What do you miss from your past?

[Gottodosomething2026]

My algorithms seem to have been showing a lot of 80s and 90s nostalgia recently and it's really got me wishing for times gone by.

What do you miss from your past? (not people). For me it's:

• Cheery Christmases with carols, excitement, feeling the Christmas stocking in the dark etc.
• Walkmans
• Casette tapes and recording the top 10 to listen to the car
• Less choice in supermarkets, for holidays, tv channels/services, cars etc - so much easier
• Less plastic tat
• Technology that I could keep up with as it was all new and so simple
• Feeling joy at the simple stuff like Body Shop bath pearls
• Jelly and ice cream
• Less unhealthy food
• triangle crisps (I don't even know what they were called)
• VHS
• People being nice to each other as the norm
• Less red tape and measurement of everything we ever do
• Common sense
• Work ethic being the norm

But OP, everything in your original post? Me too 🩷

My diary reveals how terribly horny I was & how much a fun a night out was, but thank goodness no camera footage or decent photographic evidence.

Such freedom too, you could tell a lie about where you were and people (parents) rarely found out.

School was done at school, get home, only contact was your best mates on the land line all evening.!Or maybe someone would knock on your door. No social media and worry about your life being not a good as others portray theirs to be!

Oh and if you got detention or spent all your lunch money on chocolate or forgot your homework-parents were none the wiser unlike the surveillance that goes on now. My kids can’t buy a sausage roll or get a ‘negative behaviour’ point without my phone alerting me.

Teens were meant to be experimental -fashion and behaviour unlike current generation who look like perfection. They all do make up better than me! Health and protein and gym going madness these days!

wonderful time to grow up & be horny! The things that went on on the dance floor , I feel really old wondering if it still does.

I really miss living in Copenhagen - we did 20 months and had to come back for family reasons and now it’s not as simple to go back to EU - lots of things I loved- having a lovely rental house in a great area for far less than similar area here , lovely heated terraces and furry throws, snow in winter, walking past Tivoli gardens every day and their changing cheery seasonal decor

Not going to lie I bought a pair of denim palazzo pants from M&S that are so wide I feel like dancing to Northern soul every time I wear them!

😂 Here goes!.....

Good music.

Top of the Pops.

Leaving the house without a phone and not feeling like you've left an arm behind.

Disco's!

Ra-ra skirts 😂

Mousse foundation.

Real sugar as an ingredient. Things just don't taste the same any more.

Lots of post - especially handwritten post. Virtually everyone sent a postcard when they were on holiday.

Words - I'm increasingly seeing icons/pictures being used. Are we losing the ability to read?

Paper and pen.

Local radio stations.

Going out on a Friday and Saturday night, dancing all night, nearly freezing to death on the way home, then being able to repeat the same the following night.

I will likely think of more!

Not having smartphones was real freedom. I miss that time dearly

Getting up to all sorts no record of it apart from bit of gossip
Then the following week someone else's turn to be topic of gossip.

Talking for hours on the house phone to school friends I’d only seen 10 minutes before, with my mum shouting at me to get off the line.

no social media or mobiles.
old fashioned cream cakes as a treat from the bakers.

Yes being able and wanting to go go ‘out out’ 2 nights on the trot!

The shared notion at fascism was a bad thing.

Not being expected to be contactable at all times.

Excitement.

I miss my hair being thick and dark brown instead of wispy and grey.

I agree with so many!

Proper customer service - now customers do the grunt work. I miss a quick phone call with a real person who can sort out an issue.
Going to the doctors when it just meant going and waiting your turn. Hospitals where the staff were respected, and the wards were peaceful, with limited visiting hours.
Stoicism - growing up after WWII I saw a lot of that. People like my mum, widowed when I was a teen, went out and got a cleaning job, and just got on with things.
I miss being able to hear without aids, to run; to wear high heels 👠; a sharp memory; my home town in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, the visits have become fewer recently; being able to go upstairs on a bus.

Feeling like there was some hope and optimism in the country as a whole.

Everything feels so worn out and broken. The country is skint and everyone is miserable.

Same!’
Came on here just to say that 😂😂

Holding my newborn baby. He hasn't been a baby for a very long time.

@LoudPlumDog Same here, my daughter died in 2013. I’m doing better than I was but life just isn’t the same.

I dislike the loss of good manners.

My 22 inch waist

Clothes I want to buy
Energy
My parents and my aunt
Everywhere being less crowded
No-one urging me to consume consume consume

Going Christmas shopping in my local town on a Saturday afternoon in December with frosty air and the Salvation Army Bank playing carols (don't they do that any more?).

Thought of some more -
When there were no mobile phones - I hate the way we are all slaves to them, checking them all the time, mindlessly scrolling at every opportunity. I miss watching the world and people go by. I think I am quite strict with myself in that I don't scroll endlessly, particularly when I go out, but it saddens me to see a group of people at a table, not talking, just staring at their phones. Also, I don't want to be contactable 24/7.

Carrying a purse containing notes and coins, and yes, cheque books.

Before children became the be all and end all, ruling the roost in so many families, with parents unable to say 'no' or discipline them properly.

Flirting which seems to not be allowed any more!

Quiet Sundays, with the shops closed and people just spending time at home with their families.

Going out for dinner at a nice restaurant, and not being confronted with steaks served on a tile, or chips in a mini watering can, or strange ingredients - just good, honest, wholesome food served on a plate!

My dad :(

Summer days when my children were little, we were stony broke but had some great times.

My husband.

Not sure how old you are that there was less unhealthy food. I am in my 50s and there was plenty around in the 70s and 80s. I actually recall food was terrible in the 90s, but improved a lot in the early 2000s with the obsession with cooking shows and celebrity chefs. Theres more of a foodie culture now, and junk food is too expensive so I feel people eat less of it.

'common sense' yawn. what a goady post.

In answer to the thread, I miss digging through second hand cds at record shops or borrowing from the library or friends and then taping them.

I miss early 2000s internet forums where people just chatted about the footy, or fishing or cars, or the latest movies. Nowadays its either people trying to sell stuff (fb/insta) or trolls and bots (mumsnet)