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!

Perfectly soft (expensive) colouring pencils. The way they glided over the paper and you could do proper shading. My friend Philippa had Caran d'Ache pencils which were only available in France at the time. I was SO jealous. But when I finally got my hands on some - the joy!

An antique rocking horse- They seemed enormous to me as a child, desperately wanted one but never got one
The ones on proper steep rockers like a see saw

It was rich friends that had them passed down their family-

Browsing department stores with my mum.

Smelly pencils, erasers, fancy paper.

Barry M make-up, clip-on earrings.

Still love it now, as a way to switch off.

The Argos catalogue

I liked cutting out the pictures of sofas and tables etc and making little scenes for paper dolls. Hours of fun

Going to the library, and getting the tickets to get new books

When it was liver, and bacon for school dinner

Getting the latest Mandy, Debbie, Judy magazine, it seemed to take forever for the new one to appear in the newsagents.

I did too! I got a free pack of crisps voucher in my walkers and went back in the shop for my free bag and got £20 in my free bag. That was a lot of money for 8 year old me in the 90s! I used it to buy loads of treat food for tea 😂😂😂

There's a pattern developing here. All mine are food.
No wonder I'm fat 😂😂😂

My Fisher Price record player (they make them that look the same now but aren't actually mechanical in the same way).

Choose your own adventure books.

Pencils that smelled of fruit.

Crumble and custard for dinner
Bliss magazine
A new book
Playing with my mum’s jewellery
Chocolate raisins

Proper tin of Quality Street. The fragrance of Christmas.
Terry's Of York ' treasure chest'. A lidded golden ,cardboard box that looked like a treasure chest.
Ribbon on the lid ,top layer the three drawers of chocolates.

Oh yes! Granny’s button tin - filled with wonderful buttons made of cut glass and brass and pretty mother of pearl ones from 1880’ onwards .
The cool feel of them .

-Nature walks. Mum would talk me on a walk to a park/creek. Sometimes we'd feed the ducks or collect fallen leaves then make a picture when home. We collected pine cones sometimes, decorate in glitter and make Christmas decorations- many of which I still use 40yrs on!
-At Easter, I'd meticulously keep the coloured foils from eggs to make pictures. Poignant, when my nan pulled out 1 of my childhood creations of a peacock she'd kept for years. She was nearly100 and just prior to moving to a carehome!
-Every Friday, dad would bring home a chocolate bar type treat
-After rain, mum would drive down a road which had a tiny weir and the water would cover the road. It was only about 5cm high, but felt like I was on safari and driving through a swollen river!

Those sweetie elastic necklaces.
Lucky bags, especially if they had toffees in them.
Comics with cut out dolls at the back, and clothes that went on them in the middle pages.
Father Christmas grotto in Lewis's in Liverpool. The high point of my year.

Bit random,but do you write?The way you put that,I swear I smelt chlorine

This is an outstanding thread!

Thank you ❤️

Going to the kids cinema showing on a Saturday afternoon - no adults in sight and being given 5p to buy sweets.

Being given hand me downs by parents friends ( beautiful kids clothes) also 📚 books!

Pony books!
Silver Snaffles by Primrose Cummings and pony books by Joanna Cannan dating back to 1940’s

I had the very same reaction to this as @PubicZirconia

I had that record player!

The Camptown Races was my favourite.

My grandfather, letting us sit in a trolley and then he would wheel it round and skid round the corners. Nanny would tell him off, and say "John, we are in Sainsbury's, will you behave". Makes me feel like if he'd done it in Tesco she'd have been fine!
He was naughty though, used to turn the garden hose on us so we got to stay up later than bedtime.

I miss him. In a childhood that wasn't filled with much happiness, being with my grandparents was a huge light in the darkness

Furry stickers, stickers on a roll, quints dolls and watching lovely lady locks and she ra on TV.

Swimming in an outdoor pool! Freezing but heaven on a hot day. I'm going to have to look for local lidos!
My partner earlier mentioned those little plastic lids on Smarties tubes, turning them over to see which letter you had!
Loved cereal toys! Shame they stopped!
Great thread OP.

Relate to SOOO many of these!

A mega pack of felt tips in aaall the colours.

Bazooka Joe - we weren't allowed it, but the playground would be full of dropped wrappers - a free cartoon! And even better - the free things you could send off to America for if you collected 200 wrappers, like telescopes and sea monkeys! Was never gonna happen...

Omg scented rubbers.
havent thought about those for 25 years

Laughing and talking endlessly about anything and everything with my best friend

Yes why did the cereal free gifts stop ?

Did they really think kids would be so daft as to swallow a large purple figure?!
Especially as they came wrapped.

Still got a “ Spike” dog head pencil topper from those days!