What gift items do you remember from your childhood which would never be gifts today?

[FredaFrogspawn]

Another thread ended up accidentally debating the fact that ashtrays were common gifts for weddings or twenty first birthdays. I remember big marble or onyx ones, and ones on a stand which went by the arm of the chair. No one smoked in our house and we still had a shed load of these things.
Another thing I remember is steering wheel covers, in pleather. What were those about?? And leather covers for the TV listings magazines we all had to have before papers printed what was on with ‘Radio Times’ self importantly embossed on them. (My dad kept his TV Times in there and ringed the programmes he wanted to watch with a Quink ink capitalised ‘Tell Dad When This Is On.’)

Anything else?

@Blackbear19

I know, it does seem bonkers that they had that in the 90s! It would have been about 1993.

Ambushed

My dd is 7. She had a woodwork station at nursery.
Along with Forrest school, how to light a fire and how to toast marshmallows.

I rememer many a Girl Guide meeeting wrapping soap up with hankerchieves Zenithbear . The soap was always cheap, bought in bulk and white, bright pink or purple (rose and lavender I suppose) and the hankies usually had a bit of lace round the edges and a flower embroidered in the corner. Sometimes we tied a bit of ribbon round too. We used to sell them, alongside other, similarly useless crap, on our stall at the Church Christmas Fayre. Bizarre really, but we were always proud of our efforts. And even more bizarre, people actually bought it - even people we weren't related to!

I got two Blue Peter badges for sending my stuff in! I was thrilled and had them for many years.

I remember lots of fuss being made over new underwear or new nightwear at parties. Recipient was always expected to be really grateful and I was always thinking what a crap present it was- not exciting at all...

cleaners for your vinyl i seem to remember Ronco or K-Tel had a motorised one
bath cubes that left you sitting on a pile of gritty stuff in the bath
we had two pig bubble baths that had a slot in the top for making into a piggy bank afterwards

John bull printing kit ; most frustrating toy ever. Consisted of a stamp pad, tweezers and lots of rubber letters that you had to typeset in order to print onto paper. Took all freaking day to just print your own name.

Pierrot anything, nightdress, stationery kits, quilt cover (very swish as quilts were relatively new - well at least they were in the Midlands)

Oh haha I ha forgotten about the really annoying little print set with the tweezers....thanks for that. ...

Bath cubes...sure they have been mentioned...

A perpetual calendar, which can be used again and again - not the wasteful modern ones which are only good for one year. I the 90s I remember seeing one which said "children will love the daily ceremony of updating the calendar".

In my childhood, we had a lovely one for a good many years, which had lots of transparent parts which somehow stuck on with static electricity. As well as the date, it had separate pictures for each season; weather stickers; and special occasions such as birthdays.

Rubik's magic: a very popular playground toy in the 1980s.

A wooden man standing with the body of a wooden barrel around him.
You lifted the barrel and his dick popped up on a spring.

Seemed quite daring at the time.

I was going to say writing sets of notlets and matching envelopes etc

But now loads are coming back to me. Those dolls! I had a few but wasnt allowed to.play with them !

Powder and a fluffy puff on a stick and fluffy mule slippers - I felt so grown up having them!

Are bath bombs not just a modern version of the bath cube?

I remember bath cubes coming in kids toiletries sets you'd use half one night and wrap the other half back up in its wrapping for the next night.

@labazsisgoingmad

cleaners for your vinyl i seem to remember Ronco or K-Tel had a motorised one bath cubes that left you sitting on a pile of gritty stuff in the bath we had two pig bubble baths that had a slot in the top for making into a piggy bank afterwards

Vinyl is back now though so cleaners and stuff are are acceptable gifts again! We bought our 14 year old DS a brush type thing for cleaning his records plus some other stuff that I can't quite remember for turntable maintenance at Christmas this year. My 22 year old DD bought the same thing for her boyfriend so it seems they are all the rage again. I wonder if anything else from this thread is due for a renaissance?!

Half of these things still sound good to me. Satsumas in stockings is a must, we all still do that! Fuzzy felt, dolly heads, spirographs, bath bombs, they are all great!

