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!

I've only ever heard it from people in the Wishaw area. Not other parts of Lanarkshire. I never knew Central used it too.

Oh yes. My DH and I love Camberwick Green, narrated by Brian Cant! The flags of Trumpton were at half mast when he died a few years ago. They don't make children's TV like they used to. It's striking how lots of children's TV presenters used to have really posh voices. I've already mentioned Robert Hardy narrating the Tale Spinners stories. We also came across a video cassette of "Watch with Mother" from the 1950s. "Good morning, children. Today, we're going to make paper lanterns", in a voice to rival the Queen's. We heard "The Owl who was afraid of the dark" narrated by Maureen Lipman. And I bought on eBay a record I had as a child of "The Clock which struck 13", a story teaching children to tell the time, narrated by Helen Atkinson-Wood (who played the rather less posh Mrs Miggins in Blackadder the Third).

And as a child, I adored Puddle Lane! Did anybody else love Puddle Lane, with the grumpy but kind magician, the bossy Mrs Pitter-Patter, the Griffle, and the cats Tim, Tessa and Pegs? I've collected almost all the books. We had some of them on cassettes as well. I remember my brother coming back from the library, saying "I thought you were bursting for this book" (Tim turns green). As an child of the 1980s, they gave an insight into what the 1950s were like: children playing outside, and some houses had paraffin lights instead of electricity.

He really does! I went down a King Rollo / Mr Benn / Ray Brooks rabbit hole one night and it ended up with me watching old episodes of Growing Pains. I had forgotten that show even existed. I love voice. Instantly recognisable and nostalgic.

This is a funny one but I just used to love lathering up soap in the bathroom sink😂 , with a little bit of water until the sink was almost full with lather - this would occupy me for ages! I was never bored as a child !

I also loved the anticipation of weekly comics and magazines (born mid 70s). I remember ‘graduating’ to Mandy magazine from maybe Twinkle. I used to devour it and remember thinking this was the best thing ever! This lasted through to the weekly purchase of Just Seventeen every Wednesday.

One of the early posters mentioned glitter - I absolutely loved the stuff and still feel nostalgic every time I see a tube!

@scalt

I love that about the flags.

Thinking of Brian reminded of another show I loved - Bric A Brac.

Which actually (weirdly!) reminds me about Chock-A-Block - I'm aware I'm going off on a tangent here!

That was one of my favourite shows. For some reason I found it strangely comforting, especially the pressing of the buttons! So satisfying. It's almost like asmr to me. 😂 I wanted to do that when I grew up. In the white overalls with the tiny car. What a job!

5 pound notes in walkers crisps, twisted huha hoops etc. We'd all get excited at school lunch together

The big multipack of crayola crayons with the sharpener in the box
Gold and silver pens
Being able to use glitter at home (mum hated it!)
Snow, as our school would usually shut
Getting a book token and spending ages trying to choose something
Buying 1/4 of chocolate limes or sherbet lemons with my 20p pocket money 😂

Oh gosh I hated those silver balls!
I used to love iced gems. Found them as an adult and ugh they were dry and tasteless.
Remember lunch boxes? Everyone had one - I remember David Cassidy ones were popular (I am that old).

Getting a big bundle of maybe 20 or so used comics, either from a jumble sale or from my cousins.

Getting a bottle of shampoo or bubble bath from my aunty for Christmas that was just for me.

The feeling that we could relax on a Saturday night when my dad went out. My mum used to make "egg in a cup" for us and we'd watch either Dixon of Dock Green or Z Cars, safe.

If any youngsters here haven't had egg in a cup, I can definitely recommend it! My mum would crack an egg into a mug each for me and my brother, add salt and a big blob of butter, mix it up and stand them in a pot with simmering water. While it was bubbling away on the hob, she'd keep stirring it with a fork, scraping away the bits that got stuck to the sides of the mugs until they were fully cooked. The mugs would be really hot, obviously, so she wrapped them in tea towels and we'd eat it like that. The taste with the butter and salt cooked through it, oh my, it was wonderful! There was a plate of buttered toast on the side, each slice cut into 4 triangles.

Dh's mum apparently used to make theirs with a hard boiled egg, chopped up with butter and placed in a mug, but she was WRONG! Obviously.

Finally, staying at my granny's for a night. It only happened very occasionally because she really didn't like children (or adults actually!) so there was absolutely nothing to read, to do or to play with, and she wouldn't let us bring a toy from home because she didn't want any "mess", but wow she used to tell us the most amazing bedtime stories! She just made them up as she went along and managed to incorporate storylines including horses for me, and spaceships for my brother, all in the same story!

After repeatedly pestering my mum, I finally achieved one of my ambitions - to eat a Cadbury’s Flake in the bath.

If you know, you know.

Getting a big bundle of maybe 20 or so used comics, either from a jumble sale or from my cousins.

At one jumble sale my mum got a big bundle of old Readers' Digests. We LOVED going through them and picking out all the Drama in Real Life articles.

They were mostly about farmers whose agricultural equipment had chopped their arm off in the middle of a field so that they had to crawl back to the farm with the arm stuffed in their trouser belt. And similar crises.

We also liked the medical series - I Am John's [or Jane's] Gallbladder, etc. Those articles gave you basic info about the human body. John had all the gender neutral body parts plus the male ones. Jane only had lady bits -- wombs and suchlike. She must have looked very strange

Finding some Finding Fantasy books in charity shops and jumble sales. They were easy to spot due to their lime green spine.

