Things you'd love to do again that are gone

[suckingonchillidogs]

I loved the funfairs of the 1970s/80s - trying to win a goldfish in a bag by throwing darts at a card, the ghost train, big wheel, waltzers, chair-o-planes, stuffing my face with toffee apples and candy floss. The music would be blaring (and very cheesy - Bay City Rollers/Racey/Bucks Fizz) and you had to traipse over a muddy field to get there. I know you still get similar things but it's not quite the same. I'd love to relive a 70s Easter weekend at the fair! Anything you wish you could do again?

I'd like to:
Eat a packet of Pacers
Eat a curry in a long gone restaurant in Birmingham
Buy a new outfit in Richards
Go dancing in a long-closed indie nightclub near where I grew up

Walk down Birnbeck Pier. Went there countless times as a child and played the 'old penny' slot machines before nagging my parents for an ice-cream in the pavilion, which was hung with purple velvet curtains and always smelled of stale beer.

Sadly, the pier has long-since been closed to the public and is slowly disintegrating.

Be part of a family without Wifi or phones.
Get long awaited, treasured, letters in the post.
Go to movies, plays, concerts, and train / bus stations without booking ahead of time.
Get on an airplane without ID or security check.

Play the original Crystal Maze that was upstairs at Maidenhead bowling alley.

Shop in Pilot and Bay Trading.

Go to the student union for a cheap night :)

Wake up at my parents house as a teenager on a Sunday.
Coming downstairs as a hungover teenager to have my mum in the kitchen all day cooking breakfast then baking cakes for the lunches all week before starting the big dinner. Meanwhile my dad was always tidying the garden and doing odd jobs on his only day off.
We'd also have a stream of family popping in for a visit coffee and at some point I'd be given money to walk to the shop and pick up the Sunday papers.
My parents are still here and it good health and we often spend weekends there but it's not the same now I've my own kids.
Think I also realise now just how lucky I was to have such an upbringing.

Carnivals back in the 70s/80s where whole towns used to get involved and crowds lined the streets.

Wander round a massive Woolworths eating pick and mix as I go

Roller skate at The Plaza
Enjoy my dcat and her newborn dkittens

Go clubbing at Bagleys or Turnmills then stay up until mid morning the next day in my friends house-share drinking tea and smoking fags before catching tube home.
Never gonna happen again for so many reasons (not least that we are now all 50 or over, live far and wide, bagleys/turnmills and pretty much every other club got bulldozered some years ago and are now built on top of, and I don't smoke and can barely stay awake part Midnight). Happy happy days. I never realised how fleeting they'd be.

My mum and I used to love to sit down with a coffee on a Saturday afternoon, just us two, and watch the old films - usually musicals - they used to have on the telly. This was in the late 70s/early 80s. It felt a bit naughty as there were plenty of other things we could have been doing, but we loved it.

She died 2 years ago and I miss her so much.

@Nomoresmoresthensnores

Go clubbing at Bagleys or Turnmills then stay up until mid morning the next day in my friends house-share drinking tea and smoking fags before catching tube home. Never gonna happen again for so many reasons (not least that we are now all 50 or over, live far and wide, bagleys/turnmills and pretty much every other club got bulldozered some years ago and are now built on top of, and I don't smoke and can barely stay awake part Midnight). Happy happy days. I never realised how fleeting they'd be.

Oh yes that sounds like a great night, a night at The Rocket or The Astoria for me!

Sit around with housemates watching Fishtank Kareoke after the pub.
Eat a Spira
Pick up a new outfit at Jeffrey Rogers then get some shoes at Dolcis.

Some lovely memories here - agree with @PurrBox about getting letters in the post. I had an Aussie pen pal for years and getting her letters was such a highlight

Come home from work as an older teen/student to retired DM and DSDad who would have a cup of tea ready, the fire lit and something like countdown on the TV. Catch up on our days before dinner and the rest of the evening.

DH has started working a 4 day week and a couple of weeks ago I got in to him and my mum having a brew with the TV on! Took me right back!

