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.

In the 80s going out to a carvery for dinner.

Deodorant. My parents saw it as an unnecessary luxury.

This is a great thread. I have only just found out that our neighbours thought we were posh because we had a bathroom and indoor toilet (1960’s). I think my grandfather was known as ‘Jones the Bath ‘ anyone Welsh will know that people were named that way if they had any thing unusual about them.

Vienetta

When my Granny came to visit, from NI so she stayed a week or so, she would treat herself to pure orange juice in a glass bottle with a screw lid. This was the absolute height of sophistication in my eyes.
Also Little Chefs, we were allowed to go travelling back from the Belfast/Liverpool ferry. Having skinny fries blew my mind 😄.
We never had any fast food due to cost and the fact my Mum didn't like it.
My Dad was on the Army and some sundays the mess did curry. Me and Dad would go and they had a weird section of extras, I still put salted nuts on my curry.

Also - pizza express with friends for our birthdays in 6th form. We went for lunch in gaggles of girls.

Had sex and the city existed we’d have felt like we were in it.

Chopper bike. Only the rich cool kids had them

My cousins primary school insisted that they were provided with very specific stationery items from home. One of which was gripfix glue, I really wanted my own, it smelled like almonds, and came in a little pot with a tiny spatula. Sigh.

We rarely had glue in the house, we just weren’t glue in the house people, when we did it was gloopy brown stuff with a slit red rubber stopper, it would dry up the first time you used it so the next time it was just a crust in the bottom of the bottle with a gunky, shrivelled red rubber stopper. It meant you had to resort to making flour and water glue, which was useless, lumpy and guaranteed to stick pages of your exercise book together into a solid mass which made my teachers lip curl like a pringle.

Thankyou for reading, I hadn’t realised how deep the pain went. I reckon youthful glue trauma should be recognised as a form of ptsd.😞

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

We had orange juice on Christmas Day with breakfast, as an annual treat. I looked forward to it as much as presents!
And 1 Knickerbocker Glory a year when we went to Blackpool Illuminations. Although earlier on that annual 1970's trip we had a quiche as part of a picnic so we were actually really posh! 😂
We used to have a small bowl of frozen peas (literally right out of the freezer) as an exotic treat!

My dad was a decorator so instead of sticky back plastic to cover school books we got to use wallpaper samples from big books of them and sellotape 😀

It is very common. Some women on this thread have probably done it to other children.

Mixer taps. Corner baths. Capri Sun. Mini Kievs. Rain lamps. Breakfast bars.

@AnchorWHAT oh my word, that was exactly the same for me! My brother in law was a decorator so we had loads of them lying round the house! 😂

@FictionalCharacter
My husband and I each have our own grapefruit knife!

Did anyone have double sided sticky tape ? We certainly never did.

I remember when my parents started buying frozen garlic bread, very special.

We used to have half a grilled grapefruit with brown sugar sprinkled on top for starter on Christmas day.

A foil wrapped after dinner mint in at the local Beefeater restaurant.
I remember my parents having a dinner party and buying a box of after eights for the occasion. I thought it was the height of luxury

Tizer. Only ever at Christmas!

eating/ having a drink in a café- I still rarely do this

Little chef at motorway service stations.
My parents always brought sandwiches.
I think we went once in my entire childhood, and I was so excited about the lollypop you got at the end of the meal.

Memories eh 😂

A shower! We used to wash our hair in the bath or over the sink if it was a school day! When I was about 10 or 11 we stayed in a holiday cottage with a shower and it was the best thing ever!! We got one in the next house we moved to 😁

Oh yes. My mother often used to buy me and my sister the same “ best” dress, but different sizes as she was three years older. They were from Daniel Neals, generously cut, with huge hems to be let down, I would wear my dresses for a good couple of years, safe in the knowledge that an identical dress was hanging in my wardrobe waiting, just waiting, for me to grow into it ………… I think I probably wore the same clothes for most of my childhood. I remember when we moved house I was really pleased that I went to a new primary school with a very distinctive uniform, she was by then in Senior school so my school summer dresses were MINE!

My aunt had a bidet. I didn’t really understand what it was, but I thought it was very posh indeed 😁. To be fair, I don’t know anyone else who has one.

When I was little any child was considered a remote control. Usually the youngest which was me. Same for picking things up off the floor.

Cubes of sugar wrapped in paper.
Totally forgot about those! We took them home too so mum could offer them to guests 😂

Grapes and lucozade were for hospital patients only . And it was the height of luxury if we had Andrew toilet paper. We had izal usually 😱