What's something that absolutely screams ‘British childhood’ to you?’

[MyCheeryPearlTraybake]

Going to the corner shop for some custard creams

Booking your holiday to France by ringing up the French campsite in the Caravan Club brochure and hoping they understand your basic school French, no confirmation of booking, you just turned up three weeks later and hoped they’d understood

Love this thread!

Ooh yes. We didn't have a meter but my grandparents had both gas and electricity meters and I loved putting the money in those. My granddad would lift me up (they were ridiculously high up - he had to stand on a step stool to do it himself) and I would feed them. The best bit was turning the key that dropped the coins. It made a lovely noise . Thanks for the memory. 😊

Speak and Spell for using the patently wrong American spellings

A holiday in Blackpool and a ride on the donkeys

Carpet in bathrooms (wtaf)
Lloyds Loom ottomans.
Privet hedges rather than fences.
Dogs just wandering about everywhere.
Dads spending hours painting window frames with white gloss.
The National Anthem at closedown.
Those serialisations of Dickens etc on BBC1 on a Sunday teatime.
Tortoises with the owner's name painted on.

@AInightingale

Carpet in bathrooms (wtaf)

I still shudder when I see those on property sales sites. especially the ones where they carpeted the bath panel too 😰

In pink or avocado.. nice

I used to nearly burst with excitement when the Autumn/Winter one came because I'd use the toy section as inspo for my Christmas list. 😂 (Then the clothes section when I was a bit older.)

Also used to get very excited at being given the previous catalogue to cut things out of when I was little ... I was planning whole home interiors by the age of 7. 😄

Playing out till dark

Scraped knees

Yorkshire mix, eat it quick, or it'll be a sticky mess in the bag

Holidays abroad with the purpose of getting as sunburned as possible

Jumble sale? No, it'd be a pop-up pre-loved 'fit festival now

MOTD theme tune for me.also Mr whippy and nan giving me money for a 99.trips to Southend and Canvey Island in grandads austi a40.taking ages as no m25 then.playing rounders in the street. Reading famous five .now more or less banned no!

Angel Delight 😋

Roller skating down one of the biggest hills in south east London,we sure diced with death back then.

Indeed it was tea sometimes with our family and you're totally right about the taste!

Needing a dog licence.
Buying your puppy from the local pet shop.
No pet insurance, just reasonable vet costs even my mum and dad could afford.
Not needing a bank loan to visit the dentist.
Your GP smoking at his desk.
Knocking on the teachers staff room door to be met with a thick fog.
Going to school in thick yellowy fog (pea soupers).
Getting chalk and board wipers thrown at you in class.

Arrgghh! 😆

The bathroom here was avocado, had to put up with it for a while. I saw one in a house that was full on deep burgundy, that made me almost nostaligc for the avocado

The deep burgundy was called Afghan red

Songs with dance routines that you'd waste spend hours learning. Having said that I can barely remember where I put my keys most days but stick Whigfield's Saturday Night on the hi-fi stereo and watch me go.

Also the battle for who'd be chart number one and not just at Christmas. It mattered so much. And the fact that the summer 1995 battle between Blur and Oasis made it onto news at ten with Trevor McDonald proves it!

There was a carpeted bathroom in my first flat (90's), the thought makes me shudder now. My mother still has a carpeted bathroom, though to be fair my dad had a few falls in his last couple of years and I reckon it saved him from broken bones. The silent generation really did embrace wall to wall carpeting, even in the kitchen!

'even the arrival of the Spalding Bulb brochure was an event'

😂

Dying here

Nobody having yet realized that Coke needs to be chilled very cold to be drinkable and that a martini is not just a bit of tepid sweet vermouth in a class with one ice cube..
Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge.
Jackie magazine and stories of girls with impossibly good hair looking for a "fella"!
Sunday night dramatizations of classic novels on the Beeb in many many episodes.
Really unfortunate eyeshadow with glitter in it.
The appalling summer of hot pants.

I had a Lady Penelope doll! I preferred Action Man, but Lady Penelope was put into action as a spy.....

That’s brought back some memories 😁. My mum used to get Littlewoods (which was also an actual shop, a bit like British Home Stores) and Grattan.

I’d be about eleven and I would pore over every page of the home sections writing down all the numbers (in a notepad) of the items I would put in my dream house. A lot of G-Plan if I remember rightly, and a hostess trolley. I think it’s because I was obsessed with the Liver Birds (particularly Sandra, who I thought was beautiful) and wanted my own flat.

I also lived for Saturday nights and “Give us a twirl Anthea” moments on the Generation Game. I was obssessed with Anthea’s gown of the night.😁

I went out with a bloke whose bath and loo and sink were black. Hideous.

And impossible to clean.

I had an action man type figure and decided he should be a scuba diver..by painting him black using mum's not waterproof black mascara and using said scuba diver in the bath.
Mum was not happy at what ensued with my antics.