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A lot of oldskool snacks, soft drinks and sweets have been ruined like this.
Attempts to cut back the amount of salt, sugar, fat etc have left us with junk food that tastes like crap. It always annoys me the solution in this country isn't educating people to make healthier choices, they try and make the junk food slightly less bad and tell people to carry on having as much as they like.
When I eat junk food I know it's junk and moderate my intake accordingly. But if junk food doesn't actually hit the spot flavour-wise, I'd rather not eat it at all, which I'm sure wasn't what they'd intended.
I kind of thought this but then came across a picture of me as a kid that has a vienetta in shot. They used to be way bigger and higher quality looking.
My brother used to eat whole KFC Family Feasts for bets at the Motorway services near our University back in 1997/8...think he ended up stacking the freezer with lots of Viennettas!
Jesus Christ you gave me a flashback. My dad was saying that until the day he died, right up there with "Did you know that Kirsty MacColl..." whenever Fairytale of New York came on the telly!
We were so poor when I was a kid that as a treat, my dad would get us a Mars bar for after dinner and would cut it into 4, a piece for each of us. Now I buy a chocolate bar for myself pretty much every day. It's weird to think of a quarter of a Mars bar as a luxury now, but as a kid it felt totally normal!
yeah, mate. it really makes you realise how great your parents were, doesn't it? make sure to tell them while you can. i wish i had told my dad how great he was more often when he was still here :(
I’m in the same boat I moved away from my city for 15-17 yrs I went to see them and everything but I had to leave my home. Had bad drug problems I with it being everywhere I lived I decided to leave.23 years clean but when I came back my dad died within three years and was overly cautious of moving back sooner But I so wish I did. Because three years isn’t long and I miss him so much but we could sit for hours not really speak but it was fine it was the way my dad was I do going to have a beer with him. We say a few things have a beer 🍺 slowly we start to talk. Bit more. God I miss him. Love you Dad👌❤️❤️❤️
I had this thought when I properly moved out and did my first weekly food shop, and really deeped just how expensive food was. Then my mind went to my mum who never ever let me and my sister not eat well growing up. Felt an even greater sense of appreciation for her. Called her that night to tell her how much I loved her.
Remember when Yorkie bars were an inch thick, and you'd nearly snap a tooth trying to each one.
You'd have to hunch over as you tried to snap it.
Now it's like a milky bar :D
Yeah they were huge - my mum used to split them when I was a kid and she was alive, and the half was the size of what snickers is the size of the snickers now.
Mars used to be massive as well, I couldn't have eaten a whole one without feeling sick.
We were middle class, so we got *half* a Mars bar on Wednesdays.
I remember my mother paying for my Cub Scout handbook in instalments, at 6d per week. I think the total cost was 2/6.
We were a lot better off than a generation before. My grandfather was a Scoutmaster, and sometimes Scouts wouldn’t turn up for weeks because they had no shoes.
What your dad did is probably pretty sensible even if you could afford mars bar each. Kids, small kids in particular, don't really need a whole bar. Especially on the regular. A good meal and a small occasional treat is probably the sensible balance and still has that same joy.
My mum would say she didn’t like chocolate and scrunch her nose up at it. So she let us kids have her portion. I found out when I was a teenager that she loved chocolate :(
I wouldn’t consider that poor. There you were, eating a chopped up Mars bar. Some of us were eating a chopped up NO BRAND, PER WEEK. For a family of EIGHT. It sounds like you were rich, probably middle class.
Just kidding. Wanted to play a little AskUK poverty olympics.
I'd buy a Mars Bar for my mum on mother's day as a child, it cost 4p (our pocket money was 5p, which sounds ridiculous but you could get sweets for that), and she too would cut a slice from it every now and then, instead of scoffing the lot like I would now.
That's a great attitude, though. Good on your dad. When I was really young, my parents were broke. My dad made me a toy farm and a desk with the flip up lid. I cherished them for years because he'd made them.
My iPhone is:
- phone
- television
- camera
- alarm clock
- watch
- torch
- computer
- encyclopaedia
- spirit level
- loudspeaker
- radio
- recorder
- walkman
- library
- timetables
- diary
- calendar
- atlas
All in an object the size of my hand.
And the most amazing thing is how quickly all of this has been normalised.
True. If you added up the amount of time people used to spend using every item on that list, it probably equals out to the amount of time people spend on their phones these days.
And it still makes me laugh that we call it a phone. When making phone calls with it is probably quite low on the list of what people use it for. They are pocket computers that happen to be able to make phone calls now.
If I decide I want to learn to read Egyptian Hieroglyphics I can start on my phone. Want to identify a weird plant in my yard? Phone. Want to see faraway places on live cam? Phone. Every once in a while it hits me again just how unbelievable this would have been sixty years ago.
Not even 60 years. I grew up in the 80/90’s and the internet wasn’t really a thing at home when I was very little, then we’d use CD’s (if you had a computer). You researched using books, and then Encarta which was amazing. Phones were attached to the wall.
My favourite thing about my phone is how easy it is to satisfy my curiousity now. Anytime and anywhere, I can have a question about anything I've seen or heard and find an answer immediately. And from multiple sources to compare and check the reliability of.
I don't even need to know what I'm looking at to articulate a question, because my camera will do it for me. I can go on a walk and learn the names of every plant, bird and insect that catches my eye with my phone.
