To ask what traditions made your childhood special?

[Bubandbump]

Sorry, bit of a thread about a thread but..

Just sat here with sleepy DD in arms reading the cupcake v fairy cake thread. Someone wrote that they do fairy cake Fridays which I would love to steal think is lovely.

So I wanted to ask what made your childhood special, to give me some ideas for when 10 mo DD is growing up?

Sitting in our small kitchen with my Dad on a rainy Sunday while Mum baked cakes. Dad would put on an old black and white film and I'd get out his very old books about old movies. They had stills in them from most of the old films like the Road films with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and Fred Astaire films etc, and we'd sit and I'd read them over and over again and show M and D the pictures over and over again , never got sick of it, but they must've!

And being in Dad's shed watching him make furniture, the smell of turps, playing with our staffie with a tyre and a rope attached to a tree, in the summer we didn't have water pistols-we would use old washing up bottles (sqeezy!!) and shoot water at each other.

Also, we had this weird fizzy powder in a jar, like a big sweet jar from a shop. Mum would spoon it into a glass of water for fizzy lemonade . I used to stick my finger in the powder when no one was looking...

And ice-pops, we had these instead of ice cream, I loved sucking all the colour out of them til I was left with a tube of ice

Oh and a very early memory of Dad giving me a special treat that he used to have as a boy-an orange with a sugar cube pushed into the centre. I was then allowed to suck all the juice out through the cube (yum) without having to eat the actual orange, which my Mum thoroughly disapproved of . Good old Dad.

Sunday's - always had full roast dinner and afterwards mum would load us all into the car to go to 'June's' sweetshop - we could all have 50p each which then bought a lot of sweets.
Monday - cold meat and chips for tea - bleurgh, i hated it but it's a fond memory all the same remembering that I always asked what was for tea in the vain hope it would be something else!
Going for Walks every saturday with my dad and him always having to throw me across the stream as I couldn't jump it like my brothers
Summers always seemed to be warmer in the 70/80's??

We used to get fish and chips on a Friday night and pull over on a verge to eat them.

If my mum planned a day out to the seaside we went come hell or high water. Try in a sand storm trying to eat corned beef sandwiches sometime

Watching Its a Knockout on a Friday night and the Generation Game on Saturday.

I had a great childhood. Many thanks to my lovely mum and dad xxx

There were 5 of us including cousins,all girls and we all grew up on the farm.We swam in brooks,made dens,swung from rope swings,fell off ponies,bikes and trailers.My dad made us a swimming pool out of corrugated iron and a big tarp,built us a go cart that seated 5,attatched a steel cable between 2 trees and put a pulley with a seat on it so we could go screaming down at high speed.We drove tractors,landrovers and my sister had an old Alfa Sud when she was about 12 that we drove around the fields til it fell apart.Dad bought us a caravan and parked it in the paddock-we used to sleep in it and cook over a camp fire.

My dds are following in the same traditions and I hope they have as much fun as we did.My dad and Uncle bought us all up to know that being a girl was not an excuse for not doing something,so I am doing the same with my girls.

What a beautiful thread, had been feeling rather down but this has cheered me up no end.

Taking the glass pop bottles back to local shop and keeping the 10p.
Choosing a VHS film once a month from papers shop.
Going on a long trek every week in the school holidays, picnic lunch.
10p mix after church on a Sunday.

Here are a few that make me laugh now.
Saturday afternoon for about half hour, drinking lilt in car whilst dad in bookies.
Tinned ham salad on Saturday tea.
Summer bus trip to meadow hall, Sheffield.
Choosing two summer dresses from grattan catalogue as a birthday present.
Once a year, cleaning up the family graves and having fish and chips on a bench by my grandad. God rest his soul.

When I look at them I now see how practical they were for my parents!!

When I was little the newspaper cost 18p. My mum paid with a 20p piece and i was allowed two penny sweets 'for the playground'. The white mice sweets always had a little bit of jam in them, which you don't get nowadays.

Sitting on my dads knee watching Dr Who. He would have an apple and would try and peel it with his pen knife without the skin breaking, and then would cut it into pieces and give me half and him half. Every Saturday without fail. Just after fish fingers, chips and peas, which I watched on the sofa watching Basil Brush.

Boom Boom!

• my dad throwing a surpirse hallowe'en arty for me and my sister (there were just us 3 there ) and jumping out from behind the sofa in the sarke living room. it was the first time we had had coke floats and were scared to taste them incase he had tricked us!

