What mundane item/experience was a luxury in your childhood home?

[FirstFallopians]

I remember being jealous that mum and dad had pillow protectors under their pillowcases. I thought they must be the height of decadence until we got an IKEA and I saw they were literally £1.50 each.

Real butter instead of margarine.

Ordering a takeaway and getting it delivered instead of picking it up. Debauched.

Buying any food whatsoever from Marks and Spencer’s was akin to doing your weekly shop in Harrods Food Hall.

Middle income family in the 1990s, no money worries and not otherwise frugal.

Anyone else grow up thinking very normal things were real luxuries?

A rubber hose like a stethoscope which attached to the bath taps so we could wash our hair without filling jugs up with hot and cold water to desired temp numerous times to get rid of the soap - was bliss

We had one of those, occasionally one of the attachments would pop off the tap and you'd be doused in either really hot or really cold water 😂

hair conditioner
holidays
cars
(we didn't have holidays or cars except for the occasional old banger and then my mum stopped replacing them as couldn't afford to)

A car. We were the only family in the entire village of 30 houses who had a car other than the local Lord. Families would often board an open trailer and be driven by tractor to local events.

It was a Rover 3.5 and was a company car so my father could travel to far flung sites for inspections. We used it to holiday in Scotland and Ireland. He also used to give people lifts in it to hospital or to pick up groceries in bad weather.

About 10 years later cars became more widely owned. Some of the village folk's children started buying minis, austins and vivas. Then my father got an upgrade to a SD1 which was a luxury car at the time. My father didn't want it but his boss insisted because the company had a contract with British Leyland in Cowley and it was to curry favour. It had plush white leather and a space for a hipflask (I kid you not). It was written off a couple of years later when a struggling rock-band in a pale green van came around a corner too fast and veered into the wrong lane.

Pineapple was a real luxury and a treat if dad had earned a bit more that week.
Going to Southend for the day with loads of sandwiches and spending the day on the beach.
The odd tea at Lyon’s Corner House
Occasional theatre outing to watch amateur dramatics - all that we could afford.

Wow, you had electric fires in the bedrooms!!!😂

Totally get the shower thing… we were quite poor growing up but I had friends that lived in fancy new build houses.
I became a bit obsessed with getting a proper shower not a hose over the taps, I could not believe that one of my friends had her own en suite shower as well as her parents, it was another world to me (not having to crouch down in the bath under that bloody hose whilst simultaneously being scalded and frozen).
I also became obsessed with chrome door handles as all my friends in their posh new houses had these and all we had were boring old council knobs.

See for me a shower would have never been a luxury. We didn't have one, just the plastic hose thing that so many others had. But I've never enjoyed showers. I always loved my baths as a kid and still do as an adult. A shower is sometimes a necessity for speed but I would never choose one over a bath.

So on that note I would say, instant hot water instead of having to wait for an emersion heater that only held a limited amount. I was lucky in that being the eldest I got the fresh bath water and my poor sister was always stuck with my used water topped up a little!

Someone upthread mentioned avocados and it reminded me of the first time I encountered houmous. This was the mid 90s and I was about 19. Friend was probably the first properly middle class friend I’d ever had. She asked if I wanted some French bread and houmous and looked taken aback when I asked ‘what is houmous?’ 😂

Just reread my post. It should say chocolate spread 🤣

I'd figured that chocolate dread was some sort of cake, like death by chocolate, but less fudgey!

Till one of the attachments slipped off the tap resulting in either scalded skull or frozen skull.. Oh the Sunday night ritual for 70s kids before school on Monday. 😁.

Boiled ham

Betty's tea rooms too

We weren't ever allowed to sit in but occasionally buy a Fat Rascal from the bakery section

Oh god le soleil, tell us more about your life 😲

Forgot about the shared bath water, dad first, mum second, me last, thinking back that's a big slice of YUK!!.

I find myself nodding along with some of these posts but the strangest thing for me was hot water . The hot water was put on for an hour for our weekly baths as kids . Need to wash the dishes boil a kettle . Dad needed a shave boil the kettle . there was no running hot water . I didn't know anyone who had hot water all the time . Even after I got married there was no hot water all the time , I knew no different .I do now .
Heating , I never knew until high school central heating existed .There was a coal fire in the living room and that was it . No one I knew until high school had central heating . Oh there was the Christmas my parents got me a Soda Stream 😂 that was a riot . Two whole weeks high on sugar ,good times 🤣.

Fizzy drinks, we use to order 12 bottles of corona from the milkman at Christmas. There were 4 of us so we got to chose 3 flavours each. I can remember the excitement pouring over the list with my brothers and the clinking of the bottles as my dad carried the grate to the garage. We eventually got a soda stream, I was the envy of my friends 😂

ice cream, we only had this off the van, sometimes my mum would give my eldest brother some money and me the little jug and my older brother a dish . We would swing on the gate at the end of the drive waiting for him to come debating what we should buy. It was usually raspberry ripple, a long slab wrapped in cardboard, he would fill my little jug with some raspberry sauce and my brothers dish with sprinkles. Once he gave us a little flake each as well , the excitement! When we went to the beach my grandad would buy us a 99 each, my parents would only stretch to a rocket lolly or I use to like the lemonade ones. But a 99 was soooooo special

@CeilingGranny That is a lovely story . I can just see you and your brother swinging on gate , fizzing with excitement waiting for the ice cream van 😁. I do believe that ice cream man enjoyed seeing the excited children , good on him .

Even now I won't buy Ribena. It's so decadent 😁
and way more expensive than Vimto..

I remember when i first went round to my new friends house in 80s, they were well off, i came from a council estate which her mother loved to mention a lot.

I was very impressed they had a dishwasher snd a soda stream and a teasmaid by the bed....

And my friend had a Grattan catalogue...

Grew up in the 70s

Any sort of takeaway
Shoes other than school shoes
A trip to London
Soft towels - fabric conditioner was still a rarity.

Vienetta
Ribena
A lunch box that wasn't an old ice-cream tub.
Being allowed either a burger or chips, never both from McDonald's. But then waiting till we were in the car to eat it because it was considered common to walk and eat fast food at the same time.

If Mum had any spare cash on a Saturday I'd get sent to the shop for a Vesta chow mein!