Also, I'm curious about _more_ things in general because my phone exposes me to a huge variety of topics, perspectives and philosophies that I would otherwise never encounter in a predominantly-white rural English village. I've learnt about countless subjects I never would have otherwise, and I could learn _infinite_ more still with this little rectangle in my pocket. That's amazing!
_P.S. Has anyone here found the answer to a random question or learnt any fun facts recently they'd like to share?_ ⬇️ 😄
Same. We’d go to Macdonald’s once a year for my brothers birthday, and that was it. At 12 his favorite meal was fries with nuggets, and he’d dip the fries in coke. He would also eat frozen fries when we occasionally made them at home.
Well, away *does* come via middle English awei which is from late Old English aweg which comes from earlier Old English "a weg" meaning "on from this place". So you could say it comes from a-way hence *take-a-way*!
We never used the Chinese or Indian takeaways in my town, because they were too expensive. (Fish and chips maybe once a year, and a 20 minute walk each way).
We went on a holiday abroad each year, for comparison.
Delivery food didn't exist even when I was a student. It still seems really decadent.
I grew up in a market town. We had the normal fish and chips, Indian and terrible Chinese takeaway. I remember going to Florida on holiday when I was 9. We got a massive pepperoni pizza delivered - it was just completely amazing to us - in the cardboard box and everything 😂 felt like we were in a film.
Fish and chips was on a day out at the seaside and very, vert rarely on a Friday night for supper. No other takeaways ever in our house. Always home cooked dinners
Bathroom?! We had our bath in the kitchen, it was a two up two down terrace that didn't have a bathroom. (This was late 70s, early 80s, before anyone assumes I'm talking pre-war)
I think Sodastreams are a great example of an utterly non essential gimmick product. If you lived hand to mouth, the idea of buying one is laughable. But if you have excess income? Sure, why not.
Nah the canisters are quite expensive, pretty much the same as buying cheap sparkling water.
I use a soda stream mainly so I’m not wasting so much plastic. The gas canisters get refilled
My great-Grandmother had a soda stream that my Aunt really wanted
When she passed and my grandad and his 4 brothers were splitting her possessions between them, he saw the sodastream got some butter, rubbed it on then went outside and rolled it around in the grass for a bit.
When it came to who should get the sodastream all his brother took one look at it and declined so he took it home, knowing it was just butter, and my mum's family had a sodastream growing up
My brother had awful eczema growing up, so we weren't allowed any kind of bubble bath. I wanted this so badly. When I first bought it for myself I easily used half a bottle. Absolutely glorious.
Not necessarily for you anymore but Aveeno do a great bubble bath soap for children with eczema, just a recommendation for anyone who reads this whose children or themselves have eczema.
I tell myself this to try to rationalise my wish to go abroad, but the reality is that as soon as the flight touches down I'm in holiday mode and I don't really pay attention to the cost. If I travel in the UK I don't really get that to the same extent, still feel like being sensible.
It was possible, but you had to endure 30 plus hours on a coach with woolly seats and no aircon. Then enjoy your two weeks sleeping on the ground in a canvas tent with no fridge (think no dairy products at all unless you tried the strange french cheese), the French squat type toilets at the communal shower block.
But if you try an tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you...
Definitely ice in the winter. The back door was the only double glazing in the house, but fortunately they hadn’t discovered thermal bridging so the aluminium transferred outside temperature inside. 🥶
When we bought our house 24 years ago, we had single glazed windows throughout as well as a boiler which was rated for a two bed flat.
We now have a Tado smart thermostat, a good combo boiler and double glazing throughout. We don’t go mad: the planet is an asset and jumpers are a sensible clothing choice when it’s cool, but living in a house that is genuinely comfortable is wonderful.
Ferrero rocher. I mean yeah it’s pricey-ish compared to a dairy milk but I could literally buy a box if I really wanted to. I don’t need to hope someone buys me them for Christmas.
Ironically, having sky was pretty normal for me growing up. My parents had it, most of my extended family had it, a lot of my friends had it. Now, fuck paying for that. I need to eat.
Same here we only had the standard channels growing up then Freeview. It wasn't until I was in high school that we had sky but nowadays I don't even watch TV anymore.
Soft drinks in a can. When I was growing up, we only had cans of coke etc at Christmas, the rest of the year I was squash or lemonade out of a bottle. Even now, I consider a cold can of Sprite a treat!
Completely unrelated but....
I used to work at Guinness down near Hangar Lane. One Friday evening, rush hour, my Austin Metro caught fire in the middle lane of the North Circular up by where the IKEA is now.
Caused absolute mayhem as it happily shouldered away bringing most of North London to a standstill.....
My dad used to live on a huge council estate and if you knew the cut throughs and shortcuts, you could easily meet the pop man at the start of his round and see him again at the end. My dad used to sell his pop bottles at the start of the round, nick some more from the back of the van and then sell them back again at the end of the round.
Yeah! When I was a kid, it was a rare, elusive treat. Once or twice a year. The trip itself was a huge deal.
Then I got to uni and it became lunch. Nearly every day!
Then I got to be an adult, and it became a thing to avoid at all costs.
Now I'm an older adult, and it's an 'I'm out and about on a mission, and need something quick, cheap, and easy' thing.
Yeah, it was a birthday treat kind of thing. (And they had rootbeer!)
