashed potato that didn't have green/blue lumps in it.
Eating any part of a chicken that wasn't the wings (Getting a single drumstick on Sunday was a promotion. Getting breastmeat was something I could only aspire to when I left home and got a job.
Steak.
Salad with something else (like meat or a quiche).
Sitting down to eat at a table. With a drink, too.
Mayonnaise.
Making a salad dressing.
Fresh carrots and frozen peas instead of from tins.
Potato salad.
A chair in a bedroom.
A dressing table with a triple mirror, perfume bottles, make up and a crystal vase with fresh flowers in.
Dresses.
Full length slips to wear under dresses.
Underwear that matched and wasn't bought in multipacks.
Black or patterned tights.
Socks that had lace on them or were different colours to dirty white grey.
Homes where you not only could take your shoes off inside, you were expected to do so and your socks were clean afterwards.
Eating butter instead of Stork Margarine.
Adding salt or pepper to your food at a table.
Side plates, china cups and saucers, a butter dish and tablecloths.
Framed pictures on walls.
Rooms decorated and planned to coordinate/look good.

Needless to say, I have most of those things now - because they weren't really being fancy, they were being normal.