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

804 replies

AlternativelyWired · 02/11/2022 10:26

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.

OP posts:
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Ohyoudodoyou · 03/11/2022 19:14

Red wine. My boyfriend ordered it and I spat it out because it was warm...
Am a deep red warm red wine aficionado now as a 'mature' adult (see what I did there?)

WickedSerious · 03/11/2022 19:15

ErrolTheDragon · 02/11/2022 11:00

Oddly lucozade as well.

That definitely was only for when you were poorly.

I'd beg my parents for Lucozade when I was ill.

ThistleTits · 03/11/2022 19:17

@AlternativelyWired
Coke in a restaurant with ice and a slice. My mate and I thought at 16 years old it was the hight of soffistication.

ThistleTits · 03/11/2022 19:26

BobbyBobbyBobby · 02/11/2022 11:11

Life before duvets! When duvets started making an appearance they seemed strange and ‘new fangled!’

They called the "continental quilts" where I grew up.
Didn't have one until I left home.

Somersetgirl1 · 03/11/2022 19:28

Totally agree with the Lucozade.......oddly once they removed the plastic wrapper and didn't put it in a glass bottle it never tasted the same

CountryMouse22 · 03/11/2022 19:30

wheresmyshoe · 02/11/2022 10:35

Going to a restaurant/cafe of any description.

Ditto for me. My father was socially quite awkward and used to sit all tensed up and monosyllabic if we were eating out in public. Worse, my mother used to stack up the used plates just as if we were at home!

Sazzasez · 03/11/2022 19:37

Lots of things!

Orange juice.
Having special cutlery for different things - we ate pudding with teaspoons in our house.
Grapefruit for starter - actually having a starter at all was basically Christmas.

Sazzasez · 03/11/2022 19:40

Eating out - I was 14 before I ate in a restaurant (Chinese food) and we were taken there by the parish priest after my father died.
Any takeaway food other than fish & chips once in a while, but only ever on Fridays.

getoutof · 03/11/2022 19:46

Friendofdennis · 02/11/2022 12:25

You can see a theme developing here. Other mothers and teachers using the opportunity to be sneery and humiliate children they perceived to be poor

Huh?

unsync · 03/11/2022 19:50

Double decker buses. We either walked or cycled. Going on the top deck of the bus, front seats if possible, was so exciting.

RoseAndGeranium · 03/11/2022 19:54

Ferrero rocher. Thought they were the height of class.

FancySomeChips · 03/11/2022 20:00

Going on a bus.
We didn’t have a car and we walked EVERYWHEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. When I got a Saturday job the first thing I bought was a weekly bus pass. No more getting soaked on the way to school! An extra 10 mins in bed in the morning….. heaven!!!!
However, I didn’t appreciate how fit all the walking made us!

Wiluli · 03/11/2022 20:04

Flying and staying in a hotel . I thought it was really posh lol , but I now hate staying in hotels even 5 star ones and will rent a villa if on holidays and obviously flying these days is far from glamorous

mathanxiety · 03/11/2022 20:07

Wrt oysters and avocados- my mum wouldn't buy corn on the cob because corn was pig food.

sueelleker · 03/11/2022 20:24

Somersetgirl1 · 03/11/2022 19:28

Totally agree with the Lucozade.......oddly once they removed the plastic wrapper and didn't put it in a glass bottle it never tasted the same

They've probably changed the recipe-I loved Tizer, but when I found some a few years ago it tasted nothing like I remembered.

notasoldasiseem · 03/11/2022 20:48

We did not have a telephone at all until I was at College but for me and my friend a white telephone was the essence of millionaire's luxury. Also central heating - we had a fire in the sitting room and, if it was very cold, a paraffin heater in the bathroom. There were often icicles on the bedroom windows when we woke up and I didn't think we were poor. It was just normal.

AffIt · 03/11/2022 20:52

mathanxiety · 03/11/2022 20:07

Wrt oysters and avocados- my mum wouldn't buy corn on the cob because corn was pig food.