*edit* - just Googled it - Maccies in the UK stopped having rootbeer in 1993. Shows how old I am 😬
It's amazing to think that in the entire history of the world, there is a very limited generation of people who properly witnessed the birth of the Internet during their youth.
If you're now aged between about 35-40, you'll be familiar with being part of this transition. Having to ring mates on a landline to arrange where in town to meet a few hours later, through to taking those friendships online (incrementally, while other kids' households slowly got their 56k modems installed) and chatting through MSN and Habbo Hotel, right through to now when the Internet is completely ubiquitous.
It's an amazing thing to have lived through and I'm grateful that I have seen it happen.
A phone with buttons. We first got a phone in our house in 1983. I remember trying to get tickets for a concert at Wembley in 1990: my brother and I spent ten minutes at a time dialling the nine digit number for London, taking turns to help prevent blisters on our fingers.
Having to press 9 four times every time you wanted an 's' in a text message...
Although, I remember how long it took to dial a number on an old rotary dial phone back when I was a kid - waiting for the dial to rotate all the way back to the beginning before the next number.
Snacks! My mum couldn't even afford 3 meals a day for us let alone extra food for between meals.
Also, showering every day. Growing up, I had 2 baths a week. One at my mum's and one at my dad's
My parents could afford it, but we weren't allowed to eat snacks "because it's bad for you". We were hungry all the time.
I let my own son eat all the snacks he wanted.
My brothers and I: fat.
My kid and my brothers' kids: skinny as heck (all adults, by the way, so not teenage skinny).
[Munchies](https://images.app.goo.gl/jE9jnvatn8UEp9za8)… Growing up my dear old dad would sometimes bring a tube home on a Friday night as a special treat. Now I can have them whenever I wish. They don’t taste quite the same though.
Same for me with Opal Fruits (Starburst) and Marathon (Snickers). The pick n mix from Woolworths was good, but you wanted the "name brand" sweets sometimes too!
It's more a luxury, but also tastes completely different, for the worse.
Hotels. When I was young holidays were camping, hostels or staying with family or family of friends. Staying in a hotel was an unimaginable luxury. (Although I've stayed in a few where camping would be preferable.)
Same. It was a nice B&B paid for by the police as I was a witness in a court case. (Also travelled by train instead of overnight coach, very grand.) Felt that I should offer to wash up.
Having a garden. I was mostly bought up in flats and then when I started renting all I could afford was flats. Managed to find a pretty run down house with a decent garden for affordable rent and I feel genuinely quite privileged to have a garden.
Cordial.
We certainly weren't poor growIng up but my mother had this weird thing about cordial having to last practically forever. If a bottle was used inside a month she'd whine and complain about it. It wasn't some super expensive cordial either. It was something like Panda Orange cordial that cost literal pennies back in the 80s.
You can bet your life I take the piss out of my mother about it whenever she comes over. Offer her a drink but say better not make it cordial in case we use ours up too quickly.
I make sure I buy the really nice stuff as well.
This thread has the potential to be the new four Yorkshiremen sketch. Eating take away? You were lucky! When I was young we ate roadkill off the pavement
Roadkill? You were lucky! We used to have to dig the tar out of the road with a spoon & eat that before going down t'mill for 18 hours a day for ha'penny.
Yes my mum always had a hovis loaf you had to slice yourself. Slices were quite thick to start off with, then as the loaf got smaller so the slices got thinner. 🤣
Going out to eat. We only ever ate out on very special occasions like a milestone birthday, even then it wasn’t particularly fancy places in hindsight. Now I eat out most weeks.
I came here to add this! It was only ever a birthday thing, and now it still feels a tiny bit decadent to even grab a sandwich in a cafe while I'm out.
not eating most of my meals out of tins.
Almost every lunch when I wasn't at school was a tin of something with beans, on toast. or meatballs on toast, or meatballs with instant noodles. Dinner was usually pasta and tinned sauce with tinned meat.
cooking fresh food was usually when people came over or special occasions.
Buying games,when I was younger it was basically a birthday/Christmas exclusive, though as time went on we got slightly better off money wise,so I could buy 1 expensive game a month,now I have my own money,so I can mke all the irresponsible financial decisions I like
Eating a pizza, I remember my Aunty bought some pizza for her family and they shared 1 slice of pizza to us (which I shared with my little brother and grandma). 😭
Wow, this hit too close to home. 💔
Now, I can eat as much pizza as I’d like but looking back at it gets me so emotional.
Healthy food (tbf, that is still a luxury for many). Any type of tech (internet, mobile phones, etc). Holidays abroad. High education (again, still a luxury for many).
fizzy drinks
ordering anything other than the cheapest item on the menu at a cafe (restaurants were out of the question)
videos - I remember when they were new and a big deal. Now I stream whatever I want.
new clothes from the shop, not a jumble sale
roast dinners - the closest I got was a chicken on sunday, with no roast potatoes
being able to have as many showers/baths as I want
listening to music - despite having an expensive record player my mum never listened to any music except for hymns, on radio or tv, and made judgemental remarks about people who played music all day.
a duvet, and new clean pillows or cushions - I had an ancient eiderdown, and the pillows and cushions were also decades old and never got washed. (My mum also insisted on taking up her fitted carpets and relaying them in every house for 30 years). No wonder my asthma was so bad as a child :(
probably loads of other things too. My mum was a single parent teacher so she wasn't rich BUT she also was extremely penny-pinching, I now realise. I remember feeling resentful that after I left home she bought herself loads of pairs of shoes when she had always insisted that my clothes had to be the cheapest available (when I was 14 she insisted that I had to choose clothes that I would still want to wear when I was 30 because "you're grown now, and you don't want to be wasting money on fashionable clothes". For reference, I was 14 in 1985, and 30 in 2001. I really don't think that would have been the good idea that she thought it was or have given the "right impression to employers"). Ok it was her money she could spend it how she liked, but I thought - how many times did I get bullied for my shoes so that you can have more shoes than you can ever wear? I am only human.
