Things you thought were posh/exciting/unattainable as a child that are actually everyday items

[AlternativelyWired]

I'm just searching for scotch tape on Amazon ready for Christmas. It got me thinking how double sided sticky tape was but a dream back when I was little. Blue Peter used it all the time but it was something I'd never have. The same with play dough. I only ever had plasticine. Scotch tape was fancy too, we only ever had yellow sellotape. Ribera. I'm sure I'll think of others.

Ribena....we only had vimpto!

Meanwhile my mum wanted me to wear dungarees and have a pixie cut, so she told me that I couldn't have long hair because it cost more to cut at the hairdresser

There is some sort of twisted logic I suppose...how long is your hair now? My mum made me have the pudding basin cut until I got to High School, then I flat refused to go to the hairdressers until it was nearly waist length...one of the last things she said to me was to get my hair cut.

My first thought!! So fancy when I was a child; supposedly served at glamorous dinner parties and the like. Now they're ubiquitous and as cheap as chips still bloody delicious though

Video player - we got a microwave before most people did, and my parents both had cars (though my dad's was a company car) but were way behind the curve on videos.

I agree with some of the things mentioned - Viennetta, Lucozade and Britvic orange juice in little cans! And a pub lunch of "chicken in a basket". Not posh, but a treat.

I thought having more than one loo was posh too. I had a friend who lived in a converted barn with five bathrooms.

From the other side we were very well off until my parents lost everything including our house when I was 11 in the recession, I used to be jealous of kids who had things like Vimto, Cremola foam, shop bought nuggets, pizza, hot dogs etc all the fun stuff. We didn't have chocolate only carob which was rank and sesame snack bars from The health food shop. No Kia Ora, sunny d or god forgive coca cola.

My mum was great but very Mrs Bouquet until it all changed.

Patios to me seemed the height of luxury. I always assumed they were very fancy with fancy outdoor furniture etc. I didn’t realise that the slabs of concrete we had in front of our grass could also have been a patio if we’d stuck a chair on it😁

I stayed at a hotel in Cambridge in 2019 that still did orange juice as a starter on there evening set meal.

So many things we have today were just science fiction when I was young: carrying around your own tiny telly, remote learning through videoconferencing, robot vacuum cleaners, even calculators weren’t around when I was very young.
Oh and synthetic material that isn’t sweaty.

Fish fingers. In the 50s it was exceptional to have a fridge with ice compartment to keep them in.

Branded toilet paper and branded tissues. My mum always bought the store brand.

We were actually quite well off too, and she used to buy me an expensive Dutch brand of clothes all the time that I absolutely hated 😅As a kid I would have preferred the standard clothes that the rest of my class wore (grew up abroad, no uniforms).

Also - non pirated VHS - in a proper colour sleeve rather than the photocopied stuff we got.

Disposable nappies
Going out to eat
Holiday abroad
Buying your own house (in the council estate those that bought there's always changed it slightly so we would know)

Crisps . Pop esp cherry add

Bubble bath and bath oil for every day
After Eights and Elizabeth Shaw mints
Taxis.
Downstairs loo. When I told my mum the new house had a downstairs loo, she called my brother and told him 'I was up my own arse with all the airs and graces and who did I think I was'

Tablets as in iPads. I remember watching Tomorrow's World as a 8 or 9 yo in the late 80s or early 90s and being blown away by touch screen tablets and computers.

Who knew I would get my first iPad 20 years later!

Wine was so posh, Blue Nun or Blacktower usually on with special meals only, SD used to open it with such a flourish with a vacuum type corkscrew, remember those?

Drinks that weren't water, especially having lots of them like many cans of coke or many types of squash.

Now that I think about it, having many of anything. Many pairs of socks, underwear, shoes etc. Now I have hundreds of panties and heels and clothes

I was born in the mid 60s and I really can’t think of anything aside from foreign holidays and I didn’t think we didn’t do that because it was posh but because my mum didn’t fly or go on boats . She never went abroad until they opened the channel tunnel 😀.

A driveway, or even better a driveway plus garage! So fancy to have your very own special place to park uiur car.

Also, colored toilet roll.

Chambourcy Chocolate Mousee 😂 I remember the advert and begging my mum for weeks to get some.

Pasta - I was well into my teens before I tried it and I thought it was only for posh people.

Chinese restaurants! Went to one for my 18th!

Perhaps we are the same person Nemo I was literally just the same! I loved the Victorian look and the frills etc, and I'd have been very happy to wear a pinafore. Also loved the old fashioned toys like rocking horses, and doing needlework. My mum was (unfortunately for me) extremely non-frilly, non-fussy and practical so it was all hand me down dungarees, cardigans in horrible colours (of the time) like navy, red, green, brown instead. Not even nice versions. And I literally wasn't allowed to grow my hair out beyond a short basic bob with a fringe I didn't suit because she didn't want the faff of having to wash and dry longer hair or have to do plaits. I always wanted a grown-out fringe, long hair and plaits, just the basic ones - French plaits weren't a thing then. Never got them. I don't know why she was so insistent about it.

Alpen

Sheepskin coats

An Austin Princess car

Terrys chocolate orange at Christmas

Having your tea after 6pm at night ( as I looked longingly at the other kids playing outside , we had to wait for my dad to get home from work). Other kids seem to have their tea before 5pm

Orange juice is still a starter on the senior citizens menu at a high end yorkshire fish and chip restaurant!

Eating out - or, for that matter, buying any food or drink when out for the day rather than taking your own with you!

My mum still always brings her sandwiches on the train when she comes to visit, and wonders "why does nobody in London own a kettle?" because everyone seems to be carrying a cup of coffee around...