• tying bobbles into dad's hair as he sat on the floor infront of his armchair on saturday nights while he watched the boxing. all the bobbles and hair clis were kept in a roses tin. he even answered the door one time without taking his bobbles out which we thought was the funniest thing ever and couldn't wait to tell mum (she worked nights)

-spending weekends at my cousin's house. she lived beside a small stream and her dad had built a makeshift bridge accross it. we spend so many hours juming into it from the trees and catching stickleback in jam jars.

-going on summer holidays with our caravan. we always brought a barbie each with a barbie hairbrush and bobbles and a colouring book each for the car journey.

-spending hours and hours going in circles round our yard on our bikes

-sneaking up to or bedroom windows in summer evenings to watch dad as he cut the grass. we used to race from our window to the hall to mum and nad's window to see if he could catch us. he never let on that he did but he must have done, we squealed like banshees!

just realised most of these memories are about my dad.

oh yes, friday night was take away night and we also go a bar of chocolate. i always got a hot dog with loads of s&v and a bourneville bar.

This is making me very tearful! I remember:

My sister & I in the back of the car on the way to my nan's with a tape deck, Carpenters tape and one end of a skipping rope each as a microphone.

Sunday mornings just me & my mum - I'd help her with the housework then we'd have "coffee made with milk" and a kitkat.
Mr Kiplings Chocolate Fudge cake every birthday.
Salad sandwiches on a Sunday in summer with beetroot and salad cream.
Mum putting our school uniforms on the radiator on winter mornings.
Hairwash every Sunday night followed by combing the knots out - I would SCREAM.
Holidays at Pontins Camber Sands, and my dad usually won Man of the Week.
Getting the Christmas decorations out of the loft at the beginning of December, and sniffing the tinsel.
Scotch broth soup always after a visit to the dentist.

Great thread!

Just wanted to say OP that this has inspired me to write a list of some of the stuff I remember to go in my mum's card on Sunday - thank you .

-sliding the sash window in the living room up afetr mum had locked us out of the house so she could clean.

-climbing onto the roof of a shed and throwing (tiny) stones at mum while she hung the washing out

-filling dad's wellies with water because he threw our water pistols in the bin (he hated them)

Watching my country's equivalent of Match of the Day on Sunday evenings - it was broadcast during dinner time so we'd eat dinner on the sofa (normally at the dinner table, Sundays were an exception!) watching the football. Mum, dad and I all support different teams so it did sometimes get a bit heated :o

Going to the garden center with mum to pick out flowering annuals for the year, and filling all the planters and beds when we got them home. Never done before mid-May (feast days of the Ice Saints) to exclude any possibility of a late frost killing them off.

Birthdays (mine, or anyone else's in the house, doesn't really matter). Helping mum prepare all the food, baking cakes, and putting out enough coffeecups/saucers/cake forks/wineglasses etc for the vast quantity of people who'd be through the door during the day. Mum loves people and entertaining, as do I as a result, and the atmosphere was always great and hospitable.

Putting out the nativity set at Christmas and having the annual argument over whether or not to buy two more camels. (Our set had three kings but only one camel. I spent my entire childhood insisting that they were kings, the other two surely didn't walk, they had their own camels. By the time I eventually won that argument, the figurines had gone out of production....)

I love this thread! Trips to town to buy my mum's presents with dad, followed by a Wimpy and some kind of treat for me, pub gardens on summer evenings and dipping my crisps in my coke/lemonade (I tried it again recently- still nice!), the football results at nan's before Dr Who - West Bromich Albion 1 Coventry Nil. Skateboards and bikes, Enid Blyton and Captain Beaky. Birthday parties at home with pass the parcel, spangles and Easter bonnet biscuits made with a marshmallow stuck on top of a digestive, covered in icing with a forget-me-not on top. Home made fancy dress costumes, knock out ginger and knock out fanny, (where you knocked at a random door and asked if Fanny was home) absolutely hysterical then.Dallas, Sapphire and Steel, Charlie's Angels, taping the sunday charts, syntax errors and my Oric 1 computer. Ok, I've digressed from traditions to happy memories! Happy Spring y'all!xx

This thread has really made me smile

I remember getting one bottle of coke (1 litre in a glass bottle) and a bottle of something else fizzy (usually cream soda or dandelion and burdock) on a Friday night and we shared it out between me, my brother and sister and my mum and dad. Once it was gone, that was it! We only had really small glasses and it used to last until at least Sunday or Monday!

