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.

I’m old enough to remember when having a telephone was a real luxury. We had one installed when I was about 8 and my teenaged sisters complained that they had no one to call as their friends didn’t own phones.

Phoning up for a takeaway
Courgettes
Carte D'or ice cream
Shiny patent school shoes...was never allowed them for fear I would scuff them

Being left in the car with periodic visits for fresh supplies of crisps and pop, when your parents were in the pub. Tbf this happened very rarely. We must have had bladders of iron. Those paper straws striped like barbershop poles that would collapse into soggy unuseability.

For Christmas - Ye Olde Oake Ham and cracker barrel cheese. Google the former if you're too young to remember!

Fig rolls. Salami. I remember a little girl in my class took salami sandwiches and fig rolls for a packed lunch on a school outing and was immediately ostracised for being posh.

Mayonnaise and salad dressings. It was salad cream or nowt.

I promised myself two things for when I grew up - one, that I would always have fresh cream in the fridge ready to use (I don't actually bother now that I can!) The second is a bit sad - that I would always have clean dry towels available.

Oh yes, the pop man coming round!

It's clear reading these that there's quite an age spread on here. In the 50s when I was growing up a salad would be lettuce and a tomato, that's it, later Mum would buy 'a piece of cucumber' few people bought a whole one.
In the 60s places like Berni Inns started but the menu was very short, no vegetarian options and orange or tomato juice was a starter on the set menu. It was the first time we encountered cheesecake and it was pretty horrible, very soapy texture, the other alternative was vanilla icecream. When people sneer at the menus of the 70s, coq au vin, Black Forest gateau etc they need to know what went before, even the word gateau was considered exotic!

Not living with grandparents

Calling dinner "tea" or "supper"

Friend once brought in a beef and rocket sandwich for her packed lunch, plus a 101 Dalmatians branded chocolate yoghurt. I "only" had sandwich chicken and iceberg on white sliced, and a petit filous, which for some reason felt really common in comparison... probably because we didn't eat beef

On reflection I think I coveted indicators of whiteness and not just indicators of poshness

Real butter. We only ever had margarine. Not even the spreadable ‘like butter’ spreads you get now but a block of Stork, which was marketed as tasted just like butter 🥴 real butter was for the well off kids.

I've just realised, I've just been reminiscing, sorry.

Branded food
I grew up poor so there were no coco pops or walkers crisps
was in awe at my best friends house when she got actual Ribena out for us

Many children used to dream of being left sitting in the car outside the pub, many were left sitting on the step! My parents didn't go to the pub, we were considered quite posh for that.

Hoummus and Pitta Bread. I only ever saw it eaten by posh, middle class people in Hotels.

Pasta with Pesto, Feta Cheese, fancy Yoghurts. Basically anything nice that my step-mother bought for HER ONLY and got pissed off is anyone dared touch it (which was basically everything. Ret of us got the tescos value shit).

@FictionalCharacter I’ve got a grapefruit knife! We hardly ever have GF, but the knife does work really well.

I remember GF juice being a rare-treat thing - and having it as a starter when we very occasionally went to a restaurant. You once used to be able to buy it (and OJ) in tins - labelled Trout Hall, IIRC.

Golden Shred marmalade, my Granny and Mum always made their own. I thought Golden Shred was the height of sophistication

Postcards to apply for competitions on Swap Shop or Blue Peter. We had to make do with a gummed down envelope. I thought when I was grown up I’d buy huge packs of plain postcards for myself. I haven’t!

We used to define getting old as seeing things we'd first seen on Tomorrow's World, I recall ordering a pasty in a Dales pub and being asked if I wanted it warming, it would only take a minute and we were shocked!

Crumpets. They were only for posh people with toasting forks.
And kitchen towel.

Its not an item but i always thought Bay Windows were posh. Even now i still love them so much. I'd love to have a home with bay windows one day

Child of the 1980s/90s here - avocados were the height of luxury, as were pomegranates

I'd never even heard of avocado until about 1998, I remember because a vegetarian friend of mine did a murder mystery party and served it for dinner!

Another one for orange juice , my mum used to buy 1 carton a week so yes it was definitely thimble sized portions. I wonder how much it used to cost

We moved home when I was 15, to a house that had both a telephone and central heating. I really thought we'd arrived in heaven! Of course I now realise that this was pretty normal by the 80s but for me the idea of my bedroom being warm in the winter was amazing. And without having to do anything too - it was on when I woke up🤣
Naturally the phone could only be used after 6pm apart from in life threatening emergencies and my Dad refused to have a chair in the hall to discourage long conversations but compared to saving 2p pieces and walking to the phone box it was sheer luxury!
Roast chicken was a special occasion meal (though paradoxically we had beef for Sunday lunch frequently) and fresh salmon was something that only incredibly wealthy people had, though on special occasions we had tinned. Ditto prawns/shrimps. Fresh cream was bought at Easter and Christmas only, to make a trifle. Otherwise we had something called instant whip which was some kind of mix of sugar and E numbers that you mixed with water and would eventually turn into something resembling shaving foam if you beat it hard enough. Served with tinned peaches or fruit cocktail generally - also deemed quite posh!

Viennetta. Went to a friends house for dinner and they had this for pudding. We had only seen it advertised on TV before, never in real life.

On a bad day hot water. We had to find 50p for the gas meter and we didn’t always have it. We thought egg and home made chips for Sunday dinner was a treat, we had no clue it was because DM couldn’t afford meat.

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

I had that a few times after moving to a more middle class area. Before that everyone had seemed about the same. Suddenly there seemed to be a lot more Rules of how to behave at friends' houses that I had never been quite told about somehow before.

If anything, when living in a working class area I got called Posh and Snobby. So I couldn't win. 🤔Because of things like being an only child - so obviously I was spoilt. And my mum had a full time job. That was as rare as hen's teeth then. Good job as well, as my dad got made redundant and was out of work several times in the 1980s.

In the 80s the Australia fruit marketing board (or whatever the official name was) were apparently behind getting kids on Neighbours to pour enormous glasses of orange juice. Apparently that was the point UK kids started thinking that was normal.

Of course it's not normal. If Chantelle Mitchell had actually drunk 500ml of orange juice it would have been a meal for her.

When I gave birth to my daughter in 2015 we had to stay over in hospital for about a week, myself and my partner were laughing at ‘orange/apple juice’ as a ‘starter’ on the hospital menu!