Little things that brought you absolute joy as a child

[DevilledEgg]

For me it was silver balls on cupcakes. Such a simple thing but we didn't have them very often, so whenever I saw some on a cake I'd bubble with excitement. I bought a cake today with some on and I swear, I was five years old again!

When the book club order came in of books we'd ticked off weeks prior at school in the little catalogue and brought the money in from home. So new and crisp, and so exciting!

There is a boy’s version of PP called Mighty Max. Chances are there is a dinosaur one

@softsummer How did they make me believe I had "flown" from one end of the garden to the other? They took me to the middle of the garden, and pointed out the chair near the house. Then they blindfolded me, and double-checked that I couldn't see a thing. They turned me round lots of times; one of them secretly moved the chair to the bottom of the garden, and the other led me there, telling me it was near the house, when it wasn't. They got me to feel something flat, telling me it was the door of the house. I did the "flying" all in that spot. It was so amazing; I tried to recreate it for my nieces.

@evtheria I loved the Ladybird books and cassettes, we had loads of them. They were my introduction to classical music: Beethoven's 6th will always be "Snow White" to me, and Dvorak's music "The Big Pancake". I loved classical music as a child; I didn't "get" pop music at all.

And Grieg will always be the Ugly Duckling, because even better than the Ladybird books were the Tale Spinners records from the 1960s (before my time), in which classic stories were done as plays. I only heard one of them as a child, which my grandparents had, and I listened to lots of times: the Ugly Duckling, which was so beautifully done, with the music closely matching the mood of the story, and Mrs Duck worrying about her peculiar egg, in a posh voice. One of the voices belongs to Robert Hardy (I could listen to him speak all day), who many decades later played the Minister of Magic in the Harry Potter films. More recently, I've found most of them are on Youtube, so I've been listening my way through them. Here's the Ugly Duckling:

Oops, that link to the Ugly Duckling is not working. Here it is. If this doesn't work, search for "tale spinners ugly duckling part 1" on youtube.

You were meant to like butter!

Watching Tom and Jerry. BBC1 used to show a triple bill of them on Sunday afternoons. Love them so much I bought a DVD set of them.

@Wendolino Me too! There would be little orange juice stains on the pages of my books from reading while slurping an orange quarter!

Chewing the wax off of Edam cheese, for some reason my sister and I did it
Shrinking crisp packets under the grill
Climbing trees
Leaping off the mantlepiece on to my bed
Chasing my sister with seaweed, she used to scream as hated it
Curling up in the big armchair in my bedroom and reading whilst picking at the horsehair stuffing down the side that poked out

When Dad brought the ladder into the house, it meant only one thing. He was going in the loft. The loft was a treasure trove of old toys and clothes, there was even a pram up there. I used to go up the ladder a few steps so I could peak inside and shout instructions to my Dad ' get the blue bag' bring the toy washing machine'. It was very rare and the most exciting day of the year.

We loved The Crystal Maze, and we used to make up and play our own games. We were delighted when someone gave us a paperweight which was exactly like the crystals used in the show. And anyone careless enough to incur a lock-in would actually be locked up: in the cupboard under the stairs, or the garden shed. (Usually for only a few minutes.)

Kellogg's variety packs 😁 Having 'bits and bobs' for tea. Squirty cream. Balloons.

@Lillygolightly : the plastic things which you attached to bicycle spokes and which clattered up and down were called Spokey-Dokeys.

@ViciousCurrentBun I remember seeing instructions about shrinking crisp packets in the oven; indeed, a cereal packet had "shrinky tags". I didn't believe that this would actually work, since it contradicted what I learned in science: that things get bigger if you heat them. I've still never actually done it: perhaps I should try it now.

It always made my day if I saw a car with reversing lights on. Even better was to see a bus with reversing lights on, but this was very rare.

Yes they do . Saves mess .

On long car journeys in August looking for cars with the new registration.
Going to the library and choosing so many books.
Shopping with my mum at Christmas time and queuing to see Father Christmas at Busby's in Bradford.
Playing with blutak- putting it on the radiator to warm up and it pulling apart in warm blue strings that felt almost fluffy.
Boxing Day with all the maternal cousins, a huge buffet, and granny getting tiddly on a couple of glasses of sherry.
That feeling of safety and being loved that I hope I've created for my DC.

