To wonder what things you miss about your childhood?

[nurserywindow]

I miss old fashioned libraries where everyone had to speak quietly and there was no running around. Nowadays my local library is like a crèche and the elderly people who used to go in there to read the paper and keep warm just don't bother.

I also miss old fashioned Sundays with church bells ringing, and roast dinners, and no one playing out because it was family day, and cheese and toast beside the fire before watching the big Sunday drama.

Just wondering what other OPs remember and regret no longer exist regarding their childhood?

Going to the shop and buying a 10p, or if we were really splashing out a 20p mixture and watching as the shop assistant filled the little paper bag with sweets. Black Jacks, Cola Bottles, Fruit Salad's, Pear Drops, Cola Cubes, Gummy Bears. Those little white chocolate buttons with hundreds and thousands on them! I don't think 10p gets you very much now lol.

I think I was part of the last generation of children who had real freedom. You rarely see kids even walking to school on their own anymore. It's a shame.

I also miss Saturday morning childrens television on ITV and BBC1, the kind that your parents would watch and enjoy as well.

Christmas Postboxes are still around in schools

I miss the hours I used to spend drawing characters and writing stories and building endless half-finished Lego schools and hospitals. It was both really relaxing and really engrossing at the same time.

Now if I'm really engrossed in anything I'm usually really stressed out by it too!

I miss climbing trees and my dungarees and my trainers and generally running around breaking things. I wore trainers at the weekend for the first time in years and had forgotten how liberated they make me feel! Finally shoes I'm not worried about falling off or over all the time!

Spangles.
But not Pacers cos they were gross.

Days lasting forever..
No worries..
Cuddles..
Everything was exciting, even a trip to the supermarket
Feeling so free riding a bike with the wind through my hair and the cold flushing my cheeks.
Penny sweets!

I miss eggy bread for Sunday morning breakfast in bed and my Mum, who cooked it for me.

I miss the days before nutrition was invented when Coco Pops, Crispy Pancakes and cola were considered a perfectly decent diet for growing kids.

Me too, Saucy. That's basically my childhood diet in a nutshell and Ice Magic.

This thread is making me really nostalgic. Are most of us a similar age? I recognise most of this.

Like someone else said, I miss the new shiny annuals, like the Beano, and getting one for Christmas. I miss the crackle of my filled sock when I woke up on Christmas Day. I miss charming little children's programmes like FingerBobs. I miss spending 5p and getting a comic and sweets. But I don't miss the house being freezing cold in winter.

Going outside without sun protection. Getting suncream on DS is like greasing a poisonous snake and he sheds hats and sunglasses in micro-seconds.

For some reason Mum was obsessive about suncream when we went abroad, but I played outside for 12 Years in a thin cotton t-shirt or strappy dress without so much as a dusting of Factor 4.

Holidays with grandparents.
Grandma's colour TV (ours was black and white).
Days with cousins.
School plays.
Choosing blue, white or pink NHS glasses.
Choosing red, blue or brown startrite closed toe sandals.
Being given old jam jars and sent out to baffle around in the stream at the end of the road, catching tiny translucent shrimps and minnows.

My grandparents

no responsibilities

the clangers

hot summers

I miss real communities. All the kids coming together to collect bonfire wood and the parents coming together to supervise it. Or the Halloween walks around the local city farm woodlands which was also a graveyard. We would hire a bus to go to the ice rink and by word of mouth, the bus would be full.

We had this call that went something like "Whoo Whoo" and your mates would chant it back so you knew where they where. No need for mobiles.

The social club kids disco where everybody just wanted to dance and nobody felt the need to get pissed. The lines of dancers dancing with their partners to fabulous cheesy pop and the slowey dance at the end for lovers. Why don't they do that anymore.

The pop man who came on Wednesdays. Taking your pop bottles back to the shop for the 10p return.

The Variety club float that came at Christmas playing carols and shaking buckets and every kid in the neighbourhood would be out on the street.

When the water went off and they had water tanks positioned at the end of the street and you would have so much fun running up and down fill up lemonade bottles for your mum.

Water fights or snowball fights would be between around 50 kids.

I miss anticipation. Everything is so "on demand" now. Listening to the radio, hoping to hear your favorite song, that sort of thing.

Laughing til I cried with my siblings.
Going on special afternoons out with my dad for cake and lemonade.
learning all the choreography to michael jackson music videos with the girl up the road.
Party bags
Reading
Drawing for hours
Making scones on a sunday afternoon
My auntie visiting and showing off her designer clothes from london and filling the living room with smoke

Sunday's at my gp's when I was still at boarding school. My gm with her shampoo and set dishing out the blamanche (sic) from one of those cut glass bowls. Battenburg cake and my 3 cousins and o playing rummikub after tea on the card table. They are long dead and the smell of dove liquid soap still cuts me up.

Boarding school in Herts. Watching the bill and quantum leap on bean bags

Riding holidays in Devon.

Those tight shorts with a luminous stripe on each leg!

Getting to stay up and watch the first bit of Juliet Bravo ... oh the thrill of that theme tune!

Honestly? Nothing. I couldn't wait to be 18 and start to make my own choices. Being shut up in a boarding school for 9 years during which I was very much the outsider, was hideous. My memories of childhood are feeling utterly alone and never coming first for anyone.
Sorry, a bit depressing.

Mermaid Bath Cubes. I would pay a decent amount of money to smell them again.

I miss feeling safe and sleeping soundly.Now I'm the adult I live in the fear that everthing might go hideously wrong at any point. I have no real reason for thinking this,I just do.
Oh and I did miss pickled onion monster munch but they're back now so that's OK .

I miss living in the countryside. Living in a town makes me feel claustraphobic(sp?).

I miss making tea for my Nan and Grandad when I used to stay over there on a Saturday night.

I miss swimming costing 65p.

I miss the freedom I had as a child (to play 'out the front', to walk to the local shops) that I could never allow my DC to have.

Family members that are no longer here.

Reading 'little women' with my grandmother.

Living somewhere where I knew everyone and they knew me.

Playing out with friends.

Endlessly considering my future life and possibilities (it has worked out better than I'd hoped though).

eatdessertfirst Your swimming baths was expensive. Ours was only 20p.

There's a special memory that everybody of my generation has about the swimming baths. We would often go with our friends from about 9 years old. After swimming you would have to get a hot chocolate and Fish n chips crisps from the vending machine.

Swimming at carn brea and yes yes the vending machines twas great

This is this nicest MN thread in ages! Making me feel very nostalgic

Guy Fawkes Night (and the lead-up to it) in London. Gone!

Yy to so many PP above, and to everyone we have lost.

The joy of Saturday mornings, especially in autumn.

Chatty, friendly strangers (a relic of wartime).