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?

My mum. She died when I was ten. Went to bed on a normal school night with a mum. Woke up in the morning with her gone. I've never got over that. Also my godfather who was the grown up I adored most in the whole world except for mum and dad. He died around the time mum did. He loved me so much, and it was always a special day when he came to see us.

Childhood friendships. My best friend when I was about 7-12 who moved away from our village when we were second years, recently found me on FB. We're 53. She still cycles everywhere as do I - we cycled for miles around the countryside, our whole childhoods. I have missed her, too. My other best friends were all boys who also moved away that same year. We had a very feral childhood, walking and cycling for miles like Famous Five; climbing trees and having adventures. I miss just going off on my bike with my three best mates - not knowing when we'd be back. Or where we were going. The abandoned farmhouse! Yay. Now yuppies live in it.

Joffrey that's so sad, what an awful thing to have happened at that age.

One thing I loved was the "postbox" that went out in the entrance foyer at my school during the festive season. You put your cards in in the morning and then the teacher gave them out at afternoon registration.

Oh yes this^^

Dad digging the veg in the garden
Laying on a sunlounger under the apple tree in the summer
All meals appearing with no thought to the work that went into them, could have done with less sprouts, greens and cabbage though,
The excitement of the build up to christmas (which seemed to come only once every 5 years, it took so long to arrive), whereas now it seems to come every bloody six months, going carol singing in the dark and cold.
My parents who are no longer alive
Buying a packet of crisps from the man with the veg van
Ice Magic
Playing for hours in the fields behind my house
Riding bikes/roller skating down the bottom of our road that had some lovely smooth tarmac
Caravan holidays in Devon/Cornwall where we would set off from London around 3am (sooo exciting)
Picking blackberries from the hedgerows (can you still do that?)
This is such a lovely thread, I seem to have something in my eye

'Everything was exciting, even a trip to the supermarket'

Mrs Ted yes you're right. I miss that feeling of excitement and optimism about everything.

I liked food shopping - either with mum to the market for fruit, veg and meat, or with dad to a small supermarket for a box of groceries, as he usually let me put in an extra item - like popsicles, or my choice of cereals and biscuits.

That feeling of excitement and optimism about everything
Oh yes, the feeling that anything was possible, the world was an exciting place.
I really hope that children today get that feeling, but I'm not sure.

Sweetgrape I hope children of today get that feeling too, and I'm also not sure if they do.

I miss not paying bills

Just the ability to get lost in complicated daydreams about stuff like running away to an island...and being able to play with dolls houses and stuff. It's just not that fun anymore and I feel like a bit of my brain has just disappeared to make way for grown up stuff, wish I could play like a kid again.

But I don't miss being a child really. Felt very trapped, wanted to decide things for myself and love the freedom now. Had a great childhood but it also felt like a series of neverending power struggles....too stubborn to like being a child! I couldn't wait to be bigger, cleverer, I felt so held back by myself, hated trying to read something and knowing I'd only be able to understand it later.

sorry, didn't mean to be so negative! I really did have a lovely childhood. But lots of my favourite bits of it like long holidays in the countryside, being with animals and discovering new music, still got that now.

I think kids definitely have that same sense of excitement! It's a timeless thing that's unique to childhood isn't it? (If you're well looked after, safe etc.)
Watching my 9 year old cousin and her friend giggling away over nothing makes me happy. Or when they get totally absorbed in stuff and that particular obsession feels like it can give you all the fun you could ever want.

I miss my granny taking myself and my cousin into town and allowing us to sit on the top of the bus.
I miss my dad rummaging around second hand stalls for books he knew I'd love; and making sure to be home from work in time to see us blow out the candles on our birthday cakes; and doing everything he could to create special memories that we could store up for the future.

I miss getting so lost in a book that I didn't know where I was or what day of the week it was. Adult books just don't have the same effect.

I miss knowing our Christmases and our holidays were more exciting and special than anyone elses.

I miss Saturday evenings with the Generation Game on the telly and a new library book to look forward to reading in bed.

This thread has made me feel a bit tearful. I miss so many things. I wish it were possible to relive parts of my life!

Thumbcat, people ring church bells all over the place. Why not go and join them? I'm sure they'd welcome you.

God is it sad that I don't miss anything from my childhood? The best things from it (my parents and my beaten up teddy bear) I still have.

