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Things you miss from the 'good old days'

213 replies

Adultautismdiagnosis · 02/08/2025 19:57

I'll start with:

  1. Choosing a video or DVD from Blockbusters
  2. Pic n mix from Woolworths
  3. Puffy triangle snacks/crisps. I can't even remember what they were called.
  4. Walkmans and mixed tapes
  5. Simplicity e.g. only having 4 TV channels, not having 1001 chocolate bars to choose from etc
OP posts:
RaraRachael · 03/08/2025 11:23

Being at uni in the early 80s. We'd take a tenner out from the bank and that would last us a whole week which included our nights out at the Union and buing an LP from Boots record department.

Happy days#!

BoredZelda · 03/08/2025 11:24

Cremola foam.

its5oclocksomewheresurely · 03/08/2025 11:31

People being entirely focused and in the moment, when out with friends, and in restaurants - not a mobile phone in sight.

LoveItaly · 03/08/2025 11:52

Looking through the Athena poster collection at WH Smith on a Saturday morning and hoping for a Duran Duran one I hadn’t already bought.

ButterCrackers · 03/08/2025 12:10

The Argos catalogue

RaraRachael · 03/08/2025 12:20

ButterCrackers · 03/08/2025 12:10

The Argos catalogue

We used to have to get 3 - one for us and one for each child so they wouldn't fight over them while compiling their birthday and Christmas wishlists.

NormaJoan · 03/08/2025 12:21

Fry’s chocolate cream out of the vending machine on my local station platform.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 03/08/2025 12:24

Conversation
Customer service

SunflowerLife · 03/08/2025 12:28

Girls' magazines and pop magazines with free gifts, that were thick and full of content, not adverts on every other page. Saturday night TV. Cheaper but better quality items, eg. make up and skincare.

Iloveeverycat · 03/08/2025 12:30

Carnaby st and King's Road. Late 70s 80s I used to love it. It's rubbish now.
Tizwas

Illjusthavethebreadsticks · 03/08/2025 12:38

England

MoonWoman69 · 03/08/2025 12:43

Nitgel · 02/08/2025 20:34

Car cd player

Got one in mine, holds 6 at a time!

BoredZelda · 03/08/2025 12:43

TheNightingalesStarling · 02/08/2025 20:13

Going on holiday and no one expecting updates on it.
Or just in general being able to exist without having to be in constant contact.

Yes but oh the dullness of having to sit through their holiday snaps. At least now we can scroll by!

WhineAndWine1 · 03/08/2025 12:47

Not paying bills and someone making all the meal decisions.

LightDrizzle · 03/08/2025 12:48

Definitely high streets being busy and having propped shops and everyone heading there on Saturdays and pre Christmas. Buying singles at Woolies.

More shared culture like bands and TV, and the Top 40 being meaningful and eagerly anticipated.

BoredZelda · 03/08/2025 12:58

So many of these are not about THE good old days, they are about YOUR good old days.

If you are constantly being told you are offending people nowadays, you were offending people back then, you just weren’t called out on it.

Complain about how many people are on their phones whilst on public transport etc, as if back in the day we were all having one big social swally on the bus. We weren’t. We were reading magazines or books, or staring out the window to avoid the people around us.

The rose tinted spectacle nostalgia for “back in the day” ignores how bad a lot of things were back in the day. Things change for a reason and most of it is good progress.

BoredZelda · 03/08/2025 13:00

its5oclocksomewheresurely · 03/08/2025 11:31

People being entirely focused and in the moment, when out with friends, and in restaurants - not a mobile phone in sight.

I was on holiday in the UK last week. Ate out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. People all around me were chatting with their friends, not a mobile in sight. If this is your experience, maybe it’s a you issue.

Adultautismdiagnosis · 03/08/2025 13:22

Love all these and agree with about 95% of them. I think they all show that we're much better off with simplicity. It's the little things we're missing.

OP posts:
tsmainsqueeze · 03/08/2025 13:46

Getting glammed up to dance the night away at a club or disco.
Miners makeup.
Buying records from Woolies.
Proper vimto in glass bottles.
Wagon wheels in the 70's.
Jackie magazine.
Cadburys selection box 70's.
Miss Selfridge Chelsea girl and Warehouse 80's.
Dripping cooked fish and chips wrapped in newspaper.
Good manners .
Drinking in a packed pub underage with your boyfriend who you met by actually speaking to each other .
Buying a new top for the weekends clubbing.
Less vacuous shallow vain people , no boob jobs, lip jobs ,6 pack super tanned ken dolls who love themselves aiming for social media million dollar fame , every ones social life was so much easier and less pressured then.
My local library ,it had lovely parquet floors and was a lovely peaceful comforting place sadly now shut.
Even though i have a happy life and enjoy the things i do i look back fondly on most of my childhood and youth and 20's because that simpler life is more appealing to me than the way things are now.

