To ask for your 80s/90s childhood memories

[Taptaptapster]

I've been reading the current thread about things that were different about childhood in the past, but most of the posters are talking about the 60s and 70s (I guess the Mumsnet demographic skews older than I imagine it!).

I was born in the 80s, and while some stuff about my childhood was different, it was nothing like as extreme as the posts on that thread.

For example

• we played out, but not far from home and my parents always knew where we were
• we had child car seats and always used seatbelts
• nobody in my family smoked. At primary, I think teachers smoked in the staffroom, but never in front of the kids. By secondary , they had to hide somewhere off site.
• I was smacked if I was naughty, but never experienced any of the crazy violence described on the other thread.

So, tell me your 80s and 90s childhood memories. AIBU to think we were the luckiest generation of all??

Anyone with 60s/70s childhood memories is is in their 50s or 60s now, so maybe these people had young kids when it first started and kept using it?

That was the jist of the thread @Taptaptapster

I prefer this to insta because I don't feel
people are trying to sell me stuff!

Just noticed autocorrect changed parents never smoked to parents never smiled - now that would be a weird and sad memory!

I did think that was random!

I was born in 79, my sister in 83. We spent our summers playing out in local fields, ditches, forests and rivers. , it was idyllic. One I was 7-8 I was allowed free rein. We ( me and various age friends age 5-16) would go down to the river to play, build tree houses, ride our BMX bikes over the soil humps in the Forrest. We had water fights, played rounders, football and cricket. We were banned from manhunt after somebody gagged and tied a 4yo kid to a tree and it took 13 hours after lights out to find him ( urban myth?).

we ate cheap pizza from Aldi and sausage and beans from the can. Jam butties and crisps add chocolate club biscuits and full sugar lemonade for picnics. We would go swimming as a gang 1-3 times a week in summer and it was 40p to get in and then we had 60p for sweets and a bag of chips to share.

mum and dad were involved in the music trade and we had all sorts of random c list equivalent musicians turn up at our house to stay for days/weeks at a time. Is a miracle we weren’t sexually abused tbh.

when I came home from school I would watch BBC and loved the broom cupboard, Gordon the gopher etc. if I was lucky mum would give us 10-2op for a mix from the van on the next road when she asked us to take a note and go get her fags. Then I’d eat my sweets while I was watching Blue Peter, my absolute fave and I still remember the sheer pride when I got a blue Peter badge and took it to school, then was asked to show it at assembly.

And yes, my LA gear trainers did made me run mega faster than normal. And wearing my tammy girl and lucci outfits it was a sheer miracle that I wasn’t plucked from mediocrity and asked to be a top supermodel tbh but that would have ruined me as the fame would have gone to my head. So probs for the best.

I was born in the late 80s, and I can remember riding in the flatbed back of a pickup truck on occasion… only for local / slow journeys. Unimaginable now! I don’t ever remember being in a car seat or booster.

Renting movies was always a big deal — the movie rental place was such an exciting place to go to see all the new releases. And going to the cinema in general was a big day out, and was always so busy when I was young. Nothing like the empty places today.

Malls were a place to hang out… I might get dropped off at one with friends to just wander around and look at shops, get a drink or snack, etc. Thrilling stuff. 😂

Renting movies was always a big deal — the movie rental place was such an exciting place to go to see all the new releases. And going to the cinema in general was a big day out, and was always so busy when I was young. Nothing like the empty places today.

I actually said to DH the other day after a trip to the cinema - in our day they were packed & getting the right seat number was such a big deal. I remember queuing down the street for Jurassic Park. Dc have never been to a packed cinema!

My sister and I were born early 80s. Lots of freedom to play outside and use our imaginations.

Things I specifically remember from that time:

The smell of that purple ink from the Banda machine.

The Puffin book catalogue at school- we would take it home and order books we liked. I loved the day a few weeks later when our books would arrive!

Smoking was allowed almost everywhere .

Wimpy meals! Loved going there.

My parents smoked, we ate a lot of frozen/ ready meals, I loved playing out with local kids. Saturdays were great! I loved ‘going into town’ clothes shops, make up, CDs and the Body Shop for Dewberry and Fuzzy Peach. Sundays were dull, especially in the winter so I read a lot!
It was wholesome but as a teenager it was boring so street drinking, smoking and putting myself in more vulnerable situations became the norm. Bloody good memories though 😅

mum and dad were involved in the music trade and we had all sorts of random c list equivalent musicians turn up at our house to stay for days/weeks at a time

We were always having people come to stay too, though not random musicians, but distant relatives, vaguely church related people like missionaries, French students, and the occasional waif and stray (at one point my parents took in a teenage mum and her baby, which was very kind of them. And when I was a baby a distant relative from my mum's country stayed with us for a year and helped look after me). We didn't have any spare bedrooms so people coming to stay meant some of us (me and my 4 brothers) being turfed out of our bedrooms. One christmas me and my brother had to sleep in the conservatory!
I remember those visits fondly, especially the French students who fascinated me with their accents.

@Natsku There was a time when I was six years old, and we had loads of people staying over in our house for one night, from a local political party. My brother and I had to share a room on that occasion.

I was primary school age throughout the 1980's.

I remember playing outside in the summer holidays - skipping ropes, throwing a ball against the wall and catching it, sandpit, swing, paddling pool (only on hot days), space hopper and dolls and prams.

Rainy days were spent colouring, playing with Barbies and My Little Ponies.

Clothes - my mum made a lot of my summer dresses and my Gran knitted cardigans.
I remember the leg warmer craze when I was about six. I wore them over tights.

I went to Brownies and swimming club.

Birthday parties were all at home with traditional games like pass the parcel, musical statues and musical bumps.
Birthday tea including cheese and pineapple on sticks, mini cocktail sausages and pickled onions.
Always jelly and ice cream.

Meals were all home cooked traditional - cottage pie, roast dinners, egg and chips.

I wore my hair in two bunches with bobbles.

Favourite books - loved The Faraway Tree, My Naughty Little Sister and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Favourite television - Grange Hill, Jonny Briggs and Dramarama.

Every Friday we rented a video from the shop and watched that - Dot and the Kangaroo sticks in my mind as it made me cry.

Music - I loved Bucks Fizz and Shakin Stevens.