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

[MyCheeryPearlTraybake]

Going to the corner shop for some custard creams

Wet paper towel

Early 1960s.

Going to nan's with my dad on a Saturday morning and having currant buns with Lurpak butter and cups of tea.
Catching the bus into town also on a Saturday and spending hours in Woolworths with my friend.
Arctic roll
Proper Sunday roast that you could smell all down the road, everyone had one back then and hearing Two Way Family Favourites on the radio.
Kittekat food for the cat as it was the only one you could get and didn't it smell!
Dogs roaming the streets as people just let them out and never bothered about where they were going.
No cars down our road, no one owned one so we could play outside all day and never worry about getting run over.

The list is endless, I'll think of more I expect as I fall back into Memory Lane.

This week my kids definitely had the classic British childhood experience of sheltering under the extended roof bit of the public toilets at the beach waiting for the rain to stop. It did, though, and the sun suddenly came out!

Yep! Came up on my fb the day before this thread 😁

Radio 4 - the Shipping Forecast, and those appeals to people on remote camping holidays that they urgently needed to phone home as someone was 'dangerously ill'. The days before mobile phones...

My sister and I got excited over 'spaghetti toasties' which was tinned spaghetti on toast with melted cheese on top! But my mum thought they were a waste of time and we should simply make cheese on toast with spaghetti on top, which wasn't the same.

Modern British childhood says to me over protective parents, over scheduled children, lack of independence, kids with poor physical and risk assessment skills. A childhood filled with activities rather than play.

It’s sad.

For me eating wham bars and curly wurlys.
Getting 10p bags of penny sweets and Mr whippy ice cream.
Clipping on roller skates and flying down any hills into incoming traffic.
Kiss chase in the school yard and hand stands against the wall with skirts hanging.down over our heads.
British bulldogs and releave all.
Staying out all day in the summer months playing on building sites and train tracks.
Jem dolls,flower fairies and my little ponys.
Bunty mag and later smash hits

They were always in a separate plastic packet, so not exactly a risk of choking!

A tiny bit of excitement in our humdrum lives

What are “kerbies”, please? (I had a partly British (foreign parent) childhood in the London suburbs, but have never heard of kerbies.)

Sorry, I’ve just seen this question has already been asked and answered earlier in the thread. My apologies for not having read it all first.

I'm pretty sure this is something that only a 80s/90s British kid who had to endure assembly would get.

Hated it at the time but now it makes me feel a bit warm and nostalgic.

The vending machine at the swimming pool with bags of mini choc-chip biscuits and space raiders.

Oh - and Grange Hill!!!

99s

Jelly sandals on a stony beach

They weren't. They might have been before they were phased out entirely, but originally, they were just loose in between the cornflakes or Shreddies or whatever it was.

Crazy foam (always had one in our Christmas stockings),
Terry Scott dressed as a schoolboy advertising Curly Wurleys,
Benny Hill being ‘family’ viewing,
Carry On films being must watch tv in our house,
Having to go to the tv every time you changed channels or volume (and thumping the tv or standing by it holding the arial up so everyone else can watch (except you),
Dad having his own chair which you scarpered from when he entered the room.

My childhood revolved around horses. I probably smelled of the muck heap and saddle soap for a decade.

This is a lovely thread
Being unwell and off school watching Take The High Road, The Sullivans, A Country Kitchen.
B&W Saturday morning tv - shows from other countries with English voice overs
Sunday nights hearing the theme tune to Tales of the Unexpected playing downstairs when you couldn’t sleep
Walking to most places not for fitness but because you didn’t have a car.
Being amazed at the introduction of boil in the bag food and Vesta curries.
Holidays always at your grandparents house. Everyone crammed into a tiny terraced house. Playing out until late and coming in with that smell of the street
Making rose petal perfume
Ice cream floats in Marsh’s Sass the ultimate in treats.
Going to the airport sometimes on a Sunday afternoon to stand on the roof to watch the planes heading off to places you had barely even heard of.
Picnics, rounders, warm bottles of milk at school, dusty and uncomfortable assembly hall floors, belting out hymns, kids wearing pink or blue NHS glasses.
Getting a few presents at Christmas and being totally overjoyed. Selection boxes being the most chocolate you ever got!
Playing out bare foot in the hot 1970’s summer. Having soles of feet dyed purple from standing on sort of tarmac type paving. Hose pipe bans, covering mushroom boxes with crepe paper for harvest festival.
Running around the house looking for used stamps and unwanted spare keys to send to Blue Peter for their Christmas Appeal. Longing to make a BP advent calendar with tinsel, candles and coat hangers and not being allowed
Sharing an advent calendar with your brother, no chocolate in it then just a drawing of a glittery candle.
Again longing to be a twin at St Clair’s or Mallory Towers. School cheese flan. 10p chicken soup from the machine after swimming. Queues at school to be checked by the nit nurse.

I grew up in Southsea! My childhood was trips to Southsea beach, a 10 minute walk from my house

I watched an episode recently I think I found it on I player under archives there was something about taking the middle out of a felt tip.to use it for blowing bubbles
and another " presenter" was showing off her collection of coloured glass bottles 😂😂

Bloody hell!! My kids were born in the 70s and were smothered in suncream, except on the one holiday my ex DH took them and they were burnt so badly they blistered.

Yy to sharing an advent calendar! Not even chocolate for most of my childhood.
My kids don't know they're born!

Used to be fair sitting when you were off and watched an episode of somethkng exciting and dramatic, like the sullivans then you were back in school and never found out the rest!

I used to think the kids who presented WDY were so cool and sophisticated, and this just proves I was correct. A collection of coloured glass bottles indeed, I still don't own one of those and I'm an adult 🤦.

Im.a 70,s baby ,my mum used sunscreen with us but with a fairly low factor ,when we went on holiday abroad I think we started off with factor 15 or 12 and went down to.factor 3 ,
I always used factor 30 for my kids.

I had this next door neighbour who was in her 70s a d went to the bingo every evening, she was like a surrogate grandma to us as we left our home in the north to live in Southsea. Every day after school I would go round there and watch bbc kids TV and have tea (in a China cup and saucer) fondant fancies or a thick slice of bloomer bread with apricot jam. A fellow bingo visitor would stop by the house and sit and read the newspaper and always bought me a chocolate bar. It's amazing I wasn't really fat!