If I build a time machine, would you like a lift back and to where & when?

[Handcreamqueen]

I’d choose a weekend in 1986.

I’m 13. It’s a Saturday morning, I get up, dad will cook me eggy bread but will call it ‘French toast’ and I’ll think that’s dead posh.

I’ll watch a bit of Saturday Superstore whilst mum pops to the Post Office to get her Woman’s Weekly magazine and my Just 17 and Smash Hits mags and Mandy for my younger sister.

I’ll then pop into town with my friends and mooch around the shops, have a browse in Our Price for the latest No.1 single then into Tammy Girl and Top Shop and finally pop into Woolies for some Pic n Mix.
Catch the train back home and tint my permed hair with a Shaders Champagne Gold tint and end up with patchy orange hair, then follows the meltdown because I can NOT possibly go to school on Monday looking like this 🤣

Later we’ll have a chippy tea (or a Chinese take away if it’s someone’s birthday) and we will all sit down as a family and watch Gladiators, Blind Date and The Generation Game. Mum and dad might even let us stay up late and watch Dempsey and Makepeace or a video hired from the local video shop (ie the bit at the back of the local corner shop).

On Sunday dad will wash the car, we’ll have a lovely roast with Nan and Grandad round, a long dog walk in the afternoon then toasted sandwiches and soup for tea, a bath and watch Songs of Praise (yawn) and Bullseye then bed. School the next day, boohoo!

Where do you want to get dropped off?

I'll come with you OP, also 13 that year with a similar home set up!

24th April 2020 the day before my mum suddenly and unexpectedly died. I would lay in bed with her all day and just hold her so tight

🩷🩷💐💐

supertiredallthetime I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could genuinely build a time machine, even if it were just for one day!
I am so sorry for your loss mrssunshinexxx

Forward please. I'd like to see how it all ends.

I’d like to go back to the day before my sister died and shout at the doctors “IT’S MENINGITIS!!!” before it’s too late.

March 1992. The weeks where my mum was complaining of headaches, clutching her head and rocking, and refusing to bother the doctor. I would insist that she goes...dragging her there if possible.

She collapsed with a sub arachnoid haemorrhage at the beginning of April. We were lucky she survived but so much changed that day.

Almost exactly 16 years ago, to take my brother to hospital a couple of hours before his cardiac arrest hits and steals him from us.

June 29th 2012, I would go to my son's flat and make him come back to mine and watch him like a hawk until the beginning of July so that he doesn't have the chance to take his own life.

Summer 1998. Aged 13.

I wouldn't get in his car, and I'd tell an adult about him.

If it was just a visit then I'd like to visit old friends and school, though I'd be torn between best friends at primary or secondary age. Secondary I think.

I'm not in contact with my mother (stereotypically Mumsnet I know, but with very good reason) and I'd probably just be an emotional mess the whole time if I saw my grandparents restored to life and good health. I'd probably have a word or two for my spiteful sister. No family!

If I had to go back for good I'd go back at 10/11 and make some very decided changes.

That's a frightening idea.

Do you remember a TV programme years ago where they did just that? It was probably something like Dramarama. She found herself elderly, alone and in a high rise flat. I think she pressed the forward button again by mistake after that...

5 years ago I would have stayed over those few days longer with my DB when he asked me to. I didn't and I will never get that chance again.

On a more lighthearted note. When I was 15 I would have sat next to Tony at the pictures like he asked me to. I didn't and then brushed off any further advances because my friend said she didn't like him.. that he wasn't good looking, wasn't nice and I could do so much better. My loss. He is gorgeous, really nice, successful, and seems to have the perfect life. My friend however, turned out to be not very nice and that was where I really could have done so much better.

I would go back to the age of 10 when a teacher asked me a question. My naive and truthful answer got me into a whole lot of trouble. That trouble subsequesntly changed my life and personality and made me calculating and hard.

The 10 year old me would thern answer (untruthfully) that I knew nothing about the incident so I could not be of help. So the teacher would go and find someone else to bully and interrogate.

10the June 1934 but I'd need to take a good wedge of money with me.

I would go back to March 2010. The day after DS2 was born and I would kick STBXH to the kerb. 13 years of abuse and heartache avoided.

Early first century Palestine please, so I can check out what was really going on with that Jesus bloke.

Newcastle upon Tyne, 1996.
I was having the time of my life!

I would go back to before my mam was ravaged by Alzheimer’s so I could just have a normal conversation with her.

On a lighter note, the 80s were my favourite times.

I'd go back to visit my granda. He died in the 70s when I was a child and I can barely remember him. He was my favourite person in the world and I'd like to visit him as an adult.

2012 ish...dh says, "should we buy bitcoin with some of this bonus money?"
Me, "No, it sounds daft".

There, right there...back to then.

Oh, only once?? Surely we can pop down more times. Please say " Yes."

A 1881, to attend my great-grandparents' wedding and see the place, the clothes et cetera. I know what it looks like now.

B If I'm allowed more, I'll start with the place where I live now, every hundred years from 23 A.D.

Nice thread.

BIf I'm allowed more, I'll start with the place where I live now, every hundred years from 23 A.D.

Great idea! I’d love to walk around my home town in different eras.

I’d also love to visit Paris during the Belle Epoque.

On a sadder note, a few people I’ve known have died in accidents or taken their own lives and I’d try to prevent those. With the possible exception of the person who ended her own life when she was terminally ill.

I wouldn't want to go back to my past but would love to see the Giza pyramids being built, to see if there was a bloke called Jesus, humans' missing link. Ah, so many things!

Probably a weekend in about summer 1995, GCSE’s done and would spend some time with my lovely grandma. I still miss her.