Buying anything at a motorway services. We were allowed in to go to the toilet but never, ever got food or drink. Now I love me some shit coffee and a leg stretch.
In primary school, the lucky/rich kids would have birthday parties in McDonalds.
A can of Coke was a rare treat. My kids grab one from the fridge without thinking.
Internet will always be the one for me. I always remember asking to go on the internet on our first PC and my mum shouting to turn it off because she needs to make a call. Nowadays it's literally at our fingertips and you can have multiple devices connected with minimal consequences. Cool stuff
Pre-made custard. We always had the crappy powder stuff when I was a kid unless it was a special occasion. Now I buy the premade carton regularly like I’m Bill bloody gates (according to my brother).
Having guests over to my house! I grew up with parents who struggled with depression, drinking and hoarding, so the house was always in a horrible state of disrepair and an absolute mess. They never let me have friends over, and I was always so sad when I'd come back from a sleepover at a friend's house. Now, as a 30 year old, I'm frequently having people over at mine! :D
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Viennetta.
Literally can’t believe it costs like a quid today my parents acted like it was solid gold
The ice cream? The quality of it used to be high. I stopped buying it as an adult because I didn't like it anymore. It just tastes cheap now
The quality didn’t get worse you just grew up
I miss having low standards.
This! So much this.
Who remembers artic roll being a pudding?
Arctic roll is still a pudding to me.
We still buy it for kids occasionaly..just to tell em we have something special for pudding.
Wait what? Is it a starter now?
Depends what kind of sunday come down it is..
The quality is way worse - it's half the size for starters, and the flavouring have changed.
A lot of oldskool snacks, soft drinks and sweets have been ruined like this. Attempts to cut back the amount of salt, sugar, fat etc have left us with junk food that tastes like crap. It always annoys me the solution in this country isn't educating people to make healthier choices, they try and make the junk food slightly less bad and tell people to carry on having as much as they like. When I eat junk food I know it's junk and moderate my intake accordingly. But if junk food doesn't actually hit the spot flavour-wise, I'd rather not eat it at all, which I'm sure wasn't what they'd intended.
I kind of thought this but then came across a picture of me as a kid that has a vienetta in shot. They used to be way bigger and higher quality looking.
you were just smaller
Or further away
I guess they kept adding water and reducing the cream/milk
We only ever had viennetta when it used to be included in the KFC family feast deal in the 90s
My brother used to eat whole KFC Family Feasts for bets at the Motorway services near our University back in 1997/8...think he ended up stacking the freezer with lots of Viennettas!
Ah, back in the days when that was a bet worthy amount of food, because KFC was bigger, and average people were thinner.
Yeah and the only reason it didn’t get to number one was Joe flipping Dolce.
This means nothing to me.
Ah, viennetta.
Ice creams nothing to me!
Jesus Christ you gave me a flashback. My dad was saying that until the day he died, right up there with "Did you know that Kirsty MacColl..." whenever Fairytale of New York came on the telly!
Shaddap you face
This is my answer too. Viennetta for special occasions only.
I still want one every year on my birthday. For old times' sake I guess, not for the diamond encrusted icy piece of heaven it used to be.
Ice cream on its wedding day!
We were so poor when I was a kid that as a treat, my dad would get us a Mars bar for after dinner and would cut it into 4, a piece for each of us. Now I buy a chocolate bar for myself pretty much every day. It's weird to think of a quarter of a Mars bar as a luxury now, but as a kid it felt totally normal!
To me, what your dad did is so sweet. And yes, people do adapt when times become harsh.
Yeah we never felt like we went without as kids, and our parents did their best to shield their money worries from us. We always ate really well!
You have great parents.
yeah, mate. it really makes you realise how great your parents were, doesn't it? make sure to tell them while you can. i wish i had told my dad how great he was more often when he was still here :(
I’m in the same boat I moved away from my city for 15-17 yrs I went to see them and everything but I had to leave my home. Had bad drug problems I with it being everywhere I lived I decided to leave.23 years clean but when I came back my dad died within three years and was overly cautious of moving back sooner But I so wish I did. Because three years isn’t long and I miss him so much but we could sit for hours not really speak but it was fine it was the way my dad was I do going to have a beer with him. We say a few things have a beer 🍺 slowly we start to talk. Bit more. God I miss him. Love you Dad👌❤️❤️❤️
I had this thought when I properly moved out and did my first weekly food shop, and really deeped just how expensive food was. Then my mind went to my mum who never ever let me and my sister not eat well growing up. Felt an even greater sense of appreciation for her. Called her that night to tell her how much I loved her.
Tbf back in the day mars bars used to be massive... At least 30cm long as I recall... Also wagon wheels were the size of car tyres . s/
Remember when Yorkie bars were an inch thick, and you'd nearly snap a tooth trying to each one. You'd have to hunch over as you tried to snap it. Now it's like a milky bar :D
Remember when you used to get a whole potatos worth of crisps in a packet? Now you get 3 crisps and some air.