I like being grown-up obviously!

What I do miss though- about the pre-Internet world - is the ability to concentrate on reading a book for longer than 5 minutes without my thumbs twitching and itching for instant updates. Mumsnet is partially to blame for that of course.....

My mam and dad.
My grandma and grandad.
The smell of the polished wood as I went into my grandma and grandad's hall.
Spending all day, every day of the summer holidays at the seaside, rockpooling, crab fishing, swimming, eating fish and chips and walking miles home - with my mam.I don't remember rain
Our dog.
Going to Fenwick's shop windows to see the amazing displays at Christmas on Northumberland St in Newcastle with my mam and dad.
Our annual two week British summer holiday - Cornwall, Torquay, Wales, Scarborough, Paignton.

Watching Press gang, mysteries cities of gold...and waiting each week. I hate the fact everyone is attached to mobiles. I miss leaving home at breakfast and only returning for my bike, or if needed to eat anything until tea time. I miss playing football in the street with loads of children id known seen very young and the sky getting darker as it got later and lAter. The smell of mowed lawns and cresold (wooden fences paunt..dyslexic here). I miss penny sweets and not worrying about money..

I miss the parks and unstructured country park, local to me.

They've either been built on, or made "safe", I rambled all day as a child, we ate the berries we picked and drank from the water fountains/drinking taps dotted about.

I miss a good quality Doctor Who, that's in general, as well as the past.

I also miss sparrows in everyone's hedges, now we have walls and Magpies.

Not a 'thing' as such but I don't think I ever worried about anything at all until I was at least 16. I miss that feeling of safety and security.

The long summers.. (I was 9/10 in 1976)
..going out to play on my bike
playing soldiers
cowboys and Indians
building dens
going to the library on Saturday morning with mum and coming home with a pile of Enid Blytons.
Pretending to be Starsky and Hutch ..

I miss my Nan..

I miss being a kid.. I want to go out to play now but would look a right tit This being a grown up lark is rubbish..

Oh I miss everything. I'm a sentimental old soul.

I miss my mum and dad. I had a normal childhood in the fifties and everything was as it should be. Mum kept house and dad went to work. The world was a nice orderly place. It felt safe and secure.

My aunt and uncle lived in the next street and my nana not too far away and I saw them weekly. Plenty of friends lived close by.

Food was good quality. Wheat hadn't been messed about with so food intolerances were rare. Food wasn't sugar laden. No one was morbidly obese.

I was a much loved and wanted child by all those adults and I think it's helped me to be quite a well rounded and balanced person and when troubled times hit I managed to cope quite well.

We had great music. Discos. Films were less gory. Dreadful stuff wasn't blastest into our ( sanctuaries ) homes through the google box.

You didn't have to worry about what the kids were watching. Life was much simpler.

You didn't need codes, passwords , credit cards etc You could ring your bank and they would talk to you.

Life is so complicated now. Rarely do you get to do something once. These days you have to do things multiple times emails/ phone calls and so on to get the message through.

We think this is progress but I wonder.

Having said that I think I've lived inthe best of times.

Goodness what you all be doing when I'm dead and gone. We didnt get a house phone till I was 17 . My dad checked out just before the computer age really got going. I hope when it's my turn I'm able to look down and think...wow! I'd have loved that!

Quiet Sundays. Watching the teatime serial on TV, with soup and crumpets, followed by bath and hair wash while Songs of Praise was on. Going to sleep feeling lovely and clean in fresh sheets and pyjamas. Christmases that didn't start until after Bonfire Night and which punctuated a cold dark winter with lovely lights and sparkliness.

Also: watching Swap Shop on Saturday and Top of the Pops on Thursday then discussing them at school the next day.

My family life was a bit shit, but yes the freedom to roam... I just used to bugger off out on my bike or just walk off into the fields and sit down on the top of a hill (and imagine never having to go back). 1 mile away someone said? I could be 10- 15 miles away on my bike exploring and no one knowing where I was. Always loved being outside. And way back in childhood, sometimes friends would be there too.

Just been playing chase with the kids in the park. That's the sort of thing they'll remember. Must continue!

I miss having no responsibility. Even as a child, I never wanted to become an adult!

I miss the taste of "council pop" at my nans house. Water these days just doesnt taste as nice.