I miss the 80s and 90s terribly.

Notelets! Which you would then use to write your thank you letters on. Always with twee patterns.

I loved the dolls in plastic tubes - costume dolls I knew them as because they wore the traditional costume of the country they were from. France was incredible for them because every tiny French region had its own costume - I remember being in holiday and the shops had walls covered in shelves of them. So much choice! I think I still have mine in a box somewhere - plus some actually well crafted wood/ceramic type ones from Scandanavian countries and Japan I think.

Dewberry Body Shop gift set (because they no longer making them )

Terry's Chocolate Neapolitans (ditto. )

Rubik's Cube- I list this one because I never see them around today. do they still make them?

Those Walky Talky things. Because children have iphones these days

Roller Skates. You hardly see a roller rink these days. Oh, this thread is making me quite

@ilovepixie

yes, mine worked with 2ps too. A few years ago I was reminsicing about these Cadbury's dispensers and those I were reminiscing with were like "You put 10ps in them" and I was thinking "am sure it was 2ps!" but I then assumed I must have misremembered the 2p thing. Thanks for confirming with me that am not out of my tree completely!

That Rubiks Magic thing is something I had completely forgotten i had. And the Skippit. I always wanted a Mr Frosty but no joy. I did however get a My Little Pony paddock and horse box from my uncle, who "found" them in the woods - thinking back now I must have been his alibi because as a child he would take me with him when he walked the dogs in the woods and he always came across stuff there that had clearly been stashed after being nicked. I was always really amazed at how good at finding things he was - a sort of dishonest version of geocaching

I also recall getting a 'continental quilt' for Christmas in 1976 I think.

My grannie bought me one when they first appeared in the UK fifty years ago. Filled with real duck down - they didn’t do synthetic in those days. I still have it on my single guest bed and it’s the best duvet I’ve ever known. Everyone who sleeps under it says how lovely it is the way it snuggles round you.

A yellow Timex watch with Snoopy holding a tennis racquet for hands and a tennis ball rotating for the seconds. Loved that.

Oh I had one of these. Many years ago I worked in an operating theatre with Prof Sid Watkins, the Formula 1 neurosurgeon and he used to love this watch and used to grab my arm to tell the time by Snoopy. I was mid-twenties at the time. 😂

@amusedbush

Not a gift but I remember at nursery in the early 90s there was a little station with bits of wood and actual tools, including a hacksaw. It was overseen by a staff member but I remember a boy cutting his finger with the saw and getting a plaster from the staff.

I can’t imagine toddlers with hacksaws and hammers nowadays!

Those were the days! (sighs) How did our country lose its way?

@maggienolia

A wooden man standing with the body of a wooden barrel around him. You lifted the barrel and his dick popped up on a spring.

Seemed quite daring at the time.

My great uncle had a souvenier from somewhere in Africa- a little wooden coffin, you open it, a man springs up with a huge willy! He also had a nun on a keyring. You squeezed it and her boobs popped out through her habit. He kpet these things in his downstairs loo and I used to make excuses to go to the loo when visiting so I could look at the willy man and the naughty nun!

We called continental quilts ‘downies’. We were very cutting edge (for a change) in the late 60s when my mum got them for us when she started back as a ‘working mother’ so didn’t have time for elaborate bed making.

I remember my dad (who had a few hours off every afternoon) discussing with her time-saving things she could do to manage all the housework/shopping/laundry and cooking (4 kids and a dog) when she started working (very full time). None of his suggestions even hinted at the idea that he could perhaps be lending a hand.

My cousins each had a present I coveted at 7 or 8. They were much better off than us, they’d been on holiday to Italy (rare to holiday abroad then) where their dad had bought them from a man in the street.

It was a little plastic bed with a little plastic doll in it, and when you pulled a lever the doll shot out of bed on to a potty which shot out from under the bed.
Cousins delighted in imitating the man’s (Italian obv.) patter as he demonstrated it: ‘Jabberjabberjabberjabber - PEEPEE!

No such wonderful plastic tat in our house 🙁