My father was a farmer's son and wouldn't eat kale or the skin of a baked potato (which is obviously the best bit) because kale was 'only fit for the coos' and potato skins (or peelings) were 'for the hens'.

Sennelier1 · 03/11/2022 21:13

I remember I always thought people using an electric fan (to cool the room in high summer) were extremely rich. My dad earned good money, we lived very well, but my mom once borrowed a fan from a neighbour when she was heavily pregnant during a heatwave - why I thought these things were very expensive and hard to get.

Bozlem80 · 03/11/2022 21:22

Smoked salmon, prawns & pate, they were for Christmas only.

Concorde wine or Buck’s Fizz again for Christmas, used to sneak a glass as a kid.

Lucozade was only allowed when was off school poorly.

Crumpets, didn’t have these till my early 20’s.

McDonald’s, KFC, Chinese these were classed as a treat, we never went out for meals as a family.

Mayonnaise, we always had salad cream.

Finglesfinger · 03/11/2022 21:28

We were a pretty average family, my dad worked very long hours to bring in good money but that meant it only got spent on things he deemed suitable so I didn't know you could get anything other than Apricot jam until i was well into my teens, that was the only flavour my dad liked so thats all we bought. My husband still ribs me about it now.

We grew up in a small village, the only takeaway was a chinese and the only thing my parents would buy was "special fried rice" (and i was allergic to egg so couldnt eat it - pretty sure that was the idea!) , i didnt know until i was around 16/17 and working so had my own money that they served anything else. Pizza, indian food and everything else was unheard off, let alone for rich people.

Going out for dinner, it was strictly birthdays for family to get together if you were lucky and only the pub on the edge of the village, rarely anywhere else - main only. I rarely went outside of a couple of miles of our village until i was a teenagaer.

Felt tip pens, paper that wasnt the wafer green and white lined printer paper of the 80s with the holes perforated down each side to feed it through the printer. Prit stick, blutak, craft items of almost any kind (i am very crafty and my kids have an embarrassing amount of stuff the never use because its what i wanted as a kid) i remember being desperate for a crayola art chest in the 80s, i saw my mum with one as was so excited, until it turned out to be empty and someone had given it to her to dispose of.

Music lessons - only for the very wealthy so again i foisted them on my children only for them to hate them!

Re orange juice, we never had it at home apart from maybe once or twice a year my mum would get it in a milk bottle from the milkman so me and my brother used to save our pocket money and buy a carton from the corner shop and drink it while our parents were at work like it was something naughty

Somersetgirl1 · 03/11/2022 21:34

In the 70's Ribena was a 'vitamin c health drink'. Suprised I still have teeth

thesnailandthewhale · 03/11/2022 21:35

Crayola crayons and Berol felt-tip pens. Oh how I wished for them every Christmas, instead I'd get a bumper pack of 30 felt-tips from the market stall with about 8 sludge coloured ones, and they all ran out after about ten minutes use.

YourWinter · 03/11/2022 21:35

We had a tin bath brought into the scullery on Sunday and took turns, as the youngest I was always first as I had the earliest bedtime. Stepped out onto a towel on the tiled floor.

Posh people not only had indoor bathrooms, they had matching pink or blue sets of a bath mat, pedestal mat, and an elasticated toilet seat cover.

If we’d had a cover for the seat of the outside loo, spiders would have lived in it. The floor was permanently damp so a pedestal mat wouldn’t have worked, but sometimes we had a flattened cardboard box on the floor.

fetchacloth · 03/11/2022 21:50

OrangePumpkinLobelia · 02/11/2022 10:48

Shampoo! My parents were doing okay, professional jobs, our own home. We had holidays abroad. But we used dishwashing liquid instead of shampoo. I am not sure I even used conditioner until I left home.

No idea why.

Once a week I use dish soap on my hair as it effortlessly removes residues and product build up.
I haven't confessed to my hairdresser though 😉

amispeakingintongues · 03/11/2022 21:53

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