I would never have thought of the example if asked the question without reading your response OP, but I have such strong sense memories of the funfair that came to Salisbury for one week each year in October. The lights, the smell of toffee apples and candy floss, it was amazing. I enjoyed it more than Disney world

Go to Blockbusters on a Friday night with my stepdad to choose a film and get Butterkist.

On a Saturday we'd take the kids swimming in the morning, shopping in town in the afternoon, then stop at Blockbusters to choose a few videos. We'd round off the evening with a takeaway and a few drinks. Happy days

I'd love to go to my grandparents' house again.

I realise now it was quite an ugly 60s newbuild (they built it themselves and it had acres of flat roof as it was half-bunagalow, half full height, and they decorated with some truly hideous dark wallpapers). But in my memory it was perfect - it always smelt like the scented geraniums my grannie loved growing, and like furniture polish, and cloves (because she had orange pomanders hanging up). My grandpa inherited a lot of antique furniture because his family collected it, and they had all these dark, looming, ornate pieces of furniture you could hide underneath as a child. Everything was always so pristine and calm, totally unlike my parents' house, and crowded out with houseplants and nick-nacks (it'd be really trendy again now! ). And there were always exotic things like Mr Kipling apple pies to eat, which were clearly the last word in sophistication.

I nursed my grannie in that house when she was dying and it's nearly twenty years ago, but I still feel so sad thinking I've left that house for the last time. I have a lot of her furniture and some other things, but I'd give so much to be able to take my daughter to that house to meet her great-grandparents (they died long before she was born).

To be less sad - I really miss Borders in Cambridge, which was in a gorgeous building with huge windows and big squishy chairs, and three floors of books. I think it's TK Maxx now - I spent so many happy hours reading books I'd not paid for in those comfy chairs, with a lovely cup of Starbucks' earl grey! (No wonder they went out of business! ).

@Brillig

My mum and I used to love to sit down with a coffee on a Saturday afternoon, just us two, and watch the old films - usually musicals - they used to have on the telly. This was in the late 70s/early 80s. It felt a bit naughty as there were plenty of other things we could have been doing, but we loved it.

She died 2 years ago and I miss her so much.

That is such a lovely memory to have

@SarahAndQuack - funny, I have similar memories of my grandparents house and also kept a few bits of their furniture. The smell of creosote takes me right back to their garden, grandad always seemed to be creosoting the back fence !

A night out clubbing in the early 1990's. No mobile phones, just happy dancing people from all walks of life having a good time.

I would like a day out without people taking pics of you on their phones and uploading it to social media. I miss waiting for photos being developed and the thrill you got when you picked them up.

I miss the excitement of waiting for the top 40 on a Sunday evening and trying to tape it and miss out Tommy Vance's voice.

I would love to go wander around of the old department stores like Lewis's. The type where they used to sell hats and had posh shop assistant's who took lovely things out of glass cases behind a wooden counter.

And most of all I would love a Woolworths pick and mix!

Hang out with my Dad.

I'd love to get on a train with my mum, go into Manchester and have a good rummage around Lewis's sale floor ( third floor if I remember correctly) then have a meal at The Manor restaurant where she used to take me for a birthday or Christmas treat. Then down to the Underground Market for another shopping spree. The Manor, the market and Lewis's are long gone and my mum died several years ago, miss her a lot.

Would love to go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach as it was years ago...loved the Whip, Turtle Chase, the Black Hole waltzers, the Fun House, Tokado Express....all gone now.

My parents live in Cornwall, and one year there was this mad land-and-water vehicle called the Falmouth Duck that took you on a tour of the town by road, and then went into the harbour and took you on a tour by water. It was an old bit of WWII kit that had been refurbished for tourist use, and it looked like it (although they'd painted it bright yellow and given it a perky duck logo to disguise its vintage military origins a bit). My whole family went for a trip on it, and it was equal parts of Glorious and Terrifying.

It was there for about two years, and it was part of a little fleet of them that ran from port towns around the country. They were all hastily decommissioned after about half of them went on fire, sank, or went on fire and then sank, in the space of about six months. The world is definitely a safer place without the Falmouth Duck. But if it ever came back I would book a second trip in a heartbeat.