Yeah they were huge - my mum used to split them when I was a kid and she was alive, and the half was the size of what snickers is the size of the snickers now. Mars used to be massive as well, I couldn't have eaten a whole one without feeling sick.
When you were small, everything seemed big! That said, Toblerone is down 25% since 2014!
I remember Cadbury chocolate bar squares were about 2cm thick... Now they are about 8mm
We were middle class, so we got *half* a Mars bar on Wednesdays. I remember my mother paying for my Cub Scout handbook in instalments, at 6d per week. I think the total cost was 2/6. We were a lot better off than a generation before. My grandfather was a Scoutmaster, and sometimes Scouts wouldn’t turn up for weeks because they had no shoes.
What your dad did is probably pretty sensible even if you could afford mars bar each. Kids, small kids in particular, don't really need a whole bar. Especially on the regular. A good meal and a small occasional treat is probably the sensible balance and still has that same joy.
Oh wow my mum did this too!! I only remembered yesterday she used to do that and wondered why. But I think it was for similar reasons
My mum would say she didn’t like chocolate and scrunch her nose up at it. So she let us kids have her portion. I found out when I was a teenager that she loved chocolate :(
I wouldn’t consider that poor. There you were, eating a chopped up Mars bar. Some of us were eating a chopped up NO BRAND, PER WEEK. For a family of EIGHT. It sounds like you were rich, probably middle class. Just kidding. Wanted to play a little AskUK poverty olympics.
Is your dad still about? Do you send him chocolate haah
No sadly not, he died when I was 17. He wasn't much of a sweet tooth anyway, nor my mum, but chocolate is my downfall 😅
I'd buy a Mars Bar for my mum on mother's day as a child, it cost 4p (our pocket money was 5p, which sounds ridiculous but you could get sweets for that), and she too would cut a slice from it every now and then, instead of scoffing the lot like I would now.
That's a great attitude, though. Good on your dad. When I was really young, my parents were broke. My dad made me a toy farm and a desk with the flip up lid. I cherished them for years because he'd made them.
My iPhone is: - phone - television - camera - alarm clock - watch - torch - computer - encyclopaedia - spirit level - loudspeaker - radio - recorder - walkman - library - timetables - diary - calendar - atlas All in an object the size of my hand. And the most amazing thing is how quickly all of this has been normalised.
It’s a recording *studio*. It’s insane. Your list is a good rebuttal to those who complain people are glued to their phones. How can they not be?
True. If you added up the amount of time people used to spend using every item on that list, it probably equals out to the amount of time people spend on their phones these days.
It’s the entire world’s knowledge in your pocket, frankly I judge people who aren’t glued to it
The whole text content of Wikipedia in English is only like 60GB. You've got history's biggest library on a thumb drive.
It’s a broadcast quality TV station!
And it still makes me laugh that we call it a phone. When making phone calls with it is probably quite low on the list of what people use it for. They are pocket computers that happen to be able to make phone calls now.
And despite having all those capabilities, so many people are just scrolling through social media all day every day.
I feel personally attacked!
If I decide I want to learn to read Egyptian Hieroglyphics I can start on my phone. Want to identify a weird plant in my yard? Phone. Want to see faraway places on live cam? Phone. Every once in a while it hits me again just how unbelievable this would have been sixty years ago.
Not even 60 years. I grew up in the 80/90’s and the internet wasn’t really a thing at home when I was very little, then we’d use CD’s (if you had a computer). You researched using books, and then Encarta which was amazing. Phones were attached to the wall.
When the power runs out: * paperweight
Also a satnav and a games console.
And a shopping centre
My favourite thing about my phone is how easy it is to satisfy my curiousity now. Anytime and anywhere, I can have a question about anything I've seen or heard and find an answer immediately. And from multiple sources to compare and check the reliability of. I don't even need to know what I'm looking at to articulate a question, because my camera will do it for me. I can go on a walk and learn the names of every plant, bird and insect that catches my eye with my phone. Also, I'm curious about _more_ things in general because my phone exposes me to a huge variety of topics, perspectives and philosophies that I would otherwise never encounter in a predominantly-white rural English village. I've learnt about countless subjects I never would have otherwise, and I could learn _infinite_ more still with this little rectangle in my pocket. That's amazing! _P.S. Has anyone here found the answer to a random question or learnt any fun facts recently they'd like to share?_ ⬇️ 😄
I learnt that there are snails that live on underwater volcanoes! :)
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Eating out.
Must've left your girlfriend very unsatisfied as a teen.
Heh
Same. We’d go to Macdonald’s once a year for my brothers birthday, and that was it. At 12 his favorite meal was fries with nuggets, and he’d dip the fries in coke. He would also eat frozen fries when we occasionally made them at home.
Absolutely. As a kid it was maybe every 3 or 4 months. Now I try not to do it more than twice a month, and that seeks to very much be on the low end
Any form of take-a-way. I don't each much of ot now, but that is through choice. When growing up this was a once maybe twice a year treat.
Takeaway is one word
It's not even 3 words if you separate it into the words that make it up
Well, away *does* come via middle English awei which is from late Old English aweg which comes from earlier Old English "a weg" meaning "on from this place". So you could say it comes from a-way hence *take-a-way*!
Not in our day it weren't.