For those who never did a Fighting Fantasy book. You got your scores for skill, stamina, luck (and perhaps gold tokens, depending on book) from throwing a dice. Then read the first section. Then it said for example, do you want to turn left - go to section 135 or right go to 84. Then had to 'fight' certain creatures on the way using your dice and the stats listed for the creature. Rolled dice until you or the creature died.

My parents were great jumble goers and would drive out to country ones. I'll never forget the sheer excitement of my dad finding me a little suitcase full of Barbie's and clothes!

That reminds me: I loved the adventure game books, with numbered paragraphs, one or two dice, and "items", such as a password scroll, or a key, which was a stencil, which you would put over a picture in the book, and it would reveal a message. You started at paragraph 1, and the dice would determine your course through the adventure. (Any complete sets of these are worth lots on ebay!) Some of them were:

Asterix: where the items were a coinbag, a password scroll, a translator, and a map. You lost the game if you ran out of magic potions.

Ghostly Towers: you explore a haunted mansion with two dotty ghost "experts", Miss Crumble and Professor Bones, who are actually more frightened of ghosts than you are. You lost the game if you saw too many ghosts.

The Famous Five: these were each based on one of the official books, and were really annoying! You lost the game if you ran out of food, which happened when they did silly things like tripped and broke a bottle of ginger beer, or if Anne fed her sandwiches to a tame rabbit.

Suspects: the best one, because it had skill in it. It was a murder mystery on the "Olympic Express", clearly based on the Orient Express. You had to study a picture, and on the next paragraph, answer a question about it. If you were right, you got a clue to the murderer's identity. If you were wrong, the murderer would try to kill you (the detective), sometimes in really absurd ways, such as modifying the wiring of the lights in your compartment to give you an electric shock.

I was obsessed with my Fisher Price dolls house that opened out into two sections. It was made from chunky plastic and brightly coloured, and I would play with it for hours and hours.

My parents thought I'd be even more thrilled when they bought me a traditional Georgian style dolls house with all the period furniture. But I couldn't have been less interested, and ignored it in favour of my beloved Fisher Price.

Weirdly, I've always clearly remembered my FP dolls house as being a lurid orange/yellow colourway (it was the 70s), but looking at images it's actually a turquoise/yellow colourway.

Years and years ago Woolworth’s use to sell a toy stationary post office kit.
It had lots of paper, envelopes and toy stamps, it wasn’t expensive and I would get one every so often.

Also anyone remember Pretty Peach soap on a rope from Avon. I loved the smell.

Playing outside, after school with all my friends. Skipping, hide and seek, lots of other games, that you don’t see now.

Gourock looks nice when I've looked it up. My granny was from there but she moved down to London as a teenager. I've never been but have been to other parts of Scotland which I loved.

Re jumble sales, I remember them being quite, no ... very ... ferocious. There would be a crowd of women waiting for the doors to open. When they did, the women would surge forward ruthlessly to get first pickings of the tasty scraps. A pack of hyenas.

There were no charity shops in those days, but just as much need for cheap secondhand items from other households. There was way less 'stuff' in general, and what stuff there was was more likely to have some actual use, compared with today's tat mountains

Loved my FP house was it this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306040342237?_skw=fisher+price+family+house&itmmeta=01JJ244XEG027819NF2ER3N5XV&hash=item47416d06dd:g:JwkAAOSwWm9nhkDA&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0CodCO1vSDjg2xNOt8By6oAdEEAjE5dsqthd3TzfU%2FjA0SpC9bX%2BBW3wHk4IaVFLHPd%2BFT67B%2FrT28m0r3Ik2AC3Qc1z7CxzrbgWXGBlVrJU6WRiKReVABu89WPpnQj%2FWd4xa8VPo2O4B9QNVAzYy7sf3Br0%2Bf4yQ0xi109LexinidFOtOi5PQFqscaBLJilDQ39EeM9oOLp9yUWEkF0ERadsPcFnfyK5yPaDAxULHz2PfcUY3xTZknFd81cYqfZnSirjerU5EDhkWpjY4wnOyY%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7DXk8SQZQ?

https://www.pineappleretro.co.uk/products/vintage-1980s-fisher-price-carousel-record-player-1 I loved this. The girl figure on the left was my favourite as it looked like me.

Yes. But I'm still remembering mine as orange and yellow!

stinky stickers and the album to put them in
bonbon sweets in a bowl at my friends house, the bowl was always full to help yourself
green hymn book in primary school
maypole dancing
the tv at school being wheeled in
large plastic lunchboxes at primary. I had snoopy one at one point
80s toys - my little pony (inc the stables) sindy, snuggle bums, wuzzles, polly pocket, care bears (the bets toy ever), sindy's house/horse/swimming pool, ballerina sindy, disco sindy, cabbage patch kids, garbage pail kids/stickers
scented rubbers, some in small plastic cases, the swiss-roll one smelt delish
20p penny sweets, inc half penny ones
clips for girls hair with ribbons on
perriot (the french clown)
holly hobby
jelly shoes and the similar plastic bags which you had to put a carrier bag inside to use
wimmsies
80s sat night tv

.. just to name a few !

I've just remembered about my animals of farthing wood video collection. Felt like the best thing in the world going to the shop to collect it when it was ready. Mam would always give us 50p to spend while she paid the bills at the counter and I'd always get one of those little brown chocolate dip pots.

Found my Tufty Club badge! And a few others from my 80s childhood.