Taytocrisps · 03/08/2025 14:04

There are so many things I miss and lots of them have been mentioned already - roller skating with my best friend at the roller rink on a Saturday morning and then going back to her house to hang out with some teen magazines and some snacks. Top of the Pops on a Thursday night. The free range summers of my childhood - out playing as soon as we'd eaten breakfast and only coming home for dinner or (reluctantly) at bedtime.

Getting the bus into town on a Saturday to go shopping. You'd always meet someone you knew on the bus. Or you'd bump into them in the shops. Stopping for tea (coffee wasn't really a thing) and a cream cake to rest our tired legs.

Making home made witch costumes at Hallowe'en out of bin bags and a broom. Making Hallowe'en masks and decorations in school.

I miss the simplicity of a '70s/'80s Christmas. Home made Christmas decorations (remember paper chains?) and lines of Christmas cards hanging from a string of twine. Because we didn't get many treats during the year, the treats at Christmas meant so much more. We'd have a box of Tayto (didn't last very long with five kids), minerals (Coke, Club Orange, 7-up etc.), Christmas cake, pudding, an Australian Sultana cake, an Oxford Lunch cake, mince pies, selection boxes, big tins of Quality Street and Cadburys Roses. A box of jellies for my Nana (orange slices and lemon slices etc.). I know Quality Street and Roses tins are everywhere nowadays - and you see them in the shops anytime from August onwards. But we only ever got one tin, at Christmas. Once it was gone, that was it. So it was a real treat. And the chocolate tasted much nicer back then. The delights of toys and annuals. Buying headscarves, bath cubes and handkerchief sets as presents for your adult relations. We'd play lots of board games over the Christmas period and there would always be a jigsaw or two on the go. We'd watch the 'big movie' on Christmas Day. It was usually 'The Wizard of Oz' or 'The Sound of Music'.

I think what I miss most is the simplicity of life. My Mam was a SAHM so she dropped us to school each morning and collected us each day. No rushing around like a headless chicken dropping us off to creche and then dashing off to work. We'd come home from school, eat dinner, do our homework and just chill. We might watch a bit of TV or play a record on the record player. We read a lot of books. Dad would come home from work and read the newspaper. Afterschool activities weren't really a thing. Or at least, they weren't called afterschool activities and my parents didn't actively seek them out. My brother played football locally. He walked to his football training sessions himself (we didn't have a car) and I think the team travelled by bus if they were playing away matches. My parents never attended any of his matches that I know of. My sisters and I were in the girl guides. We met up once a week. Mainly we played games. We went on the occasional hike.

My Mam went to a Ladies' Club once a week. The other women were mostly all SAHMs too, so they were glad of the opportunity to escape from the demands of their husbands and children for an hour or two. There was a Musical Society and they put on musicals in a local hall.

There seemed to be a lot more human interaction. We didn't have a car, so Mam didn't do a big weekly shop (she'd never have carried it all home on foot). She bought bread and dinner ingredients every day in the local shops. She knew all the shopkeepers and would chat to the other customers. None of the women I knew could drive back then, so they would get the bus into town and have a chat with whoever they sat beside on the bus.

There was a lot less money but a lot more time.

RazzleDazzleEm · 03/08/2025 15:03

Great ones op!
For me it's also less people.
I remember the beautiful towns around me were easily accessible but with a decent buzz on a Saturday.
Now they are just rammed I can't visit traffic always at a standstill beauty spots totally crowded

UYN · 03/08/2025 15:16

ButterCrackers · 03/08/2025 12:10

The Argos catalogue

The laminated book of dreams 😄

Everything being shut on Sundays and Sunday being a day where it was fine to do bugger all, absolutely bugger all.

Brownieshonour · 03/08/2025 15:17

I can’t get past Terry and June!!

JacknDiane · 03/08/2025 15:46

I miss loads of great shops in town

CalzoneOnLegs · 03/08/2025 16:18

Brownieshonour · 03/08/2025 15:17

I can’t get past Terry and June!!

🤣🤣🤣

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