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?

This is a wonderful thread. I’d like to spend a day as a child with my father again. He was such relentless fun. He’d turn me upside down and make me walk on the ceiling. He’d bundle me inside a duvet and carry my all round the house. When he put me to bed, he would recount every single event from that day, while slowly altering the dimmer switch, so the light would simulate the rising and setting of the sun in line with his story. He’s still alive, but we are irrevocably estranged, and I know that the man who was so kind to me as a child does not exist anymore.

I’d love to sit with my mum and watch an episode of Miss Marple with Joan Hickson. I never understood the plot, but it was just so lovely watching that with her. The theme music gives me goosebumps.

@Sparklingbrook me too! Boogies, Tressines, Millionaire, edwards no 8

Go to my Nana's on a Friday for her 'killmequick' cakes. Just little sponge cakes, but they were amazing and she didn't write the recipe down so nobody in the family has managed to recreate them.

Go to the pub with my Dad on a Friday night.

Go out all day on our bikes with the other village kids. No mobile phones for parents to contact us. The only stipulation was that we had to be back in time for supper.

This is such a beautiful thread.

I wish I could go to the cinema with my Nanna one more time. We used to go to Panton Street matinees and be the only ones there...

Parabalalabala
Blackburn!

Renting videos from the video shop with my mum and sisters and watching two films on a Saturday evening with a big bar of Bournville chocolate (I didn’t like doing the rewinding afterwards though…)

What a lovely post! I would love to go back to my early childhood years when yiu came in from school and the house was all cosy and warm and all you played outside until dinner was ready. Also, My mum and aunts along with my cousins used to go into town on a Saturday and I absolutely loved walking about pretending to be 'a big girl' with my cousins. We used to get money to go in for chips and it was the best years of my life. that sense of freedom and security that only being a child gives with out a care in the world. I had a truly fabulous childhood and my family are still amazing

My nan lived with us. She had her own living room though in hindsight she was desperately unhappy as she was supposed to have her own annex but ended up with different rooms dotted around the house so she felt dependent yet isolated as she wasn't allowed to sit in our living room unless it was Christmas

Anyway, I would love to sit in her living room circa 1988 to watch Blind Date, Surprise Surprise and Childsplay while talking about her childhood growing up in Africa.

I would also love to have another night at a rave in 1996. They really were some of the best days of my life. I would love to go back to the Rhythm Station in Aldershot, United Dance at Stevenage or a major rave at the Sanctuary in Milton Keynes such as Helter Skelter or Hardcore Heaven. They really were some of the happiest times

Go to blockbusters on a Friday night and then get a takeaway and eat it watching the movie at my sisters house.

To be back at uni again, slim, gorgeous, getting pissed on a fiver. Mid to late 90s, the music was great, so were the clothes.
if I could have that time again I would have had a lot more sex instead of pining after my ex!

@GiveMyHeadPeaceffs

I'd love to go clubbing at Kelly's in the 90's with my best mates. Even if we couldn't find each other we always knew loads of people and met up at some point. Then dandering home via Shirley's dinner where the chips tasted amazing and we all smoked the remainder of our cigarettes before heading to my friend's house to pass out after so much dancing.

I was more of a Traks girl. I lived in Ballymena and loved the Grouse and the Country man too.

-Co-op toy department
-Eating a Cadbury Snowflake
-Watch people try to pick up the pound coin which is glued to the floor outside CULT in Birmingham
-Oasis market in Birmingham
-Watching the soaps with my Grandma in her living room as she knits like a boss in her chair.

Going to blockbusters, spending ages to select a film and some snacks.

My wedding day.

The day we collected our puppy.

Cuddles with my other dog who died 4 years ago.

The excitement of trying for a baby, the daydreams imagining what they would be like, imagining feeling the baby kicking etc. It never worked out and we don’t have kids. I am mostly ok with that but for a brief time the hope was exciting.

My first year at uni, living in halls.

@Therunecaster

1990- 17, slim and full of energy. All night sessions at the Mayfair in Newcastle. Dancing in Trillions. Pizza from the Bigg market.

I was there 87 - 89. I loved the Mayfair. Thursday night was Indie night with happy hour til 10. I had a tutorial at 9am on a Friday..... I had the best friends and was madly in love. Happy times.

@Pliudev

Parabalalabala Blackburn!

Thought so, me too! And I had elocution lessons too though they didn't make any difference to my accent at all (it's all gone now though). I don't know what the Twisted Wheel is, so was it somewhere else or maybe before (or after) my time

It's been so lovely reading through these, thanks to all for sharing - to those with bittersweet memories. Thought of one more feeling I'd like to have again - the last day of school before the long summer break, almost euphoric.

Walk up to the top of town (penzance) and get a video out and a simpsons one for 50p.

Sound Saturday nights watching gladiators and blind date with my mum in our tiny house.

Get tickets for gigs we found in the nme and get the train into London without it needing a mortgage! (Moved to Home Counties)

Go out for the night without a phone or even a bank card and feel safe.

Eat a donut in Wimbush

@cluelesscountrycnut

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.

I got the loveliest cosy feeling from your post. I would love to hear more, it just sounds like such calm, loving, happy family.

Boxing Day at my Nan's house with all the cousins and my aunties. Left over turkey/ham with mash potato and pickles. Saturday nights at my dads house. Sausages with Heinz spaghetti or fish and chips. The Pink Panther/Dr Who. Snuggling in his bed as he had an electric blanket.

@Ineedastyleicon

To be back at uni again, slim, gorgeous, getting pissed on a fiver. Mid to late 90s, the music was great, so were the clothes. if I could have that time again I would have had a lot more sex instead of pining after my ex!

Me too, all of this with bells on

More than anything I would love to spend a weekend with both of my late parents. Enjoying them, asking all the questions I never asked. Listening to them properly instead of the focus being on me.

I could spend the whole weekend listening to my beloved Mummy. It would be an utter joy.

[quote suckingonchillidogs]@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 ![/quote]
Oh yes! And the creosote, definitely! My grandpa was always painting something, or doing a bit of DIY or rigging up something in the garden, and it's that and sawdust that are the smells that take me back!

@Xtraincome

-Co-op toy department -Eating a Cadbury Snowflake -Watch people try to pick up the pound coin which is glued to the floor outside CULT in Birmingham -Oasis market in Birmingham -Watching the soaps with my Grandma in her living room as she knits like a boss in her chair.

God yes, Oasis! And the rag market on a Saturday for 2nd hand German army boots to wear with my flowery tea dresses.

@Flittingaboutagain

What a lovely thread for us sentimental old souls.

SarahAndQuack I am so thankful my Nan is still with us so I have been taking my baby to see her every week and taking loads of photos. I feel so fortunate to be able to have these treasured moments in her house; I practically grew up in it myself.

That's so lovely and so important! My partner's nan was still alive when DD was born and the memories are so precious. She was an absolutely lovely lady and she was delighted to meet her great grand-daughter. She died before DD was two, and I wish we had taken more pictures.