Going on a bus. I grew up in the Welsh Marches so there weren't any! I probably only went on a bus a handful of times until I went to high school.

Getting new hair ribbons from the market. Or hair bobbles.

Going to a town at night and seeing street lights.

Getting a weekly magazine.

Having power cuts.

Also, everyone at school putting drawing pins in the soles of our shoes so we could "tap dance".

My childhood memories of clothes were not fond . My Mum also did dressmaking and knitting but she either never finished things or ( worse in my view) If I did buy something she'd "just try and sort it" and I'd never see it again.

A jacket ( cast off from sister ) she took apart to make a pattern for a new one . I didn't get the new one and the original never got sewn back together .
A cami-top I bought myself ( from Littlewoods , decent enough) she decided to fix the collar . That was gone .

My sister managed to get money and buy Real Clothes so I used to get her cast offs .

Calling on all my friends in the street, cycling together up and down the road and then abandoning all our bikes on the driveway so we could all go inside to raid the biscuit tin.

Collecting acorns and scooping the insides out to turn them into cups for the squirrels.

Sitting in the oak tree outside my house, spying on strangers who walked along the path underneath me (inspired by Harriet the Spy of course).

The songs 'Raindrops on Roses' and 'There was an old woman who swallowed a fly' on my cassette player.

Mouse trap.

Watching Wackaday on a Saturday morning.

Taking great care of my best conker.

Spin the bottle.

Going to the shop in the village to buy a troll to add to my collection.

The smell of warm varnish and books in our public library - it had oak panelling and a carved wooden staircase up to the reference room upstairs, so the scent was quite noticeable.

My mum's friend bought us (Dsis and I) really lovely Christmas presents: a china horse with tiny leather saddle and bridle, a tiny doll in an egg pram - we got miles of play out of those, we loved them. So simple but totally engaging for some reason

Scraps and Hollie Hobbie stickers - just for the smell alone but also the texture and colours of the printing on the scraps was just glorious

Viennetta for pudding. So decadent! Loved the steamed pudding in custard for school lunch as well, it was sad when we had to take a packed lunch instead

Multicoloured Swop Shop on Saturdays and The Monkees, The Flumps, The Red Hand Gang in the summer holidays

As mentioned by others, the Letraset Action Transfers. They were SO much fun

The day our comics were delivered: Mandy, Bunty, Warlord, Roy of The Rovers. We all read them all, not just our own

Sending off for things - we collected loads of Tudor crisps packets to send off for the Flutterbys. The joy when you got something in the post and it was a flock butterfly you could pin up somewhere...

Definitely 10 pick and mix sweets for 10p as paid for my granny when we went to stay with her. Oh the decisions...

As a teen, riding my bike all the way from one end of our road to the other with no hands on the handlebars.

I keep dipping in and out of this thread, I love it.

Going to the library to pick something from the teen fiction section. I can smell them now.

Riding my bike and pretending it was a car

Playing records on a portable record player

Going to Woolworths to buy singles

The old high street shops; Woolworths, Past Times, Eisenegger's permanent sales, the Body Shop when it was new.

Watching VHS tapes.

Getting my comic, Sparky, delivered each Saturday.

Especially loved Pansy Potter, "the strongman's daughter". I think that all these comics were published in Scotland, weren't they, so that Potter and daughter would rhyme.
Fantastic role model for the proper little tomboy that I was. I also liked Throgmorten the grovelling Sparky editor, perhaps another role model for me as I grew up to do editorial work.

Using clothes pegs to clip strips of cardboard into the spokes of your bike -- to "turn it into a motorbike" by generating a bit of noise.

As Worzel Gummidge called it "Raw Cake"

I have always done this with my DC (and the perks of a Chefs Drink if they were cooking , it was milkshake or similar )

They are in their 20s now and still insist that one has the bowl, one has the mixer beater !