Having chips and processed peas for dinner on a Saturday when my dad came home from work (amd mum made the chips fresh...yummy)

So many more, most of them food related. It was such a happy time

Watching world of Sport with Dickie Davis on a Saturday afternoon with my dad and brother whilst mum at work. Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks wrestling.
Having sandwiches, crisps and blancmange for tea off the tea trolley on a Sunday afternoon whilst watching Bullseye with Jim Bowen.

Friday night was sweet night. My bruv and I could choose whole bag of sweets from sainsburys(Think I always chose eclairs!) after we walked up the road on our own to get them(Yep.dangerous times in the early '80s'...)Then back home, snuggled with mum watching Dallas(turned over hastiliy by scrict catholic mum at times)Happy Days.

Oh Knotty - I'm going to Camber Sands this Easter. I used to live there when I was little. It's going to be awesome.

I remember being tucked in at night (there's a lot to be said for getting rid of the duvet).
Chips after swimming.
Sunday tea on the coffee table in front of the fire watching Antiques Roadshow.
Friday night was takeaway night.
The Sunday trip out to a place of educational value.
Visiting rellies on Sunday's for lunch.
Bonfire night with all my cousins and having a huge fire and cooking spuds in the embers.
Pancake day with goose egg pancakes from my aunt's.
Scaring the geese away with brooms so we could pick blackcurrants from same aunt's house.
The Ronco Christmas album with pop up Santa snow scene.
Carving a swede for Halloween!

Crusty bloomer rolls for tea on a friday before youth club.

My nan would make a cone out of newspaper and fill it with raisins and send us to the park on a Saturday.

We would visit my grandparents most Saturday & Sunday mornings and me and my brother would fight over who was going to stay and do her veg for her Sunday roast!

My grandad would tell us stories about the war and how he lived in a high rise flat in Manchester. When he died my cousins, brother and I were all reminiscing the stories as he would tell us over and over!

Always got a packet of wine gums from the petrol station!

My nan setting my hair in rollers when I stayed over so it's was lovely and curly in the morning!

Love this thread! Going to call my nan now!

lovely nostalgic thread ;-)
mine would be:
bacon sandwiches watching The Muppets on a Sat evening at nan & grandad's
Sunday morning swim or bike ride with dad, meatloaf or bruce springsteen in the car on the way back!!
recording the charts on a sunday night on one of those old tape recorders
watching juliet bravo without fail every sat night before bed..i loved her...
radiohelen chips after swimming, yes!!! that smell always reminds me ;-)
lovely, carefree times. hope i can make my children's childhoods as happy...

When I was ill in bed I always got a new animal - one of those little plastic ELC-type models.

Chips on Saturdays

Grandpa staying on Friday night

Walks on blowy Cornish Beaches

Going down to the local harbour to see the rough sea.

Dad singing silly songs to us whilst running the bath and testing the depth with a Rupert the Bear bubble bath bottle.

Topping and tailing gooseberries

Big adventurous outings to shop in the big city.......Plymouth.

Lion rides given by my dad on Sundays after lunch and before church.

No after church and before lunch

Building a bonfire with the other kids in the "row" for Guy Fawkes night. We had a huge field behind our row of houses and we spent weeks dragging bits of wood we'd sourced into a huge pile. The dads would light it and everyone donated a few fireworks, we kids had sparklers and the dads had a few cans of beer to keep the cold at bay. Afterwards, one of the houses in the row hosted a pot luck supper party where all the families brought a dish or two to eat, it was a real party atmosphere.

Rounders on the field in the summer holidays - playing out until it was too dark to see the ball.

Going everywhere on a bike, or a skateboard, or roller boots.

Playing in the burn, building rope swings, building dens, making tunnels in the long grass in the field, climbing trees, climbing anything really.

I had the best childhood ever, only saw my parents if I was hungry!

My mum and dad used to pack us on the car every New Years Day and bring us to the beach for a walk and a picnic to finish off any Christmas treats. We live in NI so its not like it was warm . Me and my sister used to do a lot of grumbling especially in our teenage years but now it is one of our favourite memories!

Every Christmas morning we used to jump up, get our stockings and sit on our parents bed looking through them for about an hour, we did it until we left home at 19