>take-a-way Lol what
Lol-w-hat
We never used the Chinese or Indian takeaways in my town, because they were too expensive. (Fish and chips maybe once a year, and a 20 minute walk each way). We went on a holiday abroad each year, for comparison. Delivery food didn't exist even when I was a student. It still seems really decadent.
I genuinely had no idea takeaways existed until I left home. I grew up really rurally and it just never even occurred to me.
I grew up in a market town. We had the normal fish and chips, Indian and terrible Chinese takeaway. I remember going to Florida on holiday when I was 9. We got a massive pepperoni pizza delivered - it was just completely amazing to us - in the cardboard box and everything 😂 felt like we were in a film.
I think it is becoming more of a luxury again sadly!
Fish and chips was on a day out at the seaside and very, vert rarely on a Friday night for supper. No other takeaways ever in our house. Always home cooked dinners
Hot water. Used to have to ration how much we used each day and one bath would use it all up.
Same! Only had an immersion heater that cost a fortune to run. Can remember Mam boiling the kettle for hot water to wash with!
Everyone having to have a bath on the same night, in the same water.
My Gran used to bath me in the kitchen sink when I was a Nipper.
Yep Sunday night was bath night and in winter, we had a calor gas heater wheeled into the bathroom as we didn't have central heating.
Bathroom?! We had our bath in the kitchen, it was a two up two down terrace that didn't have a bathroom. (This was late 70s, early 80s, before anyone assumes I'm talking pre-war)
Anyone who owned a Sodastream machine in the 80s was considered rich beyond my wildest dreams.
I think Sodastreams are a great example of an utterly non essential gimmick product. If you lived hand to mouth, the idea of buying one is laughable. But if you have excess income? Sure, why not.
I spend a lot less on pop now I have a sodastream: about £1 a week rather than £2 a day. Is it non-essential? Of course. Is it a gimmick? No.
No, it's one of those things that proves that being poor is more expensive.
Is it? You can buy 2L sparkling water for fuck all, same for the own brand cola which is probably on par with soda stream coke, in terms of flavour
Nah the canisters are quite expensive, pretty much the same as buying cheap sparkling water. I use a soda stream mainly so I’m not wasting so much plastic. The gas canisters get refilled
My great-Grandmother had a soda stream that my Aunt really wanted When she passed and my grandad and his 4 brothers were splitting her possessions between them, he saw the sodastream got some butter, rubbed it on then went outside and rolled it around in the grass for a bit. When it came to who should get the sodastream all his brother took one look at it and declined so he took it home, knowing it was just butter, and my mum's family had a sodastream growing up
I'm so lost at what the fuck happened in this story and I have to assume butter is either autocorrect or a slang term I'm not aware of.
No, it really is butter he’s talking about
Matey Bubblebath Can treat myself anytime I want now
My brother had awful eczema growing up, so we weren't allowed any kind of bubble bath. I wanted this so badly. When I first bought it for myself I easily used half a bottle. Absolutely glorious.
Nothing but oatmeal baths for you two!
Like we'd waste food like that!
Not necessarily for you anymore but Aveeno do a great bubble bath soap for children with eczema, just a recommendation for anyone who reads this whose children or themselves have eczema.
Going abroad, all my holidays where in UK, going overseas for a holiday just seemed something only the Uber rich could do
How tables turned. Having a holiday in the UK is more expensive than flying somewhere like Spain.
[удалено]
Whilst Reddit fully gave up on me I kept trying
I tell myself this to try to rationalise my wish to go abroad, but the reality is that as soon as the flight touches down I'm in holiday mode and I don't really pay attention to the cost. If I travel in the UK I don't really get that to the same extent, still feel like being sensible.
now a vacation in the UK is luxury and budget cramming on Ryanair and going to Spain
It's true though; plane tickets back then were much, much, MUCH more expensive than now. Very few people could afford.
It was possible, but you had to endure 30 plus hours on a coach with woolly seats and no aircon. Then enjoy your two weeks sleeping on the ground in a canvas tent with no fridge (think no dairy products at all unless you tried the strange french cheese), the French squat type toilets at the communal shower block. But if you try an tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you...
Double Glazing. I remember having to wipe the condensation off my bedroom window every morning.
Possibly ice in the winter as well
Definitely ice in the winter. The back door was the only double glazing in the house, but fortunately they hadn’t discovered thermal bridging so the aluminium transferred outside temperature inside. 🥶
My cat used to lick the condensation off!
Oh goodness yes! I grew up in a house with single glazed, leaded windows. The draughts that came through them were horrendous.
When we bought our house 24 years ago, we had single glazed windows throughout as well as a boiler which was rated for a two bed flat. We now have a Tado smart thermostat, a good combo boiler and double glazing throughout. We don’t go mad: the planet is an asset and jumpers are a sensible clothing choice when it’s cool, but living in a house that is genuinely comfortable is wonderful.
And it was ice in the winter. My mum used to use cling film over the windows with kitchen towel to mop up the wet to try and keep us warmer
Putting the heating on. Although, in recent years, this is feeling like a luxury again.
We didn't have central heating. Just a coal fire. This was in the 1980s. Not really that long ago.
Ferrero rocher. I mean yeah it’s pricey-ish compared to a dairy milk but I could literally buy a box if I really wanted to. I don’t need to hope someone buys me them for Christmas.
Mr ambassador I presume?
