What are your best memories from your childhood?
Are they all music related – like your first Vinyl or first concert, or are they favourite films and TV shows? Here are some things you might have forgotten about but as soon as you see them you’ll think ‘how on Earth did I ever forget about that?!’
They might be as simple as household objects but they’ll definitely take you back to your youth. This is the list of very memorable things that we all remember for the 70s & 80s.
1. Blue band margarine
The advert for this was so cheesy! Who remembers the song? ‘It’s a good good feeling!’ It was an extremely cheesy advert but somehow it helped it sell and everyone used it. Part of the Unilever brand it was ended but they still make tons of other sauces and products.
2. Bagpuss
He was a magical cat who made it’s thoughts in his head visible. He was joined by Professor Waffle, Madeleine, Gabriel and the Mice. The whole show only lasted 13 episodes but it was extremely memorable.The ragdoll in Bagpuss, Madeleine, used to give me nightmares. Do you remember her?
3. Commodore 64
The 8-bit computer was one of the first to be in the home and is actually still the highest selling single computer model of all time! It was estimated that over 10 million models were sold in total. Staggering! In total it had 64 kilobytes of RAM which is where its name comes. To put that into perspective, new computers have 16,000 kb of RAM. How far we’ve come!
4. Golf balls
They were like gobstoppers. Me and my friends use to see how many of them we could shove in our mouths at once, couldn’t eat enough of these. The minty freshness of one of these was delicious and I used to go through bags of these on the way home from school. Did you eat them in the 80s?
5. Insignia
I can still remember what this stuff smells of! If it was Insignia the men had on, they were almost guaranteed to be wearing denim. Everyone smelt the same. According to the experts it had top notes of bergamot, rosemary, lemon and basil, heart notes of jasmine, pine, petitgrain and coriander and base notes of cedar, musk patchouli, musk and tonka. Hopefully, that helps you remember how it smelled!
6. Bananaman
Did you watch this kids TV show when you were little? It was one of my favourites! It was based on the comics of the same name and was on for 3 years. It featured the voices of the people who starred in The Goodies, another memory! It had 3 series and a total of 40 episodes and was one of the BBC’s best children’s TV shows.
7. Bob Holness
“Can I have a P Bob….” He was one of the best TV presenters and sadly he passed away in 2012. He was the presenter of the British version of Blockbusters but started out on the radio and even played James Bond on the radio! He was on blockbusters for 11 years and provided us with so much enjoyment on the telly!
8. Aunt Sally
Worzel Gummidge used to give me the creeps so bad, but Aunt Sally was such a good character. I once dressed up as her at a fancy dress party! She was a life-sized fairground doll and Worzels biggest nemesis. How gross was Gummidge!
9. Portland Bill
The Adventures of Portland Bill, Camberwick Green and Trumpton Clock were all brilliant kids TV shows. The characters were just so sweet. We loved the stop-motion animation involved in these shows and it really made them special to the era. Nowadays stop-motion is reserved for Wallace and Gromit specials and the art of it is almost completely gone. We were lucky enough to get 26 5 minute episodes of the show in 1983.
10. Izal toilet paper
This stuff was like sandpaper. I think everyone can agree with me about that. Why was this stuff ever invented it was just so coarse. It was horribly thin too which made it very suspect. Nowadays we are very picky with our toilet roll and this stuff would be thrown straight out. Were you ever unfortunate to have to use this toilet paper?
11. 5 star
This lot were Britain’s answer to Jackson 5. They were actually pretty successful too. From Romford, the siblings made it big as a band and were actually styled upon the Jackson 5. They broke into the charts for the first time in 1985 and did pretty well from then on.
Their debut album ‘Luxury of Life’, despite selling 300,000 copies and going platinum, only peaked at number 12 in the charts and it was a good start for the group. They went to top the UK charts with ‘Silk & Steel’ with their second album. Do you remember the UK’s answer to Jackson 5?
12. Terry’s Pyramints
These were the best! Chocolate in the 80s was seriously good, it’s just a shame it’s not all survived and still being sold today. Even though Terry stopped making the Pyramints, thankfully he still makes his Oranges and that just about makes up for it.
13. Cabana bars
Speaking of 80s chocolate, who remembers trying a Cabana bar? It was a seriously weird ‘chocolate’ bar. It’s in quote marks because it had caramel, coconut and cherry pieces in it too! They were seriously weird and for every person, it was either a good combination or a bad one, I personally didn’t like them. They were off the shelves pretty quickly as Rowntree’s realised they were just a bit too out there.
14. Half A Penny
It’s weird when you think that they used to be used, but nowadays everything is so expensive that they are just not needed anymore. It was the worst coin you could have in your wallet and all it did was weigh you down. It was taken out of circulation in 1984 because they were just that annoying. It was said getting rid of them would only drive prices up but I don’t think anyone is that bothered over half a p.