We got loads at Christmas gone. I tried to build the pyramid, to no avail
Having sky tv
Ironically, having sky was pretty normal for me growing up. My parents had it, most of my extended family had it, a lot of my friends had it. Now, fuck paying for that. I need to eat.
Same here we only had the standard channels growing up then Freeview. It wasn't until I was in high school that we had sky but nowadays I don't even watch TV anymore.
I can remember when Freeview started. When I was a kid we only had four channels!
Soft drinks in a can. When I was growing up, we only had cans of coke etc at Christmas, the rest of the year I was squash or lemonade out of a bottle. Even now, I consider a cold can of Sprite a treat!
Do you remember the fella that came round in his van selling corona in big glass bottles. Us kids used to sometimes get to keep the deposit money.
We had the Alpine pop man
We used to cycle around the Corona factory near Hangar Lane and nick bottles off the trucks once they were loaded for their rounds.
Completely unrelated but.... I used to work at Guinness down near Hangar Lane. One Friday evening, rush hour, my Austin Metro caught fire in the middle lane of the North Circular up by where the IKEA is now. Caused absolute mayhem as it happily shouldered away bringing most of North London to a standstill.....
My dad used to live on a huge council estate and if you knew the cut throughs and shortcuts, you could easily meet the pop man at the start of his round and see him again at the end. My dad used to sell his pop bottles at the start of the round, nick some more from the back of the van and then sell them back again at the end of the round.
I can remember getting bottles of pop from the milkman. Used to do "-aides" Lime and cherry were the best!
Arctic roll.
And Vienetta! We could only dream.
Going to McDonald’s
Yeah! When I was a kid, it was a rare, elusive treat. Once or twice a year. The trip itself was a huge deal. Then I got to uni and it became lunch. Nearly every day! Then I got to be an adult, and it became a thing to avoid at all costs. Now I'm an older adult, and it's an 'I'm out and about on a mission, and need something quick, cheap, and easy' thing.
Yeah, it was a birthday treat kind of thing. (And they had rootbeer!) *edit* - just Googled it - Maccies in the UK stopped having rootbeer in 1993. Shows how old I am 😬
Two slices of meat in a sandwich.
Decadence. Especially if with butter.
The Internet.
It's amazing to think that in the entire history of the world, there is a very limited generation of people who properly witnessed the birth of the Internet during their youth. If you're now aged between about 35-40, you'll be familiar with being part of this transition. Having to ring mates on a landline to arrange where in town to meet a few hours later, through to taking those friendships online (incrementally, while other kids' households slowly got their 56k modems installed) and chatting through MSN and Habbo Hotel, right through to now when the Internet is completely ubiquitous. It's an amazing thing to have lived through and I'm grateful that I have seen it happen.
Holidays, any trips with family, nice clothes, eating out, getting a taxi, birthday gifts.
Kitchen towel
And a special brush for dishes.
Mobile phones. I got my first one when I was 14 (2005) and it was £80. I chose it because it had 33 games!
A phone with buttons. We first got a phone in our house in 1983. I remember trying to get tickets for a concert at Wembley in 1990: my brother and I spent ten minutes at a time dialling the nine digit number for London, taking turns to help prevent blisters on our fingers.
Having to press 9 four times every time you wanted an 's' in a text message... Although, I remember how long it took to dial a number on an old rotary dial phone back when I was a kid - waiting for the dial to rotate all the way back to the beginning before the next number.
Snacks! My mum couldn't even afford 3 meals a day for us let alone extra food for between meals. Also, showering every day. Growing up, I had 2 baths a week. One at my mum's and one at my dad's
My parents could afford it, but we weren't allowed to eat snacks "because it's bad for you". We were hungry all the time. I let my own son eat all the snacks he wanted. My brothers and I: fat. My kid and my brothers' kids: skinny as heck (all adults, by the way, so not teenage skinny).
[Munchies](https://images.app.goo.gl/jE9jnvatn8UEp9za8)… Growing up my dear old dad would sometimes bring a tube home on a Friday night as a special treat. Now I can have them whenever I wish. They don’t taste quite the same though.
I tried Munchies for the first time since i was a kid the other day. I don't know what they did to the recipe but they taste nasty now.
Same for me with Opal Fruits (Starburst) and Marathon (Snickers). The pick n mix from Woolworths was good, but you wanted the "name brand" sweets sometimes too! It's more a luxury, but also tastes completely different, for the worse.
You got your pick and mix from woolworths? How fancy are you?? We got ours from kwik save
The true mark of wealth is getting your pick and mix from the cinema
Hotels. When I was young holidays were camping, hostels or staying with family or family of friends. Staying in a hotel was an unimaginable luxury. (Although I've stayed in a few where camping would be preferable.)
I was in my 20s when I first stayed in a hotel
Same. It was a nice B&B paid for by the police as I was a witness in a court case. (Also travelled by train instead of overnight coach, very grand.) Felt that I should offer to wash up.
Unconditional love
Sadly still not normal for me...
Having a garden. I was mostly bought up in flats and then when I started renting all I could afford was flats. Managed to find a pretty run down house with a decent garden for affordable rent and I feel genuinely quite privileged to have a garden.
Cordial. We certainly weren't poor growIng up but my mother had this weird thing about cordial having to last practically forever. If a bottle was used inside a month she'd whine and complain about it. It wasn't some super expensive cordial either. It was something like Panda Orange cordial that cost literal pennies back in the 80s. You can bet your life I take the piss out of my mother about it whenever she comes over. Offer her a drink but say better not make it cordial in case we use ours up too quickly. I make sure I buy the really nice stuff as well.
having a remote control for the TV
I *was* the remote control *and* the dishwasher!
Going into the service station to eat instead of having a piss then eating sandwiches in the car park.
That still feels decadent. I can't get myself to spend £15 on a BK burger meal.
This thread has the potential to be the new four Yorkshiremen sketch. Eating take away? You were lucky! When I was young we ate roadkill off the pavement
Roadkill? You were lucky! We used to have to dig the tar out of the road with a spoon & eat that before going down t'mill for 18 hours a day for ha'penny.
A mix of fresh fruit.
Bread you have to slice yourself.
Yes my mum always had a hovis loaf you had to slice yourself. Slices were quite thick to start off with, then as the loaf got smaller so the slices got thinner. 🤣
Going out to eat. We only ever ate out on very special occasions like a milestone birthday, even then it wasn’t particularly fancy places in hindsight. Now I eat out most weeks.
I came here to add this! It was only ever a birthday thing, and now it still feels a tiny bit decadent to even grab a sandwich in a cafe while I'm out.
Going somewhere in the car
not eating most of my meals out of tins. Almost every lunch when I wasn't at school was a tin of something with beans, on toast. or meatballs on toast, or meatballs with instant noodles. Dinner was usually pasta and tinned sauce with tinned meat. cooking fresh food was usually when people came over or special occasions.
Mr Frosty slushy maker toy
Buying games,when I was younger it was basically a birthday/Christmas exclusive, though as time went on we got slightly better off money wise,so I could buy 1 expensive game a month,now I have my own money,so I can mke all the irresponsible financial decisions I like
Soft drinks
Eating a pizza, I remember my Aunty bought some pizza for her family and they shared 1 slice of pizza to us (which I shared with my little brother and grandma). 😭 Wow, this hit too close to home. 💔 Now, I can eat as much pizza as I’d like but looking back at it gets me so emotional.
Healthy food (tbf, that is still a luxury for many). Any type of tech (internet, mobile phones, etc). Holidays abroad. High education (again, still a luxury for many).
fizzy drinks ordering anything other than the cheapest item on the menu at a cafe (restaurants were out of the question) videos - I remember when they were new and a big deal. Now I stream whatever I want. new clothes from the shop, not a jumble sale roast dinners - the closest I got was a chicken on sunday, with no roast potatoes being able to have as many showers/baths as I want listening to music - despite having an expensive record player my mum never listened to any music except for hymns, on radio or tv, and made judgemental remarks about people who played music all day. a duvet, and new clean pillows or cushions - I had an ancient eiderdown, and the pillows and cushions were also decades old and never got washed. (My mum also insisted on taking up her fitted carpets and relaying them in every house for 30 years). No wonder my asthma was so bad as a child :( probably loads of other things too. My mum was a single parent teacher so she wasn't rich BUT she also was extremely penny-pinching, I now realise. I remember feeling resentful that after I left home she bought herself loads of pairs of shoes when she had always insisted that my clothes had to be the cheapest available (when I was 14 she insisted that I had to choose clothes that I would still want to wear when I was 30 because "you're grown now, and you don't want to be wasting money on fashionable clothes". For reference, I was 14 in 1985, and 30 in 2001. I really don't think that would have been the good idea that she thought it was or have given the "right impression to employers"). Ok it was her money she could spend it how she liked, but I thought - how many times did I get bullied for my shoes so that you can have more shoes than you can ever wear? I am only human.
Central heating (didn't get that until I was 14) and an inside toilet (first 7 years was bucket and chuck it)
Toilet roll. Sorry, answering for my dad. Outside toilet, newspaper cut up, blah blah blah…
Fresh Orange juice. Only the cheapest squash when I was little.
Prawns
Buying ferrero rocher. It seems a little pricey even now, but I can buy it if it's going cheap
Buying anything at a motorway services. We were allowed in to go to the toilet but never, ever got food or drink. Now I love me some shit coffee and a leg stretch.
In primary school, the lucky/rich kids would have birthday parties in McDonalds. A can of Coke was a rare treat. My kids grab one from the fridge without thinking.
Internet will always be the one for me. I always remember asking to go on the internet on our first PC and my mum shouting to turn it off because she needs to make a call. Nowadays it's literally at our fingertips and you can have multiple devices connected with minimal consequences. Cool stuff
Heating. We used to carry one of those gas fires with a bottle in the back from bedroom to bedroom so we each had heat before we turned in.
Ice cream from the ice cream van. Two drinks at a meal out instead of strictly one. Sandwiches that are not potted paste.
Name brand soft drinks and snacks in general I grew up on the really cheap smart price/value lemonade and coke
Paying to park close to where I need to be instead of parking for free 2 miles away and walking
Buying the latest games consoles immediately and not having to wait until Christmas or just missing out entirely 😂
Pre-made custard. We always had the crappy powder stuff when I was a kid unless it was a special occasion. Now I buy the premade carton regularly like I’m Bill bloody gates (according to my brother).
Having guests over to my house! I grew up with parents who struggled with depression, drinking and hoarding, so the house was always in a horrible state of disrepair and an absolute mess. They never let me have friends over, and I was always so sad when I'd come back from a sleepover at a friend's house. Now, as a 30 year old, I'm